Revisiting The Peavy/Iggy Trade

koufax37

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We improved our rotation for a (very likeable) spare part Rey Ordonez type living the definite small sample size outlier part of his offensive career.
 
Peavy didn't step up and dominate crucial games for us as we might have hoped, but made us stronger and deeper in a core area and as a result helped us win a world series.  The net 2013 impact may have been small, but it certainly is positive in my mind.
 
It also opened up space for X, creating a situation of addition by subtraction, since I think it would have taken a painfully big slump by another player for X to get any playing time during a race with a steady veteran trusting manager.
 
Even with 2013 behind us, I would rather have Peavy than Iggy right now.  We are close to letting Drew walk to let X play, and I don't think there is any way Iggy would be realistically projected to have more total value than X in 2014 and beyond.  When we deal Dempster for some useful return and Peavy has a solid year in the middle of the rotation, I think his value will be clearer, and I expect that to happen.  If we instead deal Peavy we can evaluate how his return compares to Iggy, and if we don't deal a starter we are clearly putting rotation depth ahead of some other areas which probably has a reason.
 
In terms of really being upside surprised by either, I think it is more likely that Peavy has a rebound year at age 33 (he was 5.2 WAR in 2012 after a so-so three years before that) than Iggy learning to hit enough to justify wanting him to play ahead of X and WMB or Drew.
 
Good trade the day it was made, and one I am happy with in the offseason after.
 
Edit: Disclaimer - I used to watch a lot of "Good Peavy" in person in 2006-2007, so my evaluation of him is likely stuck in the past and a little rosier than it should be, but I think the conclusions stand, and I think that it isn't completely unreasonable to expect a 33 year old pitcher to perform like his 31 year old year even if not his 26 year old year.
 

reggiecleveland

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[SIZE=medium]Is there a precedent where a team loses the pennant because they had too much starting pitching but not a backup shortstop? I get that people love our prospects, but at times the excitement over these guys is ridiculous. Everyone wants every trade to be Bagwell/Anderson in reverse. The fact Iglesias may or may not turn out to be a good player is not the point. If Iglesias is a good starter for the Tigers for the next few years it does not make the trade necessarily bad. In fact that may help the Sox and the rep of the farm system when making trades. There are times you trade a guy that gives value to the other team and it is still a good trade. With Drew and X in the fold at the time, a eventual  WS title (helped by a error by the Det SS) I continue to be puzzled why people are still ringing their hands over this trade. [/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=medium]The Red Sox dealt from a position of strength(dealing by far the weaker of two SS prospect’s)to get ten starts of 101 era+ in a pennant race. League average starting pitching is not easy to come by.  What would have three or two or even one quality start done in 2011? What would ten decent starts have done 05 or even 06? [/SIZE]
 

Plympton91

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Excellent Point about home field advantage.

I see a big part of the value of the trade as being the low#2/high#3 production t from Peavy in 2014, and its also a good point about the potential to get him back in 2015 on a qualifying offer (although isn't there a team option for 2015?). That will be especially valuable if Lester negotiations falter and he leaves.
 

Jimbodandy

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Six straight starts in August in a pennant race, giving up 2/6/2/1/1/2, is pretty damn valuable.  Had Detroit won the ALCS, I would still be confused about why this is an issue.  
 

Sampo Gida

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As with any trade involving a young player for an older one there is the short term component and long term components when considering the deal.  Short term a clear win for the Red Sox (if only they had done the same in 2011).  Peavy helped in his own right and he may have shaken Lester up when talk started questioning if his option would be picked up.  Lester was dominant after Peavy's 1st start with the Red Sox.
 
Long term, who knows.  Iggy was the shortstop of the future until he was not.  His career numbers. limited as they are,  suggest he may hit at league average for a SS and his glove is of course spectacular.   Of course, if XB stays at SS then Iggy was expendable.  Peavy could be a key part of the rotation this year so it was not just a 2 month rental.
 
As for the surplus of pitching, you can never have too much.  Prospects are ever uncertain, and Buchholz is a question mark with the shoulder, Lackey not that far removed from TJ surgery and 35, Doubront has had conditioning issues. Lester has been inconsistent to say the least over 2 years, Dempster will be 37, etc.
 

phrenile

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LeoCarrillo said:
So, as long as Sox are willing to pay him $14M on one-year deals, he could be useful while we wait on Ranaudo, Barnes, Owens et al.
The qualifying offer keeps going up -- it's the average of the top 125 salaries each year. Last year's was $13.3M. I imagine next year's will be near $15M.
 

seantoo

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drleather2001 said:
 
Honest question: are you 100% confident that the Red Sox would have won the World Series had the trade not been made (hint: the answer is "no.")?   Because even if the answer is "No, but I am 95% sure", then the trade wasn't a mistake.
Coudn't that same question be asked in either direction? It proves nothing.
drleather2001 said:
 
 
I don't follow.  What the Tigers think about the trade is completely irrelevant.
[SIZE=10.5pt]I thought it was clear, my bad. Are you 100% sure the Sox would not have won the WS if the trade had not been made, to quote you, "if the answer is No but I'm 95% sure....". then your point proved nothing because it can't be proven either way. Because they did win the WS does not prove it was the right move. I claimed at the time that others cannot prove the trade was the right move should the Sox win the WS but knew that others would do exactly that. It's flawed logic that far to many subscribe to. Now don't get me wrong I understand why the Sox made the move even if I disagreed with it. The Sox themselves stated the move was only done because of the uncertainty of Buchholz status. Therefore one can rationalize, right or wrong, they would not have traded Peavy for Iglesias otherwise. I don't think anything can be proven by either side, or that there is a a "right" or "wrong" response to this. but merely our opinions that's hard to overwhelmingy support either way. [/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=10.5pt]I think this boils down to whether or not you believe Iglesias will ever hit close to league average for SS. Many here do not and I do not support that opinion. 6 years of a defensive whiz at SS with a questionable bat has alot of value compared to a league average (ERA+ of 101 at 32 YO) veteran for 1+ years.[/SIZE]
 

rodderick

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seantoo said:
 
