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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 21:25:34 GMT -5
So they're 150k under before Riemer, and also with Nelly Taylor's bonus unknown.
Feels like we got a chance at one more guy? Could just be Riemer gets slot and Taylor cost $300k though They have $650k left for Riemer and Taylor's overage. Even if Taylor isn't over and Riemer gets Mike's $200k, I don't think $600k would be enough for Call. I think it's more likely this is an indication they gave Taylor some money. Radio silence from the TX HS kid?
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 18:34:42 GMT -5
How fast is Duran? Not asking rhetorically. Is he 80 speed? I think he was considered 70 out of college but he’s bulked up some, I am nowhere near good enough at this to give an accurate grade but I’d say he’s probably 60-65 that looks faster because 1. He hustles like crazy and 2. When you have a build like his and are moving fast you generally look faster.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 16:49:11 GMT -5
So if Teel hadn't dropped to #14....was Zanetello the underslot plan there for the Sox? Remember, he got invited to the draft itself so it sure seems like the Sox had him circled on their draft board far in advance. Adding one more thought. That's a big bonus for Zanetello....bigger than most of us thought on draft day although Mike was on to this figure recently. That said, it signals that the Red Sox love the player which in turn makes me excited based on their track record with HS players recently. Its a bigger bonus than any of our recent HS signees like Yorke, Romero, Anthony, and even Casas, with the only exception being of course Mayer. If they’re as right on his hit tool as they were on Anthony’s, the rest of the tools are there for that to look like a bargain. I’ve talked about how I’m more of a spread it out guy, but I certainly get why they’re taking the swing!
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 15:09:55 GMT -5
One other interesting thing on Tucker is apparently he got much more time (94 innings vs. 27) at short than in center in the MLB Draft League. I guess he did play the infield at NMJC, so nice to have that versatility. They are in love with positional versatility right now so this tracks. As discussed, the only non-C/1B in the system who don't play multiple positions are Mayer, Yorke, and Tyler Dearden (basically LF-only). I know you don’t draft for need but I was actually a little surprised they didn’t draft a Big Joe Davis type 1B-only guy just to fill in at the lower minors where it seems like guys are getting kinda shoehorned in.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 14:53:00 GMT -5
One other interesting thing on Tucker is apparently he got much more time (94 innings vs. 27) at short than in center in the MLB Draft League. I guess he did play the infield at NMJC, so nice to have that versatility.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 14:49:01 GMT -5
Drohan, Wikelman, Perales, Blalock, Bastardo, Liu, Fernandez and even Juan Daniel Encarnacion is a pretty silly number of pitchers with a non-zero chance of getting picked in the draft. Bastardo and Liu might seem like stretches but they're both in the top 1-2 percentile of swinging strike % this year and a team could be enticed to throw them in their bullpen. My guess is they maybe protect three (with Drohan, Wikelman, and Perales being the most likely) of those guys and leave us to sweat out the others. I probably have a higher estimation of Liu’s ability to stick in an MLB bullpen right now than I did with Ward at this time last year (though Ward more likely to start IMO), so yeah don’t think it’d be surprising at all if he was picked.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 14:47:45 GMT -5
Plugging that into Mike's projection would leave 500k to offer a day 3 guy Perhaps although I think there's a distinct possibility that Riemer gets slot or something close to slot. All that said, if the report is that Call got an overslot offer (I actually didn't read that myself but others did?), then my guess is that the Red Sox had the bonuses entirely mapped out for everyone at the conclusion of Day 2 and that the overslot offer remains. We're basically just waiting to see how it all gets divvied up. Anderson will probably be the dead giveaway - if he only gets $1 million as some have speculated is the low end of his range, then it’s probably pretty reasonable to expect something else is cooking.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 14:34:09 GMT -5
Per MLB Pipeline's tracker, Stanley Tucker signed for $100,000 Happy to have been wrong here, think there's probably more talent in the bat than he got to show at Texas A&M last year and he'll be really impactful in the field and on the bases.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 14:24:58 GMT -5
Keeping the hope alive! Assuming Zanatello/Anderson/Riemer all get the bonuses Mike projected, would imagine ~$300K surplus would be enough to get one of those high schoolers to bite, but who knows.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 12:33:42 GMT -5
Most outlets use intel from teams to help shape their rankings anyway, so I don’t see this as being much different than a scout raving about a prospect in Instructs or something. It’s a data point, and a valuable one.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 21, 2023 10:25:55 GMT -5
