Now that Dave Dombrowski is on board as the Red Sox’s chief decision maker, his No. 1 objective will be to acquire an ace for the rotation, Jim Bowden of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) writes. Fortunately for Dombrowski, this year’s market for top-end starters will be strong with options such as David Price, Johnny Cueto, and Zack Greinke, if he opts out of his deal with the Dodgers. Failing that, Bowden wonders if Boston could parlay its young talent into landing an ace like Sonny Gray or Chris Sale. Here’s more from the AL East..
- There’s a team interested in working out a trade for recently DFA’d Orioles outfielder David Lough, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com tweets. There should be a resolution on his situation today, he adds. If no trade is worked out, Lough will likely be outrighted to Triple-A. To keep track of Lough and everyone else in DFA limbo, check out MLBTR’s DFA Tracker.
- Jonah Keri of Grantland reflected on Ben Cherington’s time in Boston and his missteps with the Red Sox. Cherington whiffed on deals for Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval this offseason while largely neglecting the team’s pitching needs. Later, despite his reluctance to give a long-term deal to a pitcher, Cherington locked up hurler Rick Porcello to a sizable contract. Still, despite his mistakes, Keri gives Cherington a good deal of credit for building the team’s farm system.
- Ryan Hannable of WEEI.com reflected on Dombrowski’s trade history and wondered if he’ll trade away the Red Sox’s prospects to win in the here and now.
Cherington also traded Hanley for Beckett and Lowell. They don’t win 2007 without those 2. Theo was on hiatus in a gorilla suit.
Epstein
No Epstein was gone when that trade was made.
But it wasn’t Cherington
He was part of it, along with Hoyer. I’d give most of the credit to Lucchino, but then that’s true of a lot of their moves.
Cherington and Hoyer made the trade. As stated, theo was on gorilla suit hiatus.
But Cherington was the orchestrator of the Reddick-for-Bailey trade, when anyone in a bar in the North End of Boston knew all along that Reddick wasn’t the guy to trade and that Bailey was far from being a solid closer.
Dombrowski is in a very tough spot. He IS going to overpay for an ace. Either via free agency or trade. The Sox flirted with Philadelphia over Hamels for months but refused to meet their demands. Now because of that, the Sox are in the position they’re in with 2 “stud” prospect catchers when they can only play one at a time & the OF is another paragraph.
They couldn’t really trade Vasquez in the offseason since Swihart wasn’t ready then he got injured. They didn’t want to trade Swihart and it’s hard to blame them.
Red Sox always overrate their prospects. We’ll see if Swihart even approaches the stud he is supposed to be. I can see not moving Betts who had already been established but to not move Swihart meant that the Sox weren’t even trying to get Hamels.
most publications agree with their assessment of prospects. But yes like most team they have failures. Maybe they have more than average I really couldn’t tell off-hand.
But in general they should sell high on some guys. Don’t need to repeat the mistakes of the past. Dombroski will make sure guys like Ranuado and webster are traded before tanking their value.
Pre 2015, Swihart was one of the top prospects in all of baseball. Giving how hard top catching prospects are to come by anyway, I don’t blame them.
The Phillies got a good return for Hamels, but no one who was ranked as high as Swihart.
Free agency seems like the common sense option for a large market team with a protected pick? Are the Red Sox in protected pick territory? The Red Sox don’t have nearly enough to acquire either Gray or Sale if either team was dumb enough to trade them. You’d have to be the Dodgers or Twins to get those guys.
Yes, but they’re on the cusp.
They have the 9th worst record as of today. So yes but it will be close. Cleveland is 10, but the White Sox and tigers are 3 games better at 11 & 12. This may be a better race than the wild card…lol.
The Red Sox have a farm system ranked up there with the Dodgers and Twins, and has been rated #1 by MLB and Keith Law (I think). If Gray or Sale were to be available, they certainly have the resources to pull off a trade. Having said that, I don’t see the point for either team to trade their current ace when they are on the cheap part of their contracts.
