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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 16, 2019 11:47:22 GMT -5
Any ideas of why Benintendi has basically zero power in this juiced ball era? His average launch angle is actually up quite a bit, which can actually be a bit of a trap for marginal power guys. Guys generate their best exit velos on line drives. If you're Aaron Judge, you don't care, because your exit velos are so high you just want to get it in the air and not worry that it's only going 115 instead of 118. Whereas if you're Benny and you average 88, adding more loft can just mean more warning track fly outs. Jose Ramirez had a little bit of this going on when he was in that awful slump. Or maybe he just hasn't been fully healthy this year, his sprint speeds have also been down more than you'd expect.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 16, 2019 11:10:18 GMT -5
Reigning World Series champions Who would you rather have as the GM/PoBO tomorrow, Billy Beane or Brian Sabean?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 16, 2019 11:02:39 GMT -5
Bottom line, Mookie Betts will likely provide more than $30 million of excess value next year. That has value. Where he's a better fit ( meaning where he increases a teams excess value the most considering who he'd replace) will likely determine the highest bidder of those that have next year playoff goals. Someone remind me who the fourth best outfielder in the Red Sox org is.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 16, 2019 10:56:20 GMT -5
Or an alternate view would be say Sale did have his normal usual ace-like season in 2019 and became a free agent. Say the Sox lost him through free agency. You said if somebody else beats you on the deal, so be it, but is it really that casual? I mean, you lose your ace, you're hard pressed to replace him. Pitchers like Chris Sale don't grow on trees. Usually you lose your ace and struggle to replace him, you're in trouble. Two examples of this would be the "He's the ace" season of 2015 the year after Lester left and 1997 when the Sox lost Roger Clemens and acquired Steve Avery to front the staff. The Red Sox are in a salary crunch if you haven't noticed. If Sale had a great season and left for free agency... great, thank him for his service, close the book on a successful trade, and sign Mookie Betts. Or spread the money around and do like Devers/Benny/E-Rod. Or go after Gerrit Cole. Or get creative, make a trade were you take on a bad contract instead of giving up a prospect. $150m could be used for anything. The Red Sox didn't have to spend it on an aging pitcher who was hurt the last time we saw him.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 16, 2019 10:35:08 GMT -5
Please, keep going. Two us who he'd trade. That has to be a two-sided affair, no? And give us your team salary projection while you're at it. So let me get this right, three of you can make this claim and provide zero evidence that he couldn't make trades because he didn't have top 100 prospects. Not a single example, yet if I don't agree and point to Detroit and all his trades there it means nothing without examples? It's harder to make trades with a weak farm system than it is a strong one. Are you really disputing that?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 15, 2019 7:45:14 GMT -5
Not sure how else to say this. The Dodgers are clearly a playoff team for the foreseeable future with Mookie or without. They aren't so dumb to give up a huge return to get someone who may or may not show up in the playoffs. They gave up one top 100 prospect (who has dropped from #64 to #90 since) for Machado after Seager went down for the season and then let him walk. They aren't going to give up a lot more than that for a guy they do not need. Points for fandom, but you're still talking in circles. Betts is so good that you'd be willing to trade the #3 starter and the cleanup hitter on pure salary dumps just to pay Betts more, but no other team in baseball would do anything similar because he's not that good? Also, if playoff performance is so vital to the Dodgers, explain Clayton Kershaw. No, The Dodgers wouldn't trade for him because he doesn't fill a position of need for them and because he doesn't move the needle on their playoff chances next year by much.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 14, 2019 16:27:54 GMT -5
Exactly. He has Cherington (and Theo to some extent) to thank for the very high prospect capital available to spend and John Henry for the FA capital. Yeah, DD was an awesome spender and got rewarded for it. But now that the prospect capital is gone and there is no money to spend, what useful talent does DD have to keep running this team? Good to move on. He's the GM that helped build the Expos, he built the Marlins. Then traded off all the talent after winning the world series and that talent won another one years later. It's like people only remember his time with the Tigers with an old owner wanting to win at all costs. He made two huge trades for Kimbrel and Sale but nothing since then, which isn't what he did with Detroit. He does what the owners ask him to do. Yeah amazing how he didn't make another big trade once the Red Sox had no top 100 guys left.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 14, 2019 10:05:26 GMT -5
