Jake

Houser has to go, but it's not exactly shocking that no relief pitcher has been traded. They're all bad and mostly rather short on talent. Few if any are pending FA. No urgency, no value. Grant Taylor obviously an exception on the value/talent part, but would be a weird time to trade him as well.

Return for Mullins seems quite light

The always-bad Luis Robert Jr.

Idle thought: seems that the Getz administration does not do much leaking

Yes (this isn't a comment on whether it would be right or wrong, which I haven't really thought about)

Get back to me when the butthole accounts start posting

I don't think there's any need to overanalyze the headline claim here. I'm sure they like Houser more than Civale. I like a Ferrari better than a Corolla. But I know which one I'm more likely to buy. This just tells us that the Red Sox don't like the price the Sox are setting for Houser.

The only thing that could happen at this deadline to make me think Getz is completely clueless is if Houser isn't moved. I'm not very comfortable holding on to LouBob but the potential upside of trading him seems so small that I can at least see the logic of holding on especially if ownership has signaled comfort with his option.

FWIW, Colson has never really had big lefty/righty splits.

I still have a hard time seeing the Sox pay him $20M next year unless he finishes the year completely on fire

Yeah tried to do a quick fix on that double negative

Mark Feinsand just reported on air on MLB Network that it's looking increasingly unlikely that LouBob is traded today

Didn't give up much there, although I'm not seeing much info on the talent level of the 16 year old pitcher. Gomez was an interesting-ish prospect before falling on his face in A-ball. Hitting pretty well in AA now and just 21 years old but probably not a ton of upside.

Remarkable deal for the A's, in my opinion. I get the logic for the Padres but I'd guess most of the league is wondering what the hell they are up to

Wait too long and you end up lacking leverage

I think Houser should have legitimate value. 1. He has a long track of competent pitching in the major leagues. Career 4.00 ERA. It's not like he's never been able to get people out before and suddenly figured it out. 2. The underlying metrics for Houser this season look rock solid even if not on the Cy Young level that his ERA suggests. His FIP is 3.29, xERA is 3.96. 3. The improvement in results relative to his recent past is explainable by an uptick in his stuff. Most obvious is that he's gained 2 mph on his fastball. His changeup and slider also have significantly different shapes than before. He's a different pitcher than 2024 rather than just 2024 + luck.

Okay, I'll settle for Marcelo Mayer rather than Roman Anthony then

Sosa would be a shock because why would a rebuilding team trade one of their present-day best performers who is 25 and has 4 years of control left? Strikes me as unlikely that a team would offer something that makes sense (basically either a high upside minor leaguer without a ton of risk or a Sosa-like major leaguer at a different position).

Yeah it's part of the reason I wanted to make the post, TBH. Older guys, especially ones we acquire as free agents, aren't ones you assume you have control over going forward. But Tauchman is an exception (as is Gilbert and some others). Double checking now, I think Altavilla also has a couple years or arbitration remaining (Cot's and FanGraphs seem to differ on this). FWIW, I don't know what a reasonable estimate of Tauchman's cost in arbitration will be but I think Sox would almost certainly be crazy not to tender him a contract.

I think Houser and Robert are the only must-move pieces today. Tauchman has another year of control. I'm not sure if you could even get anyone to pay Civale's salary, let alone get a player back for him. Somebody could have interest in Tyler Alexander, who will be a free agent, but you're not getting anything back for him — maybe somebody on the verge of being removed from a team's 40-man. Same for Dan Altavilla although I think he would have less value than Alexander. I guess I'd listen on Michael A. Taylor, another pending free agent, but again it would be hard to get anything for him. Have to weigh the costs of making the MLB team really, really miserable for the rest of the season at some point. Everyone else on the roster is under team control at least through next season which reduces any urgency to move them. Many of these relatively older guys in the pen (e.g. Gilbert, Booser) are actually pre-arbitration and can stick around for a while.

I'm thinking Mets just see him as way too good for a Robert rental.

If we're looking for power, maybe they can send us that Sheets kid

Load up with tiny guys to take advantage of robo-umps

Lenyn getting positive reinforcement for bad behavior today LOL

I"m not as down on Luisangel as others. I can see why you'd hold out for more if you're Getz, but if it's Luisangel or nothing, I happily take Luisangel. Floor is probably relatively high given the speed and glove — worst case is you have a pinch runner and glove guy. He's only 23 years old so I think there could be room to grow at the plate. He has flashed pretty good bat speed in the majors which suggests there could be a little more power potential to tap into than you would think for such a little guy without much past evidence of power hitting. I also scratch my head at the developmental trajectory. When he first got to AA at age 20, he struggled over a month-ish of playing time. He came back the next season into a relatively high end prospect status before getting traded and having a slow finish to the year. Mets promoted him to AAA to start 2024 and he hit poorly...so they have largely had him on the MLB team since. I like to be realistic so when a guy looks like crap for a full AAA season, the most likely reason is that he's hit his limit. That being said, it's no surprise that it's been more of the same at the MLB level. Sox could afford to be more patient and perhaps get him to try lifting the ball a bit — there's some Lenyn Sosa to his profile as a hitter if he can quit pounding it into the ground like Lenyn learned to do.