The Ultimate Champion

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jun 23, 2013 -> 06:51 AM) Geez. Danish hasn't thrown his first pitch yet in pro ball. I know but I'm excited about him, he's a really interesting pick & I like him better than Anderson. He's my favorite pick of this class. If he can throw strikes I'd wager that he can get MLB hitters out right now. Is he ready? Probably not, but just a guess. Before Sale the Sox didn't seem to take players like this at all, but maybe now they're thinking along the lines of rushing them & taking advantage of their arms before they get hurt. I mean, if I guy gets hurt during the first 5 years of his career, what do you owe him? A few million maybe plus his bonus? He's pre-arb for 3.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 23, 2013 -> 07:34 AM) Addison Reed is 24 years old, strikes out more than one an inning, has a WHIP below 1.00, and has 21 saves for a last place team not even halfway through the season. Why would you want to trade that, and how much better does he have to be? Take away the one game he blew the huge lead, and you are talking All Star. Anyone complaining about his performance will not be happy with the players they would get back for him. He doesn't have to be any better than he is. Question, do you think he can sustain this level of success? Because I still don't, I still think he's an average closer. I'd trade him because I would be very willing to bet that by the time the Sox are highly competitive again, even if it's only 2 seasons from now, we will have found an equal or better replacement. If Addison brings back an MLB ready position player with a high ceiling and a pretty decent floor, who will see good time this season, then it's a no-brainer IMO. Addison doesn't have an otherworldly arm & an equal or better quality starting position player is are going to be more valuable in general, especially to us because we can't seem to develop position players worth a s*** on our own.

^Because if they think they could do something like that then it makes sense, and would be a terrific use of a 2nd round pick. And wouldn't the Sox see their best pitching guys as Coop & Thiggy? Both with the MLB team.

I wonder if there's some thought in the organization about trading Reed, grooming Danish quickly in the minors to fill that role immediately kind of like Sale, work with him on his mechanics piece by piece at the MLB level ala Sale, then try to convert him to a starter in the big leagues.

You have to be pretty quick to steal that many bags regardless. Johnson will have to pick & choose more... speaking of Johnson, I assume we're talking about "Lance Johnson" jumps with him quite a bit, and Hawk still can't forget about him. Don't have to be the fastest guy in the league. Also, arm strength will increase, but in MLB you have a lot of teams that will still take catchers with weaker arms and/or accuracy problems, and as always, a catcher can only do what his pitcher will allow him to do. Stealing off the right pitchers, on the right pitches, in the right situations, off the right catchers, with the right players hitting behind you, you can really rack up some SB totals in the Majors. But the main part I like about the speedster is it adds an element we've been missing, and aside from Pods in '05, it's an element we've largely lacked for a very long time. Ideally you want to be able to win games in as many ways possible, and we've struggled mightily over the years to come up with any kind of balance, either too grindy or too mashy or too many K's or too right handed, etc.

Being 26 in the Majors & producing is a whole lot better than falling off the radar at 24.5 in Triple A. The age argument is mostly for fans, not for people making real decisions. Promote the guy when he's ready, not a bit sooner, and if there's something he needs to work on or change, make him do it. Christ, it's not like once you hit the age of 26-27 you lose all your physical ability. You have that into your 30's.

Yeah, re: Johnson, Anderson, etc. all you can kind of do is dream about someone finally coming through. Can't count on it. That's why we need to target MLB ready players, because every level of the minor leagues offers the potential of bottoming out. So while you never really know what you have until you see it on the field, at least if you have a player who has performed at each level from Low A to Triple A you have someone who has had to fail (to at least some small extent), adjust, advance, etc. and that gives you some hope. Of course there is always the extremely talented Brian Anderson type who just isn't going to fail until he's at the very highest level, and if your brilliant development staff has it in their heads that you can't ask a player to change something until he's completely lose & trying to save his career, then good luck. I personally like the later round picks more, or the more unheralded earlier round types, because they don't get to coast as much. The talent level is so great throughout the minor leagues, lots of position players with raw tools who can't hit, lots of pitchers with big arms who can't seem to develop the secondary pitch, that sometimes people forget just how talented some of these "nothing special" types are. And none of what you can do matters unless you can do it at the MLB level. Re: Iglesias, it seems like everyone wants to jump out there and proclaim that your typical defense-first SS isn't ever going to be able to hit enough to start in the Majors. Iglesias was seen by many as a huge overpayment by the Red Sox when he was signed (and Alexei's development out of Cuba probably had a lot to do with that) but now he looks at least useful. If he has enough to do what he's doing now then I don't know how you can say he couldn't hit enough to start, but at the same time, his MiLB career seems to indicate a player who isn't going to hit a lot of balls hard, maybe he makes contact but not really hard contact & doesn't square many balls up. Maybe that changes some? I'd take a shot. We deal Alexei & we can plug him in, see what we have. Red Sox selling high makes sense, but they'd only get Reed for him if they added a lot more to the package. In general though, I like acquiring these types of players, as I mentioned above. Clearly he belongs in the Major Leagues, and obviously he has some ability, and you're not going to have to gut your organization to pick him up & try him out.