Coudn't that same question be asked in either direction? It proves nothing.
[SIZE=10.5pt]I thought it was clear, my bad. Are you 100% sure the Sox would not have won the WS if the trade had not been made, to quote you, "if the answer is No but I'm 95% sure....". then your point proved nothing because it can't be proven either way. Because they did win the WS does not prove it was the right move. I claimed at the time that others cannot prove the trade was the right move should the Sox win the WS but knew that others would do exactly that. It's flawed logic that far to many subscribe to. Now don't get me wrong I understand why the Sox made the move even if I disagreed with it. The Sox themselves stated the move was only done because of the uncertainty of Buchholz status. Therefore one can rationalize, right or wrong, they would not have traded Peavy for Iglesias otherwise. I don't think anything can be proven by either side, or that there is a a "right" or "wrong" response to this. but merely our opinions that's hard to overwhelmingy support either way. [/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=10.5pt]I think this boils down to whether or not you believe Iglesias will ever hit close to league average for SS. Many here do not and I do not support that opinion. 6 years of a defensive whiz at SS with a questionable bat has alot of value compared to a league average (ERA+ of 101 at 32 YO) veteran for 1+ years.[/SIZE]
 
 
That value significantly diminishes when you have a top 3 prospect in the game coming up at SS. Aside from the fact that I think it's inarguable that Jake Peavy improved the team's chances of winning in 2013 way more than Iglesias would, the fact is, there was no guarantee Iglesias would be anything more than a utility guy for the foreseeable future. They had the opportunity to trade him for a pitcher who has been worth about 7 wins in the last two seasons, and they took it. Yeah, they would have had Iglesias under control for peanuts for 6 years, but would he ever start for the Red Sox in that period? Would we even want him to? If Xander, and even Middlebrooks, are healthy and get their feet under them, what role would Iglesias have to play on this team that makes him a lot more valuable than 1.5 years of Peavy? 
 

lexrageorge

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The detractors of this trade are too quick to dismiss Peavy's August starts and his Game 4 start against the Rays.  Yes, it's possible that the Sox could have still won the World Series without those contributions, but we'll never really know that.  However, we can say that his contributions were at least positive; winning Game 4 of the ALDS is not "nothing".  Saying another pitcher on the staff would have done the same is akin to saying the Sox would have won the ALCS without Victorino's salami or the WS without Shane's bases clearing double.  
 
While the WAR provided by Iglesias vs. Peavy is still an unknown, we should all agree that a World Series victory has immense value to a franchise that goes above and beyond the WAR calculation over a period of 10 years.  I've yet to really encounter anyone that truly regrets the Hanley for Beckett trade, for example  
 
If Peavy is flipped for a position player that provides a positive contribution in 2014, that's actually a good thing.  As noted, Iglesias value to the team long term is questionable at best.  A defensive whiz with league average hitting has value, but it's not Jeff Bagwell value unless that he's Ozzie Smith.  And Iglesias is not yet Ozzie, and may never be.  
 

smastroyin

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One of the themes to many of my threads during the 2013 season was the idea of taking the good now versus the gamble of being good in the future.
 
A subset of this are the people who are always mesmerized by the promise of the future, even at the expense of the greatness of the present.  I don't mean to disparage this point of view even though I don't share it.  But it makes some of these conversations difficult.  For many people, the argument is that the Red Sox won the World Series, which is a rare enough event that giving up 5.5 years of control of Jose Iglesias should be considered an afterthought.  Some people argue that you materially decreased the Red Sox chances for the next 5 years in order to marginally improve the 2013 club, and that's never worth it, even if the margin put the Red Sox over the top.  There are many shades in between these two POV, but if you lean toward one or the other, these threads end up with people talking past each other.
 
Another crucial component to this is the value of information.  If you are trying to win, then players in positions of need are necessarily more valuable to you after you have some information (say, midseason).  So the straight calculations of balancing WAR are often a specious approach to evaluation.  In this case, at the time of the trade, the information the Red Sox had is that they were a first place team that was having some trouble with its starting pitching (Lester struggling, Buchholz injured, Lackey showing some signs of slowing down, Dempster getting bad, Doubront reaching the innings levels where he had struggled in the past) but was getting a good season out of its now healthy major league SS (Drew) and top prospect SS (Bogaerts).  It's not as if the Red Sox just sold high on Iglesias in an attempt to extract value for him, they also addressed a need.
 

tims4wins

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Memory may be serving me wrong, but didn't Iggy have multiple defensive miscues in the ALCS that led to Sox runs? Without those... do the Sox beat Detroit?
 

Mighty Joe Young

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smastroyin said:
One of the themes to many of my threads during the 2013 season was the idea of taking the good now versus the gamble of being good in the future.
 
A subset of this are the people who are always mesmerized by the promise of the future, even at the expense of the greatness of the present.  I don't mean to disparage this point of view even though I don't share it.  But it makes some of these conversations difficult.  For many people, the argument is that the Red Sox won the World Series, which is a rare enough event that giving up 5.5 years of control of Jose Iglesias should be considered an afterthought.  Some people argue that you materially decreased the Red Sox chances for the next 5 years in order to marginally improve the 2013 club, and that's never worth it, even if the margin put the Red Sox over the top.  There are many shades in between these two POV, but if you lean toward one or the other, these threads end up with people talking past each other.
 
Another crucial component to this is the value of information.  If you are trying to win, then players in positions of need are necessarily more valuable to you after you have some information (say, midseason).  So the straight calculations of balancing WAR are often a specious approach to evaluation.  In this case, at the time of the trade, the information the Red Sox had is that they were a first place team that was having some trouble with its starting pitching (Lester struggling, Buchholz injured, Lackey showing some signs of slowing down, Dempster getting bad, Doubront reaching the innings levels where he had struggled in the past) but was getting a good season out of its now healthy major league SS (Drew) and top prospect SS (Bogaerts).  It's not as if the Red Sox just sold high on Iglesias in an attempt to extract value for him, they also addressed a need.
 
Agree completely. A player's "value" to a team is directly related to the team's need. I think one of the reasons last year's team was so under-appreciated by the national media was that the FAs that were brought in were not exactly top shelf. What people failed to realize is that they were replacing replacement level players - so the net gain was much larger than appreciated.
 
