MackowiakYakYak

Can’t disagree that Tampa Bay is the best run front office with some of the worst business-side operations. Can’t disagree the Dodgers made their roster the best we’ve seen in a decade by getting big free agents/trade+signs. However. This Dodgers roster is elite in a way none of the high spenders have been in recent memory, and it’s all because the Dodgers spend money AND supplement the free agents with great homegrown talent. The Yankees had been routine #1 payroll and are always top 3, but they haven’t made a roster as terrifying as the Dodgers in a long time. I listed a lot of the guys the Dodgers have developed earlier in the thread. Their core C, 1B, 3B, SS and CF all developed into the players they are with the Dodgers. That doesn’t include Taylor, Lux, and Beaty who are all incredibly solid players. For starting pitchers they’ve developed Kershaw, Buehler, and Urias. The rest of their homegrown pitching includes Kenley, Gonsolin, Bickford, Dustin May, Brusdal Graterol, and a whole bunch of young depth guys with a bit of upside. Sure any GM could make a great team knowing they can spend $250+ million every year but the Dodgers have done it better than anyone else in recent memory.

All I’m saying is that the Dodgers shouldn’t be hated quite a strongly as the Yankees are hated, at least not by fans of a team in a different league. Unlike the recent Cubs, Red Sox, Yankees, Giants, and Cardinals teams (some of the recent top spenders) the Dodgers have created an absolute monster of a team that legitimately has a chance of winning multiple championships in the next few years

You can’t compare the rosters 1 to 1 because you’d be taking the Dodgers team building process over the last ten years and then saying “yeah but let’s suddenly cut off $100m of players on their payroll.” The Sox have spent 4 years building their roster with the idea that they’d spend around $150m while the Dodgers have been doing that while saying they’ll spend whatever it takes. Despite how much they could lean on money, the Dodgers have still been very successful in developing their talent. Plus in the last few years they haven’t been just questionably throwing around money, they’ve been picking up the right free agents pretty often. They are a very good organization. We don’t know what their team would look like if their owners only wanted to spend $150m a year, but the core of their organization seems solid

I don’t know if I judge the Dodgers’ spending the same way as the Yankees though. The Dodgers have a great core of guys that they’ve developed (Buehler, Urias, Jansen, Seager, Smith, J Turner, Taylor, and so on). They scout, draft, trade, and then develop pretty well. Meanwhile the Yankees bought nearly their entire roster of pitchers and you also don’t see the Yanks turning many young players’ careers around. Without the excessive money the Dodgers are still a competitive team every year. Without their excessive money the Yankees would look like the Mets

It’s amazing that the Dodgers need to win a game where there’s at least a 30% chance they will lose and are still favorites to win the World Series

That’s a whole lot of if, but it wouldn’t be much more travel than a trip to Miami. I’d imagine they could draw better attendance numbers than most teams but who knows how much money there is (merchandise, tv, etc.) in the Cuban/Caribbean market

Here is the data on sprint speed for anyone interested

Abreu definitely is. Abreu is a shade under league average and Yaz is in the bottom handful of players

I don’t disagree except that to maintain an outlier babip it helps to have fewer balls being put in play. People were throwing around him hitting .350 so I wanted to talk about what it might take for him to produce a .350 season. Completely agree that creating more walks often leads to more strikeouts and therefore a lower average

Robert’s improvement on Ks from 32% to 20% has been a pleasant surprise but everyone needs to slow down on talk about hitting .350. If he had enough plate appearances to qualify his .422 babip would be the highest of single season babip of any player post-WWII. For comparison Rod Carew holds the record with a babip of .408 in 1977. Interestingly, one of the keys of consistently hitting for elite batting average is walking. If you’re walking it decreases the total number of balls in play over a season and keeps regression from kicking in. Robert is walking half as much this season as last (8% to 4%) so I wouldn’t start projecting historic seasons until he shows he can create an elite approach to hitting.

This year seems especially interesting because of how few Sox minor leaguers had breakout seasons after low-A in previous years

11 games left after today. I prefer the approach of doing everything possible to keep arms rested while giving your playoff hitters the opportunity to get consistency in their reps

I doubt Leury would be someone they’d easily let go. The Sox reward their character guys and his versatility suits us better than most teams because of how many players we have locked into corner infield and outfield spots. How many teams are 1) competing where they’d want to play a vet over trying out someone with upside and control 2) as short on middle infield and corner OF defense where they’d pay much for a below average hitter

Don’t know about that. He’s been league average or better in K% at each level

It’s easy to see Keuchel having a bounce back season. I wouldn’t bet on him going back to being a 3.50 ERA pitcher, but if he finds his control again he could be in the low 4s. He’s still throwing the same pitches he was the last 4 or 5 years. His velocity hasn’t changed but his control absolutely has. If he gets his pitches landing where he wants them then he could be an effective starter next year