Wait a min, Iglesias hits .202/.262/.319 in 133 PA in Pawtucket, then he hits .431/.482/.578 in 114 PA with Boston? WTF? I was going to say I'd take him for Crain, not Reed, but at those numbers we might need to send Alex & Peavy with both of them. His minor league line is .257/.307/.314 and that's closer to who I thought he was. I'd take him for Crain. Then I'd offer Castro or something to the Twinkies for Escobar back. Then you target a bigger name SS who maybe is a little ways off & let him develop, letting those 2 play in the meantime.

It's the Yahoo contributor network. Why would you trade for Alex to have him in CF leading off? Makes no sense. Re: Hamilton, I love pure stolen base threats & especially so when they play up the middle. They need to get on base at a good clip though, and I'm not sure what the Sox people would think about Hamilton being that guy. If they think he's that guy then he's definitely someone you target. Just imagine the (completely unlikely) nightmare a 1-2 of Hamilton & Johnson would be. And if you add a speedy little shortstop to that picture, you have a 9-1-2 of speedsters playing SS, CF, 2B. That's like a dream. Then you just need to get some run producers 3-4-5, and maybe a 6 hitter. I do feel confident ATM in our ability to produce 7 & 8 hole hitters on our own, so that's nice.

TY Crain for living up to your contract, performing very well actually during your tenure here, and TYVM for upping your trade value when we really needed it. Hopefully wherever you go they win it all, and hopefully Paulie goes with you too. There's not too much to say because this season is crap, but for all the talk about putting little weight in stats put up without the pressure of contention, it's probably *more* difficult for a pitcher, especially a reliever in a shaky pen, to put up excellent numbers while the offense & defense is letting him down. Really, what the majority of our pitching staff is doing this year is pretty incredible. Crain's certainly leading the way in the pen.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Jun 21, 2013 -> 03:16 PM) De Aza is a retread and a butcher on the field. While his stats are even/arguable to those two, I don't see his worth in a trade equating to the two. That's just me though. Span is a legit CFer. He's having a tough year at the plate but he is something else in CF. Agree, also DeAza doesn't fit any real mold. He's not your prototypical lead-off guy, not really a CF, has some pop but not really a corner guy, his game has looked very different during the 2 seasons he's been a starter and so it's kind of hard to tell what his game actually is... he's really more of the rich man's 4th OF/poor man's starter. I think he helps you fill a hole if you're trying to win but he's not a player you build around. I'd like to extend him to a cheap deal if we can, full of team options, just to have a guy to plug in where ever who provides some cost certainty but who you can cut if he totally falls off, but I imagine that if the Sox were thinking along those lines they'd have tried something by now. I don't think he fetches us a ton in trade, but maybe we'd get something packaging him. Not worth giving away though.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 21, 2013 -> 02:49 PM) The problem here is the type of trade we're talking about. When Colon was traded to Montreal, he was a few months from free agency. He was a guy the Indians had to choose between keeping and trying to compete or losing at the end of the year. They were 10 games under .500 or so and were looking at losing the guy soon. That's comparable to a guy like Crain, Thornton, maybe Peavy on this roster...guys who are close to free agency. In that case, the bust rate compares to the virtual certainty of losing those guys for nothing. If you trade crain for a guy who never makes the big leagues, that's a scouting fail, but at least you got something for him. When we talk about Chris Sale on the other hand, he's a guy locked up for the next half a decade. There is nothing forcing us to trade Chris Sale, the only reason we should trade Chris Sale is if there's a high probability it would make the team better in the long run. If you trade Sale for 4 prospects, 2 of whom become average major leaguers and 2 of whom bust, you've cost the team an ace for a couple average major leaguers. In that case, the bust rate needs to be compared with the benefit of having a guy who can be the ace of the staff for the next 5 1/2 seasons. This exactly. QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 21, 2013 -> 02:16 PM) It's absolutely fallacy to act like prospect trades can be evaluated in hindsight. You're trading for probabilities. You're trading for guys who do NOT have the skills to be successful and hoping that they develop those skills. It's the FO job to pick guys that they have reason to believe will flourish in its own system, but sometimes guys just bust for no good reason. If a FO gets them wrong too much, the FO gets fired. If you traded Sale for all those guys at the time it would have been a haul, and looking