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Yes not so much lately, but 5-6 years ago it was consistent that As would make trades people thought was light. But they got a lot of players right (including Semien, Bassitt)

Here’s the good news, doc. Last year they thought same thing about Rodon.

Man what a bummer. Would have also loved to replace Milwaukee in this discussion.

I think right now sox fans are just on the short end of the stick. How many franchises feel hopeless? Probably us, rockies, oakland just because that relationship right now. If you are pitt, you know it isn't great, but ben cherington is extremely smart and basically helped create a successful boston core that lasted a decade. And boston couldn't keep em either. Tampa has competed. Milwaukee has competed. In many ways it's more competitive across cities than it is in the NBA, where the player salary compression reduces it to "where is the weather and city nicest". Given how many baseball players are from southeast/west coast, do you want the midwest teams only offering the same as florida teams?

Unless Jerry appointed Hostetler to be his new scouting director going into a massive rebuild I don’t want to hear it.

Also not a dig at @Y2Jimmy0 but at Hahn, but last year he kept saying he didn’t think the 2B was yet on the roster and that ended up being Harrison. Hard to care too much when they are fishing for a 2 WAR guy.

Yeah, doesn’t bother me. Next ownership will have to clean up a mess anyway. Also I rarely care about the “did you hear what they are asking for!?!?” because the actual deals are usually far less. To the extent the Sox couldn’t match that anyway, that’s kinda the problem of where Sox are at right now. Prospect poor, cash poor.

I still see this as the most impactful rumor that could happen. Would be nice.

I think you also see 2005 reaffirmed “spread the money spread the risk” (unfortunately not for a single contract). likelihood of success on a contract less important to JR than likelihood of failure. To the extent that this works, it may be fine to enforce this only on pitching staffs. But also enforcing it on position players has just destroyed the org since then.

I think despite the offseason, as a fan of baseball I don’t think we are in that late 90s/early 00s feeling where you just can’t compete. I still think Braves are most likely to win NL east. Scherzer and Verlander we have every reason to believe are the exceptions, but so was Nelson Cruz and you do eventually hit that wall. But to be the Braves the Sox needed to go back in time and perform their drafting and player development better. They didn’t, but neither did Phillies or Mets really, but they had owners who weren’t going to let missteps derail the years it took to build their initial foundation. Obviously Phillies are exhibit A. But it’s never too late to stop operating better in scouting and pd, and at the very least I do think we may have at the end of the year be impressed with the wave of pitching arriving from there. The last part I hate is just knowing now this was doomed from the start, because unlike orgs that legitimately feel they must win, clearly there was going to be a point in this rebuild when the Sox were like, wellp this is it, let’s see how they do. Meanwhile the other teams keep adding, never stopping trying to get an overwhelming advantage. JR wants to find the perfect equilibrium of where exactly what’s needed meets exactly what it would cost and never risk going above it that equilibrium.

Aww don’t be silly. He was their plan A.

Christian pache outcomes, but not Christian pache prices helps that.

Was yoan moncada or Eloy Jimenez f***ed in incredibly team friendly deals? Hard to even say Robert was.

While I think anytime someone is mentioned a lot it seems to inflate their importance, I think there are things about Outman that are good. His power became a big thing last year, he hit 31 homers. I think we will see a number of later breakout prospects the next few years because of this. James outman came in the league as a 21 year old. Then he had a pretty good year of A ball as 22. that's all normal. Then all the sudden the next time he plays baseball he's a 24 year old just hitting A+. He's moved up a level mid season each of the last two years. Some of these unexpected profiles are going to show up because of the extremely rare "no baseball for 1.5 years".

exactly. The main reason it was hard to pull the trigger.

yeah I'm actually not surprised it took this long, mono has really derailed some athletes years recently. I am surprised how good he looked, and am excited to see how he fares these last few weeks.

I disagree I think the dodgers would prefer Anderson for talent over Swanson for money. Friedman likes big game hunting, I don't think he wants to waste $20-$25M/year on a long term deal for a non-star. Much more likely they do that insane AAV / short term deal for Correa.

Keep their powder dry. I don't think swanson is the dodgers kinda player.

I don't think cartaya happens. I would take my deal over cartaya + pepiot/stone + outman anyway. Rushing is on the way up. I was the original outman promoter, worth noting that amaya is ranked higher than him. Despite that, I still said I wouldn't do it. But i will say mybody rejected the "if the sox do the right hting" scenario where I intended to put swanson at SS not segura at 2b. The dodgers trade their top guys pretty rarely, and may very well try to preserve their catchers with rotating them at 1b. They sent their top catcher candidate for scherzer/trea turner (who had 1.5 years) so I don't htink a closer/SS of TAs level gets you Cartaya. And I don't think another org would give you a better package than Vargas. Unless the Cardinals show up and are throwing around jordan walker or Red Sox throw out Mayer, I'm not sure there is a better team package than the #25/#50 prospects this gets you. And again, I said no to it, partially because there is no outbidding cubs/giants for swanson.

well jose was pretty terrible to start out at first so for this year not sure we are getting equal defense then.

Sox put out a twitter promotional video of when TA was announced an all star and it's just him sitting in the locker room in dead silence until Abreu by himself claps and wlaks over, with the rest begrudgingly clapping after. edit: said dugout earlier, meant locker room.

Mark Payton >

I will say the All Star video was extremely weird.

Alright so if I trade Timmy + Hendriks from the dodgers here would be what i'd go for: I have sox around 177 now. If you trade TA+Hendriks that puts you at 150. In this scenario, we still are allowed to spend $30M, but realistically blowback could be harsh and Jerry could cap at like 165, but in this, we'd say 180. Trade TA + Henriks to LAD Receive Vargas, Pepiot, Rushing, Amaya Fairly certain people will hate this, but I think Vargas likely best prospect we can get. We actually have a decent amount of pitching growing in system, but high end bats are not. Vargas is one. Pepiot should be available this year. Amaya should get you a strong defensive SS/2b with reasonable contact. I would play Vargas in LF/1b and deal with same B.S. we always do. I know, but this is my plan. The right thing would then be to go after swanson. But the white sox thing will be bad. I'm guessing Segura for 2nd, leaving Amaya as SS. He's an improvement defensively over TA, but I think we'd be lucky to get 95 wRC+ out of him and re-signing Mendick is probably smart. If they did the right thing: Lineup Robert Moncada Eloy Vaughn Vargas Grandal Segura Amaya Colas That looks like it could be a top 6 offense in AL if you have regression. And the thing is if sox don't have regression they are already screwed. Vargas is closest we could get to equalizing TAs bat. If the team makes hay, it needs to be in pitching. A staff of Cease, Lynn, Giolito, Kopech, Clevinger with Pepiot moved into 6th starter depth, and eventually a bullpen piece in 2nd half is much better to get through year. The bullpen now is fully reliant on Lopez being good. Basically this is every bit the same "lightning in a bottle" team, except the potential that Vargas has the high end bat so few of our guys have lived up to. Looking at this, I'd say no. And if I'm Dodgers, I'd say no to lux. Muncy / TA / Lux infield is what you need now that you aren't talking about moving Betts to 2b.

I only want to mention that there was such disbelief Clevinger's behavior in 2020 was a big deal but we are talking about rumors the sox want to trade tim cause he let the team down getting a like 2 game suspension for arguing with an ump. And it's believable! I am not a high level athlete (but I did do well in basketball last night) but seems reasonable these players who only have a short time in this league care a lot about making the playoffs and get annoyed when team leaders esp may not be pulling in the same direction.