Some interesting rankings from Keith Law's Athletic post today on the top 60 prospects in baseball. Perhaps some unsurprising: Mayer (3) up very high, Anthony (45) making a huge leap after being unranked, Rafaela (48) just behind him. Worth noting: he has Teel at 50, which is certainly different than some other publications that didn't even have him on the top 100. Yorke and Bleis not listed, but Bonaci snuck into the honorable mentions. He's loved Teel for a long time, so that's not super shocking. Bonaci is certainly a surprise.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 21:46:52 GMT -5
Couple interesting bonuses from today:
- high school pitching prospects in the first round obviously have a low hit rate and I don’t advocate for it, but Noble Meyer for a million under slot feels like a pretty huge win for Miami
- BC’s first baseman got a slightly overslot deal in the fifth, and he’s certainly good but even for a junior, I just typically don’t expect college first basemen to be overslot kinda guys. Interesting to me, at least. Whether or not it’s a trend, it feels anecdotally that guys are getting closer to slot than normal.
- Khristian Curtis is another college guy who got huge money past the tenth round. Good for him, I talked to him for a bit when I was in Omaha last year (he sat in front of me with a few other A&M guys that were hurt so not on the travel roster), nice kid and would’ve really helped A&M this past year had he stayed.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 21:22:28 GMT -5
How do you “outperform your stats”? Also let’s maybe let him get to 100 AAA PA’s before we start citing his slash lines, he’s on a tear right now but it’s fairly obviously not sustainable if the approach hasn’t improved. That's what they said about him since last year. This is nothing new. If we're using BB rates, slash lines are equally fair game. Walk rates and slash lines are absolutely not equally predictive, but to each their own.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 21:21:52 GMT -5
I don't want to be a total buzzkill on Rafaela as I do think what he's doing is obviously exciting, and I know by no means are they identical players, but it's worth noting that JBJ hit really well in AAA as well before coming up (.275/.374/.469, 39 XBH in 80 games), while walking way more and striking out less. Again they're not 1-for-1 comparisons but just citing a slash line as evidence that he might be a better hitter than the scouting report indicates is only taking a very, very small portion of the picture. At the end of the day the approach concerns are going to manifest themselves at the MLB level and, likely, soon in AAA as well. Professional pitchers at this level of the game are too good to not take advantage of attacking a batter who will offer at bad pitches. It is super super encouraging that despite that Rafaela is capable of impacting the ball to such an extent, and for that reason I don't think he will perpetually be an offensive black hole, meaning he'll add more than enough value at the plate to make up for his deficiencies there and allow the glove to play. But I think anyone expecting him to be anything better than streaky at best is ignoring the obvious red flags that will be exposed sooner or later.
You can still take a lot away from this stretch, I'm not saying you can't. I just think that contextualizing it properly is acknowledging this is probably not who he is. He's striking out more than he has in 4 years and hitting for more power than he ever has, to use your words "that doesn't just happen", not at this level. It's a fantastic hot stretch, but it's gonna take a much larger sample to convince me that it's more than that given what he's shown in his time in the minors to date.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 21:09:19 GMT -5
Pedroia walked a lot more I don’t think people want him to walk as much as they don’t want him to get himself out on pitchers pitches off the plate that nobody can drive- and him walking shows he isn’t doing that And a current .319/1.025 says otherwise. Stats are just like prospects, they're probabilities which are affected by other factors. They're not guarantees. Rafaela has out preformed the stats at every level. That doesn't just happen. I think people are looking at tools and ignoring skills and I certainly don't want to cut down his aggressiveness.. How do you “outperform your stats”? Also let’s maybe let him get to 100 AAA PA’s before we start citing his slash lines, he’s on a tear right now but it’s fairly obviously not sustainable if the approach hasn’t improved. I'd also argue that "tools" and "skills" are the exact same thing.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 20:49:03 GMT -5
Stephen Scott deserves some love. His home run tonight gives him a .308 batting average and .943 OPS in his first 21 games in AAA. He’s walked more than he’s struck out since his promotion (rocking a 10% K rate in Worcester). The man just hits. Defense is another story, but he could be a decent bat first backup catcher in the big leagues. Sounds like Alfaro lol
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 16:26:33 GMT -5
Am I crazy for thinking the Ohtani trade return might not be the “take the farm system” level haul that everyone expects it to be? I mean he’ll still get a LOT but given the extreme risk that he’s a rental and the lack of leverage the Angels have with the fact that it seems more and more unlikely he re-signs by the day (seriously, as much as it sucks for them I think they kinda have to trade him at this point), I can see a scenario in which the market is not as hot as his talent would warrant. I mean not to open old wounds but I think Red Sox fans are plenty familiar with superstars fetching a diminished trade return due to similar factors.
