YourWhatHurts

Yolbert is a much better prospect than what you are giving him credit for being. The Sox as has been noted on here many times, don't negotiate with the little kids and commit bonus money 2-3 years out. Because of that they have money available and they use it to sign Cubans. Now, when there are periods where many quality Cuban prospects defect, the Sox will "win" with that strategy. They'll "win" by default, but they will still "win." Trading bonus money is stupidity and stubbornness without much precedent, but this is also a league who had Loria in it and is still full of scumbags. But it's really bad. Still, when we all go to the INTL draft eventually, whether the next CBA or the one thereafter, it shouldn't be surprising if the Sox actually do at least slightly worse than they have been in the INTL market, because they aren't going to be getting all of these high-quality Cubans anymore; other teams will be drafting them ahead of where the Sox pick.

^^Thread fixed

"They" is one guy.

I don't know who that Yankees guy is but I do know that I am absolutely not on board with giving up on Benny Bailey before he even picks up a bat on US soil just to "reel in" an old shoe wrapped in weeds and general garbage named Jameson Tallion.

I'm not sure why that matters in this case given we only care about these things from the Sox perspective. Depending on the year, the Sox will always be either buying or selling. HS draftees will always be riskier, and here is another case where at least so far (because the book isn't closed on Rutherford yet) the Sox have tried to extract the kind of value out of a pair of HS draftees that would serve their organization well, and they were unable to. I'm not sure why there is an argument that says a high school guy is better than a college guy as an earlier round pick. The Sox have had better luck with college guys anyway, whether it is extracting value in a trade or someone producing at the MLB level. In another of my previous examples, the Sox were able to trade Holmberg as the 2nd piece for Jackson. Was that a good pick then? The main guy in that deal was a college guy also. For Holmberg's shorter-than-Madrigal ceiling, as a 2nd round pick, I think that pick sucks a fat pair of balls. If there's one major bone to pick with the Sox philosophy over the years, outside of their bullshit pre-slotting system, it's probably their performance in the 2nd through the 5th rounds. Every year going into the draft there are a host of publications that put out top-100 lists like Perfect Game, BA, BP, 20/80 baseball, Law's lists, etc., and there are probably about 130-150 players who will be on every major publications top-100 list, and probably about 50 guys or so that appear on everybody's top-30 or so. It always seems like the Sox are one of those teams that sit there and pick 100-200+ list guys early while other teams are taking players ranked highly well into the draft. There are always these other teams that get like 3 -5 of these consensus top-100 guys while the Sox take 1 or maybe 2. I said during the draft that Kelly was the most exciting 2nd rounder I can remember since Ryan Sweeney. Usually the Sox pick RPs pretty high and other guys like Pilkington who are way too high. They look for value picks too early. Hansen was an interesting pick at the time, and I think Luis Gonzalez was an interesting high floor guy as a 3rd round pick but probably too early. Other than Sheets, their 2nd rounders over recent years have been pretty good picks at the time, like Erik Johnson and Tyler Danish, who didn't turn out, but not all of these guys need to be taken in the 2nd, and even when you get someone who looks decent in the 2nd it doesn't mean you need to punt the football in the 3rd round. Beck was a good 3rd round pick. But usually you look at rounds 3-5 and that's where the Sox resort to picking "value" or "find" guys while some other teams are picking "names" and this is something Sox fans who have been following the drafts for years have constantly noticed. They have taken guys like Donny Lucy in the 2nd round, John Ely in the 3rd, etc. and have gone with bench/RP/longshot types way too early in the draft. Other teams are taking greater upside and especially players who are seen as better in the general public.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect Cruz. I think Wainright + MiLB contract with invitation to ST for guys like DRob and Rosenthal is the best we can expect. Maybe LaStella at 2/$10M where it's really like 1/$6M because year 2 has a $1M buyout I wasn't born yesterday.

But OTOH Rutherford doesn't have a lot of value either, and he was a late first round draft pick out of HS and so was Ian Clarkin and both of those guys came from the Yankees in the DRob/Kahnle dump off. It's hard to get value in the draft regardless. The best policy is to spend as much money as possible on the highest-end guys available. In the Sox defense, they have been doing a much better job targeting higher-level players in the early rounds in the draft lately. Re: the group mentioned though, Burdi has made some progress now that he is healthy. He could still turn into a quality pen piece. Walker got us potentially 2 years of Mazara and in hindsight we should have traded him for someone else. Gonzalez seems to be on track to being a decent if not quality 4th OF IMO, which is a pretty good outcome anyway. Only Sheets really looks like a guy with a pretty low likelihood of having any MLB success, but he also has made some improvement and he may have enough value to net the team a quality MR or bench piece at the deadline. All in all, I think that group mentioned isn't really that damning. Sure they could have done better in hindsight but let's just go look draft to draft at all of the high schoolers who are taken in the first 3 or 4 rounds who totally bust. Also coming to mind are Spencer Adams and David Holmberg who were HS guys who didn't work out. I also remember getting excited about drafting a HS named Stephen Upchurch and I think he fell apart before he even got off of the bus to Great Falls. More often that not these guys don't work out. I do hope that whether it is a HS or college player, the Sox try to do what they did grabbing Crochet and Kelly back-to-back all the time in every draft.

They will need someone to throw out there just because. I think Adolfo goes for a RP in a 1-for-1 deal at some point, or a 1-for-2 where the second guy we give up is an inconsequential minor leaguer who doesn't take up roster space.

Both the Sox and Yankees also are "maxed out" in terms of payroll, so that's even. Of course the Yanks are up against the luxury tax and the Sox are up against .....

