The Mets. However that's because they have a billionaire fanatic owner who has run out of people to fleece in the financial markets and can now focus on buying a WS. And even he may not succeed in building a winner.
Trade Deadline Approach
- Thread starter tims4wins
- Start date
I dunno. I like Bloom but man, it's frustrating sitting here as basically an 85 win team.
There are clearly multiple posters here who think it’s not ok. The condescension towards anyone who dare question a single thing Bloom does is incredible (a couple posters specifically)
Beyond not getting a SP with term, I’m really surprised and upset that they couldn’t beat out the Dodgers offer on Yarbrough or burn $1m of JWH money on Dallas Keuchel who continues to pitch well in AAA.
I do think this team was worth investing in, and at the costs involved (LAD gave up nothing for Yarbrough; Keuchel likely didn’t get a MLB offer), not adding some rotation depth (and incentivizing the team with a big league pitcher added) will end up being a missed opportunity.
However, as I mentioned in the Urias thread, I really liked that add. He’s a vastly superior baseball player to Arroyo (who has a career 2.1 bWAR - Urias is at 7.1 bWAR). On top of being far better, he’s more versatile (130+ games at 2b, 3b and SS), and he has 2.5 years left. He should be a perfect bridge to Mayer.
As it became more and more obvious the front office wasn’t going to invest the prospects necessary to get an SP with term (and I still strongly disagree with them not doing this), getting an upgrade at MI and some SP depth seemed necessary. They failed on the latter, but did a very good job on the former.
Coupled with getting literally anything at all for Hernandez, just as one wants to see improvement from players, I like seeing it from the front office too. Last years deadline was a D-, I think this year’s was a C. The way things ended up, I do think they should have moved Duvall, but holding on to players isn’t nearly as dumb this year as it was last year, so keeping Duvall is a relatively minor annoyance that’ll be forgotten by the time spring training rolls around more than something I’ll complain about continuously.
Oh, and while I generally agree with a lot of what you say @tims4wins, I really don’t think Paxton is at all like Max or Verlander in terms of trade value. He’s more like something between Flaherty and Lorenzen. If one really wanted them to sell him off for a return like that, I’d understand, but the seller’s market for pure rentals showed the Angels / ChiSox deal to be a massive outlier.
I do think there was a real missed opportunity to add some pieces (ie Yarbrough, Keuchel along with Urias) that would have thrown the team a bone, cost literally nothing, and provided a small jolt with some depth in case (more like until) Sale and Whitlock get hurt again. That’s a shame.
However, Urias was a good buy low. Getting anything for Kike is a solid A, and it’s not like they would have gotten anything more someone else Bryan Mata or Brandon Walter for Paxton. Unlike last year, it’s not like they missed a golden opportunity to get under the threshold on a bad team, so all in all, this deadline wasn’t that bad. Certainly could’ve been better, but I think of this like the 2010 deadline (acquired Saltalamacchia) or maybe the 2016 deadline (Pomeranz). Not what I was hoping for, but with enough upside as not to get too upset over the relatively inconsequential nature of it.
I do think this team was worth investing in, and at the costs involved (LAD gave up nothing for Yarbrough; Keuchel likely didn’t get a MLB offer), not adding some rotation depth (and incentivizing the team with a big league pitcher added) will end up being a missed opportunity.
However, as I mentioned in the Urias thread, I really liked that add. He’s a vastly superior baseball player to Arroyo (who has a career 2.1 bWAR - Urias is at 7.1 bWAR). On top of being far better, he’s more versatile (130+ games at 2b, 3b and SS), and he has 2.5 years left. He should be a perfect bridge to Mayer.
As it became more and more obvious the front office wasn’t going to invest the prospects necessary to get an SP with term (and I still strongly disagree with them not doing this), getting an upgrade at MI and some SP depth seemed necessary. They failed on the latter, but did a very good job on the former.
Coupled with getting literally anything at all for Hernandez, just as one wants to see improvement from players, I like seeing it from the front office too. Last years deadline was a D-, I think this year’s was a C. The way things ended up, I do think they should have moved Duvall, but holding on to players isn’t nearly as dumb this year as it was last year, so keeping Duvall is a relatively minor annoyance that’ll be forgotten by the time spring training rolls around more than something I’ll complain about continuously.
Oh, and while I generally agree with a lot of what you say @tims4wins, I really don’t think Paxton is at all like Max or Verlander in terms of trade value. He’s more like something between Flaherty and Lorenzen. If one really wanted them to sell him off for a return like that, I’d understand, but the seller’s market for pure rentals showed the Angels / ChiSox deal to be a massive outlier.
I do think there was a real missed opportunity to add some pieces (ie Yarbrough, Keuchel along with Urias) that would have thrown the team a bone, cost literally nothing, and provided a small jolt with some depth in case (more like until) Sale and Whitlock get hurt again. That’s a shame.
However, Urias was a good buy low. Getting anything for Kike is a solid A, and it’s not like they would have gotten anything more someone else Bryan Mata or Brandon Walter for Paxton. Unlike last year, it’s not like they missed a golden opportunity to get under the threshold on a bad team, so all in all, this deadline wasn’t that bad. Certainly could’ve been better, but I think of this like the 2010 deadline (acquired Saltalamacchia) or maybe the 2016 deadline (Pomeranz). Not what I was hoping for, but with enough upside as not to get too upset over the relatively inconsequential nature of it.
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Hmmm...I've been a fan for 60+ years and I think Bloom did what had to be done. A 2nd right handed reliever and a 2nd base defensive option with plus power when he hits it.
And you are well within your right to believe what you want to believe without a judgmental post being made about you, your fandom, or your baseball intelligence.
I mean, yeah.
I'm gonna guess that's because so much of the criticism of Bloom is, quite frankly, stupid. There are obviously some significant criticisms of Bloom (see last year's trade deadline and the Bogaerts negotiations) but there are a lot of people who seem to think losing Mookie and Bogaerts are sins so egregious it means all other decisions by Bloom are bad. This is obviously nonsense.
On Yarbrough, bc I think they should have thrown the team a bone. I do believe in the human nature let down element, he cost nothing, and I put literally zero faith in Chris Sale’s ability to stay on the mound.
On Clevinger - is he really? I doubt you‘d say that without knowing it, so my bad, and disregard him. Editing him out of the post bc I’ll just take your word on him being a drug trafficker or Matt Dermody or some other horrific thing. As such, I edited it to Keuchel and taking a shot on his 6 good starts in AAA.
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I (we) got multiple WS wins this Century. Post Yawkey has made this franchise worth smiling about. I'm a Bloom fan. Biggest relief is no more MFY fans yelling how many Championships...blah, blah, blah
I can't imagine them being happy to get rid of a friend to give innings to a guy who is a bad pitcher. Yarbrough has a 5.12 k/9 & 5.14 xFIP.
Clevinger is a (alleged) domestic abuse guy. He was not suspended, though.
www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/35792027/white-sox-mike-clevinger-face-discipline-abuse-complaint%3fplatform=amp
I just sent a private message to one of those posters saying just that thing. Didn't wanna call him out publicly. Figured it was best to privately express to him how gratuitously mean-spirited and condescending he came off. And I've had many private conversations with other posters who, despite loving baseball and this site, are turned off by those folks, and question their participation because of it.
Spirited debate is great. Disagreement is fine. Asking for supporting evidence, super. Being belittling, condescending, aggressive: not so cool (and seemingly a compensation for something or another).
You might find the poll results at the top of each page of this thread interesting. Or maybe not.
I’ll be honest…I barely post on the main board or read it because of this. I’ve been reading this board for 20+years and I always remember it being much more of a discussion than it is now.
I am an avid poster on the Port Cellar and I still lurk here sometimes….in the end, my baseball posts won’t be missed but it still bothers the hell out of me when people get treated like idiots for benign posts
Yeah, then totally disregard Clevinger. Thanks for the info on him.
I suppose we’ll get a pretty good idea on team morale one way or the other in the next couple of weeks.
I do think they should’ve thrown the team a bone and acquired some pitching. They’ve been begging for additions for weeks now, and I do believe they know that an acquired MLB player means someone leaves the roster. (And no, I do not expect anyone in the clubhouse to name names.)
But I would assume losing Joe Jacques or Richard Bleier to add even a name like Yarbrough or whatever might be left of Dallas Keuchel is something the team morale could’ve taken better than adding no MLB pitching.
I suppose we’ll get a pretty good idea on team morale one way or the other in the next couple of weeks.
I do think they should’ve thrown the team a bone and acquired some pitching. They’ve been begging for additions for weeks now, and I do believe they know that an acquired MLB player means someone leaves the roster. (And no, I do not expect anyone in the clubhouse to name names.)
But I would assume losing Joe Jacques or Richard Bleier to add even a name like Yarbrough or whatever might be left of Dallas Keuchel is something the team morale could’ve taken better than adding no MLB pitching.
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You know they won 3 division titles in 5 years (back when there wasn’t 3 wild cards, wasn’t 2 wild cards, wasn’t 1 wild card and there were more teams per division. ) 35 years ago
Analyzing moves or nonmoves is fine. Pointless Psychobabble about Bloom's "belief in the team" or whether "he REALLY wants to win" is just that. Why isn't Bloom saying,
"I think this team can win" just as magically erection-inducing to the players as "here, I've added 10 Hall of Famers because you can't."
"I think this team can win" just as magically erection-inducing to the players as "here, I've added 10 Hall of Famers because you can't."
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If you want to give some innings to a guy with 6 good AAA starts may I interest you in Kyle Barraclough?
In 6 starts (7 games), BEAR CLAW has pitched 36 innings. He is 6-0 with a 2.75 ERA & a 1.056 WHIP.
It’s also not hard to figure who will always suck down the Fenway Kool aid without question in threads like this.
View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1686561121665175552?s=46
Some good context here and reminder that the deadline, in general, lacked significant movement
Some good context here and reminder that the deadline, in general, lacked significant movement
Well... the main reason is they don't really need long relievers right now & they'll have even less of a need once Sale/Whitlock/Houck are back.
Their use of completely fungible relievers over potentially useful relievers is probably my largest peeve about the management this season, & along with the Caleb Hamilton/Alfaro in the 2nd catcher slot stuff, has really shown that this year isn't really the priority.
Ya, if they lose out by a game or two, you have to question them having such long leashes for Brasier, Ort, and Hernandez. Or not housing replacement level catching depth in the minors.
On the other hand, finding a high leverage reliever off the scrap heap each season (Schreiber and now Bernardino) may cancel that stuff out.
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Two of Arroyo, Chang and Reyes. One will be Story, but one more after him. Sorry, but I would rather see Cedane than Urias Mr. Bloom. E. Rod for Jacques. Trade Yorke or Romero, Drohan or Walter and maybe a lottery pick. I think that would get the Sox the ability to get into the playoffs with a reasonable chance of winning one, two or three series.
At least we got under the tax threshold this year, so this sets us up to spend in FA. However, looking at the market, there aren't a lot of players who fit our timeline and needs. We need pitching and more depth in the outfield, but leaving aside Ohtani, Stroman's too old to give a long-term deal to. I don't see Chaim giving him 4 or 5 years. There's too much risk there. Kershaw's likely to stay in LA, Urias is a potential signing.
Looking at the players available, Paxton will likely get the QO and probably comes back for $20m. We would still be missing a #1/#2, maybe we can fix Severino or Giolito, or Sonny Gray's willing to take 2/$40m.
Looking at the players available, Paxton will likely get the QO and probably comes back for $20m. We would still be missing a #1/#2, maybe we can fix Severino or Giolito, or Sonny Gray's willing to take 2/$40m.
Yeah interesting. It seems like Cleveland was trying to trade out of “next two years” and into “2024-29” or thereabouts. The Sox don’t want to deal key players out of that window I don’t think. They were surely offering guys a couple years further out.
Two points...
Regarding morale, exactly what morale issues are people (not you exclusively) anticipating? Bloom not moving guys like Duvall, Verdugo and Paxton should be seen as a positive by the players. Say what you like about Bloom's statement, but keeping the current roster along with the expectations of 5 returning players should be seen as him being comfortable going with what he has. IMO as a player, that should be a positive.
Regarding bumping guys from the roster, there is something here that I think you're overlooking. Sale is expected back soon, we probably lose Jacques on his return. Houck and Whitlock are hoped to be back in the next couple of weeks. Two other guys are going to have to be moved when that happens. How much surplus on the current staff are you seeing that would facilitate an additional move or two?
The two tendencies are linked. We keep finding these guys because we have a roster slot or two for churning through membra disjecta we won't mind DFAing if they don't pan out. You find a Schreiber or a Bernardino because you give them chances; it's not like Bloom and company knew that Schreiber would be solid and Ort would be terrible. It's more this guy sucked for the Tigers, but his pitch data looks promising; I wonder what his repertoire would look like if he threw his two-seam more or whatever. And then you see! Sometimes it works.
Hmm. Urías is said to be good defensively at 2B, and has a career OPS+ of 100. He'd bat, what, eighth, in our lineup? I don't know that I want to burn an option on Ceddanne over the (small) chance that he can beat that profile. I love his ceiling, but I love his ceiling to be a Javy Báez-type: elite up-the-middle defender; .250/.290/.450 type; good pop, but too many outs; a guy you bat in front of Casas in hope that he'll see more strikes. Maybe bring him up in September to acclimate with an eye to a promotion next year?
Masa Yoshida's old teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto is probably priority one.
And I'm fine giving those chances to guys like Sherff or Jacques or Garza etc., but they aren't Brasier who had a few season sample size of or Ort (5 melt downs in 23 innings is a LOT) who had already gotten long looks. The evaluation phase seems to take too long. It's fine when you're the White Sox, but questionable when you are in the hunt.
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Except Brasier has a 2.63 ERA and .71 WH/IP since joining the Dodgers. You could argue it wasn't a long enough leash. (To be clear, I was more than fine that they cut bait, but what Brasier is doing now at least indicates that what they thought they saw in him was not completely unfounded).
Not flipping Duvall or Paxton may also make us a more desirable destination for free agents. It’s probably not a good thing to have a reputation as a team that signs players to flip them for prospects.
We heard a lot last winter about the Sox making offers and getting rebuffed, even when the money was comparable or better. There was also a ton of negative press about the team, and virtually no one figured they’d be in contention. Maybe some would-be FA signings during those negotiations expressed concerns they’d just be flipped?
Rafaela’s first option year has already been burned. Options are triggered when a player is assigned to the minor leagues, not when a player is promoted to the major leagues.
If the Red Sox manage to play their way into contention over the next month, Rafaela’s speed and defense would merit a spot on the expanded September bench. Until then, his future would be better-served in Triple-A trying to develop some semblance of plate discipline.
Fair! Ort must have really been lighting up the data to stick around as long as he did given how terrible the results were.
Jeffrey Springs agrees with you but Brasier having 41 innings over two seasons is an awfully long leash. If you're hoping to make the playoffs you can only roll the dice so many times for a potential set up guy when you may already have better internal guys. Credit to the Dodgers, they found something mechanical that the Sox didn't.
Well, I guess this is the thing I've been thinking about. We're trying to put together a pitching program that can reliably improve pitchers, like some of these other clubs have been doing: Cleveland, TB, Houston, LAD, SFG...
There have definitely been bumps. But one thing that I'm seeing is that we're trying to acquire a lot of the same guys as those other teams. So there's recognizing the untapped potential in a pitcher — I think we're doing that pretty well — and then there's actually tapping into it. That part is still very much a work in progress, but fair: seems hard!
Or just pitch. All this fueling nonsense, it can't be real.
This is why I'm one of the people pushing back on a lot of the Bloom criticism -- because people will just say "he sucks" like that's the end of the story. But it probably isn't, Bloom and his scouts and evaluators know a lot more about the game than the average fan. It's complicated and there's a lot of gray area in baseball, but guys with velocity and secondary pitches can be made productive if you can find the right tweak. I'm not going to tell them to dump a guy when I'm not in the building, or even remotely a professional evaluator, because we see over and over again that guys find something and are effective.
Theoretically, it's because you think the team is currently set up to win several championships over the next 10 years and that not standing pat reduces that number to "fewer than several."
If you actually read the thread you'll be surprised to find out most of the "stand pat" crew wasn't arguing for literally doing nothing, even if the poll option was. They just meant "don't feel forced into making big moves". Good thing then they didn't actually stand pat and acquired what I consider an interesting MI piece.
I'm OK with how it turned out, but I had modest goals: a MI, 3rd string catcher, and maybe a pitcher. Which is also why I was pissed when it looked like they had done nothing. I couldn't believe that there wasn't a single guy in the baseball universe who could play League average second base available for a reasonable price. Urias fits that bill.
As for catcher, if Wong or McGuire goes down they will just have to make a 40 man move to bring up someone who has a chance of being more useful than a pitch back machine.
As for catcher, if Wong or McGuire goes down they will just have to make a 40 man move to bring up someone who has a chance of being more useful than a pitch back machine.
LOL, no, I meant if Devers is going to say he wants to improve the team, I get that, but if they're going to trade FOR someone, they need to trade AWAY someone else. Who did Devers want to see go? What position did he want to improve?
HIM - not you.
some call it Kool Aid, but it tasted like Champagne to me.
I wasn’t happy last year that they didn’t get below the threshold, but I understood the short winning streak leading up to the deadline gave them some hope that may not have been warranted. This year with Sale and Story and Whitlock coming back and very few useful players changing hands for a reasonable price I have no problem with the moves that were made. I would have lIked to see Duvall go if they could get a good prospect in return and that didn’t happen, but I don’t expect every thing *I* want to happen at the trade deadline.
He did trade for Lorenzen, who is better than anyone Chaim got, and his team simply has fewer holes. Maybe could have added an OF, depending on how much one believes in Rojas.
What a fair weather jerk of a fan you are. They are not a last place team. Don't let the door hit you on the way out armhole. How many times and in how many languages does it need to be explained to you that the Red Sox are getting 4 players back? I mean McGuire came back tonight and hit a homer. You make me sick with your entitled attitude. When the Sox make the playoffs this year and win the Series next year, I don't want to see you back on the bandwagon although I expect nothing less from you types. You only stick around for the good parts. I bet you jumped off the bandwagon in 2011 and came back just as the 2013 playoffs started. Good riddance!
Edit: I was addressing @DisgruntledSoxFan77 not you @Bigpupp .
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