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8/9-8/11 Red Sox vs. Astros Series Thread
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Post by alexcorahomevideo on Aug 12, 2024 5:58:35 GMT -5
Montgomery was never a real option though. He was more real than say Yamamoto or Ohtani. Montgomery would have been a better option than Giolito. The problem with the line of thinking of just be happy with a bridge year roster is when you’re not committing to a path, you can’t effectively plan for the future other than hope and pray Teal, Mayer, and Anthony work out. Lugo was a guy who many on here from the jump wanted over Giolito. Not many people here were even interested in bringing in Flaherty, however, if they were really planning on contending they could have easily beaten the Dodgers terrible offer without touching their top 5 prospects. How can you possibly say that Montgomery was a better option than Giolito? It's not fair to use the hindsight of Giolito getting injured but not the hindsight of Montgomery being atrocious all year while making enough money to put the Sox a toe over the tax line per the table on SoxProspects. Heck, it's not fair to knock the Giolito signing on the basis of injury hard stop. Were they supposed to somehow anticipate one of the most durable guys in the league missing the entire season with injury? It would be one thing to say this back in March based on personal preference, but now? The difference of one or two move or non-moves is not the difference between "planning on contending" and a "bridge year" given that there is so much variance in the likely outcomes for a given roster. "Just sign the guy who was going to be healthy with unsustainable batted ball luck instead of the guy who was going to be out for the season, 4head. Are they even trying to compete?!" Did you really want them to choose between 1) signing Ohtani and Yamamoto and trading multiple top prospects for Soto, say, and 2) refusing to sign any free agents while trading away Kenley, Martin, Pivetta, etc. to tank for draft picks? Is it not acceptible to field a team with a bright future and a shot at the wild card? How? Because Giolito has been a mess for a while and he has a tendency to give up the long ball. But again Montgomery was never a real option while they had Jansen and Yoshida on the roster. The Sox were never going to sign Montgomery to that deal. But if you do subtract Giolito and add Montgomery it doesn’t put them over. My issues with them signing Giolito has nothing to do with being injured, it was an overpay then and it’s an overpay now. Montgomery for the last couple years has also been consistently good. We can sit here and use the same logic on Snell. Snell had per usual a horrible first half and has probably been one of the best in baseball since July 1st. But given the options that you threw out there I would have chosen number 2 because at least it wasn’t a middling path. We’re sitting here on August 12th “shocked” that this team doesn’t really have many viable options as starters when they did nothing other than sign Criswell and Giolito. That’s why they shouldn’t have cheaped out on bringing in another guy. Whether it was Lugo, Flaherty or any of the dozen other depth guys signed who projected to be a 4th or 5th starter.
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Post by Darwin's Curve on Aug 12, 2024 7:27:41 GMT -5
Will for sure get overblown
Minimizing it before anything is even said or done about it!
He should be suspended. Send a message that it's not tolerated.
The apologies were canned and insincere as usual with this kind of thing. Hope there may someday be change and move forward.
It's like people are made of tinsel now or something. A fan heckled Duran. He chirped back. Just move on.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Aug 12, 2024 7:39:15 GMT -5
Minimizing it before anything is even said or done about it! He should be suspended. Send a message that it's not tolerated. The apologies were canned and insincere as usual with this kind of thing. Hope there may someday be change and move forward.
It's like people are made of tinsel now or something. A fan heckled Duran. He chirped back. Just move on. I'm not going to assume the worst and assume he used language that is common in private conversations between friends. Unless mentioned otherwise, I'm going to assume he doesn't feel negatively towards an entire community of people. With that said, he's a professional and he needs to know better as to what he can and can't say. I don't know what he said exactly, but I can only imagine what it was. The Red Sox should make him apologize (already done) and give a 1-game suspension and be done with it.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Aug 12, 2024 7:41:03 GMT -5
Playoff chances 31%. They have work to do.