For Gray/Sale, they’d have Devers, Margot, Owens, Johnson, ERod, Ceccihini, Moncada among a ton of other decent prospects to make a deal happen.
Devers, Owens and Moncada would be enough for one of them. 3 top 50 prospects (2 top 25) would be enough for Gray.
Moncada is also expensive as far as unproven talent goes. I wouldn’t assume teams would necessarily be interested in packages with him as a headlining piece.
The Red Sox are completely responsible for his signing bonus, which means he is like any other prospect. Having said that, I don’t think the Red Sox would move him after spending over 60MM to sign him. That is almost like sending an extra 60MM to make a deal happen.
I thought he’s still on a 30 million dollar deal? Which granted, wouldn’t be terrible.
I agree. It makes no sense to trade him.
No, he got a 31.5MM signing bonus. This means that he will be eligible for arbitration, etc. when the time comes. So he is basically like most other prospects.
He’s not expensive. The Sox signed him with a 30M bonus and a 30M penalty. That money is paid so any team picking him up would be paying him the same as any other minor league player.
The A’s have drafted heavy in middle IF Moncada isn’t a need to them neither is Devers. Not sure the A’s would want Owens either they have an abundance of #3 type starters. The White Sox are also strong in the middle as far as prospects. You are going to have to throw in a MLB ready player on top of those prospects too.
Most scouts agree Moncada will be moved off of second base. Do the A’s not need position players? They couldn’t use a center fielder or third baseman either? I find that hard to believe.
Nope its safe to say Billy Burns is staying in CF, 3B is covered by Lawrie until Chapman is ready, It is really pointless for either the White Sox or A’s to trade with the Red Sox as they’d be just sitting themselves up as being the Red Sox if they traded their ace away to them.
Lawrie could always play 2B.
The Red Sox have been ranked as the top farm team in baseball. It’s unlikely any team would want to pay the price for Gray or Sale.
Just want to say that the new comment system will not let me sign in when I am not on my kindle. I am recognized automatically on the kindle, but not on my laptop. Please help.
It’s not entirely fair to say that Cherington whiffed on Hanley and Panda. That had Lucchino written all over it.
I feel like judging the deals after year 1 is also not entirely fair. Players take time to get used to their surroundings. I wouldn’t be surprised if both players were on the decline, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if both players have a bounce back next year.
Also, i’m glad you kept Obi Wan….
I wouldn’t be surprised if they bounced back, though Panda’s poor season is not a surprise at all. I’m not surprised his offseason regime consisted of nothing but eating after he got that contract.
Thank you. Obi-Wan is here to stay.
Of course there will be trades. The Tigers never discussed an extension with Porcello because he was not Dave’s type of pitcher. List him as soon to be gone. Too bad Boston doesn’t match up well with Detroit. Dave had Miggy in Florida, and then Detroit. Boston could use his bat, and afford his contract.
The Sox can afford Miggy’s contract in theory, but not really. That extension was so laughably unnecessary at the time and I doubt many teams would be interested in taking it on.
Agree. Nobody is taking that contract. It’s another Alex Rodriquez deal, without the steroids being so bad.
Dombrowski would not have signed up if they weren’t going to loosen the purse strings for him. Safe bet they sign one of the top three pitchers no matter what the cost. New regime with a new philosophy.
Question about “DFA Limbo” as it is put here – does anyone know what the players actually do after being DFA’d? Do teams allow them to continue to work out within the organization, with the hopes that they will go unclaimed and be able to join the AAA team? Do they just go on a paid vacation so they don’t injure themselves before being able to sign on with another team? Any insights?
Alex Hassan would be an expert on this subject
It sucks for the Cubs that the Red Sox are going to be competiton for one of the ace free agents. I liked it better when the Sox were operating on the premise that its too risky to pay for pitching.