With Boras clients I think we put the blame for being “greedy” on the wrong person. Players that want to get paid are going to seek out Boras because he will get them paid. If an offer comes through Boras has to show Carlos and Boras can advise against signing it but the decision will still come down to Carlos. You don’t become the most powerful sports agent by messing with your clients or not putting their interests first. Maybe in the last few years Carlos learned the value of hard work and friendship. He signs with the Sox for $40/4. Or maybe he says “Scott, I know I can do it. How many years should I take on a contract so I can earn the most over my career?” Boras runs all the calculations and says if you sign for one year, play healthy, and enter free agency as a 29 year old #1 SP you’ll make $X million. If you play healthy for two years it’ll be $X million. I think it’s impossible to guess how much Carlos will get paid. He could sign 1 year to play for the next big contract. He could try to max out the total dollars and term on the contract. He could play it somewhat safe on a 2/3 year deal where he can get paid again after. Who knows which teams would be interested for each type of contract and how a qualifying offer might impact that.

Cesar has been at his worst with the Sox but he’s normally a solid starter. I want both and give Leury some starts at 2B when he’s hotter than Cesar. Spend the money elsewhere

From first glance it looks like our entire top 30 is completely homegrown. I think this is the most interesting set of draft and international prospects the Sox have had in a long time. The homegrown 2018 midseason top 10 would be: Madrigal, Collins, Alec Hansen, Adolfo, Burdi, Luis Gonzalez, Burger, Steele Walker, Jordan Stephens, and Seby Zavala. Thats a lot of position-locked talent without high ceilings. On our current rankings we’ve got three plausible MLB shortstops (although Kath probably moves off), a possible CF with pop, four starters with mid-rotation upside, and two corner infield/outfield MLB-ready sluggers. It’s obviously flawed to look at old prospects with hindsight and compare them to the current moment’s hottest prospects, but I think this comparison makes it obvious how limiting our old draft and international strategies were.

TLR needs to manage the bullpen usage though. He needs to consider how their arm is feeling, how much rest they’ve had, when they might be needed in the next few days, and what the matchups look like. I’m sure I’m missing a few more details but it’s not as straightforward as telling guys to go out and pitch. If you’re putting good relievers in bad situations then they are going to look like bad relievers

I disagree that anything dramatic needs to be done. The perennially terrible teams are the ones that struggle to identify and develop their talent so when they get a good player they don’t have a full team to field around them. Pittsburgh can never field a complete roster of competitive players because so few of their prospects pan out while in the organization. Colorado, before trading Arenado, spent $250m+ in free agency to get negative value out of those players. Tanking happens because an organization is bad and can’t develop the talent. Cleveland, Oakland, and Tampa Bay have been competitive while being incredibly cheap. Teams like the Angels, Rockies, and most of the NL East have been expensive at times while not having much to show for it. The Sox post-05 until the rebuild were a fairly expensive team but had nothing to show for it because they were poorly run. Flawed organizations make bad teams and require tanking. Just look at the Cubs compared to the Cardinals.

To start the year the Minnesota and Cleveland were both supposed to be competitive. Minnesota was spending and Cleveland was doing their constant cheap retooling. At the start of the season it was a three horse race and the Sox and Twins were 1 and 2 but people thought Cleveland could be sneaky good. Then when you’re half way done with the season and locked out of a playoff spot it makes sense to trade veterans for future pieces. That isn’t tanking from either of those teams. Detroit and Kansas City are both coming out of their tanks. Detroit has been bad since 2017 and Kansas City since 2018. I think they’re bad teams that aren’t ready to compete, but they aren’t dropping the best talent from their roster to become good in the distant future. They are trying to be good soon.

He’s competent in the corner outfield and 1B. I don’t think we’ve seen enough to say he can pass as a 3B or 2B at the major league level. LF/RF/1B while hitting righty doesn’t get you paid necessarily, which is great for us.

Now with a full stadium the crowd mics can’t handle it. You could hear them distort on the Robert homer and the late inning strike outs

I think it’s possible he shows more pop than he did earlier in his career. A lot of the discussion around him at the time was whether he would change his swing to lift the ball more, and he finally made that change in the last year or two. Still I wouldn’t project him to have all that power immediately and he might have to adjust his swing if pitchers find his weak spots, but it’s a good looking swing and he’s worth getting excited about. I’d want to see how well he can hold down an outfield spot as well. He looks fit and like he has decent speed so maybe he can become a legit bat-first outfielder and put up a few 2 war seasons

It’s hard to argue with what everyone else is saying. It’s great that Cease and Kopech are well worth considering over Giolito, but Giolito when he’s on and zoning out the world gives me more confidence than those two. I could see Kopech or Cease continuing their great years and making this an even more difficult conversation