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I can't imagine this is anything more than insurance. I can't see a situation where Theo Epstein is saying "hey, if we trade Ellsbury, Brian Anderson wouldn't be a complete disaster replacing him."
Weird.
Ok, so just a throwaway trade for both, essentially.
Link
I also like that offer from the Sox. As I was saying back earlier in the thread, Halladay's worth it.
What else would need to be added to get Scutaro? And would it be worth it?
Incidentally: Halladay/Beckett/Lester. I could get used to that.
Probably Lowrie, as the Jays are looking for a SS as part of the return for Halladay.
I don't get the Scutaro love.
He's having a huge career year at the age of 34. He looks like he could be a victim of the same fall off the cliff Lugo had when he was traded to LA.
I certainly wouldn't give up 5+ yrs of Lowrie for him.
Eh, he's a free agent. It's a rental. That said, I also would not put Lowrie in that deal for him.
If this offer is valid, the Jays would be pretty foolish to turn this down, unless the Yankees countered with something like Joba + Montero + someone else.
By the way, since the trade, Adam LaRoche has started every game but one. Looks like he's a lot more than a bench bat. He's also taken to batting in Fenway very quickly, and seems to have a great stroke for the place.
Q: How do people who aren't Red Sox or Phillies fans rate the packages of Buchholz/Bowden/Westmoreland and Drabek/Brown/that other guy?
As to LaRoche, I completely agree. He looks comfortable going the opposite way towards the wall, and seems like he'll be a more-than-solid contributor.
Assuming Halladay performs as well as he has been, why would the Sox not have a huge upper hand in re-signing him? At the very least the price tag on Halladay would be so prohibitive that whatever team did sign him would be paying out the ass.
Lester, Matsuzaka, one of Beckett/Halladay, and two as yet unfilled slots. I don't think it's unreasonable that one of those slots could be filled by someone from the Masterson/Tazawa/Kelly/Pimentel/Doubront bunch leaving the Sox in need of one more starter. Without looking at the other teams around the game how many teams would be looking at their 2011 rotation, as of today, and feeling as good about it. And if we can get to that moment with one, or dare to dream, two more ring ceremonies at Fenway that wouldn't be a bad thing.
I'd feel like Theo was getting a good deal. I agree with you about going after Halladay. If NY could do it for Montero+Hughes (or Chamberlain), I'd do it, which places me I think in the minority of posters.
I don't think you can call Lugo a useless piece. He's been pretty useful for the Cards so far. He can't play SS anymore but it looks like he can fake it at second and still hit the ball a little bit. He's got some value, especially in the NL.
If this offer is valid, the Jays would be pretty foolish to turn this down, unless the Yankees countered with something like Joba + Montero + someone else.
I don't think the Yanks would have to offer that much to top a Buchholz/Bowden package. Montero is significantly more valuable than Bowden and Joba is at least as valuable as Buchholz.
If NY could do it for Montero+Hughes (or Chamberlain), I'd do it, which places me I think in the minority of posters.
I think that would be a massive overpay for a year and a half of Halladay and would blow any of the other offered packages out of the water.
I think that the excellent performances from Kelley and Tazawa this year have made Bowden expendable (not that he was ever really a great prospect imo.) Tazawa could probably be a decent back-end starter in the majors right now and, if he keeps dominating the minors like he did this year, Kelley could be ready to step into the rotation by mid-2011.
I do not agree with you. Because I believe the children are the future.
My guess is that the problem is that, no matter how much BA and Goldstein and everybody loves Montero, the Jays are going to demand MLB-ready talent, too, and the Yankees would be hard-pressed to create a deal of Montero + mlb-ready talent that could get the job done, and didn't include at least Hughes. So the Yankees are in worse position than the Red Sox, just due to the arrangement of talent.
I disagree w/my Yankees' fellow-travelers. I love Montero's prospects, but they're just that. I'd rather have a shot at a WS this year and next with Sabathia, Halladay, Burnett, and either Hughes or Joba (assuming one has to go), then Montero 2-3 years from now. I'll worry about adding prospects via int'l free agency and the draft later.
No way. I think Hughes will be an above average SP next year (or now if we could shake the 8th inning fixation), and a well above average SP in 2011 and beyond. I think Montero could be an All-Star catcher in 2011 or 2012. Montero's ceiling looks like top-5 hitter in baseball.
You can't trade that.