The Red Sox have money, and could spend it on an ace. They took a few fliers last year (Porcello, Miley and even Joe Kelly) that could have worked out better–and might in the future.
As a Yankee fan I would add that I am rooting for the Red Sox to make their way (arduously) toward .500 (not too close). The idea that they could get another protected pick seems almost as silly as giving the Cardinals competitive balance picks every year. Both teams play by the rules and I can’t blame them, but the rules are very odd.
I’m wondering about the rules on international players. The good ones almost always sign with one of 4 or 5 big market teams.
Porcello was much more than a “flyer”. As it stands now, he will be the highest paid player in AAV with the Red Sox. If it were just a flyer, the Red Sox should have waited until he became a free agent before deciding a year in advance to give him $21MM+ per year with pedestrian ERA.
They’re a pretty safe to not have a protected pick. After cutting loose a lot of dead wood they are playing better now and should probably finish around 15th overall.
I guess Reinsdorf needs to really take a hard look at how bad people perceive his White Sox if there are those that keep insisting the Sox would be stupid enough to trade Sale.
I’m getting the feeling the White Sox might be in “actual substantial mindset change”. They replaced Doug Laumann, their farm director who had been with them for like 20 years. The talk is heating up that Kenny Williams is leaving; maybe Rick Hahn is going to fully get control. That being said, I could see Sale going in a trade this off season. His contract is fantastic, he’s has stayed healthy, he is more dominant than ever, and I think it dawning on the Sox that this Kenny Williams way doesn’t deliver anymore. The White Sox need a catcher, a 3B, hitters, their SS & 2B spots are shaky, and they might need another OF/DH. They have zero coming in the minors at 3B & catcher. I could see the Red Sox and the Cubs having the prospects. Cubs: Javy Baez, Willson Contreras (C), Jorge Soler could all be part of the package.
The Sox can’t play baseball, and that’s the problem.Their defense and baserunning put too much pressure on their pitchers and good hitters.
Dave Dombrowski’s first move should be to pry Neil Huntington away from the Pirates and make him the GM. If you’re serious, be serious and make serious decisions. Go after the top players, coaches and execs.
Huntington is currently the GM of the Pirates, and has most control over decisions regarding the team. That is the job Dombrowski will have with the Red Sox, except he will be getting paid more. If Huntington were to become the Red Sox’ GM, he would almost act similarly to a puppet in that his decision would never be the final ones. It would serve as a demotion to the GM role he has right now.
Not gonna happen. If anything i could NH being promoted to a president position and bringng in cherington
I am glad that the Tigers were not as shortsighted as I was. I was suggesting that the Red Sox should trade Porcello for Verlander, as a win/win move for both teams.
JV is back to being an ace over more than a handful of starts. A much higher ceiling and only being paid $7M/year more with the same number of years as Porcello.
Weird how we give up on 32 years olds coming off injury. He is really not that old. He just needed to get back to 100%. We should have trusted his words (“I am almost back”) instead of his results (which were bad for a long stretch).
That being stated, Porcello does seem like a much better fit for the Tigers. Hoping a reasonable deal can be made (without Verlander) that would bring Ricky back to Detroit.
Porcello is an overrated, overpaid #4 starter.
I’m trying to even think of what a deal for Chris Sale, and his amazing contract for the next 4 years, would look like. Moncada, Margot, Owens and Vazquez? Maybe even another lower level piece? The Red Sox probably don’t want to move Moncada, but I’m having a tough time seeing why the White Sox would trade Sale without him, even with a team with as good a farm system as the Red Sox
Why not think about a deal for Mike Trout, Mike Stanton or Carlos Correa? Or what you’re doing to do with the hundreds of millions you win on the lottery?
Well, Sale is a pitcher….and those guys are hitters… and maybe with the excpeiton of that crazy Loria situation in Miami, all are thought of as franchise cornerstones. Flashing those prospects might not get Trout or Correa.