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Allen Craig outrighted off 40 man roster
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Post by mgoetze on May 18, 2015 17:59:36 GMT -5
I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the Sox knew Kelly would be as good as he has been this year (minus his last two starts where he lost his feel for the strike zone). Again, he's picked up more than 1 mph of average velocity on his fastball and suddenly discovered a plus slider. That's just not something you can project with certainty. No, it seems clear to me that they thought Craig would bounce back and be a valuable player. And they were very wrong. This seems like trying to have it both ways. You either evaluate it ex ante and try to retroactively decide what was reasonable at the time or evaluate it based on what we know today. You can't split it up so you retroactively look at what Kelly projected to be back then but look at how Craig tentatively turned out now and give the front office no credit. Well, I thought I delineated that - and I've already admitted on this forum that I was wrong about Kelly, he does have upside that I did not believe in last August. But I'm also on record on this forum as thinking even back then that Craig has a lot of downside. Unfortunately, at this point, it looks like Kelly will have to actually realize that upside just for the Sox to break even. $25m of excess value that Lackey is on track to provide and $25m down the toilet for Craig weigh very heavily on the other side of the ledger.
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Post by jimed14 on May 18, 2015 18:01:24 GMT -5
I bet the Pawtucket Red Sox are setting a payroll record at this point.
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Post by mgoetze on May 18, 2015 18:06:07 GMT -5
Kelly didn't just discover a 97+ mph fastball, either. He's had the stuff since he came up from the minors, that's been no secret. Command and sequencing have been the issues. Justin Masterson also had a 97+ mph fastball when he was 25 years old. Again, the standard aging curve for fastball velocity is down, down, down and down.
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Post by jmei on May 18, 2015 18:07:35 GMT -5
And you don't see any leap in logic between "I don't know about that" and "No, I would not have honored my contract with the Red Sox?" Yes, that's a leap in logic. But the idea that he wasn't very happy in Boston isn't a stretch and why would you keep a guy who doesn't want to be here? You have to understand the relative leverages of the parties. Lackey does not exactly have a lot of recourse if he "doesn't want to be here." He either plays or he doesn't, and as mentioned earlier, for a variety of reasons, the idea that he would sit out the entire year was always mostly an empty threat. I'm sure Allen Craig doesn't want to be in Pawtucket or be outrighted from the 40-man, either, but because the alternative was so unpalatable (he'd have to give up his contract), he accepted his outright. At the very least, if they were going to trade Lackey, they probably should have gotten more.
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Post by jimed14 on May 18, 2015 18:19:21 GMT -5
Yes, that's a leap in logic. But the idea that he wasn't very happy in Boston isn't a stretch and why would you keep a guy who doesn't want to be here? You have to understand the relative leverages of the parties. Lackey does not exactly have a lot of recourse if he "doesn't want to be here." He either plays or he doesn't, and as mentioned earlier, for a variety of reasons, the idea that he would sit out the entire year was always mostly an empty threat. I'm sure Allen Craig doesn't want to be in Pawtucket or be outrighted from the 40-man, either, but because the alternative was so unpalatable (he'd have to give up his contract), he accepted his outright. At the very least, if they were going to trade Lackey, they probably should have gotten more. I wasn't saying Lackey had leverage. I'm saying that if he wasn't happy, there's no point in possibly letting him be the ring leader in another chicken and beer scandal. Or just being a generally negative presence. There's really no reason why not to trade him. I didn't like the trade much, but also believe that he might not have had as much trade value as some might think. I also think Ben cornered himself by demanding major league players. But I really don't think it's such a huge loss because I like Kelly and think he probably would still get a good return if they were upgrading him like in a Hamels trade.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 18, 2015 18:31:48 GMT -5
Kelly didn't just discover a 97+ mph fastball, either. He's had the stuff since he came up from the minors, that's been no secret. Command and sequencing have been the issues. Justin Masterson also had a 97+ mph fastball when he was 25 years old. Again, the standard aging curve for fastball velocity is down, down, down and down. He's had the stuff, but part of his problem has been that the Cardinals didn't seem to want him to use much of it beyond his two seamer. He basically never threw a four seamer his first two years in the league and was throwing it about 7% of the time with the Cards last year. He's throwing it 20% of the time this year, which is part of the velo bump. He's also mixing the curve and the slider in more. This stuff didn't just happen by chance, it's something the Red Sox have either allowed or encouraged him to do, and if it hasn't totally paid off yet, it's certainly intriguing.
