TheFutureIsNear

QUOTE (Dunt @ Nov 16, 2016 -> 10:14 AM) Not for Sale, no. Would need to be Bregman, Martes, Tucker, and someone. Unless someone like McCullers would be included in the trade. lol no way we would get all 3 + for anyone. Completely unrealistic

Surprised so many people are down on Houston as a trade partner. Maybe they lack the huge name at the top (unless Bregman is involved), but I think they have a lot of young talented pieces to give us that are close to or already MLB ready. Something along the lines of... Kyle Tucker, AJ Reed, Joe Musgrove, David Paulino, and Teoscar Hernandez doesn't interest anybody?? I know Reed and Hernandez didn't exactly light it up in their 1st taste of action, but neither do a lot of guys. I'd be perfectly happy with this deal.

QUOTE (fathom @ Nov 15, 2016 -> 07:43 PM) No way does Boston give up that much Maybe the 6th guy would be too much to ask but I don't see the 1st 5 being unreasonable to believe that's the package after several teams bidding. If Boston intends to keep JBJ, Betts, Bogarts, and Moncada then the package STARTS with Benintendi, Devers and Kopesch. If not then I don't see how there won't be a better offer. Swihart has very little value at this point, a change of scenery is obviously best for both parties. So Edgardo Rodriguez is the tipping point that would keep Boston from acquiring Sale? Highly doubt it.

Benintendi Devers Kopesch Eduardo Rodriguez Blake Swihart 1 of Jake Cosart, Deven Marrero, Trey Ball, Christian Vasquez, or Brian Johnson To me this still seems like the most likely outcome if a Boston deal were to happen. I know some here might think it's a little light, but I'd be happy with this haul. This + smart moves with Melky, Frazier, and Robertson and we could be setup nicely for a quick turn around in my opinion. No need to move Q, Eaton, and Abreu just yet

A lot of confidence in Robertson here....not from me. If someone is willing to take on the entire contract for any kind of decent prospect I would do it. If not I have a feeling we will be seeing a very mediocre Robertson try and close out games for a very bad team the next couple of seasons.

The franchise hasn't won a playoff series in a decade +....Seriously, how much worse can it get? Is the team losing 95 games instead of 85 really going to affect your life? Blowing it up and getting worse is unfortunately about the only way we are going to get better in the future. How many more years do you need to see the FO try to piece together a team around this core and fail? Seeing that for another year or 2 is what I'm afraid of personally.

QUOTE (soxforlife05 @ Nov 14, 2016 -> 08:05 PM) If no Urias this deal is a failure. I think it would be dumb to diminish the package we could get just to hold our for Urias. He's going to be valued at a seriously high price, as he should, which is going to hurt what the rest of the deal looks like. With a serious lack of talent all the way down the organization I'd rather see us get 3 guys that can help soon than just Urias. That, and I can definitely see LA just outright refusing to deal Urias...

Yasiel Puig Jose DeLeon Cody Bellinger Alex Verdugo Alex Wood Austin Barnes Brock Stewart Willie Calhoun Enough?

I have 0 faith that this team will fully rebuild. Maybe they will attempt to add some new younger blood, but full firesale mode? I seriously doubt that.

Castro and Logan as a rebuilding team? Sure. Beltran? Absolutely not. $14M is a good junk of change, spend that on someone under the age of 40. Makes no sense for either side, no way Beltran would willingly end his career on a bad team that is rebuilding.

My question is does anybody think trading Q + a smart signing or 2 of midtier free agents would get us into legit playoff contention? Or is it unrealistic to think a package of young players would lead to instant success? Like if we got Benintendi, Travis Shaw, and Eduardo Rodriguez (+a couple top prospects) + sign Jason Castro and Carlos Gomez would you feel comfortable going for a playoff run like that? Or don't sign anybody and keep trading guys off?

As of right now there are 139 official free agents... http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-offs...g-world-series/ who are some of your favorite (realistic) targets out of this initial bunch? Not a whole lot to be inspired about there honestly. There are a whole bunch of mediocre stop gaps out there that I kinda hope we avoid, but have a feeling the FO won't. I can definitely see them overpaying for some sort of combo of signing a Brandon Moss/Adam Lind/Pedro Alvarez for DH and then Castro/Suzuki/Wieters for C and still being very mediocre. Hopefully I'm wrong.

