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I would not be against it, especially because it seems like no teams are going to be offering good prospects. Like if we could get away with giving up a few of the guys we having bouncing between the majors and AAA and get him I think it would be a good deal. We keep talking about how we're going to have so much open payroll that we can get a good free agent, but how many guys actually want to come to the Sox? Its not like shopping in a store to get a player. If I remember correctly there were reports of several free agents this year taking less money to play where they want, and if its us against the Yankees or Dodgers or Cubs, who do you think they are gonna go to? So why not use that money and some of the less important prospects to get a 4-5 WAR/yr player who has a big contract now, but might be more towards market rate in only a few years.

I'm pretty sure its Acuña. Thats what they had on his jersey for the futures game and one of the announcers pointed out its pronounced a-coon-ya because of the enye.

Tin foil hat time, but maybe Hahn is trying to use the unwritten rule of not overshadowing the all star game to leverage teams by saying we are looking to get this done soon and then putting out all these rumors and telling teams that one team popped and is offering what were asking and that we are going to take it, but are waiting until tomorrow, which gives the other teams time to up their offers.

QUOTE (FT35 @ Jul 11, 2017 -> 09:12 AM) Something else to think about is the perception the league has of Hahn. In the same way we know of everyone else's needs they are looking to acquire, everyone knows of the players that we "need" to move and will be looking to exploit that by getting them cheap...as they should. I almost look at this and think that with the stakes being low on the season, guys like Frazier or Melky--choosing NOT to trade a guy away for nothing can send a more effective message to the GM's than being willing to heavily discount someone. You want Frazier or Melky for your stretch run, all you have to do is offer something of value or we will keep him--which really only hurts YOU because you've determined him to be an upgrade over what you have and we weren't going to get anything of much value anyway. So we eat one bad contract and miss out on a junk prospect...the message will be more clear to teams in the future--"Hey...when they say they'll just keep someone, they aren't bluffing." We might get more from future trades because of a move we DON'T make. I think the problem with this is that it kind of assumes that there is only one willing buyer and one willing seller in the market for a particular piece (which may be the case if we keep anyone beyond the trade deadline and instead try to do waiver trades). Then doing something like this would probably work and would help maximize the return across all trades, especially when you consider that a guy like Todd or Melky provides intangible benefits, such as mentoring the young guys for the rest of the season, that you do not get value from in a trade. However, assuming there are multiple teams buying and multiple teams selling similar pieces, then this doesn't really make sense to me. In this more likely scenario, the real issue is the relative negotiating strength of the other teams willing to sell. If a team is undecided on whether they will be buyers or sellers, or even if they just stay the same, the team trying to buy will have to pay a premium for the player they are seeking because the potentially selling team would have equal value from the player as the buying team. So, if our player has similar or greater value than the other player, it makes more sense to try to get our player for the same premium they would have to offer the other team or slightly more so that they get a better return for the value given up. In this scenario we may not be able to get the full value for a player, but we would not have to give the player away for nothing. With even more potential buyers, this effect is increased such that we may actually get a return that exceeds the value of the player, and this seems to be backed up by the evidence of deadline deals often resulting in overpayment for players. There is ofcourse the opposite side of the argument, namely that having more sellers will drive down our relative negotiating position and therefore the cost of the players, but with the new wild card rules there seems to be more buyers than sellers every year. That said, with the seemingly over-saturated market for back end starting pitchers, I could see us taking very little for a deal, though that may just be a result of their miniscule value.

I would not be worried about surgery. I have some experience with meniscus injuries and if the plan is just for rest, its probably a pinched meniscus, which calls for resting it for a week and not doing heavy leg excersises for a few weeks. If it was anything more serious they would almost definitely know about it right away. I had a friend tear his meniscus and two hours later he couldn't even bend his leg and was in massive amounts of pain. They said Robert felt soreness the next day, which seems to imply that it wasn't as serious as a tear and probably closer to a pinch, which should have no long term effects.