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Post by Smittyw on May 18, 2015 18:35:05 GMT -5
It seems to me that Kelly and Craig were both "lottery tickets." It's not like we took on Craig's contract but got a top notch prospect or an established star out of it. We all know what Kelly could be, but in the here and now he's very much a question mark still. It's pretty fair to wonder whether this is really the best we could do for a #2 starter who was set to make pennies this year. The pennies he's making, this year, are hardly less than the pennies Kelly is making this year - and next. They also don't begin to make up for Kelly's arbitration years, when in all likelihood, Lackey will be be out of the game. Kelly didn't just discover a 97+ mph fastball, either. He's had the stuff since he came up from the minors, that's been no secret. Command and sequencing have been the issues. They still are until he can show consistency game-to-game. I like Lackey as much as anyone and thought it was a travesty that he was savaged by the media idiots. That said, he's worth less going forward than Kelly, and probably quite a bit less. One year of control does not make up for 4+ years of control and the upside. Sure. And don't get me wrong, I'm as hopeful for Kelly as the next guy. At the same time, he was never considered a Top 100 prospect coming up and had/has some pretty real blemishes, as you mentioned; there were many at the time of the trade who thought he'd never be more than a back-end starter or bullpen arm, and he still may not. If we wanted to gamble on a mid-20's guy with some unfulfilled upside, I don't have a problem with that. I usually love those kinds of moves. I just think we probably should have been able to do that without also having to take on Craig's dead weight.
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Post by moonstone2 on May 18, 2015 18:38:25 GMT -5
I think the Sox would still rather trade him at some point, right. He has incentive to show up and increase his value to keep his career going. Personally, I don't like it for the player or the union at all. It's within the rules of course, but that doesn't make it cool. The Sox should want the guy to succeed, since they are still responsible for the freight, albeit not for luxury tax purposes. I think everyone understands that Craig becomes a minor league free agent at the end of the year, if not added back to the 40-man by then. Sox responsible for remaining years of salary.
If he doesn't get traded, I would not expect Sox to just let him walk. How can a signed player who is not released be eligible for minor league free agency?
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Post by brianthetaoist on May 18, 2015 18:45:20 GMT -5
I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the Sox knew Kelly would be as good as he has been this year (minus his last two starts where he lost his feel for the strike zone). Again, he's picked up more than 1 mph of average velocity on his fastball and suddenly discovered a plus slider. That's just not something you can project with certainty. No, it seems clear to me that they thought Craig would bounce back and be a valuable player. And they were very wrong. This seems like trying to have it both ways. You either evaluate it ex ante and try to retroactively decide what was reasonable at the time or evaluate it based on what we know today. You can't split it up so you retroactively look at what Kelly projected to be back then but look at how Craig tentatively turned out now and give the front office no credit. Well, I don't think the front office *knows* much of anything about how they'll turn out. It's all projections and gambling on a range of possible outcomes. I suspect that they looked at the two players, weighed the risk/reward on each, and thought the entire package was worth the trade. I mean, it sounds simple and like I'm being reductionist there, but I'm not. It's a complicated analysis, but I'm guessing they thought Kelly had both a higher ceiling and a higher floor. They looked at his arm and stuff, his age and relative late entry into pitching, and thought, "this guy could turn into something special." They also probably thought, "but maybe he doesn't harness it, and he's just a power reliever." Whatever it was, instead of a singular point of projection they had a smear of possible outcomes with him with a more-or-less educated sense of how probable they thought those outcomes might be, not some specific projection of "Kelly will be THIS." Same with Craig. They had no way of knowing if his problems were something he could overcome by getting healthy or not. I suspect they always knew there was a decent (maybe even good) chance he was going to flame out, but, again, there was some positive upside to include in the evaluation. Maybe he came back and was a relatively inexpensive middle-of-the-order hitter ... they never really bet big on that outcome, but it was there.