Saw him a bunch and he was completely overmatched by anyone who could get 92 over the plate. I'm increasingly sympathetic to Tim Tebow as a victim of the Tim Tebow Industrial Complex.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 13, 2019 12:45:36 GMT -5
That list is really not that scary, though. It's basically Bryant, Rizzo, and Baez who are likely to be relevant by then, and at least Rizzo will probably already be in decline.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 13, 2019 12:31:39 GMT -5
What's interesting about Ohtani right now is that he hasn't thrown anything close to a starter's workload for three years now. Even if they want to keep doing the two-way thing, they can't be banking him for much more than 100 innings next year, and maybe it's a lot less than that. So how do you manage him? Reliever? Super-opener? And does this whole thing work better if you just abandon the idea of using him as a traditional starter? Super interesting situation, and they may be developing the blueprint for future two-way guys.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 13, 2019 12:24:17 GMT -5
I just don't get how the Kimbrel trade could be looked at as mediocre when Margot recently upgraded himself from nothing to a solid platoon player. It's not like Kimbrel offered the team nothing. He was a very good closer during his tenur here. He was bailed out greatly during the postseason run, but still converted his opportunities. They got their ring and the players traded away so far are easily replaceable for what they've given their respective teams. Where he screwed up was that he overspent on Pearce and Eovaldi and didn't acquire depth either through free agency or trade. While I'm not over the moon on the Sale extension or the Price contract, they don't win without Price, Sale could still be Sale, and the Xander Bogaerts extension is criminally under appreciated. I agree his biggest issue here is he didn't do anything all that creative like flip Porcello for Miley and have it work. Not a whole lot of outside the box thinking. I do think he'll throw in an extra player or 2 just to get deals done which will eventually burn you. Ok, so here's another issue: if Margot is easily replaceable, why hasn't he been replaced? JBJ could clearly use a platoon partner, and having JDM as a 4th outfielder means you kind of don't have a 4th outfielder. So if it's easy to get a Margot type... where is he? Either it's not as easy as you're making it seem, or Dombrowski just dropped the ball on an easy roster upgrade.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 13, 2019 12:19:35 GMT -5
Maybe he felt that Eovaldi would go home to Houston to pitch if he didn't offer more money. Sometimes players' first choices aren't Boston and it takes more money to change their mind. Certainly was the case with Price. How much more extra money should be thrown at a player is a different argument, but that's probably why Dombrowski got it done early. And if Eovaldi had, Dombrowski would have been forced to... sign a better pitcher for less money? He misread the market, badly, end of story. Morton is having an amazing year, but everybody acts like it was a slam dunk that Morton was going to be better than Eovaldi. Morton is an older pitcher with less stuff. Eovaldi is younger and the Red Sox thought that between Tampa's tinkering and their tinkering with Eovaldi that they had the makings of a front line pitcher who's only 29. Morton has better stuff than Eovaldi pretty much any way you want to measure it. Slightly less fastball velo, but Eovaldi has spent his whole career looking for a secondary pitch that's half as effective as Morton's curve. The vaunted cutter he added was working ok, but it wasn't even getting swings and misses. Like you were betting that Eovaldi had learned to pitch in this unconventional way, after a very short run of doing it, versus Morton who just has the classic rising fastball/hammer curve combo that generates a ton of strikeouts and has been a successful mode of pitching for a hundred years. It's clear that Dombrowski wanted Eovaldi to be in 2019's rotation and not Morton. In 2019, in hindsight, that's the wrong decision. Maybe in time Eovaldi stays healthy (for once) and he becomes the pitcher Dombrowski envisioned. I wouldn't bet my life on that, but I get the logic of why Dombrowski did what he did. I mean, I drafted Morton in most of my fantasy leagues and Eovaldi in none of them. Maybe I was the wrong one at the time and I just got lucky, but like... I don't know man, it seems like baseball 101 that you don't go super aggressive after the double TJ guy who's been pitching well for like five minutes. And to get back to my original point about nuance in this conversation, it's not like there was no reason at all to like Eovaldi or to try to bring him back, but that's different from blowing most of your budget on him on him so early in the offseason. If they'd held the line at three years and signed Eovaldi to a deal similar to Morton's, that would be one thing. Dombrowski gets away with his habit of overpaying because he tends to choose the right guy to overpay for, but in this instance he not only overpaid, he chose the wrong guy.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 13, 2019 11:53:42 GMT -5