First heard about this sox offer driving around listening to the Philly sports station that was talking about it. So I've been mulling which is better as I drove home...
I'd say the Phillies package that Tor wanted is better largely because the Phillie package is more MLB ready. Happ is performing in the majos and Bowden is just in AAA. Buchholz is more ready that Drabek and a better prospect overall. But as good as Wsestmorland has been in Lowell, it would be a fantastic outcome if a year form now he's as good as Brown is in Hi-A with a AA promotion immininent.
Maybe you love Buchholz or think more highly of Bowden than I do, but I think the Sox supposed offer is a shade worse than what the Jays want from the Phillies laregley because Brown is much more established than Westmorland.
Otoh, I'm not sure I really buy Theo actually offering that much young talent for a starter. This Sox package so closely matches the Phillies in player types that it seems more like a continuation of the Jays fishing around for a package that is at least 90% of what they want.
The supposed Sox package is much better than the supposed Phillies counter of Carrasco, Taylor, Donald and Marson.
This might just be Tor leaking that they can get pretty close to what they want from Philly.
I really want Hughes to succeed, but he's provided almost no evidence this year that he can be an "above average SP". He's been excellent in a short relief role, relying on 2 pitches. Wonderful. I hope it gives him confidence, and I hope he does well in the future. But he and Chamberlain still are under innings restrictions, still are relative unknowns (CHamberlain less so, of course), and while Montero's ceiling might be Pujols and his floor might be Albert Belle, I'm still moving him for one of the top 3 SPs in the AL.
What? Doesn't everyone pretty much agree that Montero won't stick as a catcher? Sickels, Goldstein, etc. Montero will likely be an All Star 1B at some point given his profile.
while Montero's ceiling might be Pujols and his floor might be Albert Belle
I'm the worst person to criticize given my irrational faith in Fernando, but you're joking here right?
edit: I haven't seen my fellow Yanks fans as gaga over a prospect since Eric Duncan, Sam Militello, or Hensley Meulens.
Each year they've become a little less certain about that. I still suspect he won't catch in the majors (save maybe as the 3rd/emergency catcher on the roster) but the chances are better than they were last year. Callis, I believe, has said he thinks he may be able to handle LF as well, which would be nice given the Yankees roster.
Reports are he's made big strides. Throwing out 30% of runners in AA and reducing PB.
He's looking like he has a chance to stick for a few years in a Piazza-esque fashion.
I see when I tune in. He sits 91 whenever I've watched--but I've not seen this year's model.
The Yanks have a shot at the WS right now with the roster built as it is. They have the best record in the AL.
I really want Hughes to succeed, but he's provided almost no evidence this year that he can be an "above average SP". He's been excellent in a short relief role, relying on 2 pitches. Wonderful. I hope it gives him confidence, and I hope he does well in the future.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by almost no evidence but he had a great K rate as a starter (31 Ks in 34 and 2/3 IP). What he struggled with as a starter was his control, which had gotten better when he was starting (3 walks in his last three starts) and has continued to improve in the pen (5 UIBBs as a reliever). There is plenty of reason to believe that Hughes will be a capable starter next year. I think there's plenty of reason to believe he's one right now.
I'm still moving him for one of the top 3 SPs in the AL.
Why not just wait a year and a half and sign him when all it will cost is money. The Yanks are set up well for this year and next. It'll be two years down the road where things get tricky again, that's why I want them to keep as much young, cheap talent as possible.
I haven't seen my fellow Yanks fans as gaga over a prospect since Eric Duncan, Sam Militello, or Hensley Meulens.
Montero is a much better prospect and a much better bet to be a real contributor than Duncan. I don't even remember anyone being excited about Duncan. I don't even know who the other two are other than what their BBref pages say.
I see when I tune in. He sits 91 whenever I've watched--but I've not seen this year's model.
Fangraphs has him at 93.1 this year.
Fangraphs has him at 93.1 this year.
Great minds think alike :-) I gave the same answer in the other thread.
Because there's no guarantee he'll sign with the Yankees? And yes, that means that acquring him might be a rental, but you can make the argument it's worth the price. The Yankees may have a shot at the WS right now, but adding one of the best 3 SPs in baseball certainly increases their odds.
Yep...and Wikipedia says he speaks five languages too! English, Spanish, Dutch, Papiamento and Japanese. Impressive.