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asm18
Veteran
Posts: 2,524
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Post by asm18 on Aug 12, 2024 8:09:16 GMT -5
How can you possibly say that Montgomery was a better option than Giolito? It's not fair to use the hindsight of Giolito getting injured but not the hindsight of Montgomery being atrocious all year while making enough money to put the Sox a toe over the tax line per the table on SoxProspects. Heck, it's not fair to knock the Giolito signing on the basis of injury hard stop. Were they supposed to somehow anticipate one of the most durable guys in the league missing the entire season with injury? It would be one thing to say this back in March based on personal preference, but now? The difference of one or two move or non-moves is not the difference between "planning on contending" and a "bridge year" given that there is so much variance in the likely outcomes for a given roster. "Just sign the guy who was going to be healthy with unsustainable batted ball luck instead of the guy who was going to be out for the season, 4head. Are they even trying to compete?!" Did you really want them to choose between 1) signing Ohtani and Yamamoto and trading multiple top prospects for Soto, say, and 2) refusing to sign any free agents while trading away Kenley, Martin, Pivetta, etc. to tank for draft picks? Is it not acceptible to field a team with a bright future and a shot at the wild card? How? Because Giolito has been a mess for a while and he has a tendency to give up the long ball. But again Montgomery was never a real option while they had Jansen and Yoshida on the roster. The Sox were never going to sign Montgomery to that deal. But if you do subtract Giolito and add Montgomery it doesn’t put them over. My issues with them signing Giolito has nothing to do with being injured, it was an overpay then and it’s an overpay now. Montgomery for the last couple years has also been consistently good. We can sit here and use the same logic on Snell. Snell had per usual a horrible first half and has probably been one of the best in baseball since July 1st. But given the options that you threw out there I would have chosen number 2 because at least it wasn’t a middling path. We’re sitting here on August 12th “shocked” that this team doesn’t really have many viable options as starters when they did nothing other than sign Criswell and Giolito. That’s why they shouldn’t have cheaped out on bringing in another guy. Whether it was Lugo, Flaherty or any of the dozen other depth guys signed who projected to be a 4th or 5th starter. There is one easy “hindsight is 20-20” answer to all this and that’s they had the current front-runner for the NL Cy Young award on their roster in December
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Post by manfred on Aug 12, 2024 8:45:00 GMT -5
Minimizing it before anything is even said or done about it!
He should be suspended. Send a message that it's not tolerated.
The apologies were canned and insincere as usual with this kind of thing. Hope there may someday be change and move forward.
It's like people are made of tinsel now or something. A fan heckled Duran. He chirped back. Just move on. He responded to a fan by insulting millions of people? I have been a huge Duran guy, but there are some words that should not be in your quiver when you get mad. It is very ugly. I’m so disappointed that it has put a damper on the season for me.
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Post by incandenza on Aug 12, 2024 8:47:01 GMT -5
How can you possibly say that Montgomery was a better option than Giolito? It's not fair to use the hindsight of Giolito getting injured but not the hindsight of Montgomery being atrocious all year while making enough money to put the Sox a toe over the tax line per the table on SoxProspects. Heck, it's not fair to knock the Giolito signing on the basis of injury hard stop. Were they supposed to somehow anticipate one of the most durable guys in the league missing the entire season with injury? It would be one thing to say this back in March based on personal preference, but now? The difference of one or two move or non-moves is not the difference between "planning on contending" and a "bridge year" given that there is so much variance in the likely outcomes for a given roster. "Just sign the guy who was going to be healthy with unsustainable batted ball luck instead of the guy who was going to be out for the season, 4head. Are they even trying to compete?!" Did you really want them to choose between 1) signing Ohtani and Yamamoto and trading multiple top prospects for Soto, say, and 2) refusing to sign any free agents while trading away Kenley, Martin, Pivetta, etc. to tank for draft picks? Is it not acceptible to field a team with a bright future and a shot at the wild card? How? Because Giolito has been a mess for a while and he has a tendency to give up the long ball. But again Montgomery was never a real option while they had Jansen and Yoshida on the roster. The Sox were never going to sign Montgomery to that deal. But if you do subtract Giolito and add Montgomery it doesn’t put them over. My issues with them signing Giolito has nothing to do with being injured, it was an overpay then and it’s an overpay now. Montgomery for the last couple years has also been consistently good. We can sit here and use the same logic on Snell. Snell had per usual a horrible first half and has probably been one of the best in baseball since July 1st. But given the options that you threw out there I would have chosen number 2 because at least it wasn’t a middling path. We’re sitting here on August 12th “shocked” that this team doesn’t really have many viable options as starters when they did nothing other than sign Criswell and Giolito. That’s why they shouldn’t have cheaped out on bringing in another guy. Whether it was Lugo, Flaherty or any of the dozen other depth guys signed who projected to be a 4th or 5th starter. Your confident predictions of Red Sox payroll keep underestimating it by like $30 million+ and also you keep making declarative statement about what sort of contracts they would "never" sign. What would it take for you to put an "I think" or a "probably" into these proclamations? I guess it is never going to happen.
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Post by pappyman99 on Aug 12, 2024 8:53:55 GMT -5
Minimizing it before anything is even said or done about it!
He should be suspended. Send a message that it's not tolerated.
The apologies were canned and insincere as usual with this kind of thing. Hope there may someday be change and move forward.
