Maybe it doesn't stay on the table. I have to believe the discussion was, "O.K., i'll do Espinoza if we call it in right now. No shopping."
Red Sox acquire Drew Pomeranz for Anderson Espinoza
- Thread starter johnnywayback
- Start date
The Red Sox strategy right now should be to develop hitters and trade for pitchers. How many pitchers have they successfully developed? IMO Espinoza under the Red Sox org may not have panned out anyway. I like that they've kept Moncada, Benentendi, Devers. Let's win now.
Ken Rosenthal weighs in
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/boston-red-sox-trade-pitcher-drew-pomeranz-aaron-hill-brad-ziegler-071416
More at the link.
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/boston-red-sox-trade-pitcher-drew-pomeranz-aaron-hill-brad-ziegler-071416
He's also thrown his changeup more at times this year than in the past. He didn't use it much the past couple of years, but as a reliever he didn't really need it. But this year he's used both the cutter and the change about 10% of the time, mostly at the expense of the 4-seamer (the curve usage hasn't changed much, comparatively). The change he uses exclusively to RHH, the cutter he uses about equally to both.
I don't get the sense that his change is a terribly good pitch--there's not much velocity differential between it and the fastball, roughly 87/92 respectively--but because it's thrown at about the same speed as the cutter, but moves differently, it provides another way for him to keep RHH guessing. To righties he's something of a junkballer -- only 28% fastballs -- while to lefties he throws slightly over 50% fastballs.
Here's his pitcher card.
Perhaps The Padres identified desired targets from all potential trade partners and Espinoza was at or near the top of their list. Maybe the opportunity to get Espinoza now vs. letting the Sox make another deal with someone else and potentially miss out was enough to to pull the trigger.
Kilted Fool points out that Pomeranz once was [much like] Espinosa, Ricardo asserts that there is only a 20% chance that Espy will achieve Pomeranz-like success... I am wondering what insights other SoSHers have on this idea.
Pomeranz himself was once--not that long ago--a very promising pitching prospect. Like many others, he kicked around for a few years before putting things together. This year, he added the cutter and seems to have begun to reach his potential.
I am wondering what confidence interval would be put on Espinoza ever reaching Pomeranz's current/recent MLB performance? of exceeding it?
Wouldn't that be a pretty good outcome for Espinoza--to have a few solid seasons as a swingman near age 25 and blossom as a SP--for at least half an all-star season--at age 27?
How likely an outcome is that? How reasonable a projection might it be? 40%? 50%?
Perhaps DD just swapped 6 future years of control of a top 20 MLB Sp for 2.5 years now. Even that would be a reasonably smart trade, I think. But what are the odds exactly?
People have been mentioning DD's history with prospect trades, but even more importantly, I think, he has a solid history of acquiring guys like Pomeranz who turn out to be better than expected--that is, pitchers who it turns out actually are entering into their prime production years: Fister, Anibal Sanchez, Scherzer...
Pomeranz himself was once--not that long ago--a very promising pitching prospect. Like many others, he kicked around for a few years before putting things together. This year, he added the cutter and seems to have begun to reach his potential.
I am wondering what confidence interval would be put on Espinoza ever reaching Pomeranz's current/recent MLB performance? of exceeding it?
Wouldn't that be a pretty good outcome for Espinoza--to have a few solid seasons as a swingman near age 25 and blossom as a SP--for at least half an all-star season--at age 27?
How likely an outcome is that? How reasonable a projection might it be? 40%? 50%?
Perhaps DD just swapped 6 future years of control of a top 20 MLB Sp for 2.5 years now. Even that would be a reasonably smart trade, I think. But what are the odds exactly?
People have been mentioning DD's history with prospect trades, but even more importantly, I think, he has a solid history of acquiring guys like Pomeranz who turn out to be better than expected--that is, pitchers who it turns out actually are entering into their prime production years: Fister, Anibal Sanchez, Scherzer...
Well, one way of valuing the trade would be to apply that development percentage to years of control. So if there's a 50-50 chance Espinoza's an excellent starter over six years of control, the Padres get 3 years of an excellent starter in the future. The Sox get 2.5 years multiplied by whatever Pomeranz's chances of success are - say 80% he's effective and not injured. (Plus the Sox get the benefit of a clustering effect - exchanging future control of an excellent SP for GFIN control.)
It's tempting to look at a prospect and assume that everything he does right will continue, while any holes in his game will fix themselves. History is littered with #1 pitching prospects who just never got it together (or got it together so late as to be useless to their original teams.)
I would add Kelly, Owens, Johnson, and Rodriquez to the list, and, in a good way, Ortiz, who is willing himself to keep the Sox in contention in his last go-round. You have to respect that. As far as Espinoza is concerned, I tend to think his odds of making it to MLB and succeeding have improved now that he is out of the Sox development morass.