Edes also has a new report:
None on: .286 .368 .416
Men on: .193 .284 .284
Scoring: .131 .250 .213
And in 8 PAs with the bases loaded: 7Ks
As for last night, awful as it was, it wasn't really Pap's fault. Green was just really, really dumb.
Nope, he's got a very reasonable team option. ~$8M.
Hmmm, I feel like the Sox could have matched the Phils' package for Cliff Lee and not really gutted the farm system much. Reckon the Tribe would've accepted something centered around Bowden, Reddick/Kalish, and a couple other prospects or a major-league ready guy like Masterson?
I read this in another forum, it's an actual media article:
Last week, two of the game's executives, despite being hundreds of miles away from one another, were downright stereophonic in their assessment of the Red Sox. The Sox are growing arrogant, they said. They overvalue their prospects. The success of young Boston players from Jon Lester and Jonathan Papelbon to Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury has created an unrealistic outlook in the Boston organization, not to mention an inflation of the Boston farm system perpetuated by the Sox' subwoofers in the media.
Yes, with regard to drafting and player development, the Red Sox have been good. But they have not been that good because there is a great deal of luck involved, too.
The logic: Becasue our farm has had success, people won't deal with us now because our prospects cost more due to the system having recent success.
One thing I've been wondering is, if the Sox are willing to deal so much for Halladay, how much more, if any, would Hanley cost? Wouldn't he be worth it too?
What are the Jays asking for? I mean if Buchholz, Bowden, Lars and Reddick get it done, then do it.
Flags fly forever.
I agree on the Hanley point as well, as long as he can be a SS for 80% of his contract duration. A lot of his
value is positional for me, especially to the Red Sox as currently rostered.
Hey--Texas lost!
Yeah well, if I wasn't 44, married with 5 kids, average looking and living in Sydney I could be dating Megan Fox.
Hanley is off to a nice start, let's see if he can string 10 years together before we start talking HOF. Granted though, as tfbg9 asked, what's required and should we be going after this guy?
Somebody needs to bang the juke box.
He's better than every non-Beckster starter we've got, isn't he? And reasonably priced for a season and a half. I feel like he would've been well worth acquiring if Cleveland would've accepted a package similar to what I mentioned above.
I say we drag the juke box to the alley and shoot it in the head.
It's been clear to me for a few years now that Boston overvalues their prospects relative to how many other teams value them. But that doesn't mean Boston is overvaluing in an absolute sense; it could very well mean that they're right and the league is wrong. It could be that the league undervalues prospects. It could be that the league is generally worse at developing prospects, making them less sure of the value they have than the Red Sox are of theirs. It could be a lot of things, as prospect valuation is a rather complex matter. To be honest, it is - gasp! - a market inefficiency.
Beats me whether Boston is actually exploiting it, they think they're exploiting it, or they're just playing hard-to-get.
The downside is that I can see this rubbing their peers the wrong way because I have to believe they consider themselves perfectly capable of evaluating Boston's prospects here and now for what they are, regardless of how good Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia have become.
But the problem seems to be that there's a disconnect between what they say and what they do. On some level the Red Sox obviously believe that Buchholz is going to be a good MLB pitcher. But their plan for 2009 apparently was to keep him in AAA so that they could use a combination of injured guys as their fifth starter. What's the point of that? Did Buchholz really have anything left to prove at AAA? His 2009 AAA numbers are very similar to his 2008 AAA numbers. Why wouldn't you go into 2009 with Buchholz as Option A for fifth starter, and find some journeyman innings eater (to sit at AAA and, if something happens to Buchholz, to become Option B as fifth starter). Then you could have spent the $10.5 million (Smoltz + Penny's salaries) on something more helpful to the team than 140 innings pitched with a 5.50 ERA.
See also the Angels ("we can't trade this prospect -- he's too valuable -- but we also don't plan on playing him").
Well, the assumption was that Penny would be traded in the middle of the season and Smoltz would be badass, but the former can't happen now because Fat Jap #### the bed and SMoltz isn't quite Smoltz.
Apparently the word on the street is that WE rejected Buchholz for V-Mart. Which I agree with, because if V-Mart can't stay at C he's not that valuable going forward (after this year).
I'd still trade Bowden and Delcarmen for him in an instant though.
JoelW, nicely said - but I was also being facetious with Wok, in light of his comment in the "Let's Find a Catcher!" thread.
You're the giant vagina that said he will have zero trade value by the end of the season.