Iglesias had very little future value to the Sox as an on-field player - he simply wasn't as good (or was perceived as such by the FO) as Bogaerts or WMB. His trade value on the other hand was much higher than his actual value. So they swapped that to shore up a position of perceived need.
 

LeoCarrillo

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The qualifying offer keeps going up -- it's the average of the top 125 salaries each year. Last year's was $13.3M. I imagine next year's will be near $15M.


True enough. I'm just eager to see how this dynamic plays out. All 22 players given QOs in the first two seasons rejected them. I guess Lohse was the closest thing to a casualty so far, but this year a few more guys seem possibly in tweener limbo because of the cost of the pick (Drew, Kendrys).

It's bound to happen soon that someone will get marooned, which will shift the balance of power to rich teams who can afford at $14M, $15M to hold players hostage. I know that's not chicken feed, but you're paying the premium for the one-year flexibility.

A guy like Peavy may be in that small sweet spot: good not great, flush team, future stars at his position with uncertain arrival dates. Not to mention in the Sox's case, I assume they keep trying to contend in earnest until Papi is done.

Basically, I'm hoping the QO hostage strategy is another way a rich team like the Sox can creatively manipulate a financial advantage. Overpay a little and call their own shots on 1-year deals.

Won't be common. Peavy may be one such guy, I think.
 

seantoo

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koufax37 said:
 
In terms of really being upside surprised by either, I think it is more likely that Peavy has a rebound year at age 33 (he was 5.2 WAR in 2012 after a so-so three years before that) than Iggy learning to hit enough to justify wanting him to play ahead of X and WMB or Drew.
 
Edit: Disclaimer - I used to watch a lot of "Good Peavy" in person in 2006-2007, so my evaluation of him is likely stuck in the past and a little rosier than it should be, but I think the conclusions stand, and I think that it isn't completely unreasonable to expect a 33 year old pitcher to perform like his 31 year old year even if not his 26 year old year.
The last 4 years, or since he's been in the AL, from age 29 on his ERA+ is  93, 88, 126 and 101. His IP during this period has been 107,111, 219 & 144 and his SO per year are: 93, 95, 194 & 121. Which of these seasons does not belong with the others? It's obviously the year you think is a reasonable expectation going foward even though he's another year older. That is unreasonable wishful thinking. Realistically speaking more of the same from last year is what should be expected for 2014, afterall it is the second best of the last 4 years and he's 33 years old which is an age where a very slight decline can be expected especially from a pitcher. 2012 was more than likely his last hurrah!
 

Average Reds

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seantoo said:
 
Coudn't that same question be asked in either direction? It proves nothing.
[SIZE=10.5pt]I thought it was clear, my bad. Are you 100% sure the Sox would not have won the WS if the trade had not been made, to quote you, "if the answer is No but I'm 95% sure....". then your point proved nothing because it can't be proven either way. Because they did win the WS does not prove it was the right move. I claimed at the time that others cannot prove the trade was the right move should the Sox win the WS but knew that others would do exactly that. It's flawed logic that far to many subscribe to. Now don't get me wrong I understand why the Sox made the move even if I disagreed with it. The Sox themselves stated the move was only done because of the uncertainty of Buchholz status. Therefore one can rationalize, right or wrong, they would not have traded Peavy for Iglesias otherwise. I don't think anything can be proven by either side, or that there is a a "right" or "wrong" response to this. but merely our opinions that's hard to overwhelmingy support either way. [/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=10.5pt]I think this boils down to whether or not you believe Iglesias will ever hit close to league average for SS. Many here do not and I do not support that opinion. 6 years of a defensive whiz at SS with a questionable bat has alot of value compared to a league average (ERA+ of 101 at 32 YO) veteran for 1+ years.[/SIZE]
 
 
I simply do not understand this reasoning.
 
With Bogaerts waiting in the wings, Iggy was never going to be the SS for this Red Sox team.  Which renders any argument about his future value irrelevant. 
 
The fact that they were able to leverage his hot streak into a serviceable player who filled a need at the time of the trade makes it a success regardless of how Iggy (or Peavy) performs going forward. 
 

seantoo

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rodderick said:
 
That value significantly diminishes when you have a top 3 prospect in the game coming up at SS. Aside from the fact that I think it's inarguable that Jake Peavy improved the team's chances of winning in 2013 way more than Iglesias would, the fact is, there was no guarantee Iglesias would be anything more than a utility guy for the foreseeable future. They had the opportunity to trade him for a pitcher who has been worth about 7 wins in the last two seasons, and they took it. Yeah, they would have had Iglesias under control for peanuts for 6 years, but would he ever start for the Red Sox in that period? Would we even want him to? If Xander, and even Middlebrooks, are healthy and get their feet under them, what role would Iglesias have to play on this team that makes him a lot more valuable than 1.5 years of Peavy? 
Xander, played 3B for us for most of last season when he was in Boston, a position which most scouts believe he'll eventually end up. Iggy still hit .259 for Detriot the rest of the season, a number which nearly all here when the season started agreed would be, more than enough for him to be a good MLB SS. (BTW he hit 303 in 382 PA for the season at 23 YO) Middlebrooks was the odd man out for alot of last season and made a costly error in the St.Louis series which nearly cost us the World Series. Drew was nearly invisible with the bat in the WS and playoffs, .140 OBP and one of those hits was a pop-up to the mound gift hit.. Iglesias easily could have been the SS with Xander at 3rd base, for the playoffs I think the glove and bat would have been better than what we had. Peavy's influence was best captured by R.Romine on this thread and most of the rest are way overstated.
  1.  Iglesias is 23 and improving as a hitter, sure he's very unlikely to replicate his .303 BA from last year however to hit like a league average SS is easily within his reach.(2013: 254/308/372 or remarkably similar to his Detriot #'s 259/306/348. Igelsias career numbers in 424 at-bats (which include both his miserable 2012 #'s -68 at bats with us and his unsustainable 2013 numbers -213 at bats with us) 274/325/354 and he's a young hitter with little prof. experience who should improve and even if he does not, merely matching his Detriot numbers will make him a very good MLB SS when partnered with his defense.
 

joe dokes

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With Bogaerts waiting in the wings, Iggy was never going to be the SS for this Red Sox team.  Which renders any argument about his future value irrelevant. 
 
