Con te Giolito

And they still made it to within 1 win of a WS title.

-Michael Kopech

What does he say about Kopech? Because I doubt anyone else will have him ahead of Reyes or as high as #7.

Consensus can often be very wrong. If he doesn't like Moncada's strikeout tendencies I get it. I mean to be honest his strikeouts really worry me a lot and make me question whether that was a good trade. Time will tell I guess.

Alright so I guess that whole thing where Cleveland came within 1 win of a WS win, absolutely bulldozing Boston and Toronto's insane lineups, without their #2 and #3 starter was just a mirage. If you really feel that relief pitchers cannot be as valuable as starters you're out of touch too. With the growing limitations of starters by way of pitch count and the "noise" one can generate in their projections by winning 1 run games (bullpen is what wins you 1 run games) relief pitchers were already gaining larger roles. Now that this idea of having a closer and a high leverage firefighter has become in vogue its making them even more valuable. Look around the league and see what everyone is doing. Cubs traded for Wade Davis, Yankees brought back Chapman, Red Sox traded for Thornburg, Melancon got a ton of money from SF, losing Jansen was never even an option for LA...these are the perennial contenders you want the Sox to be and look at how they value relief pitching now.

Even if he does feel that way its pretty ignorant to think relievers, especially after what we saw last postseason and the deadline, are still this inferior member of the team. To have this blanket rule that "relievers cant be in the top 100" makes him seem out of touch with today's game, or more importantly tomorrow's game.

his reasons for Moncada seem pretty legitimate. His reasons for not ranking Lopez at all are dumb as hell.

STL would need to include like 5 or 6 quality prospects to make that work without including Reyes. But if you think of it that way, adding 5 guys to the org T30 with 2 or 3 of them in the overall T100 tier it does kinda make sense. I would need Kelly, Sierra and Perez to start...but man if there's a couple quality (like Dane Dunning types) guys filling out the deal I'd be interested. Not sure STL would be though.

Well that's concerning...at least a little bit. You were right he went and left Rey Lopez off the top 100. Which to me is a bit ridiculous and screams 'HE HATES THE SOX' more than the Moncada ranking which at least seems kinda justified.

Maitan never made much sense to me for the Braves to trade or for the Sox to pick up.

Oh yeah gimme some sugar. This seems like a no-brainer for a camp invite.

I think he'll have Rey Lopez in his top 20. Guy is so talented and he flashed his potential as a starter in a big way last fall. He can call him a relieved all he wants but that's just not a name you can leave off a top 100 list if your a national media guy beholden to a certain degree of reason from your readers.

This is why loading up on arms is something they should never stop doing.

How are they going to be terrible if Robertson, Frazier and Abreu all rebound? Seriously that's like 4 wins if those guys "raise their value by the deadline", if Tilson can do anything positive in CF that probably makes up for losing Eaton by itself. Yea they'll get worse losing Sale no doubt but they wont completely fall to being one of the worst three teams in baseball. For them to win fewer than 70 games not only will Frazier, Abreu and Robertson not rebound, it'll probably means they got worse. Or worse yet Rodon and Anderson fall apart. Or nightmare scenario Q gets hurt. That's just as a team managing to """achieve""" a win total. If you want to talk about the offense falling into the woeful Philles/Brewers/Padres nightmare tier, especially with the great Minnesota Twins rotation serving up meat for 19 games, we are talking a cataclysm on offense. Like an absolute bloodbath where nobody is hitting anything. If that happens then you can bet there wont be much value getting improved for the deadline. Nobody seems willing to rectify this at all. Everyone just seems convinced that all the players they want traded will have MAGICAL years of resurgence and value raising, and that Rodon will have a massive season and that all their losses will become of the GRR VILLIANS like Avi and Tilson. Its all fantasy, its trying to convince yourself that what you want to happen for the Sox will happen.

That is exactly what people are saying when they think the loss of Adam Eaton will cause them to tumble in RS standings in 2017.

I didn't say there wouldn't be a loss, I just said it wont be that massive because Eaton was never that great at the plate. If the Sox are really going to fall from 20th to bottom 5 in run scored it will take more than just replacing Eaton with Tilson. Need a couple complete meltdowns from guys who contributed last year, these are predictions nobody seems willing to make though. "Hold them til deadline, they'll accrue more value" is incompatible with pessimistic team outlooks.

They were 20th in RS, I doubt just losing Eaton moves them down 10 spots. Especially if the rebound from Abreu (seems to be board consensus) materializes. If you really think the Sox will be a bottom 5 offense you better be willing to donate Todd Frazier, Brett Lawrie, Melky Cabrera or anything else not nailed down for whatever you can get because that kind of team prediction would require some absolutely abysmal individual performances.

Well in 2015 Shuck had a .340 obp in limited PA's, so if Tilson can match that you'll barely notice Eaton is gone until you see Avi tripping over his shoelaces in RF. I dont think Tilson will, but I think he can BABIP and draw enough walks to keep himself above .300 obp. I think you guys overrated Eaton's contributions at the plate. Speaking of Shuck I saw what I think was him at Midway a couple days ago. Departures lane but he's still got the Sox plates flying proud on his (IIRC) Jeep.

I think Tilson can provide .300-.320 obp with a complete dearth of power and a couple legged out XBH. Maybe he cant I dont know, it has less to do with Tilson being good and more to do with Eaton being insanely overrated.

Well I'm the kind of guy that includes the disasters. And even if I wasn't I'd still be looking at the 5 walks in 7.2 IP in Sept. as an indication his control never really improved even in the absence of Navarro. But whatever I'm not going to get this far in depth over 8 inning sample sizes to make my broader point that Robertson is either about to completely fall apart or already has and we dont (well I do) know it yet.

I'm just saying the idea that our offense has been completely neutered by firesale trades is wrong. The Sox infield of Frazier-Anderson-Lawrie/Saladino (inevitable injury)-Abreu is probably going to score a lot of runs this year. If Tilson has so much as a pulse at the plate he'll give Jewel-brand Eaton production with his bat. If Melky does what he did last year as a DH that wont be too bad. Eaton is so ridiculously overrated by a couple nice throws from RF its sick. Good on Hahn getting the deal he got for him, still cant believe it. I agree with whoever said in another thread that the Sox lost about 8 wins with the trades. I dont think any of those are coming from the offensive side though, more the obvious rotation downgrade from Sale to Holland and the looming disaster in RF.

Well it was only 17 innings and he still managed to walk 10 guys in those innings (not good) so lets not get too carried away about his Aug/Sept splits.

Oh that's pretty easy. He's been getting worse every year the last three years and last year he ran hot/cold all season falling apart at the most inopportune times. And his stuff doesn't look half as good evidenced by his exploding walk rates and near doubling of the line drive rate off his fastball. You can tell me all you want about his terrific 2011 season, but I dont think it has much bearing on what he'll do in the midst of a clear decline at age 32 with mounting injuries exacerbating his problems.

How do you know this is Robertson's low point?

Why will the offense be worse? Eaton? You know Eaton wasn't even the best hitting outfielder the Sox had last year, right?