Sox get Kimbrel

Aug 22, 2014
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I'm not really sure what this tells us. Shaw, Bradley, and Holt were projected as backups in 2015 (and two of them are still likely to be backups in 2016) and the higher-than-expected WAR is substantially due to playing time. So that leaves Betts and Bogaerts as the only true over-achievers here among position players. (And since they are so young, it could easily be a case of under-projecting rather than over-achieving.)

the playing time does make comparisons tough (I was going to try an adjust for playing time but it got complicated quick) - but in fact in those three cases you mention they all ended up with (significantly) fewer PAs than those projections were for.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2015-zips-projections-boston-red-sox/

Holt 581pa, 1.1war
Bradley 505pa, 0.7war
Shaw 550pa, -0.2war
 

The Gray Eagle

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In the middle of Cafardo's sunday ramblings, he says "The Reds listened to Boston’s pitch for Chapman but required more than the Red Sox offered for Kimbrel, and the Sox weren’t comfortable going the extra mile for a pitcher who can become a free agent after 2016."

So the Reds wanted more than the 4 guys we gave up for Kimbrel, for just one year of Chapman. Teams are going to be asking for the moon from us when we look for trades. That's why I hope we are done making major trades this offseason.
 

JBJ_HOF

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So Cafardo is doubling down after the Reds GM said that was an insane theory and of course Kimbrel's return would be bigger because of his contract like 2 days ago.
 

Plympton91

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It seems entirely possible that the three teams just have different views on the packages being discussed doesn't it? Maybe the Red Sox view the Reds asking price (suppose it was Owens/Johnson) as higher than the Padres, but the Reds see what the Padres got as more than their ask. For all their promise, the Pads got a AA prospect, a low-A prospect, a draft pick, and a filler. It's possible the Red Sox would view two AAA-tested starting pitchers as more valuable than that package, even as rebuilding teams viewed the high upside and volume of prospects a better.
 

Rasputin

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In the middle of Cafardo's sunday ramblings, he says "The Reds listened to Boston’s pitch for Chapman but required more than the Red Sox offered for Kimbrel, and the Sox weren’t comfortable going the extra mile for a pitcher who can become a free agent after 2016."
If that particular mile is extra, why the hell would anyone go it for a one year rental? If Chapman were willing to work out an extension prior to the trade, maybe an extra mile could be called for, but no.

So the Reds wanted more than the 4 guys we gave up for Kimbrel, for just one year of Chapman. Teams are going to be asking for the moon from us when we look for trades. That's why I hope we are done making major trades this offseason.
I don't think this makes any sense. Teams are always going to start negotiations by asking for more. The fact that we have a shit-ton of really good prospects isn't going to make them suddenly ask for even more, and if it does, it's certainly not going to hamper the Sox' ability to say no.

It seems entirely possible that the three teams just have different views on the packages being discussed doesn't it? Maybe the Red Sox view the Reds asking price (suppose it was Owens/Johnson) as higher than the Padres, but the Reds see what the Padres got as more than their ask. For all their promise, the Pads got a AA prospect, a low-A prospect, a draft pick, and a filler. It's possible the Red Sox would view two AAA-tested starting pitchers as more valuable than that package, even as rebuilding teams viewed the high upside and volume of prospects a better.
Sure, or maybe Cafardo is just a moron.
 

Rice4HOF

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If that particular mile is extra, why the hell would anyone go it for a one year rental? If Chapman were willing to work out an extension prior to the trade, maybe an extra mile could be called for, but no.



I don't think this makes any sense. Teams are always going to start negotiations by asking for more. The fact that we have a shit-ton of really good prospects isn't going to make them suddenly ask for even more, and if it does, it's certainly not going to hamper the Sox' ability to say no.



Sure, or maybe Cafardo is just a moron.
Occam's razor!
 

Pinchrunner#2

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At least now we know who is the equivalent of Bobby Valentine of posting.
Wow, I was not expecting those kind of reactions.

As for the justification: In my opinion, Bobby V. never was a fit in Boston in terms of character, analytical knowledge and applying sabermetrics. It was a miscast from the get-go. My feeling is that Dave Dombrowski is similar to his front office people as Bobby Valentine was to his coaches and players. The first trade shows that he has a totally different view/way of measuring value of players as his predecessors (Cherington/Epstein). Even if we already knew that from his time in Detroit, this trade showed it in an extreme way.

Now I am kind of afraid that the sabermetrics-centred days in Boston could be over.
 

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The first trade shows that he has a totally different view/way of measuring value of players as his predecessors (Cherington/Epstein).
Now I am kind of afraid that the sabermetrics-centred days in Boston could be over.
How do you think this is totally different than trading for Bailey or Melancon or Hanrahan?
 

