Jake

To be fair, Noah Schultz doesn't throw with much extension. One of those recent prospect rankings (Law?) cites it as a deficit to his profile.

I have a hard time believing Boston is going to salary dump a guy who was regarded as a top 10 prospect in MLB just a year ago

Abreu and Rafaela are both very good. Rafaela is really not Getz's "type"; takes horrifically bad at bats. Abreu is the more likely target, I think. I don't know what the Sox could give them that would make sense for both sides. Hard for me to imagine Getz giving up something really valuable for a guy who already has 2 years of service time.

Quero hit 17 HR in 111 games as a 19 year old and 16 HR (mostly in Birmingham) in 98 games as a 21 year old. I suspect his power outage has a strong mental component, letting the ball get very deep and taking a contact-oriented pass at it because that was the most comfortable way for him to deal with the very talented pitching he faced. But sometimes it can be as simple as giving yourself permission to start attacking the ball out front. I have a little bit of optimism for Quero just because he's flashed that power before and frankly he doesn't need to do a lot more to be a super useful player.

Wouldn't make any sense to give up talent for Hicks. Same with Sandoval. And Bello is too good to make sense...you wouldn't want to give up the talent that he should cost, given that it's asinine to acquire a veteran MLB pitcher on a long-term deal when you're far from contention. Bello trade is the kind of thing you'd do in a year or two when your strengths and weaknesses are clear and you're willing to gamble a little bit to shore up the rotation.

He was training at Davis Martin's ranch earlier in the offseason: https://www.instagram.com/p/DRfcE0uEaC9/?img_index=1

You're right regarding R5, I was mixing up their names. It's Alberto I think they are more likely to drop (although you could argue that Alberto may be a little more MLB-ready).

For me, part of the calculus is whether I think they are going to get claimed. I would guess neither Bush nor Berroa would given their continuing rehab and already-fringey status. Of course, they might choose to sign as a MiLB free agent elsewhere regardless. My thought process on Paez is that I'm pessimistic about both R5 guys sticking so maybe I'll just rip the band-aid off now. But I do think there's a decent argument for getting a look at the kid first if you can help it.

Bryan Hudson, Ky Bush, Jedixson Paez, Prelander Berroa, Bryan Ramos, Tyler Gilbert would be my long shortlist for guys to cut to make room for Seranthony.

Always catches me off guard when people don't have Braden Montgomery as the top position player in the system. Which isn't a criticism of Bonemer, FWIW

Poor AAA production is why I said I think he was rushed to MLB. Sometimes that happens because the scouts have decided the guy is going to have .650 OPS no matter the level, but sometimes it means a guy is simply being rushed. Of course I don't know that you can fix a guy being rushed by continuing to throw him to the wolves, so maybe luxury utility player is all he will ever be.

I think there is potentially more than meets the eye with Acuna. He was clearly rushed to MLB IMO and that can make the development trajectory a little wonky or at least less predictable. He showed a profound lack of power production in MLB last year. Yet I can see on Statcast that he has some seriously respectable bat speed. In his debut he was moving the bat at the Soto/Springer/Rooker/Tatis tier of bat speed. It dropped a tick last year along with his production. I have a feeling that he was getting a message about plate discipline or contact that was not resonating and it led to him allowing the ball to get deep on him and swinging a relatively flat bat. I think these are the marks of a player in survival mode. Maybe he'll never get out of it. In spite of absolutely putrid production in MLB last year, he still had a positive WAR in both major systems for calculating WAR because he's such an asset on defense and on the basepaths. So you can perceive a kind of high floor here as an overall baseball player despite the floor being clearly rather low at the plate. I'm envisioning a sort of Adam Engel/Leury Garcia hybrid. But if you could get him swinging the bat differently there might be more in the tank. He just doesn't pull or elevate at all. Some guys don't do that because it's hard to do it. But I'm not against seeing what he's got. This isn't like saying you want to see if Chase Meidroth can start hitting for big power if he just starts turning and burning...the Meidroths of the world (to be clear, I love the guy) don't move the bat fast enough to hit the ball hard consistently. Acuna has that physical raw power ability that makes me wonder if lightning might strike. Of course, I am prepared for the reality of a lot of chopped ground balls.