The fact that they were able to leverage his hot streak into a serviceable player who filled a need at the time of the trade makes it a success regardless of how Iggy (or Peavy) performs going forward. 
 
 
This sums it up perfectly, IMO. And Peavy precisely filled a need for a team trying to win a Division. He gave them 5 at-least-really-good (of 6 total) starts in August, when they really needed another starter besides Lackey and Lester to pitch consistently well.
 
It may well be that going forward Iglesias offers more production to the Tigers than Peavy does to the Sox (whether as a pitcher or a tradee).  But so what? That methodology means you only make trades if your needs are identical to the other team (what's the point then) or if you fleece the other team.
 
The Tigers were sort of on the other end of this when they traded John Smoltz in 1987. Doyle Alexander went 9-0, 1.53 in 11 starts, and had only two forgettable seasons after that. But they won the East in '87. Was it a good trade? Damn right it was.
 
Even if Jake Peavy retires tomorrow, it's still a good trade. he gave them exactly what they needed in exchange for someone who they did not need then, and don't think they need now.
 

rodderick

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seantoo said:
 
Xander, played 3B for us for most of last season when he was in Boston, a position which most scouts believe he'll eventually end up. Iggy still hit .259 for Detriot the rest of the season, a number which nearly all here when the season started agreed would be, more than enough for him to be a good MLB SS. (BTW he hit 303 in 382 PA for the season at 23 YO) Middlebrooks was the odd man out for alot of last season and made a costly error in the St.Louis series which nearly cost us the World Series. Drew was nearly invisible with the bat in the WS and playoffs, .140 OBP and one of those hits was a pop-up to the mound gift hit.. Iglesias easily could have been the SS with Xander at 3rd base, for the playoffs I think the glove and bat would have been better than what we had. Peavy's influence was best captured by R.Romine on this thread and most of the rest are way overstated.
  1.  Iglesias is 23 and improving as a hitter, sure he's very unlikely to replicate his .303 BA from last year however to hit like a league average SS is easily within his reach.(2013: 254/308/372 or remarkably similar to his Detriot #'s 259/306/348. Igelsias career numbers in 424 at-bats (which include both his miserable 2012 #'s -68 at bats with us and his unsustainable 2013 numbers -213 at bats with us) 274/325/354 and he's a young hitter with little prof. experience who should improve and even if he does not merely matching his Detriot numbers will make him a very good MLB SS when partnered with his defense.
 
 
I'm curious as to why you talked about both Middlebrooks' and Drew's postseason performances, but no mention of Iglesias. Would the Red Sox win the World Series if his costly errors as a Tiger had been made for Boston? His contributions with the bat in the postseason were borderline null as well.
 
Explain to me how those numbers are easily within Iglesias' reach. That's a .680 OPS, a mark he hasn't come close to achieving in 1100 minor league PAs (.622 OPS). Is a .356 BABIP fueled season enough to convince you he could become an adequate hitter in the near future?
 
If we're talking about upside, Middlebrooks could be a 30 HR player with good defense at 3rd. He also has a higher chance of realizing that potential than Iglesias has of ever hitting enough to not become a complete detriment to a lineup. In that case, I'd rather stick with WMB going forward, so, once again, Iglesias is nothing but a utility infielder for this team. That's not even mentioning the fact that Xander should get every single opportunity to play short until he proves without a shadow of a doubt that he can't stay there. 
 

Leather

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seantoo said:
 
Coudn't that same question be asked in either direction? It proves nothing.
[SIZE=10.5pt]I thought it was clear, my bad. Are you 100% sure the Sox would not have won the WS if the trade had not been made, to quote you, "if the answer is No but I'm 95% sure....". then your point proved nothing because it can't be proven either way. Because they did win the WS does not prove it was the right move. I claimed at the time that others cannot prove t[/SIZE]
 
But the Red Sox did win the World Series after making that trade, and since World Series victories are rare and beautiful things, and every transaction should be made with an eye toward winning the World Series (if not immediately, than at some point in the not-too-distant-future), there would have to be overwhelming certainty that a trade was a really bad one (as in the Bagwell trade) for me to seriously regret that the team made it.  "One in the hand is worth two in the bush."
 
Smas kind of spoke to this, but your position strikes me as trying to have it both ways:  you want to enjoy the World Series victory, but you would also be willing to undo the championship team itself.  I think that these two things are almost always incompatible with each other.  They won the World Series with Peavy being a material contributor.  The trade reaped substantial rewards, and unless Inglesias goes on to have a near-HOF caliber career, I think it's beyond reproach.  Even if Iggy goes on to make the All Star Team once or twice and has a long and rewarding career, my reaction will forever be "Oh well. It was worth it."
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Was there this much angst back in the day about the trade of Hanley Ramirez?  The players (Ramirez/Beckett vs. Iglesias/Peavy) in that deal were of higher caliber, of course, and we got additional unexpected value out of Mike Lowell (but also lost out on Anibal Sanchez), but Hanley has gone on to have a career far in excess of anything Iglesias is likely to achieve.
 
If we're going to second guess trades that contributed to World Series titles, I'd start there, not with last year's deal.
 

joe dokes

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smastroyin said:
Hanley has probably had a better career than Xander will have.  
 
But Hanley was also coming off of a shitty season in AA where he regressed in almost every phase of the game and was starting to develop "attitude problems"* and furthermore was apparently pretty pissed at the idea of moving to 3B or CF and the Sox didn't think he could stay at SS.  Beckett was thought of as one of the best young pitchers in the game.  He was still only 25 at the time of that trade.  As well there was the whole distraction of the Theo gorilla suit and many other transactions that off-season.  Whereas this off-season has been pretty boring.
 
* - turns out the attitude issues were likely the result of Trenton coaches and Sox player development guys fucking around too much with his swing and approach at the plate.  Somewhere between "all Hanley's fault" and "all Red Sox fault" lies the truth.
 
The SoSH thread for the trade, if you are interested.
 
 
My instinct is to consider diferent things with an off-season deal than a mid-season one. (I'm not sure I can pin down exactly what those "things" are, but they *seem* like different animals.
 

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FWIW, the original 4-year/$8.25 million contract the Sox had with Iglesias was set to expire after 2013 -- which it now has in Detroit. Of course, he's still under the Tigers' club control and is still 2 years away from arb eligibility.
 
