A starting position player plus three prospects for a set up man with a 1-1/2 year track record and a past PRP injection in his elbow. Yeah, it wasn't the elbow that broke, yet.
Evaluating Travis Shore
- Thread starter Plympton91
- Start date
To his credit, he was one of the most opposed to the trade when it happened.
edit: Dubon was on an absolute tear to start the year too, but he was derailed by injury. He is slashing .343/.348/.574 in AAA but hasn't played since May 5th. He's still just 23. He's shown some pop before but it disappears. The other 2 guys probably won't reach the Majors.
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I think it's time to point out that the "starting position player" had a 0.599 OPS against lefties in 2016. Other concerning stats:
0.654 OPS on the road
0.619 OPS in the 2nd half
An unsustainable 0.410 BABIP in April.
Projecting Shaw was going to be difficult. Again, Will Middlebrooks should be the cautionary tale, as there are far more Middlebrooks than there are player like the one that Shaw has become with the Brewers.
The Sox figured (incorrectly) that the sunk cost of Panda could have provided replacement level play at 3B. Sam Travis had not yet gotten hurt. Devers was waiting in the wings. Carson Smith was only a few months removed from TJS. Workman was recovering from Tommy John as well. Tazawa and Uehara were both gone. Robbie Scott had all of 6 innings of major league experience. Noone really knew what we would get with relief pitch Joe Kelly.
And if you avoid pitchers that had PRP injections, you'll limit yourself to only a handful of pitchers these days.
I e done this a million times before. The proper way to evaluate Shaw in the winter of 2016-2017 was with his full major league career OPS. It was 802 in 800 plate appearances. All the splits you posted are such small sample sizes that any statistically literate organization would have discounted them almost fully. Even if all Shaw had become was a guy who could put up an 800 OPS as the strong side of a platoon, that’s worth more than a set up man. And yet, the Red Sox threw in theee more players, including a good defensive shortstop who’d shown an ability to not be an offensive black hole. Mind boggling. Shaw for Thornburg straight up? Maybe. 3 prospects for Thornburg, Ok. I guess. Both? Insanity.
Check your numbers. He had a career .754OPS in the winter of 2016-2017. It wasn't until after last season when he had a career .801OPS. Additionally, his .726OPS in 2016 was the 3rd worst among qualifying 3B, making Shaw a bottom-tier starting 3B in the winter of 2016-2017.
Trading away Shaw was a blunder. Two years Pablo was God-awful -ofc his 2nd year he was hurt. In 2011, 2013, and 2015 Hanley was hurt. You got a young player in Shaw that showed something -power. And we were losing Papi. There were many of us that did not like this trade. Shaw potentially could have beaten out Panda. Going after the one year wonder Thornburgh who played for San Diego was a blunder.
I don't want to make it sound like I'm dumping on DD. The Sox won the division the past 2 years, and this year so far The Sox are a powerhouse. DD has made some very good moves. But for the many who did't like the trade, there was too much risk trading a potential position player starter to go after a ""1 year "proven" reliever."" It would be fine if we knew Shaw wasn't going to be a full-time player for the team without a doubt. But there were questions that he possibly could. Too much risk for this type of reliever from a non-competitive NL team. Giving up the potential full-day starter for this type of reliever was/is a mistake unless you know Shaw can't get the time.
There was some dissent with this trade. It wasn't hindsight.
but you also had Devers in the minors, who is sticking at 3rd at least defensively really well right now.
Every bit of dissent with the trade is hindsight, because you could not have possibly predicted that Shaw would've outperformed his entire career to that point and that Thornburg would almost immediately get hurt out of nowhere. Maybe you considered one of those things, I doubt it, but there's no way you thought both.
Shaw was a low-tier, entirely replaceable 3B when the Sox didn't need such a player (given they had hoped Sandoval could've been exactly that...a low-tier, entirely replaceable 3B, and they also had Devers in the wings,) and Thornburg had just come off a dominant season and addressed an area of serious need at the time in the pen. If you ignore that context and focus entirely on the two vastly unlikely scenarios that actually did unfold, you are using the benefit of hindsight.
You cannot make (or evaluate) trades with the caveat "you can only do that if you knew WITHOUT A DOUBT". That's not how real-life works. You never know for sure, there's always variables and risk in play when it comes to moving (potential) talent for (established) talent, and lastly, the fact that Thornburg pitched for a crappy team means absolutely nothing in terms of single-player evaluation.
If you're going to criticize a move, you need to do a better job than that.
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Solid defensively and on pace for more than 23 homers. As a 21 year old.
Nothing wrong with that, really.
What is this thread on the dark web?
If the mods are cool with that, I’d like to propose one on the Bagwell for Andrerson trade. I’m still not over that debacle.
That's cute. I don't want to rehash the trade, I just want the "nobody objected to the trade at the time" and the "oh, you did, well then you are stupid" stuff to go away. If Devers continues to improve, then OK.
We'll have nothing of this healthy, constructive, forward looking attitude, you!!
It helps to remember Travis Shaw and Will Middlebrooks when the prospect rankings see so little in the Red Sox farm system. Don't let those rankings convince you they have nobody in the minors that has a chance of becoming a good MLB player.
He's been pretty terrible of late. last 27: 108 PA .193/.324/.285 on a .235 BAbip. 17bb/21k in that time.
Season line now at .239/.340/.460. His career line is .257/.330/.470.
Season line now at .239/.340/.460. His career line is .257/.330/.470.