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Post by jmei on May 18, 2015 19:10:09 GMT -5
I wasn't saying Lackey had leverage. I'm saying that if he wasn't happy, there's no point in possibly letting him be the ring leader in another chicken and beer scandal. Or just being a generally negative presence. There's really no reason why not to trade him. I didn't like the trade much, but also believe that he might not have had as much trade value as some might think. I also think Ben cornered himself by demanding major league players. But I really don't think it's such a huge loss because I like Kelly and think he probably would still get a good return if they were upgrading him like in a Hamels trade. Who cares if Lackey isn't happy? Masterson, Victorino, and Craig are all unhappy to varying degrees right now, and Nava probably is, too, but noone thinks that's the reason the tea is struggling. During the 2013 season, guys like Carp and Middlebrooks and Doubront and Saltalamacchia were all unhappy with their roles entering/during the playoffs, and the team as a whole didn't suffer for it. Having one grumpy dude in the clubhouse isn't going to tank a season. Chicken and beer-gate didn't happen because those guys were unhappy, it was the exact opposite (they were all a little too happy/comfortable), and I can't really think of a situation where one player's unhappiness had an acknowledged negative effect on team-wide performance.
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Post by jmei on May 18, 2015 19:19:12 GMT -5
This seems like trying to have it both ways. You either evaluate it ex ante and try to retroactively decide what was reasonable at the time or evaluate it based on what we know today. You can't split it up so you retroactively look at what Kelly projected to be back then but look at how Craig tentatively turned out now and give the front office no credit. Well, I don't think the front office *knows* much of anything about how they'll turn out. It's all projections and gambling on a range of possible outcomes. I suspect that they looked at the two players, weighed the risk/reward on each, and thought the entire package was worth the trade. I mean, it sounds simple and like I'm being reductionist there, but I'm not. It's a complicated analysis, but I'm guessing they thought Kelly had both a higher ceiling and a higher floor. They looked at his arm and stuff, his age and relative late entry into pitching, and thought, "this guy could turn into something special." They also probably thought, "but maybe he doesn't harness it, and he's just a power reliever." Whatever it was, instead of a singular point of projection they had a smear of possible outcomes with him with a more-or-less educated sense of how probable they thought those outcomes might be, not some specific projection of "Kelly will be THIS." Same with Craig. They had no way of knowing if his problems were something he could overcome by getting healthy or not. I suspect they always knew there was a decent (maybe even good) chance he was going to flame out, but, again, there was some positive upside to include in the evaluation. Maybe he came back and was a relatively inexpensive middle-of-the-order hitter ... they never really bet big on that outcome, but it was there. I agree with this, and apologize if I obfuscated this point in an attempt to be concise. My philosophy is this: using solely hindsight to judge a front office in small samples is usually a bad idea, because the nature of being a GM is that sometimes a good process leads to a bad result (for an extreme example, see Ryan Westmoreland). But we shouldn't ignore outcomes, either, and over a large enough sample, a good GM should have more good moves than bad moves. This one, unfortunately, looks like it falls into the "bad move" bucket.
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Post by Oregon Norm on May 18, 2015 19:32:58 GMT -5
Not for me it doesn't, at least not yet. Not when there's a 26 year old power arm hovering atound that trade. I'm willing to have this play out a while longer before calling it a lousy deal.
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Post by mgoetze on May 18, 2015 19:41:42 GMT -5
Not for me it doesn't, at least not yet. Not when there's a 26 year old power arm hovering atound that trade. I'm willing to have this play out a while longer before calling it a lousy deal. Kelly needs to provide over $50m of excess value over 4 years. That's one year of league minimum and 3 years of arbitration. And keep in mind that Kelly is doing pretty well in the trivia categories that are relevant to arbitration (22-18, 3.65 ERA).