back it would still be a haul. Eric Hosmer in 2010 is NOT the same thing as Eric Hosmer in 2013. If you traded Sale, right this second, for a package of 4 equally highly rated prospects/young players as those 4 were, and you made that trade because you did *not* already have him locked into an extension, and because you *did* OTOH get signals from his agent that they were planning on hitting the FA market no matter what, then you wouldn't necessarily be making a bad decision. You'd be taking what you'd see as an unavoidable gamble, and you'd be doing it at any earlier stage than normal in hopes of a greater return in talent and before the player had a chance to get hurt and lose value. In the end you'd probably lose that deal on the talent side, but you were also being proactive trying to improve the team. You were doing what you had to do, because the player & his agent had you by the balls & you didn't have a Rays-like situation where you had enough talent around you to play the waiting game. If OTOH you have Sale, at his current rate & length of deal, and someone offers you all their top prospects for him right this second, then you're making a totally unnecessary trade where you're taking the best building block you have and using it to gamble on the futures of a bunch of unproven players. That's what people with gambling problems do, they gamble at the highest stakes possible, put everything on the line because there's a slim chance everything goes right. That's not a sound decision, it's a desperate move. Sale isn't Dan Hudson or Chris Young. You actually miss him if he's gone. When you are dealing with prospects you should absolutely expect failure. You follow the trend of talented "can't miss" prospects busting out for no reason just as you'd look to age/performance trends to keep you from, say, paying a speedster currently in his prime to still steal 30+ bags when he's 35. You were arguing in another thread about how it would basically be suicide to sign Crain who is 34. Okay, so you're viewing a general baseball-wide trend as being more important than a specific player's specific situation. It's only fair to then apply the same treatment to your great prospect, because no matter what you think or how much you like him, the chances are he's a bust, or if not, he's going to be a whole let less of a player than you think right now. And you don't even need a reason either, s*** just happens, it's baseball. As it is, a player doesn't become a Major Leaguer & stay a Major Leaguer until he fails, adjust, learns, and rebounds all while staying healthy & remaining on the field - and some of the obstacles he will face, like freak accidents/injuries, organizational depth putting a player on the bench or out of position, the wrong coaching staff/manager, etc. which can affect performance is completely out of the player's control. So you know there will be downs & you're betting the player can make it through them. That's the reason why you generally see 3-4 players in deals for bigger names, and it's why you only trade a player like Sale if you believe you have to. There's absolutely no reason to believe you have to. If Coop thinks he's worth keeping, then he's definitely worth keeping. Re: hindsight, I agree, you can't judge everything in hindsight. All you can judge for fairly is the rationale behind the move made. The Teahen deal wasn't logical, the Molina deal was rushed. OTOH the Dunn signing was based on good information & was the type of move any GM could have made in that situation. You can rightfully crap on the first 2 moves, but not the last. f you trade Sale now for a bunch of minor leaguers & they all turn into busts, you can use hindsight fairly to say that that was a bad decision that didn't need to be made. If you trade Sale now for a bunch of minor leaguers & they all turn into studs, and you win the WS because of it, then great, you beat the odds, you won the lottery. But still, in hindsight, you made a totally unnecessary move & now people call you a genius for it. But you're not a genius, that's totally unsustainable, you're just a ballsy gambler, and you're probably going to lose real big real soon & be run out of town.

QUOTE (beautox @ Jun 21, 2013 -> 12:59 PM) I would really like to see Axelrod get traded for a high upside low floor major league player that hasn't figured it out yet someone like the following: moustakas, conger, ackley, montero, or ike davis and a low minors live arm coming back as well. I would love that but I'm not sure Axelrod brings back a former top pick/current bust unless that player is just about out of options & the team is contending. I think we could maybe get a Harrell type too, who was also out of options, and was also always talented, but Harrell never had anyone really behind him nationally. Either way, I think #5 is Erik Johnson's spot for the time being, so if Johnson isn't read (and there's no reason to rush him) then I'd like to give Axe's innings to someone else with a higher ceiling, since the games don't matter. A position player would be best though if we could do that.

