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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 30, 2024 10:02:56 GMT -5
Trading Wong shouldn't even be a remote consideration, IMO, until/unless Kyle Teel comes up and proves to be a star-level catcher that you have to play 120+ games. Even then, Wong is still going to be inexpensive enough to where it's not a bad idea to keep him, but at that point the value you could get in a return for him is going to likely be greater than the value of him playing in 40 games. But while I love Teel, you cannot bank on that yet and keeping Wong right now is costing you virtually nothing.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 30, 2024 9:56:52 GMT -5
So then we're still in disagreement. Me (and others) were calling for a Braves like approach all off season. Being wrong doesn't mean everyone had to be wrong. That's rationalizing. If you’re conflating a “Braves line approach” with extending Kutter Crawford then I don’t think you have a clue what that approach actually means. But as usual, you are correct in hindsight, well done!
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 30, 2024 9:05:49 GMT -5
Both should have been extended this past off season. Hindsight is 20/20 and all but I don't think anyone was clamoring for extensions. Many more we're talking about trading Duran than extending him. Crawford was coming off of a good 129 inning but not world beating and will be 32 before he hits free agency. Same for Duran. Agree, extending Duran would obviously look good now but would’ve been bad process and Crawford didn’t make sense as an extension candidate at all.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 29, 2024 22:30:04 GMT -5
Fitts heard Ian talking smack** about him on the podcast and had to show out
** offering perfectly valid concerns
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 29, 2024 16:40:24 GMT -5
Paez before Elmer and/or Wehunt. Interesting. Pure guesswork on my part, but if I were to try to explain it, it would be because Paez's profile is that of a pitcher that doesn't work as well at the upper levels of the minors where the fastball isn't good enough to get him by (a la Denyi Reyes or someone like that), so they want to test him against more advanced bats to see if it will still play. Whereas with Wehunt and ERC, the stuff plays, it's just a matter of developing and becoming more consistent with it. Not saying I even agree with that, but again if I were to guess as to why, from an archetype perspective I do get it. He also has the most innings at the level, which is probably the likely explanation anyway.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 29, 2024 16:34:03 GMT -5
If you look at the history of Rookie of the Year winners, it's mostly a bunch of guys who went on to have really good careers. Except every now and then it's a relief pitcher who no one ever thinks about anymore (Neftali Feliz, Huston Street, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Scott Williamson, and the ultimate rando, Andrew Bailey). Be that a lesson to the voters.
*By the way, what was up with that 2000 Sasaki ROY? He had a 3.16 ERA and 4.30 FIP as a reliever that season, which placed him 4th and 8th, respectively, among rookie relievers in the AL. Good for all of 0.6 WAR.
What exactly is the lesson here? The award should be about rewarding the season that was had, not what their rest of career prospects are like.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 29, 2024 16:22:45 GMT -5
If the Sox do wind up taking a bat in the first round, I think that will increase the interest in looking at college pitching shortly after that. While I was enjoying the Sox knocking Grayson Rodriguez around last night, I decided to look at Law's and Joe Doyle's top prospects list for arms. Keith had 13 college pitchers in his top 100 and Joe had 16. I thought I would try to put that together here for possible second and third round picks. Mike always has a great draft preview here. Maybe this will help start the process. I'll write the player followed be giving Law's and Doyle's (future stars series) rankings. Payton Tolle TCU 44 41 Jonathan Santucci Duke 46 34 Ben Hess AL 54 58 Luke Holman LSU 60 49 Gage Jump LSU 61 106 Bryce Cunningham Vandy 62 59 Josh Hartle Wake 66 92 Carter Holton Vandy 74 52 Drew Beam TN 76 48 Ryan Johnson Dallas B 77 40 Sam Stuhr U of Prt 89 199 Michael Massey Duke 90 80 Matt Ager UCSB 93 164 These 6 are only in Joe Doyle's top 100 Jurrangelo Cijntje MSST 44 Ryan Prager A+M 69 Ryan Forcucci UCSD 71 Aiden May ORST 75 Gage Ziehl Miami 85 Thatcher Hurd LSU 99 For the people who watch college, please feel free to comment on this group (I'm looking at you thegoodthebadthesox). I spaced it better when it was written. Maybe a mod can help make it more readable? I need to make a correction. The number of players in the top 100 I listed for Keith and Joe excluded those who would likely go in the first round. Keith had 5 more college arms going in the first including Cijntje at 15. I’ve written a bit about Holton before and I’m a huge Ryan Johnson guy. I took my name out of the NCAA site rep pool this year but I’ll be working the entire College Station regional for ESPN so should get some really good looks at everyone from A&M, Texas, Louisiana, and Grambling. Super excited to get another look at the Texas guys because they are a much more explosive offensive team than they looked to be when I caught them early in the season.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 28, 2024 22:22:36 GMT -5
Has Teel’s homer landed yet?