The way you use fWAR is like this: when you see your starting C stand there with his thumb up his ass while the ball rolls between his legs and you don't like that because it doesn't fit your world view that he's a great player, you go onto fan graphs and find a number that says he's a better player than the other guy who isn't such an idiot in the field, and then you post it on a discussion forum as evidence of his quality play. And you post a HR clip also.

'Member that time we signed Carlos Boozer? That was awesome.

Like Herrera, Cishek, Dunn, Linebrink, Keppinger, Gio Gonzalez, Edwin, soooo many others in a list that can go on and on and on, this may be the "career death deal" in Wainwright's case. Hopefully he turns out a lot better than Mat Latos or Ervin Santana as more examples.

There's no way that Giolito and Lynn are "equal" to a healthy Cole and Severino. The Yanks have a much better rotation if they are healthy. Sox have a better IF defense. Yanks probably similar defensively in the OF because Eloy brings down the quality of the OF D so much. Offensively both lineups are deep with power and speed, and lots of tough outs. Both bullpens should be very good, but you never know how that will turn out. Overall IMO the Yankees are definitely the better team ATM. The Sox don't have the horses yet. Also when you add D TA is way better than Gleyber.

Wainwright at $5M or $6M is better than Gio at $5M. And unlike Rodon at least he can throw a pitch in the strikezone.

He has a great sense of humor. So must all of the fans cheering for the team he's pitching for.

They don't have a choice but to put Lopez in the pen IMO. It's a coaching issue. He needs extra attention and you can't make a zillion mound visits any more. He also takes too damn long between pitches. They really need to get him right before they do anything else. Baby steps.

If they are going to do an innings limit on it then I hope they are smarter about it, and look at stress of the innings as well as pitches thrown and pitch types. If he's more efficient then he should be able to go longer.

Thank you. I sure hope he is able to at least go multiple innings. His breaking ball is a really big factor for him and I would be worried about his ability to have consistent success in 1 IP or less kind of usage.

I think the Sox are better off now looking to trade for somebody else's ousted/depth SP (Yankees immediately come to mind) or try to sign a SP/RP bridge guy and look at bullpen days. When Kopech comes up, they'll need another spot anyway, assuming the main 4 guys aren't hurt at that point. Regardless, between Kopech, Stiever, and Crochet out of the pen, I am pretty content with SP depth from midseason on. But the first half I think needs another 1-2 bodies IMO.

We need an update on him. The SP barrel is really getting some scraping ATM. Being a Lambert fan since I saw him for the first time years ago, I do think we may be at the point where a healthy Lambert for 3-5 IP every 5th day plus the bullpen is an overall better value and better product than the crap remaining on the FA market (assuming the dorf isn't going to spend on a guy like Tanaka or Paxton). So, how's the Jimmy?

I don't think the Sox would need to give up so much ceiling though in a Marco deal, vs. a Burnes deal. Marco is far more likely to be gettable with a volume of quality. E.g. I love Stiever's ceiling, but it's lower than Kelly's and is certainly not Kopech, Crochet or Cease. Madrigal + Stiever + Dalquist/Thompson + Yolbert Sanchez should be enough for Marco, without having to give up even Kelly's ceiling, much less the other guys. OTOH MIL is not going to move Burnes for that. I do agree with you from the Mariners standpoint sort of, because they don't have to actually trade him, and maybe it only makes to trade him if they get more value than he's worth. If the Sox offered the above package for him, I think the Mariners actually do it though, and if they swapped Yolbert Sanchez for Heuer I think that deal gets done ASAP, in large part because the pieces coming back would be more likely to pay off for the Mariners while they are actually in a contention window. But I don't think the Sox would offer that much.

The Twins are not in the mix.

If they extended Lopez early then he would have been so cheap that all he would have had to do is become a quality setup man most likely to be worth his deal or be a bargain, because the expensive years would have all been buyouts. Hitters also lose positional viability as they age in many circumstances. Any time you sign a FA, especially a pitcher or a position player who is a couple lost steps from becoming a DH and/or bench player, you are likely looking at bad money. It's the nature of the beast. The real problem is having a an old bag of shit as an owner. The Yankees hand out more money in bad contract dollars than anyone year to year. Are they still paying Jacoby Ellsbury BTW? Yet they are awesome in most years. The dorf is a moldy c*** who complains about 4 year deals, and then when he ends up with a Danks or Dunn, he makes the FO and management and coaching staff run that beater into the ground usually into the trade deadline of his final contract year. They cut Danks a bit earlier, in rare fashion. The point is, it's baseball. The great players all get paid like shit compared to their on-field performances for the first 5 years and maybe more of their career. On the back ends there are bad deals. Oh well. Big fat fuck owners sit up in the press box and sip their wine looking down on the field of play, never having to lift a finger to do a fucking thing, while the money just keeps rolling in. What a miserable life that must be. The bottom line is this: re: someone like Giolito, if you sign him it will be expensive, and there's always a chance it could turn out really bad, but you're supposed to pay for good and great players to try to win, if you have any ethical fibers in your body at all. You should feel morally and ethically obligated to put a winner on the field for the city, state, and the fanbase once you have become aware of the cultural value of the enterprise to the local public. And if you sign him for his younger years instead of his more older years, you're less likely to end up in a bad deal than you'd otherwise be just buying him on the FA market. Extending your own younger players into their primes is really one of the safest thing a team can do as far as spending money. The team and their doctors know everything they can ever expect to know about the player. There's certainly not a lot of extra guess work or a great lacking of information there. Teams that don't extend their own players should have their owners removed.