Damn, that’s a new low. Hate to say it, but he should be suspended for a couple games. If not, Cora should bench him. Unacceptable. Pls spare us the crocodile tears Slap him with the fine for saying a bad word on TV and move on Kind of where I am, people are naive if they think this and other words aren’t being said multiple times by multiple players every game
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asm18
Veteran
Posts: 2,524
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Post by asm18 on Aug 12, 2024 9:10:34 GMT -5
Any interest?
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Post by Darwin's Curve on Aug 12, 2024 9:13:26 GMT -5
It's like people are made of tinsel now or something. A fan heckled Duran. He chirped back. Just move on. He responded to a fan by insulting millions of people? I have been a huge Duran guy, but there are some words that should not be in your quiver when you get mad. It is very ugly. I’m so disappointed that it has put a damper on the season for me. No - he responded to a heckler. He did that in a *way* millions of people found offensive. (And rightly so.) He apologized, and it's up to people if they want to find him genuinely remorseful or not.
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briam
Veteran
Posts: 1,180
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Post by briam on Aug 12, 2024 9:48:08 GMT -5
I mean this team promoted Matt Dermody to pitch last year and his comments/behavior were much worse than Duran’s outburst caught on a hot mic.
Personally, I can’t get behind suspending a guy for utilizing a word that was commonplace in mainstream culture for most of his life. He should know and do better, but a fine to accompany his apology is satisfactory IMO.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 12, 2024 9:50:59 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure one thing will come out of this Duran mess.
His goal was to play every day and he has worn that like a badge of honor.
His stupid a-holish retort will earn him a suspension (rightfully so) and will cost him his goal of playing 162 games and as a bonus it'll leave the Sox without their dynamic leadoff man. Worse, O'Neill is out so they cant simply put up an O'Neill/Rafaela/Abeu OF alignment.
His foolishness cost the team. If he would have called the heckler an a-hole or told him to f off, nobody would have raised an eyebrow, but instead he insulted a large group of people, about a week after one of baseball's ambassadors, Billy Bean, passed away.
I'm not going to get sanctimonious, but when I was younger and dumber I'm sure I did something as a-holish as that, but I've learned and have grown and have changed my attitude. There's a lot about today's world I dislike and things about the past I preferred (TV, music, style of baseball play, and even politics come to mind), but the striving for equality and tolerance is something that is better about today than in the past. I've learned that and I certainly hope Duran learns it, too, and becomes a better person for it.
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Post by christianarroyossock on Aug 12, 2024 10:43:27 GMT -5
Yep, I don’t think he’s a bad person just because he used that word but he definitely did a bad thing and it has consequences. It’s not the end of the world but I’m honestly glad that the suspension that is likely upcoming will cost him his goal of playing 162 that way the consequences actually hit home.
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Post by notstarboard on Aug 12, 2024 12:19:45 GMT -5
How can you possibly say that Montgomery was a better option than Giolito? It's not fair to use the hindsight of Giolito getting injured but not the hindsight of Montgomery being atrocious all year while making enough money to put the Sox a toe over the tax line per the table on SoxProspects. Heck, it's not fair to knock the Giolito signing on the basis of injury hard stop. Were they supposed to somehow anticipate one of the most durable guys in the league missing the entire season with injury? It would be one thing to say this back in March based on personal preference, but now? The difference of one or two move or non-moves is not the difference between "planning on contending" and a "bridge year" given that there is so much variance in the likely outcomes for a given roster. "Just sign the guy who was going to be healthy with unsustainable batted ball luck instead of the guy who was going to be out for the season, 4head. Are they even trying to compete?!" Did you really want them to choose between 1) signing Ohtani and Yamamoto and trading multiple top prospects for Soto, say, and 2) refusing to sign any free agents while trading away Kenley, Martin, Pivetta, etc. to tank for draft picks? Is it not acceptible to field a team with a bright future and a shot at the wild card? How? Because Giolito has been a mess for a while and he has a tendency to give up the long ball. But again Montgomery was never a real option while they had Jansen and Yoshida on the roster. The Sox were never going to sign Montgomery to that deal. But if you do subtract Giolito and add Montgomery it doesn’t put them over. My issues with them signing Giolito has nothing to do with being injured, it was an overpay then and it’s an overpay now. Montgomery for the last couple years has also been consistently good. We can sit here and use the same logic on Snell. Snell had per usual a horrible first half and has probably been one of the best in baseball since July 1st. But given the options that you threw out there I would have chosen number 2 because at least it wasn’t a middling path. We’re sitting here on August 12th “shocked” that this team doesn’t really have many viable options as starters when they did nothing other than sign Criswell and Giolito. That’s why they shouldn’t have cheaped out on bringing in another guy. Whether it was Lugo, Flaherty or any of the dozen other depth guys signed who projected to be a 4th or 5th starter. Giolito had two bad months at the end of the 2023 season amidst a divorce and a couple team changes; hardly "a mess for a while". Nobody in his price range had a higher ceiling and his floor still seemed to be 160-180 mediocre innings. Montgomery was expected to get a much larger deal at the time the Sox signed Giolito, and he certainly would have too had Boras not overplayed his hand. If the Sox had the choice between Giolito at 2/38.5 and Montgomery at 1/25 I don't doubt they would have signed Montgomery for 1/25.