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2015 19:48:28 GMT -5
Yes, that's a leap in logic. But the idea that he wasn't very happy in Boston isn't a stretch and why would you keep a guy who doesn't want to be here? this The article you quoted is from a week after Lackey was traded by Boston - during a season in which they were losing and trading away half their roster. What do you expect him to say - that he was ecstatic in Boston? Get real. Whatever logical motivation Lackey has for pitching in St. Louis (such as to further establish his value going into 2016) would also have applied in Boston. Unless, you subscribe to some illogical notion that Lackey is risking injury pitching this season solely to earn $500K and satiate a desire to show up Boston.
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Post by scottysmalls on May 18, 2015 20:00:43 GMT -5
Not for me it doesn't, at least not yet. Not when there's a 26 year old power arm hovering atound that trade. I'm willing to have this play out a while longer before calling it a lousy deal. Kelly needs to provide over $50m of excess value over 4 years. That's one year of league minimum and 3 years of arbitration. And keep in mind that Kelly is doing pretty well in the trivia categories that are relevant to arbitration (22-18, 3.65 ERA). Why does he need to do that? Craig's contract, while it is still being paid, is no longer really financially limiting the Red Sox significantly, and if Kelly is noticeably better than Lackey (or what else the Red Sox could have gotten for him, which is impossible to determine) from this year forward, I'd say the deal works out fine.
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Post by mgoetze on May 18, 2015 20:15:21 GMT -5
Craig's contract, while it is still being paid, is no longer really financially limiting the Red Sox significantly Yeah it's not your money, I get it. But it still is real money.
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Post by scottysmalls on May 18, 2015 20:31:52 GMT -5
Craig's contract, while it is still being paid, is no longer really financially limiting the Red Sox significantly Yeah it's not your money, I get it. But it still is real money. Clearly, but in terms of evaluating a trade it does not have the same effect to management as if it was money counting towards the luxury tax.
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Post by Oregon Norm on May 18, 2015 21:39:24 GMT -5
Not for me it doesn't, at least not yet. Not when there's a 26 year old power arm hovering atound that trade. I'm willing to have this play out a while longer before calling it a lousy deal. Kelly needs to provide over $50m of excess value over 4 years. That's one year of league minimum and 3 years of arbitration. And keep in mind that Kelly is doing pretty well in the trivia categories that are relevant to arbitration (22-18, 3.65 ERA). OK, we can do some financial planning here. He doesn't have to pay down Craig's salary. That's because the Sox have a replacement, Castillo, who can do that if he generates 2.5 WAR. Or should Kelly be dinged for that on general principles? All he has to do is generate the WAR to pay his own salary off. We won't even give him credit for the cost of a Lackey replacement in the coming years, whatever that would be.
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Post by jmei on May 18, 2015 22:03:35 GMT -5
Kelly needs to provide over $50m of excess value over 4 years. That's one year of league minimum and 3 years of arbitration. And keep in mind that Kelly is doing pretty well in the trivia categories that are relevant to arbitration (22-18, 3.65 ERA). OK, we can do some financial planning here. He doesn't have to down Craig's salary. That's because the Sox have a replacement, Castillo, who can do that if he generates 2.5 WAR. Or should Kelly be dinged for that on general principles? All he has to do is generate the WAR to pay his own salary off. We won't even give him credit for the cost of a Lackey replacement in the coming years, whatever that would be. The presence of Castillo does not make taking on Craig's contract any less onerous. Craig looks like a net negative, which means four years of Kelly needs to be that much more valuable than a year-and-a-half of Lackey. Kelly has to generate the WAR to cover his own salary, cover the excess value that Lackey would have otherwise provided, and cover the negative value that Craig represents, with adjustments for the time value of money (one WAR this year is worth more than a WAR four years from now, especially to a team like the Red Sox who clearly wanted to contend sooner rather than later). That's certainly very possible-- if Kelly is a league-averagish pitcher for the rest of his Red Sox tenure, for instance, that would just about do it. There are promising signs-- Kelly's still putting up the best league- and park-adjusted xFIP of his career, and as I've been saying, the changes in his pitch mix are encouraging. But he has to keep it up, and then some, which is not necessarily the most likely scenario.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on May 18, 2015 22:49:33 GMT -5
I think we can agree on the following:
1) If Lackey was going to play for the Red Sox on the league minimum contract this season, the trade is abysmal
2) If Lackey wasn't going to play for the Red Sox on the league minimum this season, then the trade is more defensible, but still not great.