Tyrone Biggums

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How do you think this is totally different than trading for Bailey or Melancon or Hanrahan?
When you get the best (at worst top 3) at a position as opposed someone who has one or two good seasons it deserves to be looked at in a different light. Bailey was talented but injury prone. Hanrahan had little track record to show he could be elite and Melancon already did a tour in the AL East before to lackluster results. Granted the best player the Sox gave up in those trades was Reddick but if you're giving up assets for a closer make sure its an elite one.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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How do you think this is totally different than trading for Bailey or Melancon or Hanrahan?
Arguably, the only difference is that the Red Sox traded far more known/proven commodities (Reddick, Lowrie, Melancon) for those guys than they did for Kimbrel, and none of those guys had Kimbrel's pedigree at the time of those trades.

I'm not necessarily all in on the Dombrowski era either, but it seems a pretty big leap (and a shit ton of preconceived notions) to think one trade is indicative of anything.
 

iayork

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Now I am kind of afraid that the sabermetrics-centred days in Boston could be over.
Seems unlikely that they'd be "over" altogether. It seems at least equally likely that SABR approaches in-house have assigned more value to relievers (or perhaps to elite closers) than the stereotyped view has been. There's no doubt that the game has changed drastically since SABRmetrics first became popular -- just in the past five year, the offense level has changed, pitchers are throwing a couple mph faster on average, the size of the strike zone has increased dramatically, the shift has become routine -- and it would be crazy to think that as all these factors change, values of various roles might remain the same.

But much more important than that: The complaint about the Kimbrel trade has been that the minor-league pieces sent back for him were too valuable. Valuable based on what? Hardly on SABRmetrics -- there's so little data accurately collected for AA players that essentially the only things we know about them are scouting-based. (Perhaps the front office has data that we don't. If so, we can hardly complain that we know better than they do.) So if you're arguing that Dombrowski's strength is in scouting, then surely he has a vast advantage over SABRmetrics when it comes to evaluating minor-league players.

If you have specific data-based evaluations of the minor-league players that tells you what their major-league value will be, great -- please share, because no one else has that data. If your judgment of them is based on the scouting-based Baseball America ratings, then don't invoke SABRmetrics as a reason for complaining about the trade. You're comparing your second- or third-hand scouting ability with Dave Dombrowski's experience and first-hand evaluation.

It's fine to dislike the trade, but framing it as a rejection of SABRmetrics seems really odd.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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Arguably, the only difference is that the Red Sox traded far more known/proven commodities (Reddick, Lowrie, Melancon) for those guys than they did for Kimbrel, and none of those guys had Kimbrel's pedigree at the time of those trades.
I'd go so far as to argue that the comparison to the Hanrahan, Bailey, and Melancon deals makes this one look better. In those deals, the Sox gave up players who they knew had the ability to contribute at the Major-League level. As impressed as you may be by Guerra and/or Margot, there is still a non-zero chance that they will never even combine for as much value as even one season of Lowrie or Reddick. (Side note: I know they had their reasons for those deals, please don't take this as an opportunity to defend dealing away Reddick or whatever.) And yes, as others have mentioedn, Kimbrel has a much better track record than any of the other three relievers.
 

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When you get the best (at worst top 3) at a position as opposed someone who has one or two good seasons it deserves to be looked at in a different light. Bailey was talented but injury prone. Hanrahan had little track record to show he could be elite and Melancon already did a tour in the AL East before to lackluster results. Granted the best player the Sox gave up in those trades was Reddick but if you're giving up assets for a closer make sure its an elite one.
For the record, I'm a big fan of this deal. My question was posed simply to try to get a bit of insight from our brand new member on his/her first day of inquisitive posting.
 

effectivelywild

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I think the biggest issue people have is thinking that the package of prospects should have been good enough to "get a good starter," or at least play a major part in getting one. The real issue, though, is that we don't know what it would take to get one of those theoretical starters---or even another good reliever---so until we see more players traded, we won't really know what the market is like. In essence, I think the argument that we paid too much for Kimbrel is a quasi-strawman---it may be true, but we don't really have any evidence at this point.
 

Pinchrunner#2

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For the record, I'm a big fan of this deal. My question was posed simply to try to get a bit of insight from our brand new member on his/her first day of inquisitive posting.
Ok. I think you cannot compare the Bailey, Melancon and Kimbrel trades in term of packages given up.

Bailey trade: Reddick was, according to BA, only once rated in the top 100 prospect list (2009: 75th). He was of course rated 3rd in a Red Sox system that then was not close to the quality of today. Neither Miles Head nor Raul Alcantara ever were rated in their respective careers in the top 100 list. Were they close to it? I cant remember. Boston also got Ryan Sweeney who was ok as a part-time player.

Melancon trade: Jed Lowrie was a semi-established MLB player (2.5 WAR over 4 seasons) and Kyle Weiland never cracked the Red Sox top 15 prospect list and therefore never appeared on a top 100 list.