Edit: I have not said anything contradictory. "He still has trade value" and "I would like to trade him in a deal for Victor Martinez" are not contradictory.
Anyhow, in the other thread I wrote "Not sure if, let's say, Bowden will have any trade value left by that time [this coming offseason]". Given that his trade value seems to have been dropping a lot this season, along with his peripherals, it's fair to wonder how much trade value he'll really have at season's end. I didn't say he'd have zero trade value. For all I know, he may figure stuff out in the next two months and strongly enhance his value, as a trade bait and as a potential starter in Boston's rotation next year. But he'll have to start figuring stuff out sooner than later.
Buchholz needs to prove that, when life becomes challenging, he can rise to the challenge. When he needs to work hard, he'll work hard. Buchholz has massive talent, so much so that success came pretty easily to him. Last year was the first time in his life that his talent wasn't enough, and he fell apart.
I'd say (a) only in MLB can he prove what he needs to prove; and (b) the team couldn't afford to go into 2009 with him as a major part of their 2009 MLB plans, as there was no reliable plan B in case he failed. There's really no plan B now, except hope that Wakefield can come back soon.
There will always be a disconnect between what the team says and what they do, because it's not always in their interest to say what they're doing.
Here's what we know about Bowden vs. Buchholz:
Bowden is 22 years old (23 in September); Buchholz is 24 (will be 25 in a couple of weeks). Buchholz is almost exactly 2 years older.
When Buchholz was 22/23 years old (the 2007 season), he split his season between AA Portland and AAA Pawtucket (with a quick stop in Boston to throw a no-hitter). His 2007 season? About two-thirds of it spent at AA (86.2 IP, 116/22 K/BB ratio, 55 hits allowed, 1.77 ERA), one third at AAA (38.2 IP, 55/13 K/BB ratio, 32 hits allowed, 3.96 ERA).
This year, Bowden is spending the entire season at AAA (93.1 IP, 64/35 K/BB ratio, 74 hits allowed, 3.09 ERA). If you look at his entire previous track record in the minors, it is awfully impressive, and he has always been significantly younger than most others pitching at his level. Pre-2009, he has struck out about a batter an inning, with an even better K/BB ratio than Buchholz.
I am not saying that either Buchholz or Bowden are guaranteed to do squat in the majors, thouogh they are both attractive prospects. Everybody talks about these two pitchers like there are miles of difference between their major-league outlook, and maybe that will end up being true. However, I'm just asking with some healthy skepticism: When Bowden has generally been very good at the same minor-league levels as Buchholz, but has been two years younger (and he's only 22 right now!), doesn't that suggest Bowden is a pretty attractive propsect for the Red Sox or others?
I mean, if he were doing this for a lot of other MLB teams, wouldn't he probably be up by now?
Is he a significantly better or worse propsect than, say, Kyle Drabek? Drabek is 21 years old, in AA, pitching very well...but not any better than Bowden, who is only year older, and doing it at AAA. Everybody is talking about Drabek like he's untouchable, but Bowden is a B-level prospect? What am I missing? Do people think Bowden's stuff is AAAA quality, good enough to fool minor-leaguers, but not major-leaguers?
It's hard though, I think the fans, and media coverage feed into Sox and Yankees prospect hype.
So you're saying we should name the juke box "Mike Lowell."
Well, if you count Pedroia, Hanley, Lester, Joba and Cano as recent prospects, their farm systems do look pretty good. That's 2 MVPs and some likely All-Stars in there.
I can't speak to Drabek's stuff, but Bowden's isn't impressive at all. Fringe-average fastball with a couple solid average off-speed pitches. Not unlike Arroyo's repertoire, only with better control and command. He could be a solid #3 in the NL, but he would probably have a hard time pitching in the AL east.
All that says to me is what we already knew -- that the Red Sox front office has traded away a ton of good young talent. Whether those players would have all become just as successful if they'd stayed in Boston is hard to say, but if I were a Red Sox fan, I'd be scared to death of Theo making a "prospect(s)-for-veteran(s)" deal. Especially since Theo and Co. have done such a great job in developing the young talent that they DO keep (Lester, Papelbon, Pedroia is a great core).
Still remind me why we are taking bard out for papelbon?
Would anyone else here be a little let down if the Sox's big move is VMart for Buchholz?
That move IMO is bad because VMart can't stay at catcher.
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