But they still needed to negotiate a new deal with him for the coming season, which they now have done. He'll make $1.65 million this year, and will be subject to yet another new negotiation next winter. 
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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mabrowndog said:
FWIW, the original 4-year/$8.25 million contract the Sox had with Iglesias was set to expire after 2013 -- which it now has in Detroit. Of course, he's still under the Tigers' club control and is still 2 years away from arb eligibility.
 
But they still needed to negotiate a new deal with him for the coming season, which they now have done. He'll make $1.65 million this year, and will be subject to yet another new negotiation next winter. 
 
I'm surprised at the $1.65M considering Iglesias had no leverage at all and his salary last season was less than $600K.
 

Papi's fan

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Even though I favor great gloves at SS as we all know the position in the AL East generally requires a run producer bat.  Ben decisively decided Iglesias would not ever provide the power and made a trade to improve Boston chances of a WS appearance.  Iglesias' highlight show defense will spark envy for years, but X appears to be the prototype SS the Red Sox need.  Iglesias would be a luxury as a utility player and reports from the minors indicated he was unhappy that he wasn't the Sox starting SS in 2012.  Jose also faces less pressure to produce offense in Detroit, gets to play everyday there and is a good advertisement for MLB.  
 

seantoo

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drleather2001 said:
 
But the Red Sox did win the World Series after making that trade, and since World Series victories are rare and beautiful things, and every transaction should be made with an eye toward winning the World Series (if not immediately, than at some point in the not-too-distant-future), there would have to be overwhelming certainty that a trade was a really bad one (as in the Bagwell trade) for me to seriously regret that the team made it.  "One in the hand is worth two in the bush."
 
Smas kind of spoke to this, but your position strikes me as trying to have it both ways:  you want to enjoy the World Series victory, but you would also be willing to undo the championship team itself.  I think that these two things are almost always incompatible with each other.  They won the World Series with Peavy being a material contributor.  The trade reaped substantial rewards, and unless Inglesias goes on to have a near-HOF caliber career, I think it's beyond reproach.  Even if Iggy goes on to make the All Star Team once or twice and has a long and rewarding career, my reaction will forever be "Oh well. It was worth it."
They did but to say they could not have without Peavy's mediocre contributions and I'm being generous here, is speculative at best.. You stated "Honest question: are you 100% confident that the Red Sox would have won the World Series had the trade not been made (hint: the answer is "no.")?   Because even if the answer is "No, but I am 95% sure", then the trade wasn't a mistake.
This is flawed logic regardless of which side of the coin you sit on because of what I previously asked you, are you 100% certain the Sox would not have won the WS had they not made the trade, because even if the answer is no, but I'm 95% sure, then the answer is this proves nothing as did your point. Why is that hard to understand. I'm using you own logic here and reversing the direction.
 

seantoo

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rodderick said:
 
I'm curious as to why you talked about both Middlebrooks' and Drew's postseason performances, but no mention of Iglesias. Would the Red Sox win the World Series if his costly errors as a Tiger had been made for Boston? His contributions with the bat in the postseason were borderline null as well.
 
Explain to me how those numbers are easily within Iglesias' reach. That's a .680 OPS, a mark he hasn't come close to achieving in 1100 minor league PAs (.622 OPS). Is a .356 BABIP fueled season enough to convince you he could become an adequate hitter in the near future?
 
If we're talking about upside, Middlebrooks could be a 30 HR player with good defense at 3rd. He also has a higher chance of realizing that potential than Iglesias has of ever hitting enough to not become a complete detriment to a lineup. In that case, I'd rather stick with WMB going forward, so, once again, Iglesias is nothing but a utility infielder for this team. That's not even mentioning the fact that Xander should get every single opportunity to play short until he proves without a shadow of a doubt that he can't stay there. 
Simply because the rookie outhit Drew in the post-season, if even by a small margin. He made several hilight plays as well as a costly error for Detroit, point being? He's a better defensive player than Drew. I provided all his actual numbers and did not cherry pick last year as you have. How about his .137 BABIP is 2012 with the Sox or his .204 BABIP in Pawtucket in 2013? Certainly those numbers would be harder to replicate than his .356 BABIP. The second largest sample beside his 382 PA last year with the Sox and Tigers was his 396 PA with Pawtucket in 2012 when he had a very reasonable .299 BABIP and batted .266/.318/.306. He is a ground ball hitter with good speed down the line so we should expect his BABIP to exceed .300, .320 seems reasonable, therefore he should at least replicated his numbers with Detroit, numbers that everyone here agreed would make him a very good/all star SS at the start of last season. 
The Sox already stated that they only traded Iglesias because of Buchholz uncertainty going forward so they certainly had a spot for him on the team. The team clearly was down on Middlebrooks this past season, sent him back down and likely, IMO, attempted to move him, however others prefered Iglesias. 
 

TFisNEXT

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Hard to do more than speculate about the future of Iglesias. I'm in the camp of he can't hit enough to be much more than a Rey Ordonez type.

Peavy's contributions in 2013 shouldn't be overlooked. Coming up big in the game 4 clincher in Tampa with David Price looming in a potential game 5 was huge. He laid egg against Detroit, but then again Iglesias might have handed the Red Sox a game too with his awful defense ironically. Peavy's solid starts down the stretch helped get homefield in the ALCS too.

I also agree with koufax37 in that Peavy's value will become a little more obvious when he's chewing up innings as a 4.00 ERA pitcher versus the relative crap Dempster gave us. Peavy wasn't a 3 month rental. He should increase the chances of the Sox winning the 2014 World Series too. I think the trade would be more ambiguous if Bogaerts wasn't in the picture.
 