They would have had the money to sign Montgomery to a 1/25 if they so chose, but it may have required making other sacrifices, like acquiring fewer pieces at the deadline so as to stay under the tax line. I don't think it's fair to say he was never an option; he was just a poor value at the inflated price Boras was hawking him at, so the Sox made the prudent decision to look elsewhere.
Snell, even at his much reduced "Boras L" price, would have pushed this team clearly over the tax line, and his floor was lower than Giolito's, as he has only twice made it past 130 IP in 9 MLB seasons because he just can't stay healthy. Giolito was a much better fit. It's pointless compare what Snell is currently doing to what Giolito is currently doing because neither deal was signed with the expectation that these guys would be out for the season. Nobody has a crystal ball; if a guy who has no pre-existing health problems goes down, that is bad luck, not a bad deal. Odds were that if either of these guys was going to miss considerable time, it was going to be Snell.
You don't know how good the team is going to be until they play the games. They might be projected for 80-85 wins, say, but if you were to simulate the season many times and crunch the numbers, the standard deviation of their win total could easily be like 7-8 wins, and that's not even considering how much the amount of wins needed for the last Wild Card spot can vary year to year. Given the amount of randomness at play in addition to the economic value of playing meaningful baseball all summer regardless of whether you end up making a run in the playoffs, it doesn't make sense to punt every season you're not a favorite. Moving up a handful of spots in the draft is all well and good, but that's a small benefit compared to the drawbacks of punting on a season in which you had a legitimate chance to make the playoffs.
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Prior to the season, the Sox had the following on their SP depth chart:
Giolito Bello
Houck Crawford Pivetta
Whitlock Criswell Anderson (long reliever, but capable of a spot start)
Winckowski (was stretched out as a starter in Spring Training; capable of a spot start)
Fitts (potential late-season option)
And during the season they added:
Paxton Priester (14 career starts, but needs more time to incubate; emergency SP)
Keller (116 career starts, mediocre production as a starter and missed a lot of 2023 with injury, but only 28 y/o)
How many major injuries to the rotation should a team be reasonably expected to endure without a major drop in performance? The Sox lost Giolito and Whitlock for the year and still have a decent enough rotation behind them:
Houck Bello Pivetta Crawford
Paxton
And they still have Criswell as the next guy up before you have to start getting into the Wincks and Kellers of the world.
Things just look bad right now in large part because Crawford has been awful lately (.831 SLG and .488 wOBA allowed since the ASB, including 13 HR... gassed?), Houck is much below his All Star peak (gassed?), Bello's on paternity leave, Criswell has COVID, they had to skip Pivetta's last start because his arm was falling off, and then Paxton injured his leg in the first inning after the bullpen day to rest Pivetta. Paxton has been solid so far, though, Bello has been more reliable lately (5 straight starts with 2-3 ER), Houck has still been solid despite his recent dip in effectiveness (6 IP and 4 ER or fewer in 4 of his last 5 starts; just had the one 5 IP, 6 ER start against Texas), and Pivetta has been good lately aside from his blow-up in Colorado (6-7 IP in 4 of 6 starts, 10 K in 3 of 6 starts, 6 H or fewer in 5 of 6 starts, 4 ER or fewer in 5 of 6 starts). The only obvious weak link right now is Crawford, and if he just can't get it together again, Criswell has beed solid in the rotation this year and could jump in.
Besides Crawford, the real issue lately has been the pen. The Sox have racked up -1.7 fWAR in relief since the ASB, which is by far the worst in the majors. Only 10 teams have a negative fWAR total over this stretch, and only 4 teams have less than -0.3 fWAR. This, combined with the bad defense, has been really hard to watch. Deadline acquisition Luis Garcia has been terrible so far and while Lucas Sims passes the eye test for me, his recent blow-up makes his stat sheet ugly too. Bernardino and Kelly have FIPs over 8 since the ASB. Getting Martin back has been huge (he has a negative FIP since returning, fun times), and getting Slaten back will be another huge boost. Then there's Hendriks who looms for September. Barring more major injuries to key arms, the pen could actually be a weapon down the stretch. Just need to survive the current skid.
