I find it hard to believe that the sox would trade from their limited pitching depth for a meh second baseman.
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Upgrade over what is in house - yes, I think so.
Enough of an upgrade so as to send out Houck PLUS one of the two advanced and good pitching prospects the Sox have - not a chance. I'd consider Houck for India straight up as that would in turn allow the Sox to deal Yorke in a package for a better starter more easily and "fill" a hole at a middle infield position for the next several seasons. But adding in Houck and any of the top 9 prospects gets out of hand.
That said, it's at least a rumor involving the Red Sox, so that's fun.
"Prospects" has a lot of variance. Emmanuel Valdez and Luis Parales? No. David Hamilton and Bryan Mata? Different discussion.
This is what I said about India last week...
India 1.2 fWAR in 529 PAs (1.4 per 600 PAs)
Reyes 0.5 fWAR in 185 PAs (1.6 per 600 PAs)
Of course, Reyes is 3 years older & has never had a season like India's '21, but he does offer positional versatility that India does not, having played SS, 3B & OF. India has been nothing but a bad 2B each of the 3 years of his career & seems like a pretty awful use of assets as he is not a guy I would be comfortable giving the every day 2B job to.
Looking at the #s, he had an extremely similar season to Pablo Reyes this year if you extrapolate Reyes to the same # of PAs...both were negative hitters & fielders, but positive baserunners, with Reyes being the slightly worse hitter, but slightly better fielder & slightly better baserunner.
India 1.2 fWAR in 529 PAs (1.4 per 600 PAs)
Reyes 0.5 fWAR in 185 PAs (1.6 per 600 PAs)
Of course, Reyes is 3 years older & has never had a season like India's '21, but he does offer positional versatility that India does not, having played SS, 3B & OF. India has been nothing but a bad 2B each of the 3 years of his career & seems like a pretty awful use of assets as he is not a guy I would be comfortable giving the every day 2B job to.
On the subject of that irrational homer Reds account...
View: https://twitter.com/Nati_Sports/status/1727043934332096567
View: https://twitter.com/Nati_Sports/status/1727043934332096567
Definitely seems like a lateral move.. .but one that will cost either Houck or Houck plus....? Not sure I get this. I'd rather put Rafaela there at 2B with Reyes where he's likely to generate great defensive value, plus sharing CF duties with Duran, than India at this point. Or... trading for him for some lower tier guy middle infield guys? Meidroth at best, Matthew Lugo maybe?
I'd be fine with India if the cost wasn't too high. Houck (and only Houck) seems a bit high but not crazy. He's subpar in the field, but I think people are overcorrecting thinking that you can't win like that. The Phillies sucked in the field last year. Inida has a high prospect pedigree and kicked ass in 2021, if they think they can bring that back out from him that would more than make up for his shortcomings in the field. And you get him for three years. I'd definitely rank him above all the in-house options for 2023.
Trading Urias for a reliever with upside, then trading a reliever with upside (Houck) PLUS prospects for India - a guy who is remarkably similar to Urias, even in age and years of service.....seems....like not a smart way to do business.
He's a 99th percentile hitter and something like a 90th percentile SP (over the last two seasons). YMMV but "really good" seems to understate it.
You'd have to also factor however many "units" the extra roster spot is worth.
Yeah, I wouldn't give Houck plus real prospects. But Urias has never had a season as good as India in 2021, and India has never had a season as bad as Urias in 2023. I'd take India all day if that's the comparison. HIs statcast number this past year look pretty good for a 2B.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jonathan-india-663697?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb
Fortunately, the Houck+ for India talk is bullshit Reds fan wishcasting and not something we really have to worry about happening. India might be a target for the Sox, but it most definitely won't cost that much.
These things are both true...but over the past 3 years...
Urias 6.4 bWAR (4.3 fWAR)
India 5.2 bWAR (4.8 fWAR)
& Urias is 6 months younger.