I'm not sure how you would measure that but I'm guessing Espinoza's chance to have a half a season like Pomeranz is having is less than 10%.
I rarely post, but I can't get through this thread without chiming in. Pomeranz was a #5 overall pick and was at one point ranked #30 by BA http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/2012/2612998.html
The guys only 27!!! So many guys don't "get it" until then. This is exactly the trade that 18 year old chips are meant for - it's not like we're trading for Larry Andersen here. The response thus far baffles me.
Agree - there was likely a respectfully challenging negotiation.
Padres: We're talking about Espinoza. That's it. Don't bother with anything else.
Red Sox: Here he is then, right now. Take it or leave it because part of the justification is us getting some more starts for your guy before others come calling. You have 24 hours.
Shake hands and smile.
{edit: Or what Plympton said}
Padres: We're talking about Espinoza. That's it. Don't bother with anything else.
Red Sox: Here he is then, right now. Take it or leave it because part of the justification is us getting some more starts for your guy before others come calling. You have 24 hours.
Shake hands and smile.
{edit: Or what Plympton said}
Given that this was a while in the making, I think you're missing a bit:
Padres: Can we keep him till after the Allstar game though? It's kinda being played at our stadium and all. Gotta represent.
Red Sox: Sure, that's fine.
Padres: Cool, thanks.
I'm really glad to see folks seem to be coming around on this deal. When I was in here posting last night, I felt like I was swimming in an ocean full of depressed, ready to jump ship Sox fans who had just lost their favorite pitcher since Pedro. I don't have anything to add that I didn't already say, and others have subsequently reinforced, so I'll just say I love this trade one more time. Barring injuries, with this offense, I really felt this team was one solid starting pitcher away from being an absolute force in the playoffs, and Pomeranz is more than I could have hoped for in this market (at least without giving up the entire farm). If the bullpen gets healthy, think about it. Best offense in baseball, arguably the best bullpen in baseball and a top 3 of Price, Wright and Pomeranz? I'll take my chances in a 7 game series with that recipe against any other team in the Majors. He has the ability to make that kind of a difference, so I was shocked to read people were against the trade, and figured it had to be a function of folks just not knowing much about Pomeranz (that's why I made the post last night about his 8-7 record being almost solely a result of shitty run support, and in reality it should be 13-4 and wondered if people would view him differently).
From now forward, it's all about winning regular season games, improving our playoff seeding, getting home field to whatever extent we can and staying healthy. I want to see this team as currently constructed come October, and then watch Papi just explode all over every team we play.
From now forward, it's all about winning regular season games, improving our playoff seeding, getting home field to whatever extent we can and staying healthy. I want to see this team as currently constructed come October, and then watch Papi just explode all over every team we play.
I've mixed feelings. While there will never be another Pedro, the thought of a Pedro-like hurler intrigued me. OTOH, for my druthers, you always go with performance vs. potential. I must admit that the Red Sox have a not so impressive history of developing pitchers. So that looks Pomeranz trade more appealing.
When I first heard of trade I was disappointed but when I did a brief look at stats, I was pleasantly surprised. ERA+ 158 this year. That's Kershaw like although granted only for half a season. Then you look at FIP of 3.17, putting in the top 10 in MLB. Overall I'm happy because as I said earlier it's shame to waste the best offense in baseball with the spotty SR.
I wish Espinoza all the success with Padres and I hope that Pomeranz can help stabilize and lengthen the SR.
EDIT: I hate to bring this up but I was one who said Sox should have traded for Hamels. Then this trade would not POSSIBLY have been needed. At Least we still have Benintendi.
When I first heard of trade I was disappointed but when I did a brief look at stats, I was pleasantly surprised. ERA+ 158 this year. That's Kershaw like although granted only for half a season. Then you look at FIP of 3.17, putting in the top 10 in MLB. Overall I'm happy because as I said earlier it's shame to waste the best offense in baseball with the spotty SR.
I wish Espinoza all the success with Padres and I hope that Pomeranz can help stabilize and lengthen the SR.
EDIT: I hate to bring this up but I was one who said Sox should have traded for Hamels. Then this trade would not POSSIBLY have been needed. At Least we still have Benintendi.
And Hamels would have been traded to the RS for no one?
The RS likely just got what is likely to be the best pitcher traded before the deadline and he is under team control for 2 and a half years. He fills not only a position of need, but what has been 2 rotation spots of a black hole and it was looking like this flaw could very well have kept the RS out of the playoffs.
Yes they gave up baseball's #15 prospect. However, history (MxKinney's research) has shown that such a highly rated prospect has only a 40% chance of being a league average pitcher or better and 10% chance of averaging what Pomeranz has managed in the first half of the season. On top of those odds, Espinosa is at least 2 years away from the Majors and next year's free agent class is unlikely to offer the possibility of anyone as talented as Pomeranz.