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 25, 2024 22:42:58 GMT -5
Antonio Anderson with his second home run. Some signs of life the last week or so He’s got one of those classic low minors K/BB statistical profiles where you wonder if there’s an element of over-passivity there. Also a super-low BABIP but not a ton of power, is any of that related to the hitting environment in Salem? More questions than answers at this point but nice to at least see signs of life.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 25, 2024 14:06:17 GMT -5
Today was Cespedes’ first pro game at 2B. I was curious how they were going to handle this when Cespedes was healthy enough to play defense regularly, as Arias is enough of a prospect to make sure he gets regular starts at short as well. When the FCL season ends, seeing how they handle the infield throughout the system will be very, very interesting. If you assume Cespedes and Arias move up to Salem, how do they handle everyone else? Zanetello, Alcantara, and Anderson are getting MIF time in Salem (plus De Leon, although he's not as important these days). Greenville is already splitting MIF innings among five dudes. Mayer, Yorke, Paulino in Portland. We're gonna find out real quick who they think the priority guys are. Do you think other teams are aware of the system in this level of depth? Obviously they know all the players but would it ever be the type of thing where they try to leverage this type of potential logjam to get one of these guys?
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 23, 2024 12:28:16 GMT -5
If you want a good laugh, go to Duran's thread when he was in Salem (high A at the time). It' all just BABIP. Spraying line drives all over the field has nothing to do with it. “keep your eye clear and hit 'em where they ain't” Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler Do you really want to play this game of bringing up old bad takes? That seems like a precarious position for you. Also, that’s not even that bad of a take about Duran, it’s not illogical to bet against guys being outliers, Duran just may be one. And that’s great! Given that, and the genuine developmental concerns that Duran had, I don’t think any skepticism was unwarranted. It just turned out to be unnecessary, and we can acknowledge that without crafting these arguments in hindsight to try to (unsuccessfully) make yourself look smarter for being optimistic about it.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 22, 2024 12:21:57 GMT -5
Man he is low on Honeycutt. Also the first I’ve seen Ryan Waldschmidt that high, I do like his profile.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 21, 2024 21:08:26 GMT -5
The Sox have a baseball movie on their hands with Booser already. If Penrod also made it to the bigs the same season? Someone smarter than I can write the script and bring them together in the Sox bullpen or something. Netflix be like gimme gimme. Maybe Netflix is injuring all of the team’s pitchers to get Booser and Penrod up
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 17, 2024 21:35:21 GMT -5
My extremely educated and informed take is that Marcelo Mayer looks too cool playing baseball to not pan out as a baseball player. MLB teams, I am available for hire.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 17, 2024 10:55:42 GMT -5
I wouldn't rely on 98.5 for MLB draft intel. I'm no expert, but that's a crazy top 5 I’m just spitballing here not having read the article or whatever but I think that’s a top 5 at pick 12, not a top 5 overall. Still a bit of a stretch, but makes more sense in that lens.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 15, 2024 13:27:38 GMT -5
Maybe it's just because as a non East Coaster I don't hate the Yankees as much as most of y'all do, but this board's collective obsession with Jones has always been weird to me. I think he's overrated for sure, but the appeal is also pretty obvious - when he hits ball, ball go fast and far. If you want to cherrypick stuff about 2023 whiff rates and standard deviations or whatever, more power to you, but pretending like there's not quite a lot to dream on with his package of tools is pretty intellectually dishonest. And again I don't think he should be the 15th overall prospect, but I also don't think the reason these outlets are ranking him that highly is because he's a Yankee or anything, that's just dumb tin foil hat stuff.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 15, 2024 12:36:50 GMT -5
I'd bet good money the first three picks this year are all pitchers to balance out the system. Breslow only sought pitchers in trades and I'd be shocked if he went away from this approach with his early draft picks this season. The perfect 1st round pick is one of the T4 college pitchers because they should be close to MLB ready within a year after Teel, Anthony and Meyer make their debut. If none of the T4 college pitchers are available, I can see them pivoting to an under slot college arm and drafting an over slot prep arm in the 2nd and 3rd I think that would be a losing bet, it would be a really bad idea IMO for the Sox to pigeonhole themselves into saying we're taking pitchers with our top 3 picks under any circumstances. I could see it happening if the board falls a certain way but it would be a poor idea for the org to force it and I have no reason to think that Breslow and Co. would operate this way. I'm also not sure I'd agree the system is all that unbalanced anymore, anyways. 4 of the top 10,13 of the top 30, and 31 of the top 60 are pitchers, so it's definitely a little hitter-oriented, but not extremely so. Also, when the Big Three inevitably graduate in the next year or so, you could make an argument the orientation tilts a little in the other direction. The headliners of the system are all hitters to be sure, but I don't think that's something you make such a narrow-minded decision on in terms of drafting.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 14, 2024 19:47:54 GMT -5