The India talk is, in addition to the good points listed above, untenable for another reason: trades may be the only way Craig gets pitching. We have no idea how all this will shake out and it may be that competing offers may not favor Boston. While not probable, its possible that, for example, Yama is a Met, Snell is a Giant, Ohtani a Dodger, and Monty/Gray types, knowing the market for pitching after the big guns are off the board, hike up their offers in a way unpalatable to Craig. So then its the Burnes/Glasnow/Cease types he has to get through trades -- trades likely demanding young pitching. Can't waste that on the likes of India.
Not sure that I'd take India all day over Urias (I'd have to look into it more), but I certainly would take India over anything in house at present.
I think there is a lot of recency bias taking place with someone like Reyes. He had a nice run of it last year because his below average bat and slightly negative (at least in terms of dWAR) defense was incredibly better than the complete suck he was replacing. But for his career he is an 84 OPS+ bat and a slightly negative dWAR player. Expecting him to look more like last year than he has his entire career is a bit like expecting Rob Refsnyder to have looked more like the 2022 version than the guy he has been for an entire career.
I don't have anything against Reyes as a bench infielder (just like I don't have anything against Refsnyder as bench OF) but expecting them to suddenly become more than that around age 30 seems like a recipe for disaster. If they're starting for you, then you're not a very good team. Much like the 2022 and 2023 Red Sox were not good teams.
Generally speaking, though, I too think the Sox need to save assets to address SP1, SP3, SP4 and a top/middle of the line up bat that hits well against LHP (India has a reverse split for his career of a .783OPS against RHP but only .732 against LHP). But that is a different argument than India not being better than current in house options, which I think he certainly is.
Say the Sox signed Yamamoto today and Montgomery tomorrow and at that point Houck for India becomes something I'd ultimately do, however.
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A trade for India would make it easier to trade Mayer. Of course, Mayer is hurt. Trading pitching for a 2b doesn’t really make any sense to me so I will just ignore this rumor and hope it’s false.
(Although he does have fantastic moss).
(Although he does have fantastic moss).
The argument isn't that India isn't better than the internal options (I don't think), it's that he's not good enough at baseball to trade a real asset for.
I'd much rather try to pry away a Tommy Edman if we're dealing Houck for a 2B. Even if it costs Houck+.
View: https://twitter.com/JordanLeandre55/status/1725734744065790292
What if we offer them Trevor Bauer?
Bauer could room with Deshaun Watson while he looks for a place.
A lot of the ideas here have a kind of GFIN quality to them.
I'm not really opposed to that if Breslow thinks it's viable. But India is a replacement level 2B. For which the rumored price is a flawed starter with potential or an elite reliever with lights out stuff the first couple of times through the order.
And then we're trading Mayer for what? A SP?
I took the posters questioning if he (India) was better than internal platoons or was considered a "lateral move" meaning as to what the Sox presently have. I could certainly have been wrong / misinterpreting. But, even to the point of that Tweet, I do think that India is a better option than a Valdez / Reyes platoon. I don't expect the Red Sox to have "all stars at every position" but I do expect them to at least try to do better than a platoon situation of Valdez and Reyes at 2b, which I think India would be - however this is admittedly an incredibly low bar to clear.
I also strongly suspect Breslow has a better Plan A, B, C, D and E option in mind than Valdez/Reyes platoon because if he didn't, I don't think he'd have traded Urias. A Valdez / Reyes platoon is the kind of thing you try in the middle of a lost season (such as when your two starting infielders are horrible, like 2023) but shouldn't ever be "the plan" when the rest of the current line up only has 4 returning regulars that are above average (5 if one wants to assume Story returns to be the player he was in 2022).
Not for nothing, but I agree I'd far rather have Edman (or Donovan, even coming off injury; or Gorman) than India, just to circle back to names that the Sox were ostensibly linked to last trade deadline.
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Right, he's best suited for a team like the Mariners who have a base of really good arb/pre-arb starting pitching. And yet we are told they aren't getting involved?? Anyway.
Well, I mean, he'd also make tons of sense for the Marlins with their pitching. But I don't know that the Mariners (and obv not the Marlins) have nearly the money to sign Ohtani. The highest they've been in payroll the past 4 seasons has been 18th, and they're generally in the 20s.
Ohtani clearly makes sense from a baseball standpoint, but if they don't have the money to pay him, and they know they don't have the money to pay him, why get involved.