The package given up for Craig Kimbrel is much more impressive (two top 100 prospects) plus one that could crack the list in 2016.

Plus we can all agree that the Melancon and Bailey trades were bad trades from a Boston perspective.
 

Pinchrunner#2

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I'd go so far as to argue that the comparison to the Hanrahan, Bailey, and Melancon deals makes this one look better. In those deals, the Sox gave up players who they knew had the ability to contribute at the Major-League level. As impressed as you may be by Guerra and/or Margot, there is still a non-zero chance that they will never even combine for as much value as even one season of Lowrie or Reddick
You could use this argument for every trade where you deal prospects away. It is too general. The consensus in the baseball industry is that the Red Sox gave up way too much. Dave Cameron of Fangraphs even said: "Margot for Kimbrel alone would have been a deal worth making for the Padres". Therefore my take is that DD valued the package that he gave up less than most of baseball executives. That cannot be a good sign, even if every single prospect in this deal flames out.
 
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Pinchrunner#2

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It's fine to dislike the trade, but framing it as a rejection of SABRmetrics seems really odd.
I agree. The message of this sentence was unclear. I was referring to Epstein and Cherington being similar (sabermetrics-centred) in their overall assesment of things. You could also say "modern". But also when valuing prospects and relievers (low WAR) etc. Since the trade showed for me that there is a discrepancy between DD and his predecessors in terms of valuing prospects and relievers, I opined that the emphasis on SABRmetrics could also be over or at least reduced. Frank Wren and DD are rather known for traditional scouting if you believe what different media outlets say.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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Ok. I think you cannot compare the Bailey, Melancon and Kimbrel trades in term of packages given up.

Bailey trade: Reddick was, according to BA, only once rated in the top 100 prospect list (2009: 75th).
Yes, but he had been listed twice by BP, getting as high as #58 before 2010. And more importantly, he had already had one MLB season where he had performed respectably, with above-average offense and inconsistent but sometimes impressive defense, racking up almost 2 WAR in a half-season's duty. So he was a former consensus top-100 prospect who appeared to be on his way to being a solid-average MLB player (which is exactly what he has been), with (at that time) five years of team control left. That's a very valuable piece. SD is hoping that's what Margot looks like in a couple of years. He could turn out to be even better, of course, but he's at least as likely to never get that far.

As for Lowrie for Melancon, there's a bit of an apples and oranges factor there. Melancon had not established the kind of ceiling that Bailey had, let alone Kimbrel.

The package given up for Craig Kimbrel is much more impressive (two top 100 prospects) plus one that could crack the list in 2016.
Saying that "two top 100 prospects" is a more impressive package than one former top-100 prospect who has already shown an ability to perform at an average-or-better level in the major leagues may be seriously overrating prospects.
 

Rovin Romine

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Ok. I think you cannot compare the Bailey, Melancon and Kimbrel trades in term of packages given up.

Bailey trade: Reddick was, according to BA, only once rated in the top 100 prospect list (2009: 75th). He was of course rated 3rd in a Red Sox system that then was not close to the quality of today. Neither Miles Head nor Raul Alcantara ever were rated in their respective careers in the top 100 list. Were they close to it? I cant remember. Boston also got Ryan Sweeney who was ok as a part-time player.

Melancon trade: Jed Lowrie was a semi-established MLB player (2.5 WAR over 4 seasons) and Kyle Weiland never cracked the Red Sox top 15 prospect list and therefore never appeared on a top 100 list.

The package given up for Craig Kimbrel is much more impressive (two top 100 prospects) plus one that could crack the list in 2016.

Plus we can all agree that the Melancon and Bailey trades were bad trades from a Boston perspective.
I don't think either the Melancon or Bailey trades were bad from a Boston perspective. Trades are made to address a particular team's weakness at a specific point in time. You ideally strive to never give anything away that will come back to haunt you, but you have to address weaknesses to compete. Ultimately, you're always exchanging sets of probable outcomes, as they're known at the time the trade is made.

For example, in 2011, the Sox just missed the playoffs. They had Gonzalez, Pedroia, Youkilis, Ortiz, Ells, Crawford, Papelbon, Bard, Beckett and Lester in their primes, more or less. They were hurt by poor SP depth down the stretch. And perhaps chicken and beer.

In 2012, there was going to be roster turn over. (Varitek/Wakefield/Papelbon et. al. were leaving and Lackey was getting surgery.) The 2012 plan was to augment the SP by converting Bard, bringing back a healthy Buchholz, and taking a flyer for the 5th spot. They could have ended up with 3 or 4 excellent starters, plus their great offense. But converting Bard, having Jenks injured, and not resigning Papelbon weakened the bullpen. So they had to trade to address this.

Reddick was a 24 year old good defensive RF, who was a bit above league average in offensive production, but mostly due to power, not OBP. They gave up two prospects. So that's some upside and long term control of it going to the A's.