Maybe Ohtani is the exception and not the rule but if I’m a team I’m certainly bringing up the idea that the Angels would do well to recoup something for him at this point.
(I also think moving Trout should be a real consideration for them but I probably just need to loosen my tin foil hat a bit)
ADD: not saying all this to justify the Sox being involved, I still think a Sox-oriented package would start with Casas and Mayer but just generalizing
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 15:23:50 GMT -5
I'm begging you: please let this go. Or as a compromise: how about at least waiting until you've been proven right before repeatedly bringing up how right you were about this?
In the meantime, it's just obtuse to call Blaze Jordan a "future org guy." I'm not even that high on him, but come on. You've made it clear many, many times that you place zero value on prospects outside the top 5 or 10 or whatever. So you can crow about how you could have told Bloom that Jordan is worthless; but you also would have gladly traded away Winckowski, Crawford, Murphy, and Wong - or never acquired them in the first place. And maybe you would've traded Bello, Duran, and Rafaela in 2019 when they were in the 15-20 range. Or Devers in 2014 when he was in that range. Or Mookie Betts, or Xander Bogaerts, or Jackie Bradley...
It's not that I don't value them. I read the projections on the site. I love when a guy overachieves and defies the analytics and predictive odds. But those predictive odds are still right the vast majority of the time. Citing the predictive odds is extremely ironic given that this incredibly, um, odd hyperfixation you have is with an MLB Draft pick, which is not exactly a high-odds proposition in itself. Granted you actually have an example of a player you'd have preferred at that spot as opposed to just complaining about the pick into the void but still, has it not occurred to you once to try to understand the pick and reconcile that within your mind as opposed to continually bring up these tangents? I mean you are more than welcome to do whatever you'd like with your life, but I feel like, given the option to do the thing that a rational and healthy adult would do and whatever it is you're doing, I'd probably take the former.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 14:51:55 GMT -5
I am OUTRAGED that the Red Sox didn't make what would in retrospect prove to be the most optimal selection in every round in every draft. I am MOLLIFIED by the fact that about a dozen teams that picked in front of the Red Sox made a worse selection than Nick Yorke, plus we got Blaze Jordan in the bargain.
