Who's on Third? I don't know
- Thread starter Devizier
- Start date
The writing is on the wall. Say hi to Allen Craig for us Pablo!! At least the guys in Pawtucket will be eating well!
Both long and short term, that's good news. Now, just keeping fingers crossed DDski doesn't trade him.
We'll see I guess, but I have my personal doubts in regards to that just holding out for a trade possibility theory. I mean c'mon...we all know that essentially just amounts to extreme fantasy at this point.
A month ago today Plouffe had .248/.318/.421 line on the year, but our FO is so frozen in place staring at the remainder of Pablo's contract that they can't bring themselves to free up his roster spot and beat the Rays to the punch on a $1m/no real risk flyer there. Or at least that's the current take I'm leaning towards.
Indeed. The judges also would have accepted "who made the final out in the first Cubs WS title since 1908?"
Why do they need to put him on the DL to do this? Shouldn't they have been doing it all along?
What possible motive could any other club have for giving up anything, however nominal in value, for Sandoval right now? And if there is no plausible motive, how does putting him on the DL provide one?
There is only one development that could make a Sandoval trade more likely, and that is him playing half-decent baseball for the Red Sox for more than a game or two.
It's like throwing up. You reach a point where you stop pretending it's avoidable and just head for the toilet.
The money doesn't matter to them. Craig and Castillo show that. I think DD thinks that plouffe just sucks.
If he continues to hit at AAA like he has at AA, he'll be brought up in September and be given a shot to be the Sox starting 3rd basemen. No Devers trade happening.
I hope they're pursuing a trade for Frazier. He's hitting in really bad BABIP luck so far, which is depressing his slash line to the point where his price might be a pretty good deal. He's not the hitter he used to be, but he's not this bad, and he's a solid defender. He's having almost a Mike Lowell 2005 kind of season, and unless there's an injury issue there, a change of scene might be all that's required to turn him around. Given that he's a rental and he's hitting poorly so far, it seems like it ought to be possible to get him for 2 or 3 semi-fungible prospects of sub-Chavis ilk. Maybe Dalbec, Beeks and a lottery ticket? Is that too much? Too little?
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Remy and O.B. on the broadcast make it sound like Panda will be fortunate to survive this illness. "It's legit!"
I haven't heard two people try put something over that hard since Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross.
As I've pointed out in the past, both those decisions got made for this FO by the players themselves when neither were able to hit AAA pitching, plus the unique financial loophole that actually leaves the team saving money by keeping them around down there.
This is different imo. The phantom DL trip while simultaneously claiming they don't care about the money isn't adding up here either.
KC is only 3 and a half games off the division lead. I can't see them as sellers unless that gap widens.
Thought to update these numbers as they are a month and a half old now. But if anything they have gotten worse:
Avg: 28th .200
OBP: 30th .253
SLG: 30th .312
OPS: 30th .565
WAR: 30th -1.1
Note these numbers don't include Marrero's nice game tonight in KC: 2H (1B, 2B), SF, BB in 4 PAs. And I think they mask the stabilisation of the defense at 3B. In the first 31 games, Red Sox 3B made 12 errors as a group; in the next 40 games including tonight they have committed only another 4 errors, which would equate to 16 for a full season or about league average defense.
So I would be in favor of keeping Marrero and Rutledge (and Holt if / when he returns), and waiting for Devers to be called up in September or 2018.
The problem is, there's a black hole at DH as well. Hopefully Cleveland will bury KC by the all star break and they'll be ready to make a move. Team needs a bopper in the middle. Hanley is a shell of himself, and Papi ain't coming back. Having a scary bat in the middle of the lineup makes everybody else better. With one more power threat, I think we become WS favorites. We're built to win this year. You don't go get Chris Sale and then suddenly get gun shy about a deal that puts you in the driver's seat
You make a fair point, but this year's team was constructed on a bit less offense, and a lot more pitching and defense. So far, the holes on offense are as you described and potentially consistent with what the front office was expecting, but I suspect that they didn't count on the starting pitching being this hard to keep healthy.
I'm a little worried there (time frame left wise) that we could run in to the same problem, to a lesser extent, that you would with trying to trade with Moustakas.
I don't buy into the common perception that teams simply stop caring about wins/loses altogether while in a rebuild. Frazier is heating up lately, and they are still close enough to .500 ball where the hopeful illusion that helps sell to the fans might end up being worth more to them then a few fungible pieces plus saving a couple million dollars on the season.
They need to start tanking harder.
Yea, who could've seen Wright and Edro getting hurt again and both missing significant time again....
Wouldn't Devers need to be called up and on the 25 man roster to be playoff eligible by August 31st?
There is a loophole a mile wide to get anyone you want who was in the system on August 31st on to a playoff roster.
I forget all the specifics but essentially they can be named as an injury replacement for someone who was on the 25 man.
Devers won't have to play a single game for the Sox this year and he will be eligible for the playoffs.