The Sox got back a 26 year old Sweeney, who was good defensively, and did everything well but hit for power. Sort of the anti-Reddick. (They also signed Cody Ross.) So that's kind of a wash. They additionally got Bailey, who was good when not injured and seemed healthy. They also traded for Melancon resulting in a Bailey/Melancon/Aceves bullpen with Bard/Tazawa/Miller, et. al. in the wings. (Aceves seemed very legit in 2011.)

I won't break down the Melancon trade, but that's what those trades were - moves made in context dependent on how complete the team was and how competitive they were likely to be.

They were ultimately Valentined (and Acevesed and Barded), but the point is those trades weren't made in some sort of abstract "I'll trade you my number 9 for your number 8" way.
 

Pinchrunner#2

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Yes, but he had been listed twice by BP, getting as high as #58 before 2010. And more importantly, he had already had one MLB season where he had performed respectably, with above-average offense and inconsistent but sometimes impressive defense, racking up almost 2 WAR in a half-season's duty. So he was a former consensus top-100 prospect who appeared to be on his way to being a solid-average MLB player (which is exactly what he has been), with (at that time) five years of team control left. That's a very valuable piece. SD is hoping that's what Margot looks like in a couple of years. He could turn out to be even better, of course, but he's at least as likely to never get that far.

As for Lowrie for Melancon, there's a bit of an apples and oranges factor there. Melancon had not established the kind of ceiling that Bailey had, let alone Kimbrel.

Saying that "two top 100 prospects" is a more impressive package than one former top-100 prospect who has already shown an ability to perform at an average-or-better level in the major leagues may be seriously overrating prospects.
I wasn't comparing the three trades. Bob Montgomery's Helmets hat asked me how the three were different. I opined that you cannot compare them.

I don't have the BP book, so I can't say. But according to BA the highest Reddick got was #75. You are also only mentioning Margot. Guerra and Margot were top 50 midseason prospects according to Klaw. Margot even top 20. I think there is no doubt that this package is much more impressive than the ones that were traded for Melancon and Bailey respectively as is Kimbrel compared to the other relievers. Again, we should stop comparing those trades.

The bottom line is the market price. If you check Twitter at the time when the trade happened, people are all saying pretty similar things. The Padres won the deal fairly easy. And again: it doesnt matter if the prospects are going to flame out or all become All-Stars. It is about assesing the general value of prospects when they are prospcets with all the question marks. Apparently most baseball executives valued the package higher than Dombrowski did. We are getting 180 innings over three years for a big package of highly regarded prospects + a high salary.

If you believe in WAR this is not a smart investment, since you are probably buying 1.5-2-5 WAR a season. Even in the best case scenario (Kimbrel having three good and injury free years in Boston) you shouldnt give up such a package. Relievers are not that important based on WAR. There are more intelligent ways to build a bullpen imo.

Finally, I do hope Kimbrel pitches lights out during his time in Boston, but I still disagree with this trade as it is.
 

Pinchrunner#2

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I don't think either the Melancon or Bailey trades were bad from a Boston perspective. Trades are made to address a particular team's weakness at a specific point in time. You ideally strive to never give anything away that will come back to haunt you, but you have to address weaknesses to compete. Ultimately, you're always exchanging sets of probable outcomes, as they're known at the time the trade is made.

For example, in 2011, the Sox just missed the playoffs. They had Gonzalez, Pedroia, Youkilis, Ortiz, Ells, Crawford, Papelbon, Bard, Beckett and Lester in their primes, more or less. They were hurt by poor SP depth down the stretch. And perhaps chicken and beer.

In 2012, there was going to be roster turn over. (Varitek/Wakefield/Papelbon et. al. were leaving and Lackey was getting surgery.) The 2012 plan was to augment the SP by converting Bard, bringing back a healthy Buchholz, and taking a flyer for the 5th spot. They could have ended up with 3 or 4 excellent starters, plus their great offense. But converting Bard, having Jenks injured, and not resigning Papelbon weakened the bullpen. So they had to trade to address this.

Reddick was a 24 year old good defensive RF, who was a bit above league average in offensive production, but mostly due to power, not OBP. They gave up two prospects. So that's some upside and long term control of it going to the A's.

The Sox got back a 26 year old Sweeney, who was good defensively, and did everything well but hit for power. Sort of the anti-Reddick. (They also signed Cody Ross.) So that's kind of a wash. They additionally got Bailey, who was good when not injured and seemed healthy. They also traded for Melancon resulting in a Bailey/Melancon/Aceves bullpen with Bard/Tazawa/Miller, et. al. in the wings. (Aceves seemed very legit in 2011.)

I won't break down the Melancon trade, but that's what those trades were - moves made in context dependent on how complete the team was and how competitive they were likely to be.