If the Dodgers like Mookie Betts shouldn't they wait until he becomes a free agent and then just sign him without giving anyone up? Again, they're going to win the division next year without him! The incentive for them is literally just next year's playoff run, and theoretically a chance to "audition" Betts, which seems like not that big an advantage given how crystal clear Mookie has been about his intention to hit free agency.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 13, 2019 8:48:50 GMT -5
Honestly, just because Margot would be a good platoon partner going forward or the better player doesn't mean that the Sox shouldn't have made the deal. All it means is that Dombrowski did not do a good job identifying a guy who could play CF and platoon with JBJ for cheap. Either that or he ignored his baseball ops' people's suggestions. I'm sorry but RH hitting platoon #4 centerfielders shouldn't be that rare to come by. I'd find them easier to get than closers with HOF resumes. I know that's an unpopular position around here but when the Sox got Kimbrel he had a decent year in SD preceded directly by that with a prolonged stretch of dominance in Atlanta. Yeah, you can argue they gave up two much quantity, that perhaps the deal gets done without Allen - that issue I won't argue against, but it's speculatory because we don't know that's the case, as far as having to give up Allen. You can make the suggestion that Allen was the dealbreaker in your opinion and I wouldn't argue against it. I would say that Margot, Guerra, and Asauje for 3 years of Kimbrel wasn't an overpayment. The discussion is a lot less interesting when every trade gets reduced to a binary of should have done it/shouldn't have done it. There is such a thing as a mediocre trade. I wouldn't say the Kimbrel trade is completely indefensible, but it's like a C+ trade at best to me. The thing people forget about Kimbrel is not just that Dombrowski gave up a bunch of prospects, it's that he was expensive on top of that. He paid for him so that he could pay for him. It would have been hard for him to spend any more on a closer if he had set out to do so. Kimbrel wasn't a bust but he also didn't do anything that justified that kind of price. That's really the thing about Dombrowski, he does a decent job of identifying needs and addressing them, but he has a strong tendency to overpay. Look at Eovaldi. Wasn't a totally irrational signing as far as the team's needs were concerned, but why did it need to get done so early? In a market where Morton went for like half the price and Keuchel went not at all, Dombrowski was bidding against himself. And again it gets to needing some nuance in this conversation, because again, this is like a C- move. Not a fireable offense in it's own right, but just another instance of Dombrowski over-spending when he really shouldn't have had to.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 13, 2019 7:36:53 GMT -5
The Dodgers are already going to win that division next year. And Betts, for all his virtues, is not a magical talisman who causes you to win postseason series. It's not a trade they need to make. No he isn't, but that doesn't mean that the Dodgers don't try to upgrade in their OF. Not only does he improve their chances in 2020 but if they sign him long-term that could improve their chances of sustaining a Braves-like streak of division titles thus giving them more chances to win the elusive World Series. And who knows - perhaps in one of those post-seasons he busts loose the way David Price finally did and impacts that series? Talented players usually do break through at some point. And by trading for Betts, it gives Mookie a chance to see what LA is like and if he likes it, perhaps it gives the Dodgers the edge if the free agent bidding is close. There's not too many players in the game with Betts' skills. The Dodgers don't have to give up their whole farm system to rent him for a year but one top prospect and one really good player who would be displaced by Betts might make sense for them and the Red Sox. Wow, that's great. The Red Sox should sign a guy like that. By the way, the Dodgers are already set up for a Braves-like streak of division titles, specifically as a result of their refusal to make short term moves like this! This team was content to use Julio Urias, a 23 year old phenom slinging 97 from the left side, as basically a Brian Johnson swingman type. If they were remotely interested in a "go for it" move, that guy would be gone, as would a half a dozen other qualified MLB starters that they keep on the bench.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 13, 2019 7:35:28 GMT -5