I don't think anyone is actively looking to trade Mayer.
I think they're more connecting the dots of: "Beckett cost Hanley AND A Sanchez" and "Sale cost Moncada AND Kopech" and since the Red Sox don't have any pitching prospects nearly as highly regarded by the prospect industry as A Sanchez or Kopech, and Moncada was considered a vastly superior prospect to Mayer and Hanley was a bit lower at the time of the trade, if the Sox end up needing to trade to address a top of the rotation starter, Mayer might have to be involved along with something else that is pretty darn valuable.
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Well, I pointed out that Reyes had a very comparable season to India last year, which is true, so I thought that might have been partially in response to that.
I guess we can do some quick math on how a '23 Valdez/Reyes platoon would compare to India in '23 & then we can extrapolate how we think the various players would improve or regress in '24.
70% of PAs against lefties, so Valdez gets 70% of the platoon with a 112 wRC+ against righties & an unsustainably bad -4 OAA in 358 infield innings. Reyes had a 109 wRC+ against lefties & played 427.1 infield innings at -1 OAA. India had a 99 wRC+ & -6 OAA in 893.1 innings.
So Pabloanuel Reydez has a 111 wRC+ & an unsightly -14.8 OAA over the course of 162 games, & Jonathan India has a 99 wRC+ with a -9.8 OAA. Another way to look at is Valdez was worth 0.3 fWAR in 149 PAs & was worth 0.5 fWAR in 185 PAs, so over the course of a 600 PA season with 70% Valdez & 30% Reyes, that prorates out to 1.33 fWAR & India over 600 PAs prorates out to 1.36 fWAR.
In terms of projections for '24, FDGC has India at 1.6 fWAR in 574 PAs & Steamer has him at 1.5 in 576. FDGC has Valdez at 1.1 fWAR in 392 PAs and Steamer has him at 1.0 fWAR in 344. FDGC has Reyes at 0.6 fWAR in 231 PAs and Steamer has him at 0.6 fWAR in 214 PAs. Using the same 70/30 ratio & the same 600 PAs, that means FDGC has India at 1.67 fWAR & Reydez at 1.65 fWAR. For Steamer it's 1.56 fWAR for India & Reydez at 1.73 fWAR.
So yeah, it does seem fairly lateral, even though India is clearly a superior option to any particular current Red Sox player.
Donovan isn't that clean of a fit as a LHB who isn't very good against LHP, but he might work in a platoon with Reyes. & Gorman, unlike India, has a bat that makes up for the fact that he's a bad defender, but I somehow doubt the Cardinals would make him available.
I don’t. A one-year deal still won’t give him the opportunity to show he can pitch. A two-year deal might, but by then he’s into his 30s, and might get less years and overall money. And if he still can’t pitch by 2025 or gets hurt again, he’s throwing a lot of money away.
Having the money and being willing to spend it are two different things. Ownership has not been willing to spend, so Jerry D. has to keep betting on the Uriases of the world. People have been linking Ohtani to the Mariners for two or three years now, but it's not happening.
What's astounding and frustrating is that they probably could significantly improve the lineup with two or three mid-level signings - I dunno, like Lourdes Gurriel and Rhys Hoskins would probably cost less combined than Shohei - but I'm not even confident that they're going to do that much. The Urias trade, I believe, portends another winter of bargain shopping, which ain't going to get it done with the Rangers now joining the Astros as Real Contenders.
Also, pre-emptively, no, they do not want Alex Verdugo, not as long as they still employ Jarred Kelenic, aka "The Kirkland Select Alex Verdugo."
(Maybe I should join a Mariners board.)
Where yelling at clouds is a daily occurrence until July.
The Ms for sure have the money, and Seattle is so awash with cash that a good team would surely pay for any sort of investment they could conceive of. It's really just a failure of nerve or imagination or something. Maybe they just hate it here.
He credited Gary Sanchez (of all people) with being instrumental in his good season.
Sanchez was pretty great for SD this year, both offensively and defensively somehow. He is a FA currently, very curious to see where he lands and for how much.
