Dominikk85

Streamer Starters Giolito 3.2 Reylo 1.8 Kopech 1.4 Cease 2.2 Rodon 0 war Not Sure why they say zero on rodon but lets assume 2 by either rodon or a guy they buy. That would come around 10 war. If we assume another two from the 6th+ guy and 3.5 from the pen that would be around 15 war. That would be about 3 better than last year and 8th in the AL. That wouldn't be enough to make the post season so I think they need to get both a good starter and a back end reliever.

Price has negative trade value, if anything the red Sox need to add a prospect or young player (benintendi was suggested by some) and will only get a marginal prospect (40 fv or so) back.

The biggest point of argument is the contraction of the minors. Mlb wants less leagues and players to save money and spend player dev resources better. Milb doesn't want that of course but in the end they will need to accept the contraction because they don't have much bargaining power here.

Thanks. Didn't want to show you up or anything and projections aren't perfect but usually they are more predictive than last years numbers (and also more predictive than early season stats). The offense doesn't look bad and it has upside albeit there is also some downside. Some players will improve and hopefully most of the breakouts will stick albeit one shouldn't make the mistake to assume all positive from last year to remain and all bad to improve (which you didn't do of course)

Well at some point probably Vaughn will be up either at first or DH so dh and 1b would be pretty solid with Vaughn and abreu if Vaughn doesn't struggle and abreu doesn't decline.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to use steamer for all players? C grandal 4.7 1b abreu 1.8 2b madrigal 1.7 SS anderson 2.0 3b moncada 3.8 Lf Jimenez 2.5 Cf robert 2.3 Rf mazara 1.4 Dh mccann 0.2 That would be 20.4 war Mccann will be worth less at dh but if vaughn comes up in june he could be worth 1.5 war the rest of the way. So that could be about 22 war which is still pretty good especially if you get another 2-3 war from the bench which would come out at 25 then. 25 war would have ranked 6th in the al last year behind the red sox and ahead of the rays.

I wonder why milb is independent at all? Why isn't mlb running that thing completely?

Just sign hurt, gone and retired.

You could also try to extend giolito and moncada.moncada is less likely to take it due to his huge signing bonus but giolito only had one good year so far and shouldn't require a huge deal because as a pitcher there is big risk and he might regress again or get hurt. A trade for a ML ready top prospect like lux or addell would work too but with their one really good season giolito and moncada aren't much more proven than those guys so teams might not want to give up those control years.

Lisle definitely has switched jobs pretty often and quickly. I do like some of his drills and use them with hitters I'm working with but he might not be the easiest person to work with.

I'm pretty sure they use some biomechanics. The question is how much of a streamlined process they have for that or whether they just occasionally play around with that.

Yes but communicating it and dumbing it down is important too. Many of the "gurus" like to throw around technical terms and show how smart they are and that isn't well received. That being said part of the problem also seems to be that old school coaches fight this and the sox FO does not enough to enforce that. In the end probably both were guilty. Lisle didn't communicate it well enough but also didn't get enough support by the front office and make data use more optional rather than enforcing this. The sox will still continue down this road and eventually improve but other teams don't sleep either.

Yeah basically sox didn't have a real plan for him and old school coaches didn't understand the technology and data stuff. Maybe it was also partially his fault, maybe he didn't dumb it down enough for them or he was too arrogant and they didn't even want to learn from him. Some data nerds are just too snarky and arrogant and let anyone feel they are the smartest in the room and that isn't always well received. Kyle boddy also can be a huge jackass but he is smart enough to know when he can't do that.

Wouldn't do it. He misses 30-50 games every season and with age that will get worse.

I like it. Mazara was a top20 overall prospect and is still only a year older than walker is now. There still is a chance he has a breakout in a different environment. He has shown good flashes, just not consistently.

Player dev is the new moneyball and some teams are quite ahead of the league. The sox haven't been good at this but the positive is that the sox have hired some more data driven guys like lisle or that johansen guy in the last years which means they are aware they need change. The negative are reports saying that the old school guys are still pretty much in power and while the sox have some smart guys the coaches don't always tend to listen to them. How can this be resolved? Imo the sox need to hire a powerful and strong data guy as a development coordinator, this needs to be done top down. Kyle boddy would have been ideal but he is with the reds now. I think hahn wants to get more modern but in the sox org it isn't always about merits and often about networking and tenure. I think this needs to be done top down. Hahn was probably thinking he could hire some guys and like that bring in the analytics backdoor but the old school guys tend to stand together and fight against that because they know their jobs are in danger. The astros and now also the Orioles have combatted that by mass firings of old school scouts and coaches and getting more nerd type of coaches instead of ex players. Do the sox need to go there or is there a softer way of implementing that?

Yes. He is not a terrible hitter but not a plus anymore and has lost his defensive ability. The sox don't need a below average hitting DH/corner guy.

Imo madrigal, robert and vaughn should be off the table unless we are talking a reasonably salary controlled under 28 year old ace like sale was. I could see a package around guys like walker, sheets or even collins for a mid tier starter with two plus years of control. Maybe they could get matt boyd plus a bullpen guy for walker, sheets and a third piece. Boyd had a 4.5 era last year but he is just 28 and had a very strong 30% k rate and 24% k-bb, he just had an extreme homer issue based on an 18% hr/fb rate. Fangraphs projects him for 3 war next season and he is under control for two more years.

Rookies are hard to predict. Some hit right away like acuna or soto and others take 2-3 years or never make it. There is a realistic path to 90 wins: let eloy hit 40 bombs, madrigal is a 2.5 win guy, robert a ROY contender, moncada has another 5 win season, abreu keeps it up and on the pitching side giolito keeps it up, rondon comes back, reylo takes a step forward. But it could also go the other way: moncada and giolito regress, madrigal and robert struggle, eloy gets hurt again and they are a low 70s team again. Most likely they are somewhere in between, young teams are tough to predict.

Renfroe has a lot of power and is a good fielder but with his high K rate and extreme pull approach he is a low obp guy. Pham has a .370 career obp while renfroe is sub 300 to date in his career. There is more upside for renfroe but pham has a much better chance to be a solid obp guy the next two years. What hurts the padres is of course course giving up edwards while only getting a marginal prospect back. Not sure how much power edwards can gain but he is a quite solid prospect

Don't forget free agent signings that didn't work (heyward, darvish, morrow). Cubs made a few bad decisions, but they still had a very nice run which shows how good this core is. What killed the cubs most was failure to develope pitchers. This year they invested massively into player development so we will see if that has an effect.

The dodgers also wouldn't let collins catch. They are very sabermetrically oriented and place a ton of value on framing and defense.

Well they can't go to 150+ this year because they need to leave some room for when arb salaries kick in. Unless they give out 1-2 year contracts that run out when arb for the core starts.

Good job by the marlins picking up aguilar and villar for cheap. Sure they come with bust potential but if everything goes right they could also combine for 60+ bombs and be nice trade candidates at the deadline plus neither is a long time burden on the payroll if they don't work.

Still was worth the gamble, a hundo plays if you can locate it which he wasn't able to do. Didn't work out but you can't teach velo so it was worth the gamble hoping he would find his command especially as the cost was minimal.