chw42

I'm just glad he's not our problem anymore. The team "misusing" him probably helped hide some of the very real issues he had with us. The lower velocity and poor control were definitely mechanics related and not a complete product of him not closing games. Maybe the Dodgers know how to fix him like the Cubs did, because whatever we did didn't work.

Harrison is basically an older Madrigal-lite. Both rarely strike out and both don't hit the ball hard. Harrison is probably an upgrade on Nick defensively.

Damn, we found someone who thinks more highly of Madrigal than Nick Madrigal. He said he should get to 3000 hits, but he never promised a .400 season!

Pollock was very well liked in LA, he should have no issues fitting in here.

Basically right handed Keuchel at this point.

Did KW like Justin Upton?

Graveman closed games last year for Seattle.

I think the org thinks much more highly of Vaughn than Madrigal.

When you consider that there were rumors of a Kimbrel for Meadows swap where the Sox could have saved more money, your theory has some legs.

There's no way they're trading Vaughn for 1 year of Manaea. That's insane.

Lamet is basically a reliever now.

Paddack? I don't see the Padres as a team that would trade their SP depth away after what happened to them last season.

I got to thinking more about this and it's starting to not make sense to me. Unless the Sox really liked Pollock a lot, trading for Meadows would have saved the Sox more money even if they kicked in half of Kimbrel's contract to TB. The Pollock trade got us back $1 million in salary relief. If the Sox swapped Meadows and Kimbrel straight up, the Sox would save $12 million (Meadows makes $4 million this year) Even if the Sox gave Tampa $8 million, they'd still save $4 million. Meadows is only arb 1 this year, meaning he still has 2 more arb years left and will probably end up getting $7-8 million in 2023 and maybe around $10 million in 2024. So the question is, did the Sox want Pollock at 1 year and $15 million (or 2 years at $20 million) over Meadows at possibly 3 years and $22 million (or 2 years and $12 million) plus $8 million to Tampa Bay? Cause at the end of 2 years, the money ends up being about equal for these 2 and you're way more likely to retain Meadows than Pollock. I know Meadows' defense has not been good in RF, but the guy is only 27. There's a lot more upside to him than Pollock. He's also a lot more likely to stay healthy. We don't know if any of this is true and we don't know how much TB asked for, but I can't imagine it's more than $8 million. If that's the case, then I'm kind of scratching my head about why they didn't trade for Meadows.

Meadows made more sense for the team offensively, but his defense would have been awful in RF.

Whenever they ask you what's good about a Sox prospect, tell them he gets on base.

I bet they probably wanted us to eat $8-10 million.

Murphy is probably the highest valued guy there just because he has 4 years of control left and plays a premium position.

Against LHP, I'd go as far as to drop Yoan to 7th in the lineup. He just doesn't hit very well from the right side.

Grandal should be the #4 hitter. I hate the idea of batting him and Moncada too close together as those 2 are the only established hitters in this lineup from the left side. At this point I'd go with 1. Anderson 2. Robert 3. Abreu (I wouldn't do this, but we all know TLR is gonna hit him 3rd) 4. Grandal 5. Eloy 6. Moncada 7. Pollock 8. Vaughn/Sheets 9. Harrison/Leury I think the top 8 in this order can compete with just about any lineup out there in baseball.

Haha I was just about to post about this. So all the guys that were speculated in this thread - Pollock, Bellinger, and Meadows were all probably discussed for Kimbrel at some point. It makes sense cause the Rays and Dodgers were both clearly interested in Kimbrel at the deadline last season.

I'm definitely excited to watch it in November and December.

Engel in RF, Pollock moves to LF for Eloy.

He was actually decent for the first 100 innings of that. If 2nd half Keuchel is what he is now, there's no way he gets 160 innings.

Remember when Keuchel was actually decent before the third time through the order? Now he's bad every time through the order.

His command was the only reason why he was any good to begin with. Without it, he's batting practice.