They were ultimately Valentined (and Acevesed and Barded), but the point is those trades weren't made in some sort of abstract "I'll trade you my number 9 for your number 8" way.
Yes, agreed. The more accurate assessment would have been: Those trades turned out to be bad, but were ok trades at the time. Which I would not say about the Kimbrel trade.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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The Margot/Guerra package is only more impressive if you are building on a foundation of prospect site rankings and those rankings only matter if mlb teams give a shit about them. (hint: they don't)

And even if they did those lists still only matter if player value is uniform, exists in a vacuum and rosters had no limitations ( can't start two shortstops, only have 25 active spots, ect). And even then we are still ignoring the very concept of depth.

The Red Sox dealt prospects from two of their deepest positions to fill an enormous hole on the major league roster. Markets are fluid and relative depending on the teams involved. This was not a bad trade.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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The Red Sox dealt prospects from two of their deepest positions to fill an enormous hole on the major league roster. Markets are fluid and relative depending on the teams involved. This was not a bad trade.
And even if you want to view it as a bad trade because you don't like giving up the prospects they gave up, it still has the potential to be a good or even great trade in the long run (Margot/Guerra fail to develop, Kimbrel is lights-out for three years, etc). Just as in retrospect, the Melancon/Bailey/Hanrahan trifecta look worse now than they may have looked at the time of the deal. Everything is fluid. Drawing any conclusions now is premature at best, foolish at worst.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
I wasn't comparing the three trades. Bob Montgomery's Helmets hat asked me how the three were different. I opined that you cannot compare them.

I don't have the BP book, so I can't say.
Top-100 prospect rankings from BA, BP, and MLB are all available on players' minor-league pages at BBref. Here, for instance.

But according to BA the highest Reddick got was #75.
The highest Reddick got, before the trade, was a major-league player who had just submitted a 2-fWAR, 1.9-bWAR performance in 80 starts/278 PAs of work for a team in a pennant race. Reddick was not traded as a prospect. He was traded as a major leaguer, a still quite inexperienced but apparently pretty good one. You seem to be having trouble grasping the significance of this.
 

Pinchrunner#2

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The Margot/Guerra package is only more impressive if you are building on a foundation of prospect site rankings and those rankings only matter if mlb teams give a shit about them. (hint: they don't)

And even if they did those lists still only matter if player value is uniform, exists in a vacuum and rosters had no limitations ( can't start two shortstops, only have 25 active spots, ect). And even then we are still ignoring the very concept of depth.

The Red Sox dealt prospects from two of their deepest positions to fill an enormous hole on the major league roster. Markets are fluid and relative depending on the teams involved. This was not a bad trade.
Teams make their own lists. If you believe in the work of BA you should think that they are probably not that different from the lists fans have.

The depth argument. This is like saying that you have too much money and therefore it is ok to overpay for things. I have nothing against trading away "blocked" players. Just pay the market price. But we do not agree on what the market value is anyway. Which is ok.
 

Drek717

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How do you think this is totally different than trading for Bailey or Melancon or Hanrahan?
If I was to rank this trade in comparison to the Bailey and Melancon deals I'd sort them as follows (best to worst):
1. Kimbrel for Margot, Guerra, Allen, and Asuaje
2. Melancon for Jed Lowrie and Kyle Weiland
3. Bailey for Josh Reddick, Miles Head, and Raul Alcantara

Why:

The Bailey trade then and now, to me, reeks of not having faith in your own players. Reddick hit in the majors. He hit for a nice little stint in the majors that made a lot of sense in comparison to his mL numbers. His (low) BABIP in previous ML samples and only slightly high BABIP in his 2011 stint make an argument for a young player learning to hit ML pitching. His defense was passable in CF and plus in the corners. Why do you trade that for a reliever with health issues? Margot is two years from being that guy if he's lucky. If Jed Lowrie was three years older, about two years of service time older, and wasn't staying healthy. He still generally hasn't and his biggest payoff to date was one season in Oakland equal to three of Reddick's offensively. So Bailey took by far the best, most proven player of the lot. So headliner rankings would be Reddick > Lowrie > Margot.

Then as for secondary pieces, Miles Head is too far behind Guerra in value if you ask me. He's been hurt and not hitting close to that one legendary stint in Greenville. Guerra has his defense to raise the floor value, but the continued power hitting is wishing on a star and he doesn't show any real discernment in pitch selection. Head looked like an all around hitter. Maybe Guerra keeps it up, if so good on the Pads but the odds are rather long when projecting A ball talent to the majors. Everyone knew Weiland was likely to make it in the majors. Second ranks out as Guerra > Head > Weiland.

The finishing pieces include Alcantara, a complete lottery ticket of a SP, Allen a higher pedigree lottery ticket even not counting for signing bonus inflation (Alcantara got $500,000, Allen $725,000). And the Kimbrel deal also got Asuaje who's hot 2014 doesn't look so great after a mediocre 2015 making his first real step into the upper minors. Obviously Allen + Asuaje is better, but this can be replaced by spending a million extra in the next international signing period and/or draft if they see fit.