JakeRae

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seantoo said:
Simply because the rookie outhit Drew in the post-season, if even by a small margin. He made several hilight plays as well as a costly error for Detroit, point being? He's a better defensive player than Drew. I provided all his actual numbers and did not cherry pick last year as you have. How about his .137 BABIP is 2012 with the Sox or his .204 BABIP in Pawtucket in 2013? Certainly those numbers would be harder to replicate than his .356 BABIP. The second largest sample beside his 382 PA last year with the Sox and Tigers was his 396 PA with Pawtucket in 2012 when he had a very reasonable .299 BABIP and batted .266/.318/.306. He is a ground ball hitter with good speed down the line so we should expect his BABIP to exceed .300, .320 seems reasonable, therefore he should at least replicated his numbers with Detroit, numbers that everyone here agreed would make him a very good/all star SS at the start of last season. 
The Sox already stated that they only traded Iglesias because of Buchholz uncertainty going forward so they certainly had a spot for him on the team. The team clearly was down on Middlebrooks this past season, sent him back down and likely, IMO, attempted to move him, however others prefered Iglesias. 
 
Why does .320 seem like a reasonable BABIP projection for Iglesias? Iglesias has a AAA career BABIP of .277 over 916 PA. His MLB BABIP currently sits at .326 for his 465 PA career. If we create a back of the napkin BABIP for him between AAA and MLB over the last 3 years, it's  right around .293. (I cheated a bit to save myself some time, so I might be off by a point or two, which really doesn't matter.)
 
Iglesias makes weak contact and hits few line drives. Both of these are significant elements of BABIP skill. His shortcomings in those categories likely balances out his advantages from hitting very few fly balls and being fast. The only real reason for potential optimism I can see as to his having improved his inherent BABIP skill last year would be if his bunting really just started last year, since he appeared, both statistically and observationally, to be quite good at it. I don't know where to get minor league bunting stats, so I can't answer if this is true, but if it is, some of his improvement could be real, but that's more of a cause to be optimistic that he can produce a .300 BABIP in MLB than .320.
 
Steamer and Oliver tend to agree with my assessment. Steamer, pessimistically, pegs him for a .289 BABIP and a .257/.303/.341 line. Oliver, slightly more optimistically, projects a .304 BABIP and a .261/.311/.341 line. With elite defense, those lines would give you an average MLB shortstop. That's about what can be expected from Iglesias. (His projections are worse than that, but they do not credit him with elite defense and that is almost certainly an artifact of his time at 3B, where UZR did not like him, and whatever amount of regression they throw into projecting his shortstop defense given his lack of track record. However, we have the benefit of having scouting data that confirms the SSS UZR data for him at short and all of that says that he's, at the very least, one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball.)
 

Wake's knuckle

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Another thing to consider is that psychology DOES play a role in baseball, and all team sports. Just compare 2013 and 2012. By making this trade, management showed the team that they thought this was the year, enough to give up a promising young player for veteran help. So aside from giving the team a big lift with his performance in August and shoring up a tired pitching staff, the psychological boost of having Jake Peavy walk through the clubhouse door can't be neglected.
 

smastroyin

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Let's look at an order of events for a hypothetical analogy.
 
I have an idea, so I sell my Honus Wagner baseball card to seed my small business.
My small business takes off.
In the meantime, two of the Honus Wagner baseball cards in the world are lost in a fire, elevating the price of the one that I sold to twice its value.
 
Does that mean it was a mistake for me to sell the card? 
 
People are seriously underrating the value of winning a World Series, I guess this is the product of having won three in the last 10 years.  Even if the Peavy trade didn't add a single bit of value, you would have to ask whether at the time it could be expected to add value.  You don't get to say 6 months later "oh well now they are trading Peavy, clearly that was a mistake."
 

Leather

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seantoo said:
They did but to say they could not have without Peavy's mediocre contributions and I'm being generous here, is speculative at best.. You stated "Honest question: are you 100% confident that the Red Sox would have won the World Series had the trade not been made (hint: the answer is "no.")? Because even if the answer is "No, but I am 95% sure", then the trade wasn't a mistake.
This is flawed logic regardless of which side of the coin you sit on because of what I previously asked you, are you 100% certain the Sox would not have won the WS had they not made the trade, because even if the answer is no, but I'm 95% sure, then the answer is this proves nothing as did your point. Why is that hard to understand. I'm using you own logic here and reversing the direction.
Its not flawed logic, it's a thought exercise.

The Red Sox WON THE WORLD SERIES with Peavy contributing a greater-than-marginal amount in the process. You would risk undoing that. I would not.

My 95% bit does not apply to me, because my preferred outcome (a World Series victory with Peavy) is a 100% certainty. You are the one trying to argue, after the fact, that they would have won without Peavy. They MIGHT have, but I am saying I would not care to find out. The onus is on YOU to demonstrate that they would have, and you can't. This is not a Gagne situation where his contributions are easily isolated and largely negative. Peavy contributed meaningful, largely quality, innings both before and during the playoffs.
 
 

joe dokes

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Dewy4PrezII said:
Only if Iggy goes on to have a HoF career
 
If you're asking "if Iggy starts on the Rocketship to Cooperstown, will the second-thoughts increase," my answer today is "i'm not sure." That sort of analysis means we're into full hindsight mode, and Peavy's contribution, while perhaps not quite at the level of Doyle Alexander, was pretty significant, and the team, unlike those Tigers, or the Larry Andersen Sox of 1990 did win the World Series.
 
They did but to say they could not have without Peavy's mediocre contributions and I'm being generous here, is speculative at best.. You stated "Honest question: are you 100% confident that the Red Sox would have won the World Series had the trade not been made (hint: the answer is "no.")?   Because even if the answer is "No, but I am 95% sure", then the trade wasn't a mistake.
This is flawed logic regardless of which side of the coin you sit on because of what I previously asked you, are you 100% certain the Sox would not have won the WS had they not made the trade, because even if the answer is no, but I'm 95% sure, then the answer is this proves nothing as did your point. Why is that hard to understand. I'm using you own logic here and reversing the direction.

 
 
 
 
 "They probably would have won the World Series anyway so it was a mistake" is *not* logic. Nor is it the other side of the coin upon which drleather sits. By late July, the team had lost its Division lead.  Buchholz was out for no one knew how long. Dempster was close to useless in July and August.
 
They needed another starter, and the guy they got did the job in exchange for a guy that the Sox brass (whose judgment I trust more than yours or mine) deemed surplus (and even you have to admit, his success as anything more than an average major leaguer is far from assured, and his place on the Boston Red Sox, given what they think of Bogaerts, is virtually non-existent).
 