I forget all the specifics but essentially they can be named as an injury replacement for someone who was on the 25 man.
Devers won't have to play a single game for the Sox this year and he will be eligible for the playoffs.
They will need someone on the 60 Day DL for this. Sadly there are candidates available.
Why do Marco Hernandez, Tyler Thornburg, and Steven Wright, (none of whom will be ready to return this season and are on the 60-day DL), not count?
They didn't, but apparently he really is sick and now they don't have to have him sitting on bench and not being useful to hit, field, or do anything baseball related.
I had thought there needed to be some recency to the 60DLing. Just the opposite, in fact.
http://m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/postseason-eligibility
That would be a lot easier to do if he hadn't traded his starting 3rd baseman (and 3 prospects) with 5 years of control remaining for a set up man with only 1-1/2 good seasons under his belt and an sketchy injury history.
I still have mixed blame game feelings on that, but as whole there is little debate at this point that DD has pretty much done everything possible to set himself up for the need to go out and make a potentially bad/overpay rental trade. From kidding ourselves this winter that there was actually a chance Pablo could come back as a passable third baseman, to trading Shaw away without bringing in anybody else with extensive experience starting at 3rd, to thinking Brock Holt holding up as a full season starting 3B was a solid backup plan to begin with even before he went down, to recently letting the one starting 3B type to come down the MLB pipeline pass right by him....there is a lot of unrealistic reaches and bad judgement calls that went in to all that.
DD deserves every bit of the increasing amount of heat he's going to get on this one imo, especially if the season outcome comes down to revolving around a game or 2 in the standings.
I was one of the very last Travis Shaw true believers.... but anyone who thinks he was an actual answer to this seasons 3B problems are flat out lying. It wasn't a slump Shaw had... it was just one very good month, then horribleness for a month, then two decent weeks then just pure excrement. He was also known for complaining about playing time.... there wasn't one person here on SoSH during the offseason that wanted to hold onto him, nor one person that wasn't at least happy about the Thornburg deal
To be fair to MikeM, he was beating the drum for Plouffe in the off-season and these same points were made in response (specifically, the one about Plouffe being unlikely to sign where he didn't have a clear path to a starting job). So it's not hindsight on his part so much as a bit of "I told you so".
However, there was plenty of reason to think that Sandoval, with a repaired shoulder, could bounce back to be at least better than he was in 2015/2016 (when he was presumably hampered by the bum shoulder). Sandoval did everything anyone could have asked of him post-surgery...he dropped weight, he worked hard in rehab. He earned himself a chance to take his job back. At this point, it appears the skills just aren't there anymore, but that isn't something that could be reasonably assumed last winter, not with other potential factors lingering (injury being the prime one).
Dave Dombrowski can't operate with the emotion of a fan. He can't dismiss Sandoval because "he's fat and I don't like him". He had to give the guy a chance to prove that his woes were injury related. Pretty clear now that they aren't. Now he can cut ties with the guy knowing he gave him every chance to produce...something he couldn't do in December.
While I agree with your general premise and certainly didn't think that Shaw was any kind of an answer at 3B I'm pretty sure there were some holdouts. I also think there were some people who thought the package they gave up for Thornburg was too much.
Also there is no way Plouffe was coming here to be Sandoval insurance when the A's gave him a starting job and a chance to rebuild his value. It was a reasonable plan by Plouffe but it obviously didn't work out for him.
Rutledge has a career OPS+ of 80, OBP of .310, and SLG of .384. Counting on him for anything other than AAAA filler would've been foolish. The fact that he's doubled his number of PAs from last year already with significantly worse results is bad.
Just to echo this a bit, the loss of Marco given what he showed in ST has been a major contributor to the 3B predicament. Add in Holt's absence, and it's hard to see malpractice by DD here.
Exactly. You'd think they were covered for the season+ until Devers was ready. The slight possible upgrade from signing a bridge guy just wasn't worth the trouble and potential roster jam. Plans A, B and C failed and we're on our break glass in case of emergency plan. And here they are in first despite that.
Pablo was going to be given every chance to succeed at 3B. I don't think even his biggest doubters thought he would be this bad this soon.
Behind him: one of the better utility guys in the league, a young utility guy they seemed to like based on his role coming into the season, a young defense-first utility guy, and two AAAA filler guys (including Dominguez). It seems perfectly plausible to expect a .700-ish OPS from Rutledge and Hernandez, which seems right in line with a 3rd and 4th option. I don't see how you could objectively say Marco was dreadful at 3B with the sample size available. No one was counting on him to be a starting third baseman, but counting on him to be a useful utility player and short-term fill-in seems like exactly what one should have counted on. That leaves out that one of the top prospects in baseball was starting the season in AA. No free agent who had the ability to start for a ML team was going to sign here absent a big overpay - which wasn't going to happen. What would you have done?