QUOTE (beautox @ Jun 21, 2013 -> 12:59 PM) I would really like to see Axelrod get traded for a high upside low floor major league player that hasn't figured it out yet someone like the following: moustakas, conger, ackley, montero, or ike davis and a low minors live arm coming back as well. I would love that but I'm not sure Axelrod brings back a former top pick/current bust unless that player is just about out of options & the team is contending. I think we could maybe get a Harrell type too, who was always out of options, and was also always talented, but Harrell never had anyone really behind him nationally. Either way, I think #5 is Erik Johnson's spot for the time being, so if Johnson isn't read (and there's no reason to rush him) then I'd like to give Axe's innings to someone else with a higher ceiling, since the games don't matter. A position player would be best though if we could do that.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 21, 2013 -> 01:07 PM) If it goes 7 games, parade on Friday...that can get the city through next weekend, or talking about the future of the team win or lose on Saturday and Sunday. Then you have the distraction of the All-Star Break and the trade deadline to get you through the end of July. New players to watch from August on, Bears' Camp (god, that gets old in a hurry, hearing them talk about the offensive line for a couple of hours), college football season, British Open and PGA championships, Wimbledon and the US Open for tennis, somehow everyone will survive. There's always summer movies, too. I can't stand football. I know I'm in the extreme minority but I just think it's the dumbest sport, and all they do is talk football like 9 months of the year. I can't even turn on the radio unless there's a game on. But that's better anyway, those guys are all blowhards.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Jun 21, 2013 -> 11:27 AM) Hawk hates Weather Metrics almost as much as Sabermetrics. Can't stop the will to rain.

Axelrod is still someone I acquire if I'm where the Giants are, or someone like that, where you're up s*** creek at the back end of your rotation. Maybe you send out a package of players kind of similar to what the Astros got from us last year for Brett Myers (with us still covering the buyout). Heindenreich was a nice little prospect when we drafted him, I know some here liked Walters, don't know anything about that Devenski guy. Now, it must be said that all those guys are doing horrible right now for the Astros in the minors, but there was/is some ability there, and every now & then it works out. Axelrod IMO can bring in something like that, and if you can do it then I think you should. Clear up the rotation spot, give Axe something to play for as he looks to continue his career, and try to add some more ability to the lower levels of the farm if you can.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jun 21, 2013 -> 09:21 AM) Shut your mouth the top of the draft is rebuilding utopia. Just ask Jed, Theo and that scout that came over that is on the radio weekly to tell everyone how great the the cub farm system is. Baseball is a crap shoot. ACES ARE LIKE PRO BOWL QB'S YOU DO NOT TRADE THEM!!!!!! Sale is a building block and what you trade for, not what you trade. He is a proven ace. An ace allows you to get 4 .500 pitchers and still be competitive, if you hae average hitting Yeah, Sale is best case scenario every time you draft a player in the first couple rounds with a pretty high ceiling & a lot of question marks. We've had it seems like thousands of those players, Borchard, Anderson, Sweeney who on paper was probably the best bet of them all but the power never came, Fields, Trayce, Mitchell, tons of them just in the last 10 or so years, and we've got like 1 guy to show for it. And people would trade him?

Imagine who the Royals would have been able to land 2 years ago if they offered Montgomery, Moose, Hosmer & Hochevar. Everyone would have been like OMGWTFHOLYs*** & now it's like, well, maybe a couple of those guys can rebound and become average players. And if you had traded your Sale for that you'd be calling for the head of your GM & rightfully so. And that's IF he's still employed.