So the Bailey trade is the clear loser deal here before we even talk about the actual pedigree of the reliever gotten in return. Kimbrel is a healthy, year in year out workhorse. He came straight out of the draft as a fire throwing ace with immediate top 100 prospect list pedigree and he's been that pretty much every year for ~60-65 innings without fail. Google Kimbrel disabled list. You won't find anything. Meanwhile Bailey was a starter who struggled in his first full AA season and got converted into a reliever halfway through, then he was thrown into the ML bullpen and rode like a mule for 83 pitches in the first year and 49 in the second before missing his first significant injury. He had another two months into the next season. Production on-par with Kimbrel's to be sure, but for a very short time and not mL track record to back it up. Melancon had a short but solid ML track record with a solid if unspectacular mL career to back it up. Not on par with the other two at the time. He has since torn it up in Pittsburgh. Kimbrel is head an shoulders the best, at the time of trade I think it's safe to say everyone would have liked Bailey over Melancon but now we'd all feel completely the opposite. Oh how the wheel turns.

I'm not a big fan of just how much an elite reliever costs in MLB these days. I'm not sure if trying to buy a proven product from another team is the best way to get the late inning help the Royals have convinced everyone they need this winter. But if you're going shopping it's better to buy the best and they didn't spend the best from the farm to make it happen. Not going hard after Miller last off-season looks really bad just 12 months later, especially when they weren't shy with spending money then either.
 

Pinchrunner#2

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Top-100 prospect rankings from BA, BP, and MLB are all available on players' minor-league pages at BBref. Here, for instance.

The highest Reddick got, before the trade, was a major-league player who had just submitted a 2-fWAR, 1.9-bWAR performance in 80 starts/278 PAs of work for a team in a pennant race. Reddick was not traded as a prospect. He was traded as a major leaguer, a still quite inexperienced but apparently pretty good one. You seem to be having trouble grasping the significance of this.
I am not. But I would say that based on the ranking that this group of players got one can expect different things in their respective MLB career. Of Margot and Guerra more than of Reddick. Reddick showed in his brief Boston time what you can expect from a player that got ranked the way he got ranked. His probability to achieve his ceiling was higher than Margot's and Guerras is because of his experience which has value.

Even if I think that you have trouble grasping the significance of a couple of things, I try to stay on the topic and I try not to get personal. You aren't going to agree with everybody on a message board. Even after a lengthy debate.
 
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Savin Hillbilly

loves the secret sauce
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Jul 10, 2007
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The wrong side of the bridge....
I am not. But I would say that based on the ranking that this group of players got one can expect different things in their respective MLB career. Margot and Guerra more than Reddick. Reddick showed in his brief Boston time what you can expect from a player that got ranked the way he got.
It doesn't work that way, though. Prospect ranking is valuable evidence, as it tells us what experienced observers think about a player's potential. But not all players turn that potential into reality with equal success.

For instance, Josh Reddick was #75 on BA's top 100 in 2010. Domonic Brown was #15. Yet by the winter of 2011-12, both of them had had brief MLB stints, and Reddick had shown himself to be much the better player of the two, which he has remained. Brett Wallace (#27), Chris Carter (#28), Michael Taylor (#29), Michael Saunders (#30), Lonnie Chisenhall (#31)--all guys of roughly Reddick's vintage who were ranked much higher as prospects preceding 2010 but who would have been less valuable than Reddick by the 2011-2012 offseason, and have remained less valuable than him (though some have come closer than others). That's how it works. Some prospects underperform expectations, some overperform them. It's not until they spend some time in the major leagues that this starts to come into focus. Margot may turn out to be a better player than Reddick, but there's still a great deal of uncertainty about that. And that uncertainty has an impact on his value compared to a guy that's already been through the fire a bit.

Even if I think that you have trouble grasping the significance of a couple of things, I try to stay on the topic and not to get personal. You aren't going to agree with everybody in a message board. Even after a lengthy debate.
Sorry for the snark. I have trouble suppressing it when I make a point that I think merits consideration, and I get a response that completely ignores it.
 

Dewey'sCannon

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Jul 18, 2005
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As others have noted, teams make trades to address needs, not simply to swap pieces that have equal value on both sides of the transaction. It would seem that there are many ways to evaluate whether a trade is "good" or "bad," including the following:

1. Probably the most straightforward way is to evaluate the extent to which the trade addressed a team's need: how well did it fill the hole the team was seeking to fill? And did it open other holes (robbing Peter to pay Paul)? What the trade-off, long-term versus short-term?
2. You can try to evaluate the relative value of the players involved, but this is more difficult. For veterans, you can look at stats like WAR or variations thereof to try to assess each player's overall value, but even this assessment is complicated by the factors like contract terms/years of control and the fact that you'd rather have one 4 WAR player than two 2 WAR players. And as evidenced by this thread, this becomes even more difficult when prospects are involved. And even if both teams value the prospects similarly (in terms of the likelihood and level of success at the ML level, they are likely to ascribe different values to them based on their needs.
3. Trades can also be judged in retrospect as good or bad based on the results. It's certainly an accurate way to assess, as it's based on actual results, but it's not necessarily a fair assessment, particularly of whether the trade was good or bad at the time it was made.