I really don't see them trading Mayer unless an extremely favorable trade for an elite player comes up. And we have enough depth in our system that we could trade for a good/great starter without giving up Anthony/Mayer.
I understand that many prospects end up being a bust but I really want them to hold onto Teel/Mayer/Anthony long term. Mayer had a disappointing season but AA is a big jump and he did much better in the latter half of the season.
I agree with the general point about keeping Mayer/Anthony/Teel, but Mayer got worse as the season progressed as he became less able to deal with the shoulder injury he suffered before even being promoted to Portland.
Pretty sure he would have been fine in AA & not taken the hit to his prospect ranking if he wasn't injured the whole time. They're rehabbing it & hoping it will be ready to go for next season without surgery.
https://www.nbcsportsboston.com/mlb/boston-red-sox/marcelo-mayer-opens-up-about-season-ending-shoulder-injury/551898/
It's a new regime now though, so it's a question of how Breslow values those guys. If he thinks one might be a bust, might make sense to try to sell high.
The FA market for catchers is thin, I think. Many teams need a catcher. Your guess is as good as mine as to where he lands and under which terms.
Yeah, NY has six catchers on their 40 man roster (currently at 36) plus Ben Rice in AA*, I think they will deal two before spring training (Higashioka and Narvaez probably), they won't get much but maybe a Bauers-like return.
*Ironically none of those seven are Anthony Seigler or Josh Breaux, NY's first two picks in 2018, still both in the system in the high minors at 24 and 26 respectively, but genuine prospect status for both long behind them and obviously passed on the depth chart by quite a few more recent additions.
& here I was thinking you were following the Minor League Forum lol
Although I don't think I had seen this exact article until today. This was the latest update on Mayer's health (& Bleis).
View: https://twitter.com/tylermilliken_/status/1725933966853619781
The Mayer language actually concerns me a smidge, but not sure if that's rational.@alexspeier
with updates on Marcelo Mayer and Miguel Bleis:
Miguel Bleis has resumed baseball activities at the Red Sox DR Academy. That includes swinging. Seems to have added some weight and “looks great” says Brian Abraham. Should be good to go for a normal spring training.
I am not a doctor but unfortunately have some perspective on shoulder injuries. Reading between the lines his situation sounds very similar to my son. The initial injury occurred when he was in high school he was not able to follow thru on his swing. Tried rest, rehab, braces, etc. Eventually things worsened with full dislocations and a torn labrum. Once the labrum is stretched it makes dislocations more likely which then stretches the labrum further until tearing occurs. Rest & rehab did not help (or at least didn't for my son). Surgery was required and he was fine afterwards and enjoyed a successful college career. Hopefully this isn't what Mayer has, but sounds pretty similar.
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By the same token, what are the chances that he has an in depth opinion about them? I would think that some of the prospect evaluations are likely to come from the existing FO staff rather than Breslow making off the cuff assessments.
Especially since they just non-tendered one of comparable value. Seems ridiculous. Now, if they were discussing a couple of lower tier prospects (only), I could see that. Maybe.
My apologies, not non-tendered, rather traded for a middling reliever.
Given the stated priority to improve the defense, I can’t imaging they envision giving most of the playing time to Valdez. I’m surprised Reyes’s defensive numbers were that bad, maybe they think he is better than that?
it does make sense to cast around for another 2Bman, but not at the cost of Houck, especially given the current state of the pitching staff.
Given the stated priority to improve the defense, I can’t imaging they envision giving most of the playing time to Valdez. I’m surprised Reyes’s defensive numbers were that bad, maybe they think he is better than that?
it does make sense to cast around for another 2Bman, but not at the cost of Houck, especially given the current state of the pitching staff.
I’m not talking immediate moves, just saying Breslow may have different ideas going forward who to build around and who to sell high on.
Houck's stats for innings 1-3 are considerably better than those for innings 4-6, which seems as though he should be a reliever:
Last season:
Inns 1-3 -- 63.0 IP/.207 AVG, .282 OBP, .323 SLG, .605 OPS. .254 BABip
Inns 4-6 -- 42.0 IP/3.12 AVG, .386 OBP, .520 SLG, .906 OPS, .359 BABip
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