3) We don't know for certain whether or not he was going to play for the league minimum contract.
There were rumors at the time that he wouldn't do it, and let's call a spade a spade here - he said that he didn't know if he'd have played for the league minimum for the Sox because he hadn't thought that far ahead... if you were definitely going to do so, wouldn't you say "yes of course I would've" or something? The fact that it was something he had to think about, at least, suggests that it's a fair thing to ask oneself, particularly given what the Red Sox took for him.
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Post by James Dunne on May 18, 2015 23:09:28 GMT -5
Also... maybe the team just didn't want to deal with a sulking, surly John Lackey POed about pitching for the league minimum. I know that's hard to quantify, but the man has something of a reputation.
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2015 23:46:59 GMT -5
let's call a spade a spade here - he (Lackey) said that he didn't know if he'd have played for the league minimum for the Sox because he hadn't thought that far ahead... if you were definitely going to do so, wouldn't you say "yes of course I would've" or something? The fact that it was something he had to think about, at least, suggests that it's a fair thing to ask oneself, particularly given what the Red Sox took for him. A man and his wife divorce. A week after the divorce is finalized, the man is asked "Could you see yourself still married to your ex-wife?" The man says "I don't know." The timing and context of the man's statement is important. Personally, I think the entire situation was botched, not unlike was the case with Jon Lester. As early as 2013, when Lackey came to camp slimmed down and pitching well, we had an idea that the end of his contract would be an uncomfortable situation. Especially after winning the World Series, why in the name of God didn't we just offer to supplant the last year of the contract with something along the lines of a new 3 year / $30 million deal? Even if we ended up at 3 years / $35 million, we still would have had the kind of short term salary structure the front office seems to crave.
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Post by mgoetze on May 19, 2015 1:24:43 GMT -5
Also... maybe the team just didn't want to deal with a sulking, surly John Lackey POed about pitching for the league minimum. I'm getting a bit tired of repeating this, but if that was such a big deal, they could have just extended it to something like 2y/$12m which would have been eminently reasonable for both sides.
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Post by mgoetze on May 19, 2015 1:27:48 GMT -5
Kelly needs to provide over $50m of excess value over 4 years. That's one year of league minimum and 3 years of arbitration. And keep in mind that Kelly is doing pretty well in the trivia categories that are relevant to arbitration (22-18, 3.65 ERA). OK, we can do some financial planning here. He doesn't have to pay down Craig's salary. That's because the Sox have a replacement, Castillo, who can do that if he generates 2.5 WAR. Or should Kelly be dinged for that on general principles? All he has to do is generate the WAR to pay his own salary off. We won't even give him credit for the cost of a Lackey replacement in the coming years, whatever that would be. I'm not talking about evaluating Kelly, I'm talking about evaluating the trade with the Cardinals. We traded Lackey for Kelly and Craig, not for Kelly and Castillo.
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Post by Smittyw on May 19, 2015 6:42:12 GMT -5
Also... maybe the team just didn't want to deal with a sulking, surly John Lackey POed about pitching for the league minimum. I'm getting a bit tired of repeating this, but if that was such a big deal, they could have just extended it to something like 2y/$12m which would have been eminently reasonable for both sides. Obviously pitching for the league minimum was not the problem (or at least not the whole problem), because he is doing so right now for St. Louis. That's why people come to the conclusion that he wanted out of Boston...
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