soxtalker999

I probably would have phrased it in a way that was a bit kinder toward Tauchmann, but I think that this captures the idea. As I recall, he was projected to get $3.4 million. With all the rumors floating around about other players, I would guess that Getz and his team probably weren't hearing any offers for Tauchmann. So, Tauchmann's real value has dropped. It will be interesting to see what he gets as a free agent.

Agreed. Cavalli actually made more than Vaughn, so Milwaukee included cash. I'm guessing that the teams would need to balance out the costs of Benintendi's contract (which goes two years) and any possible pitcher candidate.

Maybe look at it from a slightly different perspective. He could mainly be a DH - maybe even from just one side. If a team had a pitcher that has an expensive contract that is tough to move, perhaps they'd find such an exchange worthwhile. I'm not saying that this is likely, but I am just wondering if there are any such candidates out there. I don't recall anyone anticipating the Vaughn trade, but it sounded like Getz was fairly proactive when the opportunity arose. I don't think that either team was expecting it to turn out terribly well, but it gave each team options that were more useful to them at the time.

Most of the discussions about possible Andrew Benintendi trades require that the Sox pay down a lot of his contract. There are usually related comments that (a) the difficulty of this under current ownership and (b) questions of whether it would be of interest to any other club. But have there been any suggestions of a trade similar to the Vaughn-Cavalli one, where the Sox might take on a pitcher with a contract that another team would like to unload?

Let's see what Getz does at and after the trade deadline. Rojas was hitting well in spring training until he broke his toe. It doesn't look like he's getting that back, but it is only a few more weeks to see if he can.

He's 32 years old. I would also think that the player may not find an extension from the Sox as being that desirable. He was on a minor-league contract in the Texas organization. He had just started pitching well on the Rangers' AAA team. Then they release him. I didn't see any reason officially stated, but there are a lot of veterans on minor-league deals that have opt-out clauses if they aren't brought up to the MLB team by a certain date. After release, he could have signed with any team, but he picked the Sox, where he was guaranteed MLB starts. Now, he's pitching well. If we trade him, he would likely be sent to a contending team with a chance to win it all. Those of us who think that he should be traded now see risk that a pitcher in his 30's might not keep pitching that well. But it also probably weighs on the player's mind. He'd probably love to be in the hunt for a title.

Good point. What was the 40-man situation like over the weekend? There have been a lot of moving pieces in the past couple weeks. Maybe they did make a decision between Castro and Altavilla.

It was probably a question of the 40-man roster. They've been making a few moves lately where that has been mentioned. If Altavilla had an opt-out in his contract by, say, Memorial Day, the decision might have been between releasing someone else or him. The injury a few days later opened a spot on that 40-man roster.

I think that Palacios would have required a DFA, as he has no options left.

I seem to recall that Abreu made a similar comment at the beginning of this season.

Your comment reflects a lot of the sentiment that I've seen on this board and elsewhere in the past several days, and I'm sure that it will intensify in the next few weeks unless we see some miraculous turnaround. However, this probably has little to do with stubbornness or arrogance. JR may have those qualities, but I suspect that the decisions are quite rational. Go back to Lip's August 21 posting earlier in this thread. He indicated that there is a big tax incentive for JR to NOT sell before he passes away. If he doesn't sell, but wants to shake up management at the very top, that person has to learn the organization and set up his/her own structure. That takes time. It would be a highly desirable position, but, again, the owner's age probably adds some risk to anyone considering it. JR may be in great health and very sharp, but he's probably acutely aware that could change at any time. So will anyone wanting to take on the position.

It would be interesting to find a metric to measure how effective the GM's were at managing the entire system. I tend to lump KW and Hahn together, and I would put them at the bottom (worst) end. In part, it is because they had generally terrible farm systems (which wasn't helped by a scandal along the way). And they were slow to adapt to changes in the game brought upon by the use of big data. In contrast, I have fond memories of Larry Himes. He scouted well, and there seemed to be the prospect of good things to come. But they didn't keep him around very long, so he didn't really get much of the credit.

Does anyone know which station and program was this on and whether it is available in a podcast? It isn't an earthshaking statement in itself; one would hope that there would be some changes with play this bad over the past year (which would be 1-1/2 seasons by next off-season). But I'd like to hear the comments around it.

Let me ask about one specific aspect of many Sox batters' approaches - they don't seem to work counts and often chase balls out of the strike zone. Say that the manager and coaches (or their were new people in those roles that) noticed this and wanted to focus on it. Would they be able to get the batters to actually make changes mid-season? These are mostly veteran players.

There may be some options that become available as the season moves along. For example, are there any other pitchers in the minors on other teams that have similar deadlines like Cueto? Maybe trades will develop due to either injuries on other teams or teams dropping out of the playoff picture. I'm not aware of those, but I would hope/expect that Hahn and his team would be paying a lot of attention to these other options.