2017 Trade Deadline Thread (Red Sox discussion)

You've probably seen my edit where I thought of Beeks. I saw him pitch what was, at the time, one of the best games of his career last year (in Wilmington) and became a believer. RHB couldn't tell his changeup from his two-seamer and looked silly against it. In retrospect that was an unusually good day for the pitch at the time, but as the above splits show, he's continued making progress with it. 

Since I can't find the sort of guy I want as a LHR -- the Royals' Scott Alexander fits the bill perfectly, but they appear to be buyers, not sellers -- I'm actually comfortable sticking with internal options for the pen. 

Speier just speculated that the Sox could hold all their trade chips to try to make a move for an elite bat in the offseason. I wouldn't be surprised if they do nothing further now, and wouldn't mind it.

The problem is that you're not going to know if Carson Smith is coming back healthy until well after the trade deadline. Given the number of starts and stops in his rehab, I would operate under the assumption that he will not come back as a setup-quality reliever this season. If he does, it's a bonus.

I tend to disagree here. The Sox have been pretty cautious with Smith because they might be saving him for the last two months of the baseball year (September, October).

I think he'll be quality when he comes back and I think the Sox are keeping their fingers crossed he comes back with quality stuff too. He might not be 2015 good, but still a good enough upgrade for the 7th and 8th innings.

The only question I have about Smith is the back to back days in October playoff baseball when he does comeback.

So no to Neshek, but you want to keep Boyer.  That makes no sense at all.

Unless Porcello gets worse or Pomeranz is lights out I still think Pomeranz goes to pen for playoffs.  It just makes sense.  A lot can happen between now and playoffs, but that's my prediction right now.

Kelly is still so so in my book.  Not giving up a lot of hits, but high walks and low strikeouts.

Boyer has been pretty decent so far. I didn't say no to Neshek but he wasn't a great need for this club. Pomeranz has been money all year while Eduardo has been really shaky since coming back from a knee injury. Porcello is your 4th best starter overall this year.

Kelly is getting a ton of groundballs this year also.

The Red Sox, according to John Morosi, are looking at Brandon Kintzler as a reliever to deal for.

I think the Mets present the best one stop shopping. Looking over what's left, I think that Justin Wilson is going to be ridiculously expensive to get in a deal, and I think that Addison Reed is the best option out there, and looking at what are the best available bats left over, Jay Bruce is the best candidate.

I'm not sure what the Mets would be looking for. I'd guess Chavis, although I really don't want to part with him, especially for rentals. The Sox really lack power in the organization, this kid has it, and I don't want to see the Sox give him up.

But if the Sox can get those two from the Mets, I think this team would be fine as is.

This move, assuming Hanley can play 1b, would give the Sox a LH batter to hit cleanup as Bruce would DH. It would get Moreland out of the lineup and relegate him to late inning defense and a useful LH power bat off the bench to PH for the catchers.

The lineup would look like (as Farrell like LRLR, etc, and insists on Betts leadoff):

Betts
Benintendi
Pedroia
Bruce
Ramirez
Bradley
Bogaerts
Devers/Nunez
Vazquez/Leon

The bullpen would be:

Kimbrel/Reed/Barnes/Hembree/Boyer/Workman/Abad.

And in the post-season one of the lefties not in the rotation can become the lead lefty guy out of the pen whether it's Pomeranz or E-Rod or even Price as I do recall Price pitching well in the late innings once upon a time in say 2008. To me, that lessens the need for a Justin Wilson.

Then once Kelly is back, you have Kimbrel, Reed, Kelly, Barnes, along with a competition between Boyer, Workman, and even Smith. And even better Doug Fister is nowhere to be found!

I am not a Jay Bruce fan, esp off position and in the second half.

Consider the lux tax a hard cap, folks. No matter what spin is coming out of Yawkey way. Gotta ride it out with what they have and may be able to get without going over, which looks pretty thin at this point. TB's been making deals and NYY will likely make one more, too.

I like this team if it can get to the playoffs, at least in a 5 game series. I just don't know if this offense can help out the pitching enough to get there.

With Duda gone, he's playing first base tonight against the Padres. Other than taking throws, I haven't seen him field any grounders.

I would think if the Sox sent back Young who the Mets have absolutely no use for, they'd have to send an even better prospect to head up the trade.

From what I read the Mets would like to package Reed with somebody to get a better return instead of dealing their assets individually, kind of like what the ChiSox did. My guess is they could probably extract a good prospect (which kind of scares me away) from the Red Sox to get both Reed and Bruce.

They'd definitely ask for Mata and/or Chavis. Young is just money sent back so the Sox can stay under the line (evening out the money).