Red Sox acquire Zack Short
- Thread starter DeadlySplitter
- Start date
I'd assume so. I believe a second move is also necessary if Grissom is healthy enough to play (and this move may tell us that he isn't).
Seems to make the most sense. Curious what the roster move will be when Grissom's activated. Valdez too?
He had the flu, so no worries? or maybe Covid, which is a few more days at least.
do I have to even ask what position “Zack Short” plays?
I'm thinking unrelated? Even with a healthy Grissom we need a backup SS.
I think at the end of the day Hamilton/Dalbec/Valdez are replaced by Grissom/Cooper/Short?
Short has experience at 3B.
I like it.
They had an open 40 man spot and Grissom might be out another week (arrgh) - so makes sense to have another body.
If it's a full-on Hamilton replacement I can buy into that too.
If it's a full-on Hamilton replacement I can buy into that too.
Can't link articles, but he appears to be a good defender who should fill a need as a backup at 2B, SS and 3B
Looking through his minor league stats, it appears that he's never been a very good hitter, so he must be a good fielder. He does seem to take walks.
FWIW, I saw something where he's not only a good defender but also a "smart" player who some see as coaching material. A good defender who is aware of game situations and knows what to do with the ball in utility role ain't a bad thing. I'll try to do a link in a couple of hours when I'm home.
I assumed he was a minor league pitcher the Sox are trying to shake some Aaron Small pixie dust out of.
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He's 29 and his batting numbers (majors and minors) suggest a RHH .600 OPS type, without an advantageous platoon split. 5 SB last year in 112 games.
So he's clearly here for his SS/2B/3B defense.
Which means he's basically moving into Reyes' role.
IF he arrives uninjured, that is.
But I think that also suggests something about Romy Gonzalez. Since he also fills that exact same role and Zach Short is almost 29. Meaning, I don't think there's a lot of hidden upside in Short.
This is probably just to get them over the injury and illness bump for the next few days. I fear his time with the team will be Zack.
I love aptonyms. He's only an inch taller than Pedroia.
I just hope he doesn't slip in the shower before the game starts.
I just hope he doesn't slip in the shower before the game starts.
He does not, by raw numbers, seem to be. SSS at the ML level, but his numbers look like he's average-ish. Nothing outstanding on range, and a normal number of errors.
That makes sense. Average defense, bad overall offense with the bright spot of a good walk rate. If he was better than that he'd be a starter somewhere and not freely available for cash.
Huh. Wonder why they didn't just bring up Meidroth or Sogard if they were feeling antsy about the infield depth? I don't think an AB shortage is a concern at this point, and I don't think either is good enough to be worth worrying about service time considerations and all of that.
Looks like Short was DFA'd on 4/26 so the Mets could bring up J.D. Martinez.
Makes me wonder if the Sox wanted him at that point, or if this is due to recent events on the club.
Makes me wonder if the Sox wanted him at that point, or if this is due to recent events on the club.
It’s not service time, it’s that once you add someone to the 40 man, you can’t remove them later without exposing them to being claimed.
My guess is they don't want to have to add either of them (or Kavadas for that matter) to the 40 man roster because they would lose them by outrighting them off. Guys like Dominic Smith and Zach Short are fungible and that's why other teams are DFAing them or releasing them. The sox see them as a temporary solution to a short term problem. Adding a current player in the organization to the 40 man means they stay on the 40 man even after they get re-optioned to the minors.
So this way when the injured players return they can just DFA Short and Smith themselves and get the 40 man spots back.
I feel like I'm missing something. Why couldn't they just option them to Worcester? EDIT: and then DFA someone else instead once the IL'd players get activated? If this is Grissom's roster spot, what was the plan if he was well enough to play yesterday?
They would still be on the 40 man in that case, and would have to be DFA’d to be removed from the 40 (I think)
They can definitely option them, but the point is that they then take up a 40 man spot going forward. A lot of times GMs prefer not to add prospects to the 40 man early in the season as it cuts down their flexibility going forward, even if they are better than the guys added instead. I can try to explain more if it's still not making sense.
Because you'd have to put them on the 40 man. Which means putting an existing player on the 60-day or DFAing someone.
Then Meidroth or Sogard would be stuck on the 40 man in the majors or the minors. So if you need an emergency reliever, it's harder to promote one to the 40 man, since slots are taken up with healthy middle infield guys. (Then, when guys come off the 40 man at the end of the year, you have to clear spots for them.)
They don't have a lot of fungible players to DFA at the moment. https://www.mlb.com/redsox/roster/40-man
Wikelman and Perales are prospects.
Horn and Gutierrez are recently acquired projects.
Hamilton, Valdez, R.Gonzalez, and Dalbec remain. Of those Hamilton and Valdez have upside, and they seem to like Romy. Dalbec is perhaps the most/least fungible of them.
So there are spots, but none are really ideal.
Ultimately, if they had to "sacrifice" a Meidroth or a Sogard to win a ML series. . .they do. But it makes more sense to grab a guy like Short, DFA someone like Gonzalez/Dalbec, then DFA Short when his stopgap role is filled and someone comes off the IL. Then you've got a spot to acquire another project pitcher, or promote a relief pitcher or what-have-you.
As opposed to DFAing any of the above, adding Meidroth/Sogard, then sending them down to the minors where they also occupy a 40 man spot.
If Short or Smith or Cooper isn't doing the job acceptably, they can be DFAd and the roster spot cleared, no loss. If a prospect is added to the 40 man, that spot is then taken up going forward and the flexibility for that spot is lost.
(crosspost with RR)
This becomes even more of an issue if the player added doesn't have to be protected for the rule 5 this upcoming November, then the player is taking up a 40 man spot they don't 'need' to for an entire season-plus.