Sox starters certainly haven't been good since the ASB, but they've combined for a less catastrophic -0.1 fWAR. Their ERA is 5.51 (25th of 30 teams) but their xFIP is only 4.20 (16th of 30 teams), which shows how absurd their HR/FB rate has been (22.1%, worst in MLB). Hopefully some of that is bad luck and some of it can get reined in by the coaching staff. Fixing just Crawford would go a long way towards improving the stats for the whole staff (his HR/FB rate is 31.7%!!!).
If they can get and stay healthy, which extends to guys like Casas and TON on the offensive side as well, this team could be pretty fearsome down the stretch. Hopefully they can hold it together for long enough to get there.
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Post by okin15 on Aug 12, 2024 12:22:10 GMT -5
He responded to a fan by insulting millions of people? I have been a huge Duran guy, but there are some words that should not be in your quiver when you get mad. It is very ugly. I’m so disappointed that it has put a damper on the season for me. No - he responded to a heckler. He did that in a *way* millions of people found offensive. (And rightly so.) He apologized, and it's up to people if they want to find him genuinely remorseful or not. Millions of people found it offensive because it was an insult. His apology took ownership in a very real way. I still think a 1-2 day suspension sends the right message, and I think he should come out with support for the suspension. This does not have to be an issue for him or the Red Sox ever again if it's put to bed now.
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Post by incandenza on Aug 12, 2024 12:47:47 GMT -5
How? Because Giolito has been a mess for a while and he has a tendency to give up the long ball. But again Montgomery was never a real option while they had Jansen and Yoshida on the roster. The Sox were never going to sign Montgomery to that deal. But if you do subtract Giolito and add Montgomery it doesn’t put them over. My issues with them signing Giolito has nothing to do with being injured, it was an overpay then and it’s an overpay now. Montgomery for the last couple years has also been consistently good. We can sit here and use the same logic on Snell. Snell had per usual a horrible first half and has probably been one of the best in baseball since July 1st. But given the options that you threw out there I would have chosen number 2 because at least it wasn’t a middling path. We’re sitting here on August 12th “shocked” that this team doesn’t really have many viable options as starters when they did nothing other than sign Criswell and Giolito. That’s why they shouldn’t have cheaped out on bringing in another guy. Whether it was Lugo, Flaherty or any of the dozen other depth guys signed who projected to be a 4th or 5th starter. Giolito had two bad months at the end of the 2023 season amidst a divorce and a couple team changes; hardly "a mess for a while". Nobody in his price range had a higher ceiling and his floor still seemed to be 160-180 mediocre innings. Montgomery was expected to get a much larger deal at the time the Sox signed Giolito, and he certainly would have too had Boras not overplayed his hand. If the Sox had the choice between Giolito at 2/38.5 and Montgomery at 1/25 I don't doubt they would have signed Montgomery for 1/25.
They would have had the money to sign Montgomery to a 1/25 if they so chose, but it may have required making other sacrifices, like acquiring fewer pieces at the deadline so as to stay under the tax line. I don't think it's fair to say he was never an option; he was just a poor value at the inflated price Boras was hawking him at, so the Sox made the prudent decision to look elsewhere.
I agree with the gist of your comment. And/but in regard to Montgomery Speier specifically reported - after Giolito got hurt, I believe, though might have been before - that the Red Sox liked Montgomery well enough that they'd sign him to a Giolito-like contract even if it pushed them over the LTT. At the time that sounded like something Montgomery would never go for, but in the end he signed for not much more than Giolito.
I think it's quite possible that they would have signed Montgomery for the deal he eventually did sign with the Diamondbacks, but he held out so long and by the time Boras capitulated to the market the Red Sox had already seen a strong Houck and Crawford and Whitlock in spring training and were like "naw, we're good."
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asm18
Veteran
Posts: 2,524
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Post by asm18 on Aug 12, 2024 15:06:25 GMT -5
These are a snippet of Duran’s comments to the media following his suspension for any interested. The subject matter is not something that typically bodes well for discussion with strangers on the Internet, so will leave it at that.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Aug 12, 2024 15:30:53 GMT -5
These are a snippet of Duran’s comments to the media following his suspension for any interested. The subject matter is not something that typically bodes well for discussion with strangers on the Internet, so will leave it at that. I don't condone what he said, agree with the punishment and glad he apologized, but I really hate some of those questions as it really feels like they're meant to trip him up and further a narrative.
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