Chavis was just promoted to Portland. Looks like Devers may be headed to AAA.
https://www.overthemonster.com/2017/6/22/15854394/michael-chavis-portland-red-sox-minors
https://www.overthemonster.com/2017/6/22/15854394/michael-chavis-portland-red-sox-minors
Yeah, this. I was both fine with trading Shaw, but also of the belief that Panda would need to be cut loose eventually and we would need to make do for a bit. To me, the main gripe was that we didn't have a better RHH than Rutledge to pair with Holt in a platoon... but there were obvious reasons why getting someone better than Rutledge just to maybe serve as the weak side of a platoon would have been hard to do at a reasonable price.
If we do end up overpaying for a rental, it will be annoying, and it might be the wrong decision given the other issues with this team, but it won't be because DD went into the season with an indefensible plan.
I didn't want to trade him. Long term answer at 3rd - Probably not. But I'd take his offensive production this year over anyone else we've had there. When I heard it was Thornburg we got that tempered my mood - but now? We got damaged goods after all.
Year .. AB R H HR RBI SB AVG OBP OPS
2017 248 34 72 13 48 7 .290 .344 . 873
Not sure if the point has been made in here, but part of the reason they traded Shaw was that there was no room on the roster for both of them -- unless one was going to be the full-time 1B. (Sure, you could have just eaten Sandoval's contract, but it didn't seem like they were ready to do that, and with him getting healthy and in shape, there was at least some reason to be optimistic.)
In any case, the comparison isn't to what we've gotten out of 3B, it's to what we've gotten out of Moreland.
In any case, the comparison isn't to what we've gotten out of 3B, it's to what we've gotten out of Moreland.
If you recall correctly, at the time I went on the accept the fact that the A's simply offered Plouffe a better surrounding deal. I also ultimately supported the Shaw trade, again under the stated belief that DD wouldn't be foolish enough to walk out of the winter without a better insurance plan in place for 2017 when that $100 he threw down on Connor McGregor out-boxing Floyd Mayweather didn't end up covering the rent that was due on the 1st.
You say he's fat and I don't like him, I say we still owe him $60m so of course you'll believe anything is possible. There is a reason that almost every single optimistic argument in favor of giving Pablo his chance in that thread this past winter stuck to a "if he manages to hit over a .700ops..." support claim, while completely sidestepping any (reasonable assumption btw) acknowledgement of the defensive aspect that would have to go into that equation. Plenty of reasons otherwise? In what realty does the already declining, bad body type, extreme free swinging and worst defender in the league lose his job...take a year off from competitive play after that..and then make a quality return? Simply dropping 20 lbs or having that after-the-fact surgery was never going to miraculously turn back to clock on his body/skills, much less leave him pouncing around like a cat over at the corner. That is just not how these situations ever work. Again and to use the CM/FM analogy, you were buying into a base logic that amounts to "all it takes is one good left" imo, while ignoring every other rational reason to believe that this wasn't going to happen.
I'm not playing an I told you so game with Plouffe atm either as much as I'm upset DD didn't bother taking that flyer now, and the strong surrounding implication that has imo on what level of effort was made behind the scenes this past winter (especially if you were trading Shaw) to better prepare for the inevitable. Not to mention the why involved, even if it was going to help sabotage our season in the name of not being able to look past dead money. Which it has thus far.
You know what could be seen in advance? Very best case scenario there you had Pablo's bat rebounding enough but who's defense still wasn't playing at 3rd, and three guys with very limited starting experience at the position who were going to have to step in come April. The most proven of which is more suited to the super sub role, with a history of wearing down under extensive playing time.
20/20 hindsight wasn't really needed to more or less see us sitting right where we are today.
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Update on HRs. Shaw just hit his 14th this afternoon. He has subsequently hit two doubles this afternoon. And yes, I was against trading him b/c he had showed consistent power before he got an injury. I forget what it was now, but it seemed like the thing you'd come back from. He "complained" about playing time when the Sox got Aaron Hill, b/c he wasn't given a chance, he felt to get back into the swing of things. Big Papi was very encouraging of him, and there was reason to believe he'd been learning from David. Also, I read somewhere (can't find it now) some Milwaukee folks were surprised Boston gave so much for Thornburgh, b/c he was an injury waiting to happen. Some other guys, from Seattle, said the same thing about Smith. Maybe there are always guys saying things like that, but they said them before the subsequent injuries.
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Pouring more salt in the wound. I think you like to slam Dombrowski when you can. With me, it's Farrell. I think we all liked Shaw (when he was hitting). Too bad it looks like he has no chance to make the all star game. That would sting even more.
I don't recall an injury to Shaw last year. He played nearly 150 games and never missed more than 3 games in a row all year. He did bat well under .200 over the last two months of the season so if he had been replaced by Aaron Hill (or by anyone else) no one should have complained that the Sox were trying someone else, least of all Travis Shaw. "Can't find it" and "I forget" are lousy support for an argument. Baseball reference is an easily searched site to see what games a player played and if he missed time due to an injury and how they played over discrete periods of time.