Beating a dead quarterhorse (split from Moncada thread)

Red(s)HawksFan · Feb 5, 2015

charlieoscar said:
Is that any more ridiculous than the suggestion i this thread that Moncado might be signed as a trade chip...to the tune of maybe $40M, plus another $40M in penalties?

But to really stir things up, I am still of the opinion that instead of giving Pedroia a long-term extension, they should have traded him. They could have gotten a lot in return and saved a few bucks for other use while opening up 2nd base for Betts (his normal position), which would in turn reduce the outfield overflow.

Definitely a debate for another thread (and I'm pretty sure that thread exists) but Pedroia got his extension when Betts was in A-ball. Having a good year in A-ball, but still, A-ball. Not the kind of guy you throw out your franchise player for, especially when he's willing to sign a contract well below market rate to stick around.

Rasputin · Feb 5, 2015

charlieoscar said:
I suppose that it is possible that someone who has been to 30 SABR national conventions, 23 UBA weekends, has seen games in 17 different minor leagues and 86 minor league parks, 37 major league parks might not have heard of Betts before July 2013, but is that a bet you want to make?

I suppose that it's possible for someone who has been to blah blah blah to have an opinion as stupid as "they should trade Pedroia to ease the outfield situation because Betts is going to be here soon" but I sure as hell wouldn't want to bet on it.

sackamano · Feb 5, 2015

How could anyone not have known that Hanley Ramirez would be penciled in as the starting LF in 2015, and that Rusney Castillo would likely start in CF?

Clearly the Sox should be looking to trade someone right now to make room for Carlos Asuaje.

Tyrone Biggums · Feb 6, 2015

To the people who wanted Pedroia gone before he signed his extension, I would like to ask why? If this was a player on another team SOSH would have 10 threads devoted on how can we get this guy. Yes he was hurt last year but he plays 110% every time he's out there. Given the fact the luxury tax is 189 I really doubt this will be one of the worst contracts in baseball. You also couldn't project Mookie at Single A. This point is about as ludicrous as the 1st base thread 3 years ago when a few posters didn't want to sign Napoli because Travis Shaw was in the minors.

I'm for signing Moncada, you can never have enough talent. But he isn't going to be in the plans for the MLB roster this year or probably next. It's not wise to trade proven players 2 years before a prospect debuts because said prospect might be good. Most elite prospects flame out. Pedroia is going to surprise you this year.

smastroyin · Feb 6, 2015

Sampo Gida said:
Teams are not paying the penalty, Moncada is. Its like the posting fee when the Red Sox paid 50 million to Seibu and another 52 to Daisuke. They valued Daisukes worth as 102 million, paid Seibu what they needed to and Daisuke got the left overs. Same thing here, they value Moncada what they think he is worth, and pay MLB half as a tax, and Moncada gets the left overs.

Let's not talk about existential "paying". The money is coming from the signing team's coffers - they are "paying" for the privilege of adding him to their system. You could apply this same literal argument to the competitive balance tax and to compensation rules. In a sense the players as a whole "pay" for these things because they restrict movement and salaries. But it's still the teams over the threshold that have to send money to MLB.

However you want to assign the semantic values, the real money being transferred is a premium. I don't disagree with the idea that you consider it the cost of acquisition and apply whether you value the player that much, in fact I said as much. Considerations regarding whether it avoids other penalties and therefore creates more value in signing this player are essentially irrelevant. The advantages of signing him are that he is a premium talent that you will not otherwise have access to. If he were draft eligible he would not fall to the Red Sox, Dodgers, Yankees, etc. As well, because he is not part of the draft, you aren't giving up a pick to sign him (IMO draft picks not penalties should have been the punishment for exceeding bonus pool if they really wanted to make it "balanced") but, you also have to pay him according to competition instead of slotting.

So, the Red Sox have to take a look at what kind of value they will actually get out of him, and compare that to the cost, just like anything.

I think a fair comparison for this kid's upside is Bryce Harper. Sure he could also be Mike Trout. But Harper is a pretty good estimate for conservative upside. Now, Harper also cost the #1 overall pick which has value of its own, but he cost the Nationals only about $11 million to sign, and really in terms of the 2009 (drafted year) dollars, $10 or so. But let's add in a super optimistic value of the pick and call it worth an additional $15 million. So the Red Sox will still be paying about 3 times that to sign Moncada. It is still possible that the Red Sox would come out ahead in that kind of deal, but I assume they are doing the math. The Harper deal has been great for the Nationals even with his only ok 2014 - in the five years he has been a pro he has delivered something on the order of $45 million in value, that done in 3 major league seasons. So he has been worth the investment and they still control him for three more years (they owe him $7.5 million for the next two and then he will probably get a giant arbitration award in the third, or negotiate a giant deal in the meantime). But when that initial figure is $80 million (up front) it means that Yoan will need to be close to as good as Travis Harper just to return even on the initial investment.