Minneapolis Millers

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joe dokes said:
 
They needed another starter, and the guy they got did the job in exchange for a guy that the Sox brass (whose judgment I trust more than yours or mine) deemed surplus (and even you have to admit, his success as anything more than an average major leaguer is far from assured, and his place on the Boston Red Sox, given what they think of Bogaerts, is virtually non-existent).
Taking this one step further, they obviously wanted and were willing to pay for veteran quality/reliability. They did not want to simply bring up a young and still unproven guy like Webster for the playoff push.

So they got a guy who was both solid and controllable for more than just two months. What other starters were traded who could have been expected to pitch as well as Peavy? Garza, nolasco, maybe Norris. All two month rentals. People complaining about giving up too much future value for too little present value ignore both the then present needs of the Sox and the extra future value a year of Peavy provides.

Plus, there was the Drug Store Indian. You guys with your fancy numbers - you really think we win the WS without that??
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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The most important fact being overlooked is that since 2003, every time the Sox trade a beloved shortstop they win the World Series. Nomar in '04, Hanley in '07 and Iggy in '13. It had to be done.
 
(Not sure I'd trade X for 1 guaranteed WS...)
 

Leather

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Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
The most important fact being overlooked is that since 2003, every time the Sox trade a beloved shortstop they win the World Series. Nomar in '04, Hanley in '07 and Iggy in '13. It had to be done.
 
(Not sure I'd trade X for 1 guaranteed WS...)
 
You'd be crazy not to.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
The most important fact being overlooked is that since 2003, every time the Sox trade a beloved shortstop they win the World Series. Nomar in '04, Hanley in '07 and Iggy in '13. It had to be done.
 
(Not sure I'd trade X for 1 guaranteed WS...)
 
Beloved?  Nomar, sure.  Iglesias...he had his fanboys.  Hanley was a prospect.  He had the briefest of brief cups of coffee (2 PA, 2 K) in 2005.  I don't know if he could be called beloved.
 
Besides, he was traded in November 2005.  The Sox didn't win the World Series until 2007.  I'm not sure that fits the pattern of deadline trades in the season in which the team won like Nomar and Iglesias.  Had the Sox won in 1986, would we have to add Rey Quinones to this list?
 

seantoo

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smastroyin said:
Let's look at an order of events for a hypothetical analogy.
 
I have an idea, so I sell my Honus Wagner baseball card to seed my small business.
My small business takes off.
In the meantime, two of the Honus Wagner baseball cards in the world are lost in a fire, elevating the price of the one that I sold to twice its value.
 
Does that mean it was a mistake for me to sell the card? 
 
People are seriously underrating the value of winning a World Series, I guess this is the product of having won three in the last 10 years.  Even if the Peavy trade didn't add a single bit of value, you would have to ask whether at the time it could be expected to add value.  You don't get to say 6 months later "oh well now they are trading Peavy, clearly that was a mistake."
Smastroyin if you are adressing me then you are talking right past my points. I have from the beggining stated I understood why the Sox made the move even if I disagreed with it. I said it then and I state it with even more convinction afterward. We will never know if the trade helped the Sox win the WS, but we won the WS so people say it must have helped. I claimed at that time that people would use a possible WS as proof the trade was a good one.That is flawed logic. Peavy's contributions are greatly exagerated here in this thread, he was average with the Sox during the regular season (ERA+-101) and terrible in the playoffs (3 starts, 12.67 IP &  7.11 ERA).
 
Other pitchers such as Doubront (or Workman or insert your favorite pitching prospect here) very likely would have done better. People are reaching desperately to show 'the impact' he had. He did have an impact, a negative one in the playoffs, and a perfectly average one for 10 starts covering 64 IP in the regular season. When the bar is set to average then followed up with well below average it easy to say we had other options that would have done the same or likely better job than Jake Peavy.
 
That said, when Buchholz was out and his status uncertain the Sox felt like they had to shore up the staff, I get that, that's valid. I wish the Sox had traded Middlebrooks (who is not in the Boston Red Sox mold of working the count) or one of their many pitching prospects for something better. Maybe no other team was willing to do that for something at least as good as Peavy, what we do know is Detroit the team most 'experts' predicted would represent the AL in the WS, wanted Iglesias. If the Sox turn around and move Peavy and land a solid/good AAA/AA OF'er who can play either RF/CF I would be satisfied to let this die. Your anology is a good attempt but falls short. Peavy was not cash but a lottery ticket, and in this case at best your won your money back and I feel like I'm being generous.
 

Average Reds

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Dude ... I would love to respond to your argument but when you post a ginormous block of text it's almost impossible to read.  I urge you to look into the concept of paragraphs to improve the readability of all of your posts. 
 
Beyond this, I admire your tenacity here, but I have to reiterate what many have said here - we won the World Series.  I can't ascribe their victory to Peavy any more than you can say that Peavy made no difference, so it feels like a losing argument to get into.  But drleather is right - the burden is yours to make the case if you want to go down that road, and you have not done so.
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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Red(s)HawksFan said:
 
Beloved?  Nomar, sure.  Iglesias...he had his fanboys.  Hanley was a prospect.  He had the briefest of brief cups of coffee (2 PA, 2 K) in 2005.  I don't know if he could be called beloved.
 
Besides, he was traded in November 2005.  The Sox didn't win the World Series until 2007.  I'm not sure that fits the pattern of deadline trades in the season in which the team won like Nomar and Iglesias.  Had the Sox won in 1986, would we have to add Rey Quinones to this list?
 
Even though Hanley didn't play in the majors he was still viewed by most Sox fans as the second coming. I would consider that beloved. You're right though it doesn't really fit the pattern in terms of immediate time frames, I was just trying to make a quip on the subject.
 
Yes Quinones would absolutely make the list if the Sox had won in '86. I mean he netted us Hendew and Spike.
 
Sorry to go off topic again...
 