Robin is right. Keep focusing on playing the game, keep working on the defense, keep focusing on the fundamentals, and let Hahn take care of the rest. It's like Robin's the iron chef, he's leading the charge, he's supervising, he's stressing how to properly cut the veggies, checking on the bakery, doing all that stuff, sauteeing the fries or whatever, making some weird ice cream, etc. and all he can focus on is delivering the best meal possible for his judges. But Hahn is the one who brings him the groceries, Hahn's the one who decides what food item the dishes are going to be based on, and Hahn's the one who is going to have to take out the garbage when it's all over & go shopping again, bring in some new ingredients. There's no reason for Robin to get all mad about things and yell & scream, just like Hawk was saying, it's a different game now & players can be metros about accountability & so forth, players want special treatment and like to cry about things. Robin's not going to kiss anyone's ass, just keep stressing what needs to be stressed, and he's going to tell Hahn in private which guys he doesn't feel are working hard enough, which guys aren't mentally strong enough, which guys are dogging it, accepting failure, etc. and it's going to be up to Hahn to take out the trash.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 20, 2013 -> 08:37 PM) If the Cardinals want to give you Taveras, Adams, Carlos Martinez, Wong and Rosenthal for Sale and Alexei, I would say yes Wait a year and a half & you'll be able to get half that list for a song. I know it was ages and ages ago now, but anyone remember that Michael Pineda-Jesus Montero swap? Yeah that was gangbusters. You just don't trade Sale when you have him on a contract like this. The only reason you'd deal him is if you don't want to give him 5+ years at 25M+ per a ways down the line, but on a deal like he's on now, that's way the hell down the line.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 20, 2013 -> 07:54 PM) http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/forget-jona...et-jesse-crain/ Really good article on Crain's improvements with the White Sox under Cooper, and why he's more valuable to other teams (see Tigers) than someone like Jonathan Papelbon. They should trade him and then bring him back as a starter in 2014, haha. Not often you have a reliever with three above-average pitches. Bobby Jenks... and weren't the Red Sox going to try that? I'd be quite happy to trade Reed + Crain together to the Tigers if we're getting Garcia back. And I agree, save % or not, Reed IMO is an average MLB closer and very tradable. Why is it that every time I type "tradable" it underlines the word as if it's not really a word? I searched google, and yes, this is a word. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tradable trade (trd) n. 1. The business of buying and selling commodities; commerce. See Synonyms at business. 2. The people working in or associated with a business or industry: a textile-exporting publication for the trade. 3. The customers of a specified business or industry; clientele. 4. The act or an instance of buying or selling; transaction. 5. An exchange of one thing for another. 6. An occupation, especially one requiring skilled labor; craft: the building trades, including carpentry, masonry, plumbing, and electrical installation. 7. The trade winds. Often used in the plural with the. v. trad·ed, trad·ing, trades v.intr. 1. To engage in buying and selling for profit. 2. To make an exchange of one thing for another. 3. To be offered for sale: Stocks traded at lower prices this morning. 4. To shop or buy regularly: trades at the local supermarket. v.tr. 1. To give in exchange for something else: trade farm products for manufactured goods; will trade my ticket for yours. 2. To buy and sell (stock, for example). 3. To pass back and forth: We traded jokes. adj. 1. Of or relating to trade or commerce. 2. Relating to, used by, or serving a particular trade: a trade magazine. 3. Of or relating to books that are primarily published to be sold commercially, as in bookstores. Phrasal Verbs: trade down To trade something in for something else of lower value or price: bought a new, smaller car, trading the old one down for economy. trade in To surrender or sell (an old or used item), using the proceeds as partial payment on a new purchase. trade on To put to calculated and often unscrupulous advantage; exploit: children of celebrities who trade on their family names. trade up To trade something in for something else of greater value or price: The value of our house soared, enabling us to trade up to a larger place. [Middle English, course, from Middle Low German.] trada·ble, tradea·ble adj. f***in boom

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jun 20, 2013 -> 01:19 PM) Not sure about that, all three of those players are a long way from doing anything at the ML level and the Rangers are trying to win. The odds aren't great that any of those guys will make it to the bigs, Gallo is all power and its no sure thing he will ever hit enough to make it up the ladder. Brinson also has questions if he can make enough contact to ever make it, both of those guys have almost twice as many K's as H's and a 4:1 K:BB rate. Alfaro probably has the best chance as hit bat will likely play behind the plate. Though, if we are taking fliers on lower level guys, I would rather have Sardinas, Odor, and Guzman. If what you say is true then Hahn should be the one laughing at Texas & telling them to get suck a fat one, not the other way around. You deal the Jakemeister & Alex to Texas and you are giving them a huge hand winning the division AND giving them 2 good players under control. You had better get back someone like Martin who is ready now & fills a need plus a lot more. And that more can't be a bunch of Jared Mitchells and Trayce Thompsons. Ceiling is great but when your floor is bottoming out in Triple A then you ain't good enough to headline a deal like that. That's a huge deal.

Hawk is absolutely right in everything he says in that article. He certainly feels for the pitching staff. I agree on Robin (not so much the blank contract thing) but let's jettison some of these guys, then things will change.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 20, 2013 -> 11:06 AM) A wise GM would give little to nothing for Peavy and make you pay part of his salary. They only thing Peavy has excelled at is going on the DL. Then that GM doesn't get Peavy, forcing him to take on a much lesser player at his price, overpay for someone else, or miss out altogether, in which case, should his team miss the playoffs, the fans & local media will question his wisdom publicly. Peavy may not bring back a massive return. That's okay though, the Sox can just keep him. Unless they get back a haul it's idiotic to remove that kind of production and influence, especially as a right hander, from a young lefty-dominate rotation.