It's just not a wham bam thank you ma'am slam dunk that many here seem to be putting it forward as.

TigerBlood · Feb 6, 2015

charlieoscar said:
I think that Pedroia has about three years left as a starter; yet, he is signed through age 38.How much trade value will he have at age 36? Even age 35? They needed to rebuild the team after last season and if they could have traded Pedroia, he would have brought a lot back in return. They had Betts on the roster, Sean Coyle and some other kids on the way up.

While there has been major attempts at rebuilding, what has been done in the way of pitching is very iffy. It could work but....

Starters (last season)
----------------------------
Buchholz -- 4.01 ERA/1.386 WHIP/-1.6 WAR
Kelly -- 4.62/1.288/+0.3
Masterson -- 5.88/1.632/~ -.82
Miley -- 4.34/1.401/+0.8
Porcello -- 3.43/1.231/+4.0
-----------------------------------
AL -- 3.81/1.284 (only one starter was below league-average in RA and WHIP and one about average in WHIP)

Bullpen (2013 in parens)
Breslow -- 5.96 (1.81)/1.859 (1.123)/-1.3 (+1.6)
Mujica -- 3.90 (2.78)/1.383 (1.005)/0.0 (+1.5)
Ogando -- 3.81/1.920/-0.6 (didn't list 2013 because he was basically a starter that season)
Ross -- 6.20 (3.03)/1.698 (1.316)/-1.9 (+1.2)
Tazawa -- 2.86 (3.16)/1.190 (1.200)/+0.8 (+1.0)
Uehara -- 2.52 (1.09)/.917 (0.565)/+1.7 (+3.6)
Varvaro -- 2.63/1.079/+0.9 (didn't list 2013 because he has been fairly consistent)

The AL average pitching WAR per team for 2014 was 14.35; the 12 Red Sox pitchers added up to about +3.3 (starters: +3.7, relievers: -0.4). That is a lot of bouncing back to do by a number of pitchers. Say that 4 starters and 5 relievers do bounce back, then they can probably get by with players from the PawSox, but if more fail, they may well need to trade away prospects to contend.

data from baseball-reference.com

Most posts starting with "I think that..." don't end up being great, but contribute very little considering how much you wrote.

That Pedroia will only start for 3 more years is a wild claim which you need to substantiate someway, somehow. Good luck.

Taking 12 Boston pitchers and adding up their WAR numbers and comparing to league average is one of the least informative ways to characterize this teams pitching staff. The most obvious error you made was including only 12 pitchers in your sum. You don't think Owens, Barnes, Escobar or Rodriguez will pitch in Boston? Or Workman, Eveland, or Spruill? Summation errors aside, its basically the FO's mantra to pick up guys who are coming off down years because that's a major market inefficiency. By definition, they sign players with ugly recent WAR values. I would expect someone who claims to have been to umpteen thousand SABR events to realize at least some of this stuff.

The 3-Year AL team pitcher war average (per fangraphs) is 15.3. Lets see how close they are to that number.

Bullpen:
Ross .7
Varvaro .15
Mujica .266
Breslow .3
Tazawa 1.15
Koji 1.83
Workman (hard to say because he was in the rotation last year, and may yet make some starts in 2015, so let's be conservative) .5
Eveland .266

Rotation:
Masterson 1.93
Kelly .63
Miley 2.66
Porcello 3.07
Buch 2.3

Grand total = 16.1. This includes nothing from people who have little-to-no major league experience yet, but are projected to make significant contributions this season.

smastroyin · Feb 6, 2015

I split this because I don't think it has any real bearing on Yoan Moncada. I would pull up the old thread but frankly I'm too lazy to find it.

CoRP · Feb 6, 2015

charlieoscar said:
I think that Pedroia has about three years left as a starter; yet, he is signed through age 38.How much trade value will he have at age 36? Even age 35? They needed to rebuild the team after last season and if they could have traded Pedroia, he would have brought a lot back in return. They had Betts on the roster, Sean Coyle and some other kids on the way up.

