Castillo placed on outright waivers

[The Gray Eagle]

Allard Baird was the "primary person charged with the responsibility of identifying if Castillo would be worth the investment, having led the charge when it came to analyzing the outfielder's potential and worth to the organization."

GMs come and GMs go, but Baird seemingly will never be accountable for his evaluation of Castillo, or of Carl Crawford, or of anything apparently.

 

[Sprowl]

Allard Baird was the "primary person charged with the responsibility of identifying if Castillo would be worth the investment, having led the charge when it came to analyzing the outfielder's potential and worth to the organization."

GMs come and GMs go, but Baird seemingly will never be accountable for his evaluation of Castillo, or of Carl Crawford, or of anything apparently.

Well, SoSH did hold a series of game threads in September 2015 for the swearing out of Allard Baird. He was FU'ed in every term then imaginable.

Ben Cherington kept the Killer B's, signed the 2013 characters (Koji, Shane, Nap, Gomes and Dempster) and fucked up everything else. We'll always have 2013.

Why Allard Baird, assistant to the GM, hasn't been fired yet, I can't imagine, but SoSH has spoken a long time ago.

 

[Adrian's Dome]

Allard Baird was the "primary person charged with the responsibility of identifying if Castillo would be worth the investment, having led the charge when it came to analyzing the outfielder's potential and worth to the organization."

GMs come and GMs go, but Baird seemingly will never be accountable for his evaluation of Castillo, or of Carl Crawford, or of anything apparently.

Cherington made the final call, not Baird. Primary evaluation is one thing, letting the guy sign a dotted line is another.

How people here continually defend Cherington blows my mind. The one universally regarded positive move of his tenure (the Punto trade) has been proven to be a Lucchino thing. Most of the stud prospects that are showing today were Theo drafts. Nearly every single one of his major league acquisitions were disappointments or outright failures (Castillo, Porcello & Miley + their extensions, Hanley, Pablo, the entire 2015 bullpen including some overpaid dude named Breslow, Masterson, the Lackey trade.) If you look to a GM's entire tenure and the best thing you can say is that he didn't trade a bunch of guys who turned out to be studs (in retrospect) that were drafted by the previous GM, that's not exactly ideal, but hey, you know, remember that time Ben didn't flip JBJ for Charlie Furbush? Upper echelon GM!

 

[Papelbon's Poutine]

What exactly was wrong with Miley? He was acquired for prospects past their expiration date that haven't turned into anything and provided exactly what was expected.

 

[FanSinceBoggs]

What exactly was wrong with Miley? He was acquired for prospects past their expiration date that haven't turned into anything and provided exactly what was expected.

The problem was last season's starting staff, a pitching staff that contained, among others, the immortal Wade Miley. Cherington actually thought he could win with that staff, which also included another Ben Cherington brain fart: Justin Masterson. Cherington was convinced that aging pitchers like Lester and Lackey wouldn't be worth signing long term. Instead, he built a staff around a group of younger pitchers who would hopefully blossom into excellent starters, such as Joe Kelly, Miley, and Porcello. Wade Miley is a decent bottom of the rotation starter, but he isn't (obviously) on the same level with Lester and Lackey, and so it is fair to question Cherington's judgment in this regard. Cherington, I presume, expected Miley to perform at a pretty high level, but that was never going to happen.

 

[Papelbon's Poutine]

The problem was last season's starting staff, a pitching staff that contained, among others, the immortal Wade Miley. Cherington actually thought he could win with that staff, which also included another Ben Cherington brain fart: Justin Masterson. Cherington was convinced that aging pitchers like Lester and Lackey wouldn't be worth signing long term. Instead, he built a staff around a group of younger pitchers who would hopefully blossom into excellent starters, such as Joe Kelly, Miley, and Porcello. Wade Miley is a decent bottom of the rotation starter, but he isn't (obviously) on the same level with Lester and Lackey, and so it is fair to question Cherington's judgment in this regard. Cherington, I presume, expected Miley to perform at a pretty high level, but that was never going to happen.

Answer the question as posed.

Miley was acquired for two flame out prospects and performed pretty much exactly as expected, if not better when adjusting for a new league. BC's plan for the staff as a whole or, really, anything else is irrelevant to the question I asked. Miley posted 2.5 WAR, which was good to tie for second on the team for pitchers. Whatever you presume BC expected from him is, quite frankly, a blind guess.

There's plenty to crucify BC on. Wade Miley is not on the list. We would kill for 2015 Wade Miley on this team right now.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Cherington made the final call, not Baird. Primary evaluation is one thing, letting the guy sign a dotted line is another... The one universally regarded positive move of his tenure (the Punto trade) has been proven to be a Lucchino thing.

This was a tremendously terrible post overall but these two statements in particular don't make you feel the slightest bit full of shit?

Reading your posts I get that for you there's only "ruinously bad" or "totally awesome" but it is possible for the guy that made some huge errors and deserved to be replaced to have also done things worth crediting him for. It isