Jake

Rutherford, Andujar, and anyone in the 15-20 range of their prospect list would be pretty great

I think some of the best values are likely to be MLBers who haven't produced yet (or whose production has dropped off after an initial run of good play). With prospects, everything tends to be sunshine and rainbows. The minute a young guy plays badly in the majors, people start getting down on them.

Where has Zack Collins been?

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Jul 18, 2017 -> 06:15 PM) I think he will be a nice middle reliever as soon as next year. Can't seem him sticking as a starter. Is there reason to think he'll be able to start striking people out as a reliever? Some do figure it out a bit. Chris Beck comes to mind, though he is of course an abomination who can't leave soon enough.

I think the reason there are indications that Robertson has more value is that teams in the hunt really value the certainty with him. Robertson has been incredibly consistent for years and has performed at a high level for the Yankees. You know you're getting a guy who won't crumble under the pressure and isn't just in the middle of a hot streak. Kahnle obviously lacks the track record and has looked shaky in several of his recent tough appearances (i.e., with a lead to protect).

I don't think it would have been unreasonable for the Sox to not have valued Albies as highly as some of the prospect publications. I think his upside is somewhat lower compared to Moncada and Jimenez

I think it's a stretch to say the Cubs are likely to win a WS because they got Quintana. I would honestly have looked at it a bit differently if they hadn't already won one and if they were a team that looked like it was a single piece away from running away with it.

I think the point in it not being a firesale is that we're not desperate to be rid of players on the MLB club, we're just motivated to move them for the right return. That means we should be very willing to walk away from deals that don't meet our demands, assuming our demands are reasonable. If it were a firesale, like if we were obsessed with moving up a draft spot or two or if we couldn't afford to keep paying the players, then we'd have to make a deal right away even if our price has to go down.

The way I see it is that he probably doesn't get you much back in trade right now but his upside is so considerable that there's a real chance you end up with an elite reliever who is either useful for our next contending club or has much more trade value in a year or so. If you got a pitcher back for him right now, you'd be very lucky if you get someone who can be as good as he's been this season.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 16, 2017 -> 07:02 PM) A key to the rebuild is also getting core guys that aren't expected (i.e.: Hendricks for Cubs). Or Quintana...

Yeah I'm thinking that's Nightengale speculating on a price tag for Robertson.

Is it just me or has Renteria been ejected a lot?

Probably good enough to hang around for a while, not good enough to trade, so he'll just be fighting for a roster spot as a middle reliever by the time we're good again.

It honestly surprises me how much unanimity there is everywhere on Kopech being a top 25 or better prospect in all of baseball. There's no doubting the prodigious talent and the true ace potential, so don't get me wrong because I'm very glad to have him around. But for me, I need to see a pitcher have a walk rate that is somewhere below alarmingly high before I put him in that top level. The only stint in which Kopech had an acceptable walk rate was when he pitched 65 innings in low-A in 2015 (3.74 BB/9, which isn't exactly low but is workable). Otherwise, he's had 5.93 BB/9 (2014, Rookie), 5.02 BB/9 (2016, A+), and 5.87 BB/9 (2017, AA). That's not to ignore his equally-amazing K rate at these levels, but to me I don't see him any higher than, say, 40 or 50 on a top 100 due to these problems. By analogy, I see it like a hitting prospect with a .900 OPS and a bunch of homers but 35% K% at each level. You love the production, but you fear how the strikeout rate has such a big chance of ruining it all. Looking at it another way, Kopech hasn't had a single start this year in which he had fewer than *2* walks. His issues with walks have been remarkably consistent. He's had 6 starts with 2 walks, 3 with 3 walks, 6 with 4 walks, and 2 with 5 walks. There's very little variation, he just always has walks. And in 3 of his starts with only 2 walks, he hit one or more batters. I just want to see a run of starts with good command, but with him hitting his innings wall I don't know that we'll see it this year.

1 - Moncada 2 - Jimenez 3 - Robert 4 - Kopech 5 - Lopez 6 - Giolito 7 - Dunning 8 - Cease 9 - Basabe 10 - Rose 11 - Flete 12 - Diaz

Given that Fulmer's performance has clearly regressed, I think it's unwise to assume the version we're seeing out there right now is the "real" one. Sometimes players do regress (or over-perform for stretches), but I think something's off. Perhaps he's about to join Burdi on the operating table.

Yeah I can see exactly why the Astros would talk tough about Tucker being untradeable but it's hard to imagine them passing up on such an obvious improvement to their already-good World Series chances all because the Sox insisted on a 20 year who just got his first taste of AA. Ultimately if you want to make a deal that is so clearly good for a championship-type season, you have to be willing to have lost the deal when you look back a few years later. I doubt Cub fans really want to dump Epstein all because of the Chapman-Torres deal. Everyone knew how it was going to look.

Given that there are times when the decision to rest/rehab or do TJS isn't a clear-cut one, I don't think it's totally crazy that he might do some light tossing even in the presence of what is or will be a major overuse injury.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 10, 2017 -> 02:35 PM) I don't know, I think I'd read opposite. You now know that Moncada's trade value is very high because he was used for one of the top 2 pitchers in baseball this year on an affordable contract. He seems to be implying that real proof for high rankings is the absence of getting traded, not getting traded for a huge haul. I think the idea is if Sale was #10 or whatever he was and Moncada was somewhere near there too, then Sox shouldn't have gotten another very valuable prospect back in Kopech and a not-insignificant third piece and another lottery ticket in the same deal. The other alternative would be to crank up Sale's trade value ranking but that probably didn't seem justified though I don't remember where he was.

He had a smart agent (or doctor) advising him to take that team-friendly contract extension.

I've always felt that Reynaldo Lopez was one that was most likely to take off just by getting to be around Coop. He seems like the kind of pitcher who needs that Coop touch.

I'd give Fulmer plenty of time to work through things and try to find some consistency as a starter. He's got the stuff to make it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 6, 2017 -> 11:15 PM) That includes A-ball and a week off for his hammy, and only like three games in AA. Much as I'd like to find optimism, that's a pretty empty selection. Wait until he's been in AA hitting again for a few weeks. Here's what I'll say. Many of us were rightly alarmed when in his first 25 games, he struck out 60 times in 105 PA with just 3 BB. In that stretch, he had at least 1 K in all but 2 of them. In 18 of the 25, he had 2 or more Ks. It was about as bad as you can play and when it comes to strikeouts, we know we don't need a big sample size to know something is going on. He never had a 2-game run without at least one of the games having 2 or more Ks. I've really never seen a player play so badly, we're talking about yips level problems with contact. So after striking out 7 times in his first 12 PA in his rehab assignment down in Kannapolis, it seems like something changed for a guy who had no hope of putting the ball in play before. He's played 14 games since. In that time, he's had 59 plate appearances and 10 K (17%) while hitting the ball a little bit (18 for 53, 2 HR, 3 2B, ~.915 OPS). In 7 of those 14 games (half!), he's had zero strikeouts. He has struck out multiple times in only 2 of those games. If you want to split his season into two halves, he has 46 more plate appearances to go since the game where I drew the line to reach the same amount of PA in his first 25 games. He could strike out in every single one of those 46 plate appearances and would still have a lower K rate in the second 108 plate appearances. I don't think the talent difference in A-ball (where 10 of those games occurred split between Kannapolis and W-S) explains the change. Anyway, the point I was trying to make may have not been clear. I've had little optimism for Hawkins as a MLB player for a while now. But the horrendous start to the season was crazy and I've never seen something like it. I've taken a rooting interest in seeing Hawkins fix what looked a lot like a hitter's version of the yips to the point where he could at least just languish in the minors until he wants to hang it up or become a pitcher.

Last 11 games for Courtney Hawkins (multiple levels): 12 for 37, 2 HR, 4 BB, 6 K (!)

I think it should go to the league that won interleague play.