Red Sox trade deadline rumors

simplicio

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Apr 11, 2012
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Have they officially put McGuire on waivers? He can elect free agency afterwards, but he would forfeit the remainder of his 2024 salary and there isn’t a guarantee he’ll make up the difference by signing with another team, so it could be in his interest to accept an assignment to Worcester. If they haven’t yet, I think they will need to do so by tomorrow at the latest.

I bring up whether he’s been put on waivers — I can’t find anything officially saying so — is they may have had intentions of trading him and things didn’t work out. Breslow potentially alluded to this during his appearance during the broadcast today (said something like things he thought were close didn’t materialize if I heard right). If so and he’s not on waivers yet, they could be using the DFA period to give him a break after the incident in Colorado. He’s reportedly well-liked and a leader in the clubhouse and intangibles matter a lot during a stretch run.

If you look at the position players on the active / 40 man roster / players on rehab right now, it breaks down like this. Italics indicate that a player is on a rehab assignment.
  • C RH Danny Jansen
  • C RH Connor Wong
  • AAA C SH Tyler Heineman
  • 1B LH Dominic Smith
  • 1B LH Triston Casas *60 Day
  • AAA 1B RH Bobby Dalbec
  • 2B LH David Hamilton
  • AAA 2B LH Emmanuel Valdez
  • AAA 2B RH Jamie Westbrook
  • AAA 2B RH Vaughn Grissom *10 Day – rumors he’ll stay in Worcester even after his rehab completes.
  • 3B LH Rafael Devers
  • UTIL RH Romy Gonzalez
  • UTIL SH Nick Sogard
  • UTIL RH Ceddanne Rafaela
  • OF LH Wilyer Abreu
  • OF LH Jarren Duran
  • OF RH Tyler O’Neill
  • OF RH Rob Refsnyder
  • OF LH Masataka Yoshida
Casas will need to be added to the roster when his rehab assignment is over so someone from this list will likely be gone. Here’s where I put my OOTP hat on and make some moves so we can get McGuire back on to the team and start playing Wong at other positions.
  1. DFA Tyler Heineman. Don’t need to carry 4 catchers on the 40 man.
  2. Add Reese McGuire to replace him on the 40-man.
  3. Option Sogard back down to Triple-A. Prefer to keep Romy since he’s been playing well and I like Hamilton’s speed.
  4. Add Reese McGuire to replace him on the 26-man roster.
  5. Keep Grissom at Worcester after his rehab completes; potential September call-up when rosters expand if he’s playing well.
  6. When Casas’ rehab assignment is complete, DFA Dominic Smith and give Casas his roster spot. I know Dom Smith has been really, good this month (July), but he has a BABIP of .381. If I did my math right, if you regress this to .300, his slash line is .246/.319/.523 instead of .292/.361/.569 like it has been. A healthy Casas is in shooting range of that and likely has a higher OBP.
Your 13 position players on the roster are now the following:
  1. C RH Danny Jansen
  2. C RH Connor Wong
  3. C LH Reese McGuire
  4. 1B LH Triston Casas
  5. 2B LH David Hamilton
  6. 3B LH Rafael Devers
  7. UTIL RH Romy Gonzalez
  8. UTIL RH Ceddanne Rafaela
  9. OF LH Wilyer Abreu
  10. OF LH Jarren Duran
  11. OF RH Tyler O’Neill
  12. OF RH Rob Refsnyder
  13. OF LH Masataka Yoshida
While there’s officially 3 catchers on the roster, Wong has experience playing 1B and 2B. He played 3B in the minors too, so that’s an option if there’s an emergency.

Position Versus RHP Versus LHP
C Wong or Jansen Jansen
1B Casas Casas
2B Hamilton Wong or Gonzalez
3B Devers Devers
SS Rafaela Rafaela
LF O’Neill Refsnyder
CF Duran Duran
RF Abreu O’Neill
DH Yoshida Wong or Gonzalez
BENCH McGuire McGuire
BENCH Gonzalez Abreu
BENCH Refsnyder Hamilton
BENCH Whichever of Wong/Jansen isn’t starting Yoshida



…Honestly, I think I like this roster configuration a lot. When rosters expand, you can choose two from Dalbec, Valdez, Westbrook, and Sogard; or choose 1 of them and bring up an extra pitcher. Personally I think you keep Jansen behind the plate (especially as he has a reverse platoon split historically (though not this year)) against both and move Wong around. In that situation, I'd probably put him in at 2B more regularly and rotate him in at C/1B/DH to rest folks, since everyone except Duran likes a day off every now and then.
This seems like lots of hoops to jump through to keep McGuire around when he's been really bad. I think I'd be more interested in finding a way to keep Dom accessible while Casas eases back in and even once rosters expand, cause his bat has been a real asset since he got his feet under him.
 

Mantush

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Jul 30, 2014
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Yes, but he is no longer on the active 40 man roster which is what he was responding to ("If you look at the position players on the active / 40 man roster....")
I didn't list him under the active group. I listed him as part of a theoretical active group after outlining the moves I'd make him to get there. I'm very well aware he's DFA'd, but he's still in the Red Sox organization until either they release him or he elects free agency and forfeits the remainder of his $1.5 million dollar salary.

