maxjusttyped

It'll be nice once the farm system reaches a point where the Sox can make trades for good players without touching the major league roster. A huge issue with deals like this is that the win now player (particularly in the Kimbrel case) might not even be better than the guy you're trading away, without getting into long-term value in the future.

Teams, cheap ones especially, place a ton of value on years of team control. Whether they do it too much is a different conversation, but Sheets has 5 years of control left and he's already a low end plug & play option at 1B. An organization like Oakland will place a lot of value on that.

The smartest organizations have been developing versatility in their players for years. Very few, if any top prospects in the Dodgers, Rays etc system come up playing only 1 position. Wander was the best prospect on the planet, a no doubt SS, and the Rays still frequently moved him around the diamond. I think there is definitely extra value (probably a pretty significant amount) in positional versatility that doesn't show up in WAR. This is why Bryant is the most appealing FA on the board to me, by a pretty significant margin.

If that's true, then well... not offering him the qualifying offer certainly was a choice.

It's paywall'd, but yes, here you go. https://theathletic.com/2853258/2021/09/28/sarris-he-hits-he-pitches-but-shohei-ohtani-also-frees-up-an-extra-roster-spot-how-much-value-does-that-offer/

Reading this again just made me sick to my stomach. good lord.

He did. Their editor or whatever should have caught that.

I wonder how long we'll have to wait for teams/players/agents to act like they don't have deals ready to go

I'm as optimistic on Kopech's career as basically anyone. On a per start basis, I think there's a good chance he's the best SP in the rotation. But anyone expecting him to follow the career trajectory of the best pitcher any of us has ever seen on the White Sox is wishful thinking. People are also operating under the assumption that Gio, Lynn, & Cease will all take 32 turns through the rotation each. Which would be great, but the odds are guys will get hurt and miss more starts than we're expecting. Keuchel is fine in a depth role but just because he's making big money this year shouldn't guarantee him a rotation spot. If David Price could open last season in the Dodgers bullpen, there's no reason Keuchel can't do that with the Sox.

Whether Keuchel opens the season in the rotation or not, he is still going to start more games and pitch more innings than any of us want. People underestimate how much pitching depth is required to get through a season. Why make plan A Keuchel in your rotation when you don't have to?

I understand your perspective, there is a chance you're right. I think Keuchel being left off the playoff roster was an indication they aren't going to handle him any differently than his performance warrants just because he's on an expensive contract. Maybe if the Sox had more upper minors pitching depth ready to break through, but he & Lopez are really the only guys in the organization you can feel are better than replacement level after the big 4 and I think they'll know that isn't enough pitching depth for a world series contending team.

The rotation isn't full. The average team uses like 10 starting pitchers in a given season. We all feel good about Gio, Lynn, Cease, & Kopech. But there's no scenario where Kopech is going to pitch ~180 innings next year. He will get skipped and have short starts. Guys will get hurt. Keuchel and Lopez are both best suited starting the season in the bullpen. Particularly when there's really no credible upper minors pitching depth behind those guys.

This is where the Sox are really going to feel having a bad farm system. Good pitchers (or just players, generally) with >3 years of team control are probably unattainable unless Vaughn or Crochet are put in the deal.

Montas would be my favorite of the A's SP's because he has an extra year of team control, but I'm not sure the Sox could land him with Sheets as a center piece of that deal.

The players are all comparable enough where I'd default back to Bryant because of positional versatility. I think being able to play LF, RF, CF (he'd be overextended here but he did play over 100 innings in CF last season), 3B, & 1B at a star caliber level gives him value that isn't reflected in WAR. In a lot of ways, he is a 2022 version of Ben Zobrist. I know this might seem like a stretch, but given how willing Bryant has been to play other positions, I think he could likely be passable at 2B if a team had to start playing him there in a pinch. "In 2018, Doug Fearing, former Dodgers head of research and development and current head of Zelus Analytics, penned an academic piece about the value of versatility to a roster. He focused on Ben Zobrist in that paper, but his findings presaged Chris Taylor’s importance to the Dodgers. By trying to “quantify the impact of flexibility on team and individual performance and explore the player chains that arise when injuries occur,” the paper showed that “top teams can attribute at least one to two wins per season to flexibility alone, generally as a result of long subchains in the infield or outfield.” I found this quote, from an Eno Sarris article last year, interesting and it's stuck with me ever since.

Semien taking such a massive leap defensively after leaving was a brutal look for the organization. Ron Washington made it sound like he retaught him how to play defense. But I think the Sox have progressed a lot from that point.

I think his offensive ceiling is very high and he's an ideal fit for this lineup. But ultimately you can only have so many 1B/DH/corner OF types on one roster.

Maybe the A's will fix Sheets' defense like they did with Semien. 🙂

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but Sheets being involved in a trade for one of the Oakland SP's would make a lot of sense. He's a viable, cheap alternative since it seems like a given they'll deal Olson.

Eloy's defense metrics have always been better than you'd expect. I don't think it's his bad defense that makes him unplayable out there, but rather the injury risk he causes for himself and anyone that comes in his vacinity because he's so clumsy out there.

And he still had more outfield collisions with the wall or other players than AV did playing out there all year. It's not just that Eloy is bad on defense, but he is a danger to himself and others while he's out there too.

He is a PR outlet for the Sox. I've learn to live with it, but you have to take everything he writes/reports with a massive grain of salt.

Counting on Engel to be anything more than a 4th outfielder feels like a big stretch, for a variety of reasons.

I don't want bad outfield defense either, but if the Sox are going to lock themselves into it, doing so on cheaper guys like Rosario is preferable to me than spending up for Schwaber or Castellanos.