Nick Yorke .269 .351 .438 .789 Below-average defender at one position. Blaze Jordan 15th ranked Sox Prospect who has the likely projection of a cup of coffee guy. Pete Crow Armstrong* .283 .359 .506 .865 Plus defender I don't see how Blaze Jordan, future org guy, is a "plus we got." *Will not let this go until Nick Yorke proves he's a better player at the MLB-level, esp when the "Look who we got with our below slot savings guy!" will more than likely be no more than a bat-only cup-of-coffee dude. Then Mr. Bloom can say he drafted better than what I advised him to do and I will say I was sadly, dejectedly and foolishly wrong. All that and they probably could've gotten Yorke later and the dollars would've still evened out. I've disagreed with this line of thinking pretty heavily in the past, still do, but I am pretty sure the last sentence has been "proven" to be objectively incorrect by the retrospective reporting that there were teams on Yorke in the early/mid second.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 12:40:00 GMT -5
There's actually probably some merit to an "insulting" offer in this case. If he gets offended, the worst case is he declines the QO next year and you get semi-fair compensation for losing a pretty good player. Honestly, if I'm ranking scenarios that benefit the Red Sox the most, I'd probably say (Trade for a good return > Declines QO and signs elsewhere > Extended) anyway - though I'd still try to extend him. Best case is he accepts an insulting offer a you have him on a surplus value contract. For every Bogaerts and Lester you may run into a Ronald Acuna here and there, as I would've thought his camp would view the contract he signed as insulting. Now, I think 3/30 is probably below insulting given the year he's had and how consistent he's been, but you can make the argument that this is the exact situation in which a lowball offer is actually a good strategy. Verdugo would never accept a one year deal no matter what unless he misses all of 2024 for some major injury. So I don’t see any merit in doing that. I think it will boil down to if they think he’s going to get better or if he has plateaued. If it’s flat or downhill from here, I don’t see the point of extending him (and I like him & appreciate his clutch hitting). I’d be kicking the tires on moving him personally. There are teams like the Reds who could use him and have prospects that would interest the Red Sox, and the Red Sox would still have have Refsnyder, Duvall, Duran, Yoshida, and maybe Reyes for outfield depth afterwards. If no team wants to pony up, no need to move him, but he’s worth way more than Duvall and the difference between those 2 players over 2 months probably wouldn’t equate to much. Wait, I’m confused. If he’s not going to accept a one year deal no matter what, wouldn’t that be MORE incentive to offer him the QO?
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 12:03:34 GMT -5
There's actually probably some merit to an "insulting" offer in this case. If he gets offended, the worst case is he declines the QO next year and you get semi-fair compensation for losing a pretty good player. Honestly, if I'm ranking scenarios that benefit the Red Sox the most, I'd probably say (Trade for a good return > Declines QO and signs elsewhere > Extended) anyway - though I'd still try to extend him. Best case is he accepts an insulting offer an you have him on a surplus value contract. For every Bogaerts and Lester you may run into a Ronald Acuna here and there, as I would've thought his camp would view the contract he signed as insulting.
Now, I think 3/30 is probably below insulting given the year he's had and how consistent he's been, but you can make the argument that this is the exact situation in which a lowball offer is actually a good strategy.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 11:29:25 GMT -5
Some fun numbers that don't mean a whole lot but also might mean something. By my count, the Red Sox have tied for the 3rd most games against teams >.500, and the fourth best record against those teams (the only team that appears at or ahead of them on both in Baltimore). There's very much a "plays to the level of their competition" aspect with this year's team, which on one hand is very frustrating, but on the other hand you can use that as a compelling argument for them to buy lol.
They are truly baseball's Rorschach Test, whatever you want to see in them you will be able to find evidence of.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 11:17:50 GMT -5
Thinking Zanetello is going to be more like $2.8 million. But like Ian & Chris said on the podcast, wouldn't e surprised if Teel came in at $4 million, wouldn't be surprised if it was $4.5 million. Antonio Anderson could be $1m, could be $1.5m or more. Duffy is probably in the $400k to $500k range. Best guess is that Campbell is slot and Reimer is under slot, but those are still guesses without any actual info behind them. Those ranges leave some variability for what happens elsewhere. This seems logical for Zanetello. Nationals signed Morales for 2.6 mil at pick 40. One would conjecture that is the number they were willing to give Nazzan as well. Clearly Boston went past it. Did Zanatello say the Nats were offering overslot as well? I think there's a scenario in which they may have valued Zanatello slot/underslot > Morales overslot > Zanatello overslot. Not saying that's likely, just pointing out another hypothetical.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 20, 2023 8:18:41 GMT -5
Hearing rumblings that Zanetello's bonus might be on the higher side of the projections listed here, maybe higher. Are you out on the idea that any of the post-R10 high schoolers are feasible, then?
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jul 19, 2023 18:05:20 GMT -5
9 games to go until the trade deadline, currently 2.5 out. That the Red Sox will go 5-4 and tread water has been carved into history for time immemorial. Not only will they go 5-4 but they’ll achieve it by going 1-2 against the Mets, 2-0 against the Braves, 2-1 against the Giants and then drop a game to the Mariners
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