4. But it seems the truest way to evaluate whether a trade is good or bad is whether the team could have better met its needs in some better way:
a. Could it have acquired the same player for a lesser package?
b. Could it have acquired a better player, or better filled its needs with a different player, with the same or lesser package?
But as effectively wild noted above, we don't know what the market is, in terms of similar trades for similar players (if there are any), although reports that the Reds were asking for as much or more for Chapman suggests that the price for elite RP may well be very high. And we certainly don't know, and will probably never know what other offers the Padres had for Kimbrel, and what the Sox had to beat, or what the Sox may have discussed with the Reds for Chapman, or with other teams for a top SP.

In the absence of information relative to #4, I think #1 is the fairest way to evaluate whether a trade is good or bad for a particular team. But #s 2 and 3 certainly make for robust discourse and debate.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

oppresses WARmongers
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Mar 11, 2008
27,644
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Teams make their own lists.
No, they don't actually. At least, the Red Sox don't. If you haven't gone back and read them, look up the saber seminar recap threads from the last few years. There are some amazing insights into how the front office thinks and operates. Among them is the revelation that they don't keep BA style lists of prospects. I would imagine that most teams operate similarly as the only value a top 10 or top 100 list has is in generating page clicks. It makes zero difference to the Red Sox whether they slap a 1 in front of Moncada and a 2 in front of Devers or if they do it the other way around because a team inquiring is not going to ask for their top 10 or top 20 or whatever and order from it like it's a Chinese food menu.

If you believe in the work of BA you should think that they are probably not that different from the lists fans have.
What BA does is cool and a lot of fun, but it has absolutely nothing to do with how teams value prospects in the real world. Hell, BA wouldn't even tell you that they are pegging the real world value of prospects.

The depth argument. This is like saying that you have too much money and therefore it is ok to overpay for things.
No, it's not like saying it's okay to overpay because you have lots of money. It's acknowledging that the likelihood that a player will never see a single major league game in your uniform because he's blocked by a 23 year old budding superstar, a 25 year old defensive phenom and a 72 million dollar player who actually replicates a lot of what that player does well, while competing with another prospect who also provides plus defense at the same position and has a much better bat minimizes that player's value to your club and makes him more valuable to other teams. Same argument applies to Guerra and Bogaerts.

What you are still missing is that value is relative and fluid. Margot was far less valuable to the Sox than he is to the Padres. Same with Guerra. Swapping them for Kimbrel was a good use of resources given the needs on the Red Sox roster.

I have nothing against trading away "blocked" players. Just pay the market price. But we do not agree on what the market value is anyway. Which is ok.
1. What is market price and how are you coming to whatever definition you are using for that term?

2. We aren't even agreeing on how value should be defined in the first place, never mind on what market value is. You seem to think value is some static number you can find at Baseball America. I guarantee you the Red Sox do not approach their farm system roster this way and even if they did, those numbers would constantly be changing depending on a ton of different factors at any given moment.

3. Even if any of what you are arguing made sense, it still doesn't back up your initial premise that Dombrowski is as poor an organizational fit as Bobby Valentine was when he was hired. Nothing about this trade suggests that Dombrowski undervalues prospects or that he's going to stray from building through IFA and the draft while supplementing the major league roster by saving money. He picked up, arguably, the best closer in the game without moving the teams three highest upside prospects or any of the young major league regulars or starting pitchers who got their feet wet last year.
 

Minneapolis Millers

Wants you to please think of the Twins fans!
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Jul 15, 2005
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This thread. We overpaid for Foulke. We never should have taken on Lowell's expensive corpse. Gomes and Vic cost too much. Right??!

Criminy. Stop whining about giving up too much to get elite talent. Kimbrel isn't Hanrahan. DD is trying to build a championship caliber team. He hasn't sacrificed MLB talent. He's kept his very best prospects. And he doesn't want Joaquin freakin Benoit as his closer in a playoff series just because his WAR-to-acquisition cost ratio is good.
 