Trades are two sided and this does look like a trade that was a good one for both teams in their current situation. How it will look in 3 or 5 years is likely to be very different, but at that point it could be one sided. However, who will have gotten the better of the deal is close to 50-50 now.
The RS likely just got what is likely to be the best pitcher traded before the deadline and he is under team control for 2 and a half years. He fills not only a position of need, but what has been 2 rotation spots of a black hole and it was looking like this flaw could very well have kept the RS out of the playoffs.
Yes they gave up baseball's #15 prospect. However, history (MxKinney's research) has shown that such a highly rated prospect has only a 40% chance of being a league average pitcher or better and 10% chance of averaging what Pomeranz has managed in the first half of the season. On top of those odds, Espinosa is at least 2 years away from the Majors and next year's free agent class is unlikely to offer the possibility of anyone as talented as Pomeranz.
Trades are two sided and this does look like a trade that was a good one for both teams in their current situation. How it will look in 3 or 5 years is likely to be very different, but at that point it could be one sided. However, who will have gotten the better of the deal is close to 50-50 now.
Considering that the ask for Cole Hamels was Betts or Bogaerts AND extra parts... saying you wanted to trade for him is just...
Hamels would have cost nothing less than Swihart and likely Swihart plus. Blake might be our full time catcher as soon as the end of this season. He has every bit the elite prospect cred as Espinoza but is ML ready now.
Andrew Cashner has been nearly as terrible as Buchholz this year. Trading away anything for a guy who replicates the same awfulness at the back end of the rotation does nothing to improve the team this year. And who is to say what better starter would be available this off-season and whether a package headlined by Espinoza would be enough to get said starter.
Also, Preller knew that Pom had pretty much "peaked" for the year - great stats, good health, All-Star - and perhaps didn't want to chance an injury or downturn in performance before the deadline. Pom's value was at its highest and that's always a good time to pull the trigger if there's a player you'd like.
Given the earlier deal for Kimbrel, he'd be pretty familiar with Boston's prospects and probably coveted Espinoza greatly. Why risk losing him if Pom comes down with a sore shoulder? The timing of Clay's injury last year was certainly a lesson learned from Boston's POV and it's likely every team has a similar instance.
Swihart is such an elite prospect that the team moved him off of catcher six games into the season to a position where he's less valuable. Even if he comes back this season, he's going to start next year in AAA, and it's far from assured that he'll ever be the Sox' starting catcher. If they really could have gotten Hamels for Swihart, then that was absolutely a mistake based on what has happened in 2016.
First, no, they haven't moved him off catcher.
No, decisions made a year ago don't become mistakes based on things that happen afterwards.
The real tragedy is that we'll never know if this nifty double entendre was intentional.
This isn't the Swihart thread, but he was playing games in left field exclusively at the time of his injury. How would you characterize that?
They would also have to pay him 22 million dollars a year. I guess its possible they could have done that instead of signing Hanley or Sandoval, but considering the time line of when those trade talks really heated up, its more likely that it was either him or Price and keeping the prospects.
Would it make you all feel better if I had said "temporarily moved him?" I'm not going to claim to know the long-term plan, and this thread is cluttered enough as it is.
Nah, it's ceiling is Overreactionary Nonsense of the Year.
As false. The Sox say he's going to play left and catch and Brock Holt hot hurt like a week or so later and they felt Swihart would do the job better than Brentz so they called him up.
Hamels has a 4.56 FIP this year, a non-elite prospect would be the more adequate return for him.
I still don't understand how having him play a different position instead of the one he came up playing is not moving him, but this is an official waste of my time at this point.
Because he didn't stop playing catcher. It's not hard. You just want to read more into it for some reason that became tiresome months ago.
I don't give a damn if Swihart has played lat game behind the plate. I don't give a of they maximize his value. I want to win the world series every goddamn year. If that means Swihart plays left or third or not at all, I don't care.
Swihart wasn't moved off catcher, the club moved him down to AAA because they (and almost everyone else in the industry) consider Vazquez a generational talent defensively at a position of high defensive importance, one that recent modelling indicates might actually help pitcher perform better, while Swihart was pressed into service last season with very little development in AAA. Then when it looked like LF production was going to be a problem they had him pick up LF because he's a good enough athlete to do so and likely one of the 10 or 11 best bats in the organization. Some scouting comments project Swihart to be comparable to Alex Gordon as a full time LF by the way, so it isn't like he's suddenly just another guy because they have him playing LF.