This seems like lots of hoops to jump through to keep McGuire around when he's been really bad. I think I'd be more interested in finding a way to keep Dom accessible while Casas eases back in and even once rosters expand, cause his bat has been a real asset since he got his feet under him.
Fair, and I don't think that's an unreasonable take - it's quite possible Casas won't be effective when he returns. Even with a regressed BABIP, Smith's OPS+ for July would be ~120 and we've seen much, much worse hitters in this lineup and not many better, so maybe I am casting him aside too quickly. Definitely moving pieces to things.

Why does it feel so wrong for me to want McGuire to stay cause he has the best jokes?
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Seems possible that McGuire could report to AAA and play out the season; isn’t this basically what happened with Arroyo last season?
 

Humphrey

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This seems like lots of hoops to jump through to keep McGuire around when he's been really bad. I think I'd be more interested in finding a way to keep Dom accessible while Casas eases back in and even once rosters expand, cause his bat has been a real asset since he got his feet under him.
Agree with you. Who do you want coming up to the plate off the bench in a big spot in September - Smith or McGuire? Supposedly more difficult to do in this day and age than it was a generation ago, but it would be nice if when Casas is ready, Dom came down with a good case of the Hellenic Flu.
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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Agree with you. Who do you want coming up to the plate off the bench in a big spot in September - Smith or McGuire? Supposedly more difficult to do in this day and age than it was a generation ago, but it would be nice if when Casas is ready, Dom came down with a good case of the Hellenic Flu.
It's remarkable how much love there is for a guy with exactly 0.0 WAR (Dean Wormer voice) and nearly-exactly average hitting (97 OPS+). Don't get me wrong, I share in it too, as it could have been so much worse. He seems like a great teammate and he filled a gigantic void quite adequately, getting better as the season progressed. I hope there is a way to keep him around, though with rosters only expanding by 2 on 9/1, it's tough to see how. (He played 100 games in LF for the Mets as recently as 2021.)
 

Sox Pride

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Nov 25, 2005
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I mentioned (the impossibility of) trading for G Kirby at the deadline. He's a great young arm - one I'd be thrilled for the Sox to acquire. But yesterday's knuckleball in Tim Wakefield's memory makes me want him all the more.

True class
 

Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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It's remarkable how much love there is for a guy with exactly 0.0 WAR (Dean Wormer voice) and nearly-exactly average hitting (97 OPS+). Don't get me wrong, I share in it too, as it could have been so much worse. He seems like a great teammate and he filled a gigantic void quite adequately, getting better as the season progressed. I hope there is a way to keep him around, though with rosters only expanding by 2 on 9/1, it's tough to see how. (He played 100 games in LF for the Mets as recently as 2021.)
I'm here too.

When people spoke about the moves this year being "Bloomy" that is where I disagree so fervently. When there were issues to be addressed of horrible baseball play (or injury luck) Breslow went out and addressed them by adding credible major league players (ie guys right around "replacement level") as opposed to simply trotting out guys that had no business being on a major league roster. Double credit for getting two of them in this instance (Cooper and Smith) and seeing which one stuck.

The ability to simply fill monstrous holes with "not suck" (even if it came at the cost of something that might be a real asset in three years) has been a nice change this year.

Strong agree @Sox Pride - there is a very short list of players in MLB that I'd be on board with trading pieces like Casas (or Anthony / Teel) for, and Kirby is one of that dozen or so.
 
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grimshaw

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I'm here too.

When people spoke about the moves this year being "Bloomy" that is where I disagree so fervently. When there were issues to be addressed of horrible baseball play (or injury luck) Breslow went out and addressed them by adding credible major league players (ie guys right around "replacement level") as opposed to simply trotting out guys that had no business being on a major league roster. Double credit for getting two of them in this instance (Cooper and Smith) and seeing which one stuck.

The ability to simply fill monstrous holes with "not suck" (even if it came at the cost of something that might be a real asset in three years) has been a nice change this year.

Strong agree @Sox Pride - there is a very short list of players in MLB that I'd be on board with trading pieces like Casas (or Anthony / Teel) for, and Kirby is one of that dozen or so.
Not sure I agree with this assessment at least on the offensive side of things. Last season, Bloom had 6 offensive players below replacement level combining for 2.3 negative WAR. The big one was Hernandez who was certainly unplayable, but Dalbec was at least limited to 53 PA. And Reyes was very credible as a guy who helped plug the gap.

This season Breslow has 7 for a combined 3,5 wins below replacement level. One of the guys who helped fill the gap was Hamilton.

The quick pivots haven't improved but luckily most everything else has and a lot of those were already in place.
 

simplicio

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Apr 11, 2012
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Angels put Rengifo on the IL today cause it seems like he never actually recovered from his wrist injury a month ago. Their failure to trade him makes more sense in that light.