I was and still am one of the biggest Iggy fanboys and trading him for Peavy last year was a no-brainer. Peavy is a solid starting pitcher who's controlled for another year. Iggy would be great to have as a util IF but that's all his value would've been on the Sox this year. Who wouldn't trade a utility guy for an established starter?
 

smastroyin

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seantoo said:
Smastroyin if you are adressing me then you are talking right past my points. I have from the beggining stated I understood why the Sox made the move even if I disagreed with it. I said it then and I state it with even more convinction afterward. We will never know if the trade helped the Sox win the WS, but we won the WS so people say it must have helped. I claimed at that time that people would use a possible WS as proof the trade was a good one.That is flawed logic. Peavy's contributions are greatly exagerated here in this thread, he was average with the Sox during the regular season (ERA+-101) and terrible in the playoffs (3 starts, 12.67 IP &  7.11 ERA). Other pitchers such as Doubront (or Workman or insert your favorite pitching prospect here) very likely would have done better. People are reaching desperately to show 'the impact' he had. He did have an impact, a negative one in the playoffs, and a perfectly average one for 10 starts covering 64 IP in the regular season. When the bar is set to average then followed up with well below average it easy to say we had other options that would have done the same or likely better job than Jake Peavy. That said when Buchholz was out and his status uncertain the Sox felt like they had to shore up the staff, I get that, that's valid. I wish the Sox had traded Middlebrooks (who is not in the Boston Red Sox mold of working the count) or one of their many pitching prospects for something better. Maybe no other team was willing to do that for something at least as good as Peavy, what we do know is Detroit the team most 'experts' predicted would represent the AL in the WS, wanted Iglesias. If the Sox turn around and move Peavy and land a solid/good AAA/AA OF'er who can play either RF/CF I would be satisfied to let this die. Your anology is a good attempt but falls short. Peavy was not cash but a lottery ticket, and in this case at best your won your money back and I feel like I'm being generous.
 
That particular post is a response to the entire thread.  To the idea that somehow if the Red Sox now trade Peavy for a SS/3B it "proves" the initial deal was wrong.  
 
The value of the trade, and the discussion you are having, I put into other posts very clearly, and also discussed at length at the time.  And I will continue to talk past you because you are the one person who is the most to the "OMG Iglesias is awesome nothing they could have done would make me believe they should have traded him" types.  You don't think you are, but you are, and we have discussed this all through the summer.  You wanted Drew traded to clear room for Iglesias and maybe gather more prospects.  You (and others) thought the Red Sox had too little of a chance of competing to make marginal upgrades to the 2013 team (at the possible expense of the future) worth it.  I hope in the end you actually enjoyed the World Series win, but this point of view is much too far from my own for me to have a much more reasonable conversation than this about it.  
 

joe dokes

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seantoo said:
Smastroyin if you are adressing me then you are talking right past my points. I have from the beggining stated I understood why the Sox made the move even if I disagreed with it. I said it then and I state it with even more convinction afterward. We will never know if the trade helped the Sox win the WS, but we won the WS so people say it must have helped. I claimed at that time that people would use a possible WS as proof the trade was a good one.That is flawed logic. Peavy's contributions are greatly exagerated here in this thread, he was average with the Sox during the regular season (ERA+-101) and terrible in the playoffs (3 starts, 12.67 IP &  7.11 ERA). Other pitchers such as Doubront (or Workman or insert your favorite pitching prospect here) very likely would have done better. People are reaching desperately to show 'the impact' he had. He did have an impact, a negative one in the playoffs, and a perfectly average one for 10 starts covering 64 IP in the regular season. When the bar is set to average then followed up with well below average it easy to say we had other options that would have done the same or likely better job than Jake Peavy. That said when Buchholz was out and his status uncertain the Sox felt like they had to shore up the staff, I get that, that's valid. I wish the Sox had traded Middlebrooks (who is not in the Boston Red Sox mold of working the count) or one of their many pitching prospects for something better. Maybe no other team was willing to do that for something at least as good as Peavy, what we do know is Detroit the team most 'experts' predicted would represent the AL in the WS, wanted Iglesias. If the Sox turn around and move Peavy and land a solid/good AAA/AA OF'er who can play either RF/CF I would be satisfied to let this die. Your anology is a good attempt but falls short. Peavy was not cash but a lottery ticket, and in this case at best your won your money back and I feel like I'm being generous.
 Other pitchers such as Doubront (or Workman or insert your favorite pitching prospect here) very likely would have done better
 
Very Likely? Bullshit.
 
August happened. Workman was in the process of saving the bullpen. Demspter's coach was turning into a pumpkin, Doubront was terrible in September and his October relief work was zero indication of his ability to start.  Which pitching prospect would you like me to insert? (Seriously?) Webster? They gave him a shot and he failed. Wright? His one MLB start was a disaster.
 
If Peavy was, as you say, a lottery ticket, then the Sox won, but took the upfront cash (7 of 10 good or better starts down the stretch;) over the annuity. And I think any competent financial advisor would tell you to do the same.
 
You wish the Sox had traded Middlebrooks.  I wish they had traded Brock Holt or Brandon Snyder or Juan Bustabad.. Those 3 had something in common -- neither would have brought them Jake Peavy in return. Especially since Middlebrooks was in AAA at the time of the trade.
 
If the Sox turn around and move Peavy and land a solid/good AAA/AA OF'er who can play either RF/CF I would be satisfied to let this die.
 
 
If Jake Peavy himself died tomorrow, the analysis wouldn't change. They dealt from a position of strength to strengthen an area of weakness.
 

reggiecleveland

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smastroyin said:
 
People are seriously underrating the value of winning a World Series, I guess this is the product of having won three in the last 10 years.  Even if the Peavy trade didn't add a single bit of value, you would have to ask whether at the time it could be expected to add value.  You don't get to say 6 months later "oh well now they are trading Peavy, clearly that was a mistake."
 
This nails it. Over the holidays I read few books about Ted Williams, one was The Summer of 49 and it seemed between the wars (the big one and Korea) the Sox were a favorite most years, but fell short after being so close. All of us in our lifetimes have seen gut wrenching defeats. 2011 and 2012 were awful, and I was at least a bit worried with Tito and Theo leaving and terrible moves like signing Crawford, hiring Bobby V, we were in for a dark age. The way this championship washed all that away into the "3 titles in the Ortiz era" narrative, publically and interanally should not be downplayed. I am happy 60 years from now Sox fans will not be reading weepy retrospectives about how they almost won, or the collapse of 2004-07 would be dynasty, because I am pretty sure CHB was saving quotes from Tito for just such a book.