Interesting in theory but this isn't a rotisserie team. If they traded Pedroia last year, their credibility in every future "hometown discount" negotiation would have taken a far bigger hit than the net result of that trade could ever have provided. I would even go so far as to argue that whatever $/WAR was gained in the process would have been more than wiped out by future $/WAR lost due to the credibility hit they would take.

Philip Jeff Frye · Feb 6, 2015

Tyrone Biggums said:
To the people who wanted Pedroia gone before he signed his extension, I would like to ask why? If this was a player on another team SOSH would have 10 threads devoted on how can we get this guy. Yes he was hurt last year but he plays 110% every time he's out there. Given the fact the luxury tax is 189 I really doubt this will be one of the worst contracts in baseball. You also couldn't project Mookie at Single A. This point is about as ludicrous as the 1st base thread 3 years ago when a few posters didn't want to sign Napoli because Travis Shaw was in the minors.

I'm for signing Moncada, you can never have enough talent. But he isn't going to be in the plans for the MLB roster this year or probably next. It's not wise to trade proven players 2 years before a prospect debuts because said prospect might be good. Most elite prospects flame out. Pedroia is going to surprise you this year.

Its hilarious to read Betts-related second guesses on the Pedroia extension - let's see Mookie perform for a year or two before we reach any conclusions. To second guess it based on a 19 year old Cuban who we're probably not going to sign anyway, well, that's the definition of absurdity.

RoyalOrange · Feb 6, 2015

charlieoscar said:
I suppose that it is possible that someone who has been to 30 SABR national conventions, 23 UBA weekends, has seen games in 17 different minor leagues and 86 minor league parks, 37 major league parks might not have heard of Betts before July 2013, but is that a bet you want to make?

Rasputin · Feb 6, 2015

charlieoscar said:
I'm not saying that there is some potential with the pitchers assembled. What I am saying (and the numbers show) is that most of them had sub-par to bad 2014 seasons.

This is completely obvious to everyone. Buchholz was terrible. Masterson was terrible. Joe Kelly was meh, and Wade Miley was bad.

But here's the thing. When trying to get good players, you don't do it by trading away the very good player who is signed to a very long, very team friendly deal.

Minneapolis Millers · Feb 6, 2015

So what is this thread now about - whatever idea Charlioscar decides to throw out? Wasn't injecting a "Shoulda traded Pedroia" meme into the Moncada thread basically trolling?

The Gray Eagle · Feb 6, 2015

Good lord, Pedroia has a no trade contract. He is not going anywhere. Please stop talking about it, it's pointless.

gryoung · Feb 6, 2015

RoyalOrange said:

This is perfect!

sackamano · Feb 6, 2015

As for "their credibility in every future 'hometown discount' negotiation," well, I don't think it takes too much thought to come up with two members of the club in 2014 who expressed their desire to come back to Boston...oh, but the money was better elsewhere.

Okay, I got Jon Lester, who didn't finish the season with Boston. Who's the other? Andrew Miller, who also was traded? They didn't sign for a hometown discount, Pedroia did. Apples and oranges.

LahoudOrBillyC · Feb 6, 2015

Pedroia is the best player on the team and they want to win the World Series this year. The end.

oumbi · Feb 6, 2015

I know I don't have many posts here, but let me say that this is the most scattered and incoherent Red Sox thread I have ever seen here at SoSH. I know the mods broke it off from the Moncada thread, but it seems to have been still born. What exactly is the point here everyone?

keninten · Feb 6, 2015

oumbi said:
I know I don't have many posts here, but let me say that this is the most scattered and incoherent Red Sox thread I have ever seen here at SoSH. I know the mods broke it off from the Moncada thread, but it seems to have been still born. What exactly is the point here everyone?

Welcome to the Sandbox

smastroyin · Feb 7, 2015

The best way for silly and incoherent threads to die is to ignore them, not post asking why they are around. I can't tell you how much I hate that shit. We have three other ways of mentioning this type of thing other than posting "I don't understand this thread" in the thread, which has now been done at least twice.

So here is a refresher.

First, there is an entire forum dedicated to letting us know what you think.
Second, there is a "report a post" function to complain about what you think are bad posts.
Third, there are PMs if you want to complain directly to a mod or to the poster that you have a problem with.

Now, I broke this out because people were posting about it more than Moncada in the Moncada thread. I don't personally think it is worth talking about but since it's slow and people seemed to want to talk about it, I broke it and left it open. I also wanted to make an attempt at a funny thread title.

But seriously. If your fingers feel the need to type "I don't understand why this is here" then your post is almost 100% guaranteed to be more worthless than the thread you are complaining about.

Beating a dead quarterhorse (split from Moncada thread)

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