With the amount of holes this organization has and the lack of a huge budget it makes 0 sense to go after Cespedes. 1 player isn't changing anything.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 1, 2016 -> 01:54 PM) Your team for next season would be the worst in baseball. Horrible horrible bullpen and terrible middle relief. And a sub par rotation. We would be the worst team in the AL for sure. Lol what are you talking about? How would adding Shaw and Saunders to the offense possibly make the team worse than it is now? Which isn't close to the worst team. Losing Q hurts a little but additions of Rodriguez and Hellickson to Sale, Rodin and Gonzalez make it a more well rounded rotation than we had for most of this year. And question for everyone else...what do you guys really think we would get for Frazier and Melky? Because I hate to break it you, but it won't be much. We would get nothing significant for both...combined. If you want to start a rebuild by trading mediocre to slightly above average vets on 1 year deals go right ahead. But it's going to be a LONG rebuild that way. Plus there is always the deadline to trade those guys if things aren't going well. Trading those guys and tanking out this year does nothing unless you also trade Sale, Q, Abreu, and Eaton.

Dump Shields however possible (which means just paying him to go away) Retain M. Gonzalez Trade Q and Robertson to Boston for Travis Shaw, Eduardo Rodriguez, Rafael Devers, Luis Alexander Basabe, Michael Kopech, and Blake Swihart I think a trade like this works out great in our favor. There's no question in my mind that we need to trade at least 1 of Sale or Q to rebuild an organization that obviously doesn't have enough talent. A trade like this would add 3 very young and talented prospects into the system to develop while also adding Shaw and Rodriguez to the majors roster as young pieces to build on. Swihart being the wildcard to take a shot on as I'm sure Boston wants him gone. This also adds some payroll flexibility by forcing Boston to take on Robertson's contract as well. I'm sure there will be some outcry because I'm not getting 1 of Boston's big name prospects but I don't think we can sacrifice quantity for 1 big name like Bennitendi or Moncada that will hurt the overall package we can get back. Free Agent Signings Nick Hundley Michael Saunders Jeremy Hellickson -Hundley is another shot at adding a vet to stabilize the C position for now, could be 1 of several names on the FA list if you don't like Hundley -Saunders is talented and relatively young still. Can play good OF D and adds pop as well. He won't be cheap but also won't break the bank. -Hellickson is a solid vet who can be a stable presence to the rotation. Will come back down to earth a little back in the AL but he should be above average and consistent. Again, shouldn't break the bank either. C- Hundley/Narvaez 1B- Shaw/Abreu 2B- Sally/Lawrie SS- Anderson 3B- Frazier LF- Saunders CF- Eaton RF- Melky/Tilson/Swihart DH- Abreu/Melky Eaton Melky Abreu Frazier Shaw Saunders Anderson Hundley Sally/Lawrie Tilson/Swihart battle it out for last roster spot on offense. Most likely Tilson because of D. SP- Sale SP- Rodon SP- Hellickson SP- Rodriguez SP- Gonzalez Middle Relief- Putnam Petricka Purke/whoever steps up as the 2nd lefty Kahnle/Ynoa Late Inning relief- Jennings Jones Fulmer Burdi Just put Fulmer in the pen and let him throw gas. He's not built to be a starter and his mechanics and stuff aren't built for it either. Fulmer/Jones/Burdi could make a dominant force in the pen to shorten games ala the Royals. Go ahead and tear it apart....

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Sep 1, 2016 -> 09:17 PM) hopefully we can stop talking about Cy Young awards now? Hopefully you can stop posting?

Actually attempted to watch this game but the commentating was so bad I couldn't take it

James Shields to Matt Albers...it's really just a slap in the face at this point. Last time I pay my $ for MLB.tv to watch this team for at least a few years. They need to earn my trust that they are capable of putting together a winning team before I pay another penny going to the organization. Because I honestly don't believe anybody at the top of this organization is capable of doing so at this point.