Margot has been better than JBJ this year and will probably only widen that gap going forward. The Red Sox have also been relying on non-outfielders as their fourth outfielder for the past two seasons, so even if Margot isn't better than JBJ, he would certainly have been useful on the roster. Honestly just a little weird to look at all the holes on this roster and conclude that Dombrowski couldn't possibly have spent his resources any better. I disagree. Margot is not in the same league, defensively, as JBJ. JBJ's assets to the Sox are his defense and his arm. Those make him enormously valuable to a team that doesn't need another strong hitter. JBJ is one of the greatest defensive CFs the Sox ever have had. Margot never could have been a starting CF for the Sox. Ummm... he kind of is. JBJ is (or was, at this point) marginally better, but it's not a huge difference. And as someone already pointed out, it's not like they're mutually exclusive on the roster, they form a natural platoon.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 12, 2019 22:00:29 GMT -5
Sure, the Dodgers didn't change their approach whatsoever after last year, but surely the seventh failure to win a World Series will instantly mold them into the exact shape that's most convenient for the Red Sox. If you want to look at it "most convenient for Red Sox fans" that's fine. But wouldn't it be equally "convenient" for the Dodgers to finally win a championship after such a long drought? I've been wrong in that I was saying 21 year if they don't win this year - yet it will actually be 31. I'm sure you can recall all the negativity last year on here even as they were winning so often and SOx have laos won 3 in 14 before last year. Now the dodgers haven't won it all in so long -- maybe they will look for a trade that will be "convenient" for them by getting a guy that will help lead them to a championship. A trade that so good for both. That would be terrifically convenient for both. Nothing wrong with that. I just think sometimes some Sox fans get immune to winning titles. I;m sure there are a lot of Dodger Blue who aren't so happy being a bridesmaid for so long. The Dodgers are already going to win that division next year. And Betts, for all his virtues, is not a magical talisman who causes you to win postseason series. It's not a trade they need to make.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 12, 2019 12:26:44 GMT -5
The other part about minor league baseball is that a lot of people really like it and pay money to see it. This isn't disease research, where the end product being optimized is so vital. For a lot of fans, the minor league development process is the part they enjoy! Galaxy brain take: we shouldn't be thinking about expanding MLB to 32 teams, we should be thinking about expanding it to 90 teams.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 12, 2019 10:21:35 GMT -5
Off the top of my head: Margot, Buttrey, Logan Allen, Shaun Anderson, Beeks, and Dubon are all players who would be on the team right now and have some upside. The Basabes, Kopech, Nogosek, and Espinal all could help in the future. I would have Kopech ranked 2nd if he were still in the system. That's not a commentary on the trades those players were involved in, as the got value when they needed to and won because of it. He got talent back! But he has traded a fair amount of talent, and the 2019 team us weaker because of it. The mediocre 2019 team is worth the 2016 to 2018 run, but also invites fair questions as to whether he was the right guy going forward. I meant to write players who would be regulars with the Sox in place of the players acquired. Of your list, only Margot, Buttrey and Beeks have any significant MLB experience. Margot has been mediocre and not as good as JBJ. Buttrey has a high ERA but could have been in the Sox BP. Beeks has been the best performer but where would the Sox have been in 2018 without Eovaldi? The rest have not yet proven to be MLB players. Margot has been better than JBJ this year and will probably only widen that gap going forward. The Red Sox have also been relying on non-outfielders as their fourth outfielder for the past two seasons, so even if Margot isn't better than JBJ, he would certainly have been useful on the roster. Honestly just a little weird to look at all the holes on this roster and conclude that Dombrowski couldn't possibly have spent his resources any better.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 12, 2019 10:11:16 GMT -5
I have long felt that the front office is a point of true market inefficiency. The salaries of some of the non-executives are rather paltry, and whole front office together barely gets the annual salary of a seventh inning reliever, if that, in most organizations. It seems like paying premiums or above to acquire top talent from other orgs and to retain your own stars is a relatively cost-effective way to get the best talent from the league into these positions. That's a big part of the success of the Yankees in recent years. They spend a ton on their coaching, scouting, and analytics departments. You don't hear about it as much as, say, Houston, because they don't let anyone talk about it and they don't let anyone leave.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 12, 2019 9:42:15 GMT -5
There have been a lot of words spent on this, including many by me, but it comes down to this: The Red Sox hired a guy to do a job, he did it very well, and then they didn't trust him to do the next one so they fired him.