(crosspost with RR)
This becomes even more of an issue if the player added doesn't have to be protected for the rule 5 this upcoming November, then the player is taking up a 40 man spot they don't 'need' to for an entire season-plus.
I think I have learned that I view more of those back-end-of-the-roster guys as fungible than the general consensus (and the organization), and that is where the disconnect is occurring.
Because 40 man slots are valuable, especially when dealing with injuries like they are. Meidroth is probably a better bet going forward than Short, but Short is a guy they can just cut when someone comes back from their injury, thus clearing the 40 man slot (which they will probably need). They are NOT going to want to expose Meidroth to waivers because he will get claimed. When they think Meidroth (or whoever) is fully MLB ready, they will activate them then.
Well, that's the point actually. If it's someone you don't want to lose and you promote them, that spot is no longer fungible.
Oh, I view them as fairly fungible at the ML level as well, but they're also organizational assets. Meidroth is only 22 and is holding his own in AAA. Maybe he's ready to be a role-player next year, or maybe he's part of a potential trade package. Valdez is 25 and may be a decent 2B option with a year's more seasoning at the position and a better hitting coach.
They may be fungible this year, but in general you want to hold onto guys like that while DFAing guys like Pablo Reyes. Who is 30, and while he had a very good (for him) age-29 year for us, seems to have been exposed both offensively and defensively this year. He may bounce back to being an almost-league-average hitter and marginal-fielding utility guy. (I hope he does - he was fun to watch last year.) But generally speaking you don't want to end up with a bunch of Reyes/Short guys as "maybes" for 2025. You want to keep the guys with upside.
Where we agree I think is that for break-glass moments, I'm willing to roll the dice with hot-hand MiL players who seem to have plateaued or are on the verge of aging out. 2022-3 Ryan Fernandez types. Because I think they stick or you DFA them without loss. I think Jamie Westbrook fits in that bucket pretty well this year.
Maybe I wasn’t clear when I said that, because I meant guys currently on the 40man like Hamilton and Romy are the fungible ones and not someone like Meidroth. I don’t think I’d worry too much about DFAing Hamilton or Romy later down the road in the scenario where they need an extra emergency reliever but Meidroth is taking up a spot on the 40.
But it's impossible for a fan to understand this part of things, because front offices aren't just concerned about the 40 man now, they're concerned about the 40 man next winter, winter '25, etc, and we can't know what they have in mind for external additions, which internal guys they believe in enough to add in the future, etc.
Looking at it now, Meidroth doesn't need to be protected until Nov 2025, so adding him now means he then has that spot 18 months sooner than he needs to.
Yep, and it also makes him less tradeable because any team trading for him would need to expose him to waivers to prevent him from taking a 40 man slot. Not that I want him to be traded, because I am big fan, but I don't think this conversation is specific to Meidroth, either. He is far more valuable to the organization in AAA when he is not taking up a 40 man spot in a lot of different ways.
I'm not saying either guy is some sort of top prospect, but a well-constructed depth chart needs a couple guys in various roles who can give you 0.4 WAR in 60 games/year for a couple years, and a key, key part of that is roster flexibility: having options remaining and not needing to be on the 40-man roster. We don't know if Sogard and Meidroth can fill that role satisfactorily yet, but signs point to "worth a shot"; putting them on the roster prematurely degrades the asset.
(Zack Short met that standard once in three tries before running out of options, which is why he's available on these terms.)
When that starts to change is when the bumper crop of legitimate position player prospects now in A and AA need AAA time. Then, the depth value of guys like Sogard does become less important, because the actual prospects who need roster protection are close enough to MLB-readiness to also provide value as depth.
I don't know anything about this guy other than looking at his raw stats, but this strikes me as something people say about scrappy white guys who are not actually talented enough to play at a major league level. "Yeah, he's not a great fielder and he can't hit at all, but he makes up for it with situational awareness!"
Just a follow up. Not too much to add, but here's the excerpt that I was referencing with a link to the whole article.
https://www.blessyouboys.com/2023/5/28/23740001/zack-short-detroit-tigers-analysis-pinch-hitter
The “three true outcomes” profile followed him for a while in the Cubs system. His defensive versatility and all-around baseball intelligence had some projecting him to go into coaching rather than reach the major leagues, but he was always the type of player that managers love.
And yet things like positioning, dropping tags, and relaying throws as the cutoff man matter. So when selecting from DFA guys as IF stopgaps, we probably want veteran-competence for his role, as opposed to a deeply flawed player with upside. If his role is longer-term, he's still the lowest guy on the totem pole - which means he's just as fungible as Reyes if another option comes along.
We don't talk enough about how uninjured Bob is. Kind of incredible at this point.
I'm not disagreeing. I was just piling onto Frye's (accurate) baseball tropes, which may or may not underscore other issues that may or may not be appropriate for this thread.
They do worry about that, though, because if they jettison Hamilton while calling up an emergency reliever and then a middle infielder goes down, they now have to go out and hope there's a middle infielder freely available on the market, or else they have to add another minor leaguer to the 40-man and then have to jettison someone else and hope that that position doesn't get exposed...and the cycle continues. The guys at the end of the roster are fungible in the offseason when lots of players are freely available, but they're not necessarily fungible in the middle of the season when finding a player outside the organization basically means hoping that someone palatable comes over the waiver wire.
In the offseason, 40-man spots are also important for protecting Rule 5-eligible guys. Burning a 40-man spot exposes one more player to the Rule 5 draft.
The other issue is that if they bring Medroith up and then send him back down, they burn one of his option years, which hurts their flexibility with him down the line.
Ok? When your current IL could "field" a team on its own, you cant be picky with the players you sign to cover for the players while inured