I’m against drafting Cam Smith. A 17.8% K% translates to mid 20s in pro ball and a .268 ISO at Florida State is nothing special at all. I have a hard time seeing his bat being good enough for 3B. Hes having a great year but his BABIP is out of control and he’s simply not the power hitter he’s made out to be in game. That feels like a whole hell of a lot of projection with very minimal information.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 12, 2024 11:02:37 GMT -5
I took a ride up to Orono yesterday to get eyes on U Maine 1st baseman Jeremiah Jenkins. He is a junior who I've seen ranked in the 350-400 range of this year prospects. He has back to back 20 hr seasons. He did not hit any dingers yesterday but did hit two laser shots to right center for a single and double. No exit velocity available. I talked to a long time fan who has been watching regularly since 79 and he says he has never seen a U Maine player hit the ball as hard, as consistently, as Jenkins does. Of course that does not carry the same weight as as a southern conference team, but we have had a few good pros go through the program including Mark Sweeney, Mike Bordick and recently Jeremy Pena. This guy explicitly said that Jenkins is a better hitter than Sweeney was. So, like his former team mate Quinn McDaniel last year (drafted by Giants), along with watching the Sox selections, I'll be watching for where Jenkins goes this year. Maybe even to the Sox in the 5-10 round range. That would be fun ! I’ve said this a couple times now but while you obviously don’t draft just for need, if you look at some of the guys playing first in the low minors these days I think it makes a lot of sense to target a guy like this in the middle rounds to get a guy that actually knows the position if nothing else.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 10, 2024 18:13:59 GMT -5
I know not a popular guy here but that swing fix for Vance Honeycutt over that roughly last 20 game stretch is really looking like the guy folks thought was a possible 1-1 guy. 2-2 tonight with 2hrs. One to right and a laser to left. Probably not our guy but trending up in his play. Only player in ACC history with over 50 hrs and 70sb Here’s the thing - if teams believe the swing change is legit, it seems like there’d be no chance he falls to 12. If he does fall to 12, it likely tells you teams aren’t buying it. Because yeah if he has even a 50 hit tool you can make a real case he’s 1-1 in this class.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 9, 2024 23:14:31 GMT -5
Jojo Ingrassia: 3IP 0H 0ER 1BB 8K (44 pitches, 31 strikes, 15 whiffs) Still only 21, super young for a relief-only college draftee
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 9, 2024 14:36:20 GMT -5
Counterpoint though.....if you're a good enough baseball player to win ROY, aren't you good enough to want to manipulate service time (add gain extra team control)? Well, I think we all (including me) forget that if a guy wins ROY or comes in second, he gets the full year of service time. That's the key thing to guard against manipulation of any player. The pick incentive is extra incentive for top guys. Given how hard it is to win ROY (or finish high enough in MVP voting), a team might be inclined to take its chances on a top guy not winning. Another thing that I think is also worth considering is that the service time considerations are not limited to the year in which that prospect is playing as a rookie, it's what the market for that player will look like at the end of their arb years. Manipulating service time with a guy like Mason Miller probably isn't going to be that worthwhile, you're not going to look to sign him to a megadeal for big years or big money. Same with a guy like Abreu, to a certain extent. But a prospect like, say, Jackson Holliday, who is in theory looking at a massive payday down the road, you're more incentivized to maximize savings wherever you can. Long story short I think the system is perfectly fine as is.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 9, 2024 13:30:46 GMT -5
Limiting it just the top prospects makes sense in that it's meant to protect them, but it honestly seems unnecessary. What's the harm in extending that same type of protection to all prospects, especially given that the top prospects are obviously the most likely to actually achieve the targets to actually trigger the rewards? Well I think the incentive exists because top prospects are much more likely to be victims of service time manipulation. A good, pertinent example of this would be that there was a pretty solid amount of discussion this past offseason on this board of what to do with Rafaela and the Opening Day roster from a service time perspective, whereas I don't think many of us, if any, were particular concerned about the service time implications of Abreu's arrival to the team. I think, to directly answer your question, "the harm" in extending it to all prospects is it completely misrepresents the point of the incentive.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 9, 2024 11:17:25 GMT -5
Nice to see that Monegro's injury didn't derail him for too long, hoping to see some really good strides from him this year. Also, it didn't 100% register with me that there are two guys in the system with the last name Asencio, so I thought they were pushing Vladimir real aggressively and it just went unnoticed lol To be clear, he wasn't injured. It wasn't clear if he was technically on the IL or dev list (I could've sworn I saw the former but he was clearly on the latter when he got sent to the FCL this morning), but he didn't come into camp as strong as they'd have liked shoulder-wise. Ah gotcha thanks for the clarification
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on May 9, 2024 10:59:23 GMT -5
Nice to see that Monegro's injury didn't derail him for too long, hoping to see some really good strides from him this year. Also, it didn't 100% register with me that there are two guys in the system with the last name Asencio, so I thought they were pushing Vladimir real aggressively and it just went unnoticed lol
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