In fact, I'd argue that at the time of the transition the long term plan probably envisioned a roster in 2017 and beyond with Vazquez starting 2/3rds of the time at C, Swihart taking the other 1/3rd, and then Swihart playing something less than the other 2/3rds of games in LF to maximize the value of his bat. Vazquez failing to hit has probably hurt that long term plan while the emergence of Benintendi likely reduces the available role in LF for Swihart (though he could fit into a nice platoon with AB there since he hits better from the right side).
Hamels is getting paid pretty much market rate. So how would it have been a mistake not trading Swihart in order to pay Hamels $23.5M a year when this off-season they could have signed Johnny Cueto for about $20M AAV or Jeff Samardzija for less than $19M AAV? Give up a top 25 prospect for Hamels versus getting younger, cheaper FA pitchers for just money. Which brings us back to the topic at hand.
The Sox didn't pick any of those guys up because contrary to the perception some people have around here the Red Sox do not have an infinite budget. If the Sox had traded for Hamels they likely would have lacked the financial flexibility to sign David Price who did not cost anything other than cash, is only 30, and has a 3.41 FIP (his worst since he was 24). A much better short and long term option than Hamels. Meanwhile Drew Pomeranz is making $1.35M this year and will be under arb. control for 2017, 2018, and 2019.
The Sox have been in the hunt for Chris Sale for several years now. They've been crushing on Felix Hernandez since the Theo era was really only just getting rolling. Teams basically do not trade those kinds of guys anymore. The wealth disparity isn't big enough to make a club NEED to give up a certified ace so other than choosing FA they don't move. The next best thing the club can do is not trading top prospects for already proven next tier down guys. It's trading top prospects for the cost controlled peak seasons of players who look to be entering that next tier down but still with some upside yet to be realized. Exactly what they've done with Pomeranz. It involves slightly more risk but offers substantially more upside.
Xander Bogarts did not stop being a SS when he played 3B, he was simply shifted temporarily to maximize his utility to the team, after which he went back to SS. Why is this not the same, simply because you haven't seen Swihart play catcher again yet?
It could be that people are talking across each other here. I think you and Ras and I all are interpreting "the Sox moved him off catcher" as implying something more or less permanent. And I agree that there is no reason at all to assume this. But obviously they "moved him off catcher" in the sense of playing him at another position for a substantial stretch of games. Whether they see this as a temporary expedient or a new normal, unless DD or others have said something definitive that I haven't heard, we can't do much more than guess.
I would just add that DD's bizarre quote when Swihart was sent down for a position change, which was very vague about how the organization valued him moving forward - probably also contributes to some posters worries about a permanent switch. I do happen to think that he'll get an opportunity to catch again in Boston when Benintendi is ready, but IMHO that is more due to Vazquez' ineffectiveness and Hanigan's contract status at this point rather than an endorsement.
I'd compare them to the comments they made to Bogaerts about his temporary position switch, but that was under Ben's watch.
Edit: Found DD's quote.
"I can't even tell you what the goal is," Dombrowski said. "I'd like to have him capable of doing a lot of different things. Our goal is to make sure he's part of our future, and we'll tackle what that is as time goes on."
Nothing whatsoever on whether catching is one of those "different" things.
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I always assumed that meant that Boston was going to the DH by committee track after Papi's retirement and that they wanted to keep Swihart's bat in the lineup, but it's anyone's guess at this point. The ankle injury derailed this season, but I wouldn't be the least bit shocked to see him as the backup C next year while getting the majority of DH at bats with occasional trips to the OF to spell the Killer Bs.
Is there some other way to read those words?
I think they planned on him playing a little left and some catcher. Then when Holt went down, they thought it was going to be a week and it ended up being a month and a half during which Swihart himself got injured. It was a temporary thing that got stretched out due to circumstance then cut short due to injury. If Swihart were to come back right now, I think he'd go to AAA and split time between catching and left field.
I actually think if he comes back at all this year it will be exclusively in left field or DH. I'm not certain his ankle could withstand the constant pounding it would endure squatting behind the plate. However next year Blake will go back to catching.
That's rich.
Get it???? GET IT???!?!??!?
Asking price and sale price are two different things. The real question that we can never answer (assuming no Sox involvement on Hill) is what would it take for Beane to say okay? Swihart? Swihart +?
Biggest thing about this trade that bothers me is the workload and usage going forward. Has had some shoulder injuries and has 203ish innings thrown 2014-2015. Feels like Sox are gonna ride him as far as they can, because they basically need to. We don't generally see good things from guys whose innings are increased so dramatically. Aaron Sanchez has a similar workload over the last 4 years and Jays are scrambling trying to figure out if they should move him to pen or what.
Traded Espinoza because Pom was a long term asset. Their planned use of him seems to be a bit cavalier.
Traded Espinoza because Pom was a long term asset. Their planned use of him seems to be a bit cavalier.