The entire scouting department needs to fired. It's painfully obvious that Shields has absolutely nothing left. I'm sure the Padres front office was stunned when the Sox called asking about him explaining why they traded him so early. They would have taken literally anything to get out of any portion of Shield's horrific contract. Just fire everybody actually, anybody who even knew that trade could possibly happen and didn't speak up against it.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Aug 7, 2016 -> 10:39 AM) The Sox should have a lot of hope for him. I don't know how you fix the plate discipline issues though...no real reason to throw him a strike. Maybe he can hit bad pitches like Alexei and be like Alexei, although that would be disappointing. Now see THIS would be a post to jump down someone's throat for, not mine. If Timmy has Alexei's career, but a few years longer of prime because of age, I would consider Anderson wildly successful. He actually has a lot of developing to do before I would feel comfortable projecting him as good as Alexei was....both offensively and defensively. Alexei was no worse than a top 6/7 SS in all of baseball from '08-'14. We should all be crossing our fingers Anderson turns into Ramirez actually.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 03:02 PM) Since 1980 Name BB% WAR Garret Anderson 4.70% 24 Mark Grudzielan 4.80% 23.2 Frank White 4.90% 23.1 A.J. Pierzynski 3.90% 23.1 Erick Aybar 4.80% 18.8 Alexei Ramirez 4.80% 16.8 Carlos Baerga 4.90% 15.7 Rey Sanchez 4.40% 14.6 Sand Alomar Jr. 4.40% 13.2 Ozzie Guillen 3.40% 13.1 Starlin Castro 4.90% 11.3 Corey Patterson 4.60% 10.8 Alcides Escobar 4.10% 10.1 Interesting..thank you. Some better names than I would have thought, but still doesn't exactly paint a pretty picture. If Anderson goes onto have the career of Erick Aybar there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. He should be proud of that kind of career and no one would have the right to complain...BUT when that's your organizations best hitting prospect its a huge problem. *And not saying that Aybar is Anderson's ceiling either before anyone gets their panties further in a bunch. Just saying that its a likely career path IF major changes aren't made to his hitting approach.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 01:50 PM) He was moved aggressively in the minors so what he is referring to is month by month improvements before starting over at each level. He should not have been moved up to the majors, but just as Xander Bogaerts struggled in his first 1.5 years, so may Anderson. Again, not the same. If Anderson showed the ability to walk at a 10% rate in the high minors like Bogearts did then this would indeed be a stupid overreaction thread. But as it stands Bogearts' worst walk% as a pro was still better than Anderson's best. So for those in the no worry crowd...can someone show me some players who maintained long careers with a walk % below 6 and didn't rely on power? Maybe it's more than I think, that's an honest question.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 12:45 PM) If we are being honest then maybe we should give him more than 2 months to be realistic about the situation. The league will adjust, and hopefully he will adjust like he did in the minors But he didn't adjust in the minors...at all. His horrible 4% walk rate went down when he got promoted to AAA and his K% went up. And now both are even worse in the majors. There's 0 progression being made. And it's not like we are talking about a guy not being able to hit a good slider...we are talking about a huge fundamental flaw and there seems to be no signs of improvement. If his walk rates were acceptable in the minors I wouldn't be making a peep out of this small sample size. But when there are obvious signs of failure in his future all the way back to A ball and nothing has changed since l it should be a huge red flag for everyone. Whether it's Anderson himself or the coaching, I have no clue, but it's a problem that doesn't seem to be limited to him either. The # of players in this organization capable of going up to the plate and having a respectable major league AB is pathetic. But hey, why point out flaws for this great franchise since all they do is make smart decisions and win...oh wait.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Aug 4, 2016 -> 12:11 PM) He's probably a 7-9 hitter on a really good team. Posts similar to this one and others about Rodon and Fulmer though continue to tell me that this fan base isn't ready for a rebuild. People think that everyone is Chris Sale. This place will be rough during a rebuild How did my post indicate anything negative towards a rebuild? Because I'm honest and realistic about the situation? Not like I bashed Anderson, just asking for honest opinions. If anything making a post about how our 1 and only hitting prospect is flawed should scream "We need to rebuild!" Of course every prospect isn't going to be perfect, or even work out, I'm well aware.

The team's #1 hitting prospect and got off to a hot start to cause excitement...but now the warts are really starting to show. I'm sure I'll get some backlash from posters about how young he is and its too early, but there is obviously a really serious issue in his batting approach that isn't just going to go away. I mean, we are talking about a guy who had a sub 5% walk rate in nearly 700 AB's across AA and AAA. So this isn't him adjusting to major league pitching, this is how he plays the game of baseball. Now, thankfully he's a SS who possess an elite speed tool so he doesn't have to be a .300 hitter to be useful, but I'm curious to see where expectations are at this point after getting a look at him. Personally I see him as our everyday SS down the line, but not a reliable top of the order bat like Robin is trying to make him into now. I'll say something like .250/.290/.400 with 30 steals and an above average defender at short....good player to have on the team, but as literally our only hitting prospect (before the '16 draft) worth anything I think it's a key reminder of how sad of shape we really are in