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kazuneko

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Nov 10, 2006
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This thread. We overpaid for Foulke. We never should have taken on Lowell's expensive corpse. Gomes and Vic cost too much. Right??!
Criminy. Stop whining about giving up too much to get elite talent. Kimbrel isn't Hanrahan. DD is trying to build a championship caliber team. He hasn't sacrificed MLB talent. He's kept his very best prospects. And he doesn't want Joaquin freakin Benoit as his closer in a playoff series just because his WAR-to-acquisition cost ratio is good.
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this trade because of an opposition to giving up top prospects for elite talent. The opposition to this trade comes from a hesitancy to accept that any reliever - even one as good as Kimbrel - is an elite major leaguer. I think it also could be said that the cost of the acquisition of this reliever - in both in money and talent - seems exhorbitant and that unless you are a fan that particularly values late inning relief pitching, that's probably going to make you feel uncomfortable.
As a Red Sox fan it would also be natural to be shocked by the dramatic change in the valuation of relievers between this GM and the last. Just last offseason, after Andrew Miller had a superior season to Kimbrel's 2015 season, BC didn't feel comfortable committing to a 4 year/$36 million contract to him. One year later, and DD is not only willing to pay more than that for 3 years of Kimbrel, but he is even willing to let go of 4 prospects - 2 of whom were ranked (by some) as among the top 50 in the game - for the honor of committing to that contract. Although it would be unfair to say that Miller is as good as Kimbrel (though his combined WAR for the last two seasons is higher), the difference between them certainly isn't $4 million per season and an elite package of prospects.
So what is clear in this move is that DD - at least at this point in his career- particularly values elite late-inning relief pitching. On a board inclined to mock the importance of the "established closer" and laugh at the overvaluation of the save is it really surprising that there might be some consternation about expending what is a fairly shocking amount of talent and money on one late-inning arm?
 

SumnerH

Malt Liquor Picker
Dope
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If you believe in WAR this is not a smart investment, since you are probably buying 1.5-2-5 WAR a season. Even in the best case scenario (Kimbrel having three good and injury free years in Boston) you shouldnt give up such a package. Relievers are not that important based on WAR.
I'm a lot more sympathetic to WAR than many on this site, but using it in a vacuum to evaluate relievers is inane for a host of reasons that were covered earlier in the thread. Leverage matters.
 

Drek717

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Dec 23, 2003
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I would suggest that the signing of Chris Young makes the trade of Margot less of a loss, and the Young deal was supposedly already being shaped at the winter meetings. Isn't it entirely possible that Dombrowski, liking the terms on signing Young, saw that he was about to paste over the window for Margot to prove himself before Benintendi and potentially Moncada overtake him. Margot's value is largely tied to playing CF and the Sox already have three of those his defensive equal or better on the 25 man roster. Young gives a firmer bridge to Bentinendi and Moncada and Margot is moved for a need.

I really hated this deal when I first heard it but the more I think on it this, to me, is one of those times when you just respect the price of doing business for high end MLB quality talent. The farm is important but championships are won with the 40 man roster to some degree, the 25 man roster to a larger one, and the top 10-15 players ultimately are the guys who make the plays that matter. Everything about Kimbrel screams one of those 10-15 guys, now, and under control for 2 years with a 3rd year option in his prime.

This is the price of winning baseball games in Boston on a more consistent basis. Pawtucket might struggle but that is their lot.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Jul 15, 2005
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...
So what is clear in this move is that DD - at least at this point in his career- particularly values elite late-inning relief pitching. On a board inclined to mock the importance of the "established closer" and laugh at the overvaluation of the save is it really surprising that there might be some consternation about expending what is a fairly shocking amount of talent and money on one late-inning arm?
"Some consternation"...? Fine. 12 pages worth and still going a week+ later? Overkill. Honestly, it seems like some people forget how bullpen worries/issues can submarine even good teams ('86? '03?) And they ignore how having a lockdown BP has helped certain teams have recent, substantial success. It also seems like some people want to focus on "value" uber alles, and not on building the best 25 man roster reasonably possible to get this team out of the cellar and back into the playoffs. Sure, resigning Miller would have been a better value and use of resources than trading for Kimbrel, but those weren't contemporaneous alternatives. Many of us were disappointed and annoyed when we saw what the MFY were able to get Miller for, but a this point, so what? Ben's gone, DD's here. Should DD not have improved the BP now because Ben blew the chance to do it more efficiently last year?

There's too much crying over spilled milk in this thread and not enough big picture thinking. Drek's point above is spot on. The Sox have redundant mL resources to use to make the big club better now, and that's what DD is trying to do.
 
Jun 27, 2006
66
Couldn't it be just as simple as Kimbrel has a much longer history of being elite? Before this last year, Miller had as much disappointment early in his career as he had success later.
 

YTF

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With the level of talent going to San Diego, it's going to take years before anyone can effectively determine whether this was a good trade for either side and even then it may be subjective because the needs for both of these teams are quite different. I'm still content to look at this trade as just a part of the entire off season effort. Price, Young and Kimbrel have been added for a boat load of cash and 4 young players that are not named Betts, Bogaerts, Swihart, Vazquez, Owens or Bradley.