If Getz was crazy for picking up the option then he can't also be stupid for getting a couple pieces in return for LouBob without paying LouBob any of that supposedly ridiculous money. Anyway, Sox can now take this money and work on finding an outfielder!

Not a single one of those pitchers seems very interesting to me at all. Why would we give the Reds $10M and a real live MLB player for even all three?

This should be fun. Low downside, medium upside is how I look at it. $34M is chump change and not going to affect anything long term even if Murakami goes full 2011 Adam Dunn. Of course, if he's great, he's going to take off before the Sox have a real team. But that's a trade chip for you. His manager in Japan was Shingo Takatsu, by the way. Maybe Mr. Zero put in a good word.

Not really seeing anything concrete tying the Sox to him. That said, if they spent 5 years, $80M I'd say why the hell not. It represents trying to win a little bit, which I appreciate. He's a young player. And if it completely flops, it's not an amount of money that kills you in the long run.

I also have a feeling the Sox won't be keeping both of these guys.

FanGraphs on Paez:

Never a ton of leverage for the college guys really. And this kid is supposed to be a high-makeup type who won't want to put the screws to people over a marginal pay gain. I think as long as the Sox don't try to lowball, shouldn't be a signability concern.

Perfect time for Sox to move is before the top of the market is resolved as long as Fairbanks is willing to play ball

FanGraphs had projected him to get 2 years, $16M. I'd do that. Downside risk is minimal, could make the team more watchable, might give you a trade chip. Sox don't have a lot of young bullpen arms to make space for.

Baty isn't exactly close to FA, but I wonder whether Getz would want to take someone with "only" 4 seasons before FA as the centerpiece of a deal for Robert.

Ponce is hard to comp too, I think. He was pretty mediocre in Japan, similar peripherals to Kay but worse results (and never pitched a full workload, not sure whether that's due to injury or what). But then he was utterly dominant in Korea, almost doubling his Japanese K rate. Talent is lower in Korea but not really "you get double the strikeouts" lower. Not to mention Japan is having a dead ball era and I don't think Korea is.

Per Japanese pitch tracking data, Kay had a 5-pitch mix last year. Four seamer, cutter, slider, sinker, changeup. The cutter and changeup are mainly used against righties, the slider mainly against lefties. Stuff+ really likes the cutter, slider, and sinker. Hitters did not hit them very well either. None of the stuff he throws generates much swing and miss. Pounds the cutter inside to righties, changeups are almost always thrown below the zone and away to righties, slider almost always thrown low and away outside the zone to lefties, sinker almost always in on the hands to lefties. 4 seamer aimed at the top of the zone or trying to snag outside strikes. The xERA suggests his good results were mostly deserved although not at a <2.00 ERA level. As you'd expect, he's better against lefties than righties. Very high groundball rate against lefties. Note that the Japanese baseball has more armside run and tends to have better rise. This is due to a mixture of better grip + larger seams, leading to higher spin rates and more seam-shifted wake. Kay doesn't rely on spin rate but he might be affected by lower seams on MLB balls. Of course, every pitcher is relying on at least one of those two things. 4-seam fastball averaged 94.4mph last year, roughly the same as when he was last pitching out of the pen in MLB.

He kept the runs from scoring in Japan but frankly the rest didn't look that great. Strikeouts not very high and although the walks certainly weren't high, it wasn't some incredibly low number either. He was only throwing two pitches out of the pen the last time he was in MLB. Not sure what he's been doing in Japan. I suppose the Sox will have him start but they are kind of paying him like a middle reliever, so maybe they see him as having a high floor as lefty reliever.