chw42

Why the Cubs would even consider taking Hosmer made no sense to me.

He didn't even pitch in AAA. Guardians are either really short on starters or they really like him.

Kimbrel's curve was at least pretty good with us. He just tended to hit left handed hitters with it. I wouldn't be too worried about him hanging curveballs in Arizona, if I'm the Dodgers I'd be more concerned with his control and velocity on the fastball.

I'm sure he'll go back to throwing 98 again when he gets to close. I'm not sure what the hell Kimbrel was doing in the off-season, but apparently he came into camp throwing 90. I'm not too familiar with how long it takes pitchers to ramp up in ST, but it's hard to believe he can ramp up 8 MPH when a lot of the other guys on the team were already throwing hard 2 weeks ago.

We've already won the trade!

TLR is gonna be beside himself deciding which grindy utility player he'll have to play - Leury or Harrison.

For a guy who had high scouting marks in speed, defense, and make-up, what we actually saw in those departments was severely disappointing. His bat lived up to the hype and then some when he finally started hitting for a little power before he got hurt. He wasn't a 60 grade speed guy like the scouting reports said. More like a 50 or 55. His fielding was just average and he'd panic in certain fielding situations. Same with his base running decisions. For a guy who was supposed to have high baseball IQ, he did a lot of stupid shit on the bases. One of them cost him most of 2020.

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.