The next ten games
- Thread starter smastroyin
- Start date
The Very Improbable Run is getting less and less improbable every day.
I came into this stretch thinking we had to go 11-2 or better and, well, we have already won for, lost zero, and had the players were need to see step it up actually do so.
7-2 over nine games is just one more win than winning two of three.
I came into this stretch thinking we had to go 11-2 or better and, well, we have already won for, lost zero, and had the players were need to see step it up actually do so.
7-2 over nine games is just one more win than winning two of three.
I think they need to win 3 of 4 from Toronto, and 2 of 3 from the Rays before the break, and then follow that up with at least 2 of 3 from the Yankees and 2 of 3 from Toronto. If they get more than that, it would be incredibly sweet. At least with that type of stretch, they'd extend meaningful games well into August. They're giving us a reason to care about wins again; I was worried this season really would be all but over by the trading deadline and not just declared over by a major portion of SOSH, including me.
I'm with the others that say 10 games shouldn't decide the way forward. Take an arbitrary 14-game stretch from today. Without looking at the schedule, if the Red Sox were to continue being hot and go, say, 10-4 over that stretch and the rest of the division played .500 ball, that would be a 3-game improvement in the standings and put them 4.5 back of the O's.
My point being - making up 3 or so games over 2-3 weeks is not out of the question, and if that happens - they're right back in it.
My other point being, let the season play out. This team is better than their record, and other teams (like the Yankees) are worse than their record. No major trades unless the return is a clear long term win for the Red Sox (and that includes Peavy). Ignore the deadline.
My point being - making up 3 or so games over 2-3 weeks is not out of the question, and if that happens - they're right back in it.
My other point being, let the season play out. This team is better than their record, and other teams (like the Yankees) are worse than their record. No major trades unless the return is a clear long term win for the Red Sox (and that includes Peavy). Ignore the deadline.
I'm not so sure. Peavy's value to this team is fairly limited this year, even if they do go on a run, and his value to the team in 2015 will be zero. Also, Peavy is unlikely to clear waivers after July 31st.geoduck no quahog said:
I can understand not wanting to tank the season. But trading Peavy is a lot like cutting AJP; neither is truly raising the white flag on the season.
If Peavy doesn't clear waivers, you let him go and save the money. That's not a terrible outcome, at least until Francelles Montas becomes a major league pitcher or Iglesias learns to hit.lexrageorge said:
Rudy Pemberton said:
Why do posters feel the need to use playoff odds in July?
After September 2011, why do posters use them at all?
Dogman2 said:
For the same reason you can say "September 2011" and everybody instantly knows what you mean.
In other words, Pecota owes us one.Dogman2 said:
That is a fair point, with this distinction. I took no great comfort in what computers were spitting out September 2011 because it was entirely conceivable to me that the team would shit the bed and others would take advantage. Some of us have lived through, among other things, July through September 1978, so we laughed when people lumped us in with flat earthers.
Now it is not sufficient that the RS play well. They have to play spectacularly well for a good stretch, and then avoid any regression. Otherwise, they will be beaten by a team that plays less well but good enough because it has a cushion.
This is what happens when you put together our kind of first half. There is almost no margin for error. The next 5 games may well be pivotal.
Team has to make its decisions based on the information it has at the time, and there are some guys you won't be able to sneak through waivers. The deadline is coming fast.
Break? Are there two all star games this year like they foolishly tried for a few years?Plympton91 said:
If a contender claims him (and why would anyone else?) you at least extract a PTBNL, in addition to them taking on the contract. If for no other reason than you can trade that PTBNL back in a desperate situation. I'm thinking for Bruce Chen, but a 3rd string catcher suddenly needed on a play-in game would work, also.Plympton91 said:
lexrageorge said:
So the for-certain rotation looks to be Lester, Buchholz, Lackey. (Buchholz is an injury/pitching risk.) Filling the three spots after them in depth we have RDLR, Workman, Doubront, Webster, Ranaudo, Wright.
I didn't run the recent performances of each, but Peavy's game logs http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=peavyja01&t=p&year=2014 suggest to me that he's more or less a .500 pitcher - meaning that about half the time the team has a chance to win. He's not exactly an innings eater, but he makes his starts and is probably an upgrade over a #5 starter on most teams.
Since we have to have a quick and excellent run to be in contention, is there a case that trading Peavy is addition through subtraction?
In descending order:
Workman should give Peavy like performance or better.
RDLR should be an upgrade but might have an innings limit.
Peavy slots in here.
Doubront is inconsistent and, based on this years performance might not be an upgrade over Peavy.
Webster/Ranaudo/Wright may have question marks, but certainly don't have consistent exposure to a ML environment.
Does anyone think we should promote one (or two) of the final three, or give Doubront Peavy's spot?
Who becomes Buchholz insurance in any of those scenarios?
The fact that the Red Sox are 8-2 in their last 10 and are still 8.5 games back in the division and in last place is why I've been on the "sell" bandwagon since before the All Star Break. Too many teams have to play poorly for them to get back into the playoffs for it to be worth betting on. Sure, it's possible, but even after an 8-2 run the team still needs to go on an improbable run to crawl back into it. Convert short term assets into long term assets and start looking at ways to make the 2015 team a playoff caliber team.
That doesn't mean they should sell every single veteran, by the way. See what's out there and make deals that make sense. If you can turn John Lackey into a David Dahl or Jesse Winker, great! If not, see what an extension would cost or revisit the trade market in the winter. If the team is convinced they can't re-sign Lester or aren't interested in the first place, shop him aggressively. If neither are the case, they should be focusing on extending him and making him the anchor of the rotation while the kids get settled in around him. Peavy should be traded for a return like Grichuk if possible, though a package involving a player like Rowan Wick would be good enough, IMO. Koji feels like a sell high candidate to me, given his age. Using him as the center piece of a package designed to pry away someone like Joc Pederson would be a good use of his current value. If you can't get something in that range, keeping him and looking to bring him back for 2015 does make sense. With any of these guys, the return is a vital component, but I think they can absolutely go into seller-mode without going into a full rebuild.
The next ten games is a refrain we may well be singing for the next two months. The Red Sox have put themselves in a position where they need more than to play well to get back into the race and at this point in the season, I think the front office needs to be realistic about their chances and start looking toward the future.
That doesn't mean they should sell every single veteran, by the way. See what's out there and make deals that make sense. If you can turn John Lackey into a David Dahl or Jesse Winker, great! If not, see what an extension would cost or revisit the trade market in the winter. If the team is convinced they can't re-sign Lester or aren't interested in the first place, shop him aggressively. If neither are the case, they should be focusing on extending him and making him the anchor of the rotation while the kids get settled in around him. Peavy should be traded for a return like Grichuk if possible, though a package involving a player like Rowan Wick would be good enough, IMO. Koji feels like a sell high candidate to me, given his age. Using him as the center piece of a package designed to pry away someone like Joc Pederson would be a good use of his current value. If you can't get something in that range, keeping him and looking to bring him back for 2015 does make sense. With any of these guys, the return is a vital component, but I think they can absolutely go into seller-mode without going into a full rebuild.
The next ten games is a refrain we may well be singing for the next two months. The Red Sox have put themselves in a position where they need more than to play well to get back into the race and at this point in the season, I think the front office needs to be realistic about their chances and start looking toward the future.
Rovin Romine said:
It depends on how you look at it. His xFIP is 80th of 94 qualified starters. His FIP is 89th and his ERA is 86th. The fact that there are only 94 qualified pitchers means Peavy offers some value in his ability to accumulate innings, but among the guys who also do that, he's one of the worst in the game. I'm not sure the kids you list in #5 are all that likely to be worse and I'm not sure Peavy is an upgrade on what most teams are getting out of the back of their rotations. Here is what the rest of MLB is getting out of that slot right now. This is an imperfect look as it doesn't account for sample size. It's just meant to be a snapshot using MLB.com's depth charts.
Angels - 4.02, 4.05, 4.42 (H. Santiago)
Astros - 4.32, 3.65, 4.45 (B. Oberholzter)
Athletics - 3.14, 3.45, 3,56 (J. Chavez)
Blue Jays - 3.58, 3.24, 3.47 (M. Stroman)
Braves - 3.24, 3.41, 3.26 (A. Wood)
Brewers - 5.06, 3.83, 4.29 (J. Nelson)
Cardinals - 2.84, 3.06, 3.76 (J. Kelly)
Cubs - 2.77, 3.91, 3.59 (only 4 listed, this is for Kyle Hendricks)
Diamondbacks - 5.63, 4.33, 4.02 (6 listed, this is for Cahill)
Dodgers - 2.52, 4.14, 3.64 (J. Beckett)
Giants - 4.24, 3.18, 3.43 (Y. Petite)
Indians - 5.12, 4.48, 3.78 (D. Salazar)
Mariners - 4.35, 5.27, 4.69 (E. Ramirez)
Marlins - 6.03, 3.94, 3.80 (J. Turner)
Mets - 3.01, 3.10, 3.37 (J. deGrom)
Nationals - 2.91, 3.28, 3.81 (T. Roark)
Orioles - 3.91, 5.23, 4.59 (M. Gonzalez)
Padres - 1.31, 3.66, 4.40 (O. Despainge)
Phillies - 4.25, 4.87, 4.72 (R. Hernandez)
Pirates - 3.10, 3.68, 3.78 (V. Worley)
Rangers - 4.73, 5.74, 5.73 (N. Martinez)
Rays - 3.97, 3.39, 3.58 (Only 4 listed, so this is for J. Odorizzi)
Red Sox - 4.72, 4.81, 4.34 (J. Peavy)
Reds - 2.74, 4.36, 3.95 (A. Simon)
Rockies - 7.20, 3.99, 4.23 (Y. Flande)
Royals - 5.80, 3.56, 4.11 (B. Chen)
Tigers - 3.42, 3.92, 3.84 (R. Porcello)
Twins - 4.64, 3.59, 4.34 (Only 4 listed, so this is for Y. Pino)
White Sox - 4.52, 4.75, 4.64 (MLB.com has Thompson listed in the 6th starter role but he's a reliever, so these numbers are for S. Carroll)
Yankees - 4.60, 3.70, 3.75 (C. Whitley)
It seems that most teams are using this roster spot to break in young pitchers which may be skewing the data set a bit, but I'd argue that that's exactly what a team that's not in contention should be doing in the second half. It's also fair to note that MLB.com has Peavy listed as the 3rd starter, not the fifth, but since you are making the claim that Peavy would be an upgrade over most team's 5th starters, I'm examining Peavy in that context. With that in mind, he's arguably worse than every one of these pitchers. At best he's somewhere in the 20-25 range and that's being generous on account of the number of innings he's thrown.
I don't see any reason the Red Sox should be hesitant to trade him at this point. Yes, another 8-2 run might get them within striking distance, but it also could just be the difference between 5th and 4th in the division or 8.5 and 6.5 back with 3 teams left to climb over. And no, 6.5 back on August 1st is not insurmountable, but I don't see Jake Peavy as the difference between overcoming that deficit or not.
The math is very daunting, and the margin for error nonexistent.Snodgrass'Muff said:
But along the same lines, if all these things fell into place and they ended up parting ways with Lester, Lackey, Peavy and Koji, wouldn't they then need a perfect offseason ride to be genuinely competitive next season? Where is the pitching coming from and at what price?
dcmissle said:
This is why I was careful to state that they shouldn't be shopping all of their vets. I didn't mean to imply that those four guys should absolutely be traded because the team is out of contention. I even mentioned that unless the team is 100% certain they're not bringing him back anyway, Lester should be extended. If Lester is going to be gone and they know (or heavily suspect) that now, Lackey shouldn't be shopped. If they have an offer for Miller that is too good to pass up, they probably shouldn't also deal Koji and should look to bring him back for another year. I'd probably prefer they trade Koji and bring Miller back given the age difference, but you get the idea. Everything is connected and how one situation is playing out impacts the rest of the roster. No move should be made in a vacuum, but the team should be looking to see what assets they can convert and what the returns would be.
If they traded all four pitchers, then yes, they would be light on pitching in 2015 and contending would be very difficult. I'm not suggesting they trade all four, though. I'm suggesting they explore the market for all four, and they shouldn't stop there. Gomes, Nava, Napoli and Victorino should all come up in conversations between now and the end of the month. That doesn't mean you deal all of them.
Peavy probably should be moved. For Koji the return should be good, or I'd be looking to selling him on staying, and that is easier done when you have not dealt him, probably.Rudy Pemberton said:
For Lester the return would have to be too good to pass. Then they would be punting on the season, against the backdrop of having mishandled the negotiations this spring.
Rudy Pemberton said:
He's making $4.25m now. Offering him something like 7 or 8 on a one-year deal should get it done.
And he'll need to keep drawing that walk, in Groundhog Day style repetition, through September.Rovin Romine said:
Agreed. I would bring up Wright from Pawtucket. Time to see if this recent stretch is for real or if he's just going to be fodder going forward.TomRicardo said:
Tyrone Biggums said:
It's probably "for real" in the sense that decent knuckleballers hang around and tend to have stretches of great success, especially in the minors. I'd rather give Ranaudo his first shot or maybe Webster. Workman too but I feel like we already have a decent handle on his MLB potential.
Rovin Romine said:
Nah, we have to start at the beginning. We need a...
moment.
10 years ago today.
We'll just ignore the fact that the Sox were 52-44 and a half game out of the WC lead at the start of that game.
In a sense yes. But also in another way due to the fact this guy will either be looked at as someone taking up a 40 man roster or someone who could potentially replicate R.A. Dickey or Wakefield in the future. Dickey didn't become Dickey until he was 35 so Wright has time. Id like to see what we have in him though.Jed Zeppelin said:
I actually think I hate the O's more than anyone, so that's gravy. It's important to diversify ones portfolio.