That's brutral. Not necessarily wrong, but definitely brutal. Perhaps it's as simple as that, but it seems to me that he helped build the Montreal Expos into the powerhouse they'd become by 1994, rebuilt the Marlins after he has ordered to strip them following their 1st championship and set them up for their 2nd championship. He also built the Tigers up after they lost 119 games. He has a track record of being able to build teams back up so I'm not sure why they wouldn't have trusted him to rebuild the Red Sox.
Like I said, you may be right and it might be as simple as that, but I still think there was a lack of cohesion going on behind the scenes within the baseball ops related departments - perhaps too many valued voices being stifled. Well... Off the top of my head: Margot, Buttrey, Logan Allen, Shaun Anderson, Beeks, and Dubon are all players who would be on the team right now and have some upside. The Basabes, Kopech, Nogosek, and Espinal all could help in the future. I would have Kopech ranked 2nd if he were still in the system. There's absolutely been a long-term cost to the way that Dombrowski has done business here, and I don't know that you can justify it all just because 2018 happened. Like fine, Kimbrel was good, but he wasn't an essential part of that run and for the combined cost of his salary and the prospects used to acquire him, you surely could have built an equally good bullpen for a much lower price. For however good he was at rebuilding the Tigers and Marlins, those were different situations. The Red Sox aren't trying to re-build (hopefully), they're trying to sustain. Dombrowski hasn't ever done that job, and he wasn't showing any signs of doing it in Boston. I think the really interesting question in retrospect is what happened at the trade deadline. At the time I figured it was Dombrowski who realized most of his minor league pieces hadn't hit that peak prospect value phase that he seems to like to capitalize on. Now I'm wondering if he really was trying to do a Casas for Diaz deal or something that aligned the rest of the FO against him.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 12, 2019 9:16:26 GMT -5
Well anyway the plan worked, no one is talking about Dave Dombrowski at all.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 12, 2019 6:17:52 GMT -5
Sure, the Dodgers didn't change their approach whatsoever after last year, but surely the seventh failure to win a World Series will instantly mold them into the exact shape that's most convenient for the Red Sox.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 11, 2019 17:19:47 GMT -5
The Dodgers sure seem like a team that could do something crazy. Seven straight division titles, no Championships with those owners and all the resources they have used. How could anyone to surprised if they traded for and signed Betts? The only thing on their minds has to be how do we take that final step. On paper Betts is that guy. Like don't give me full value type crap. You're talking about an upgrade that should double your war projections at a position. You can likely go from 4 to 8 war projections if Betts is playing CF next year. Where else can they get an upgrade like that? Bullpen arms are so up and down that it's almost impossible to project that type of upgrade. Yet I'd sell them on and include Workman to increase the return. That's how they run their team.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 11, 2019 9:54:23 GMT -5
There is a lesson learned for me. I'd thought that the internal promotions were a sign Dombrowski was bringing the talent into his decision making process. The hiring of La Russa and Wren ran counter to that and that may have been the clearer signpost of the braintrust. Interesting that ownership has chosen to go with a team of people at least for now. One thing that probably does is make it harder for the dedicated finger-pointers to decide who they should be pointing to. That matters given the wolfpack mentality that prevails in the Boston media. Bringing in La Russa made no sense at the time, and the story the Red Sox gave was basically "don't worry, he's not going to be heavily involved in baseball ops", he was just there to be some sort of mentor to Alex Cora or something (I guess because Alex Cora hasn't been in the baseball world for decades and thus has no professional mentors of his own). And of course we never heard a thing about the value of his mentorship as Cora had maybe the most successful season ever by a rookie manager. Basically if they hadn't put out a press release, you'd never have known La Russa worked there. I'm not inclined to take at face value the reports we're hearing that are obvious leaks from the Red Sox, but from the outside, it really does seem like La Russa was, at best, given the baseball equivalent of a mafia no-show construction job by Dombrowski. And if Dombrowski really was taking advice from the likes of Wren and La Russa over the actual front office, then yeah, Dombrowski had to go. That kind of thing isn't only going to lead to bad decisions, it's going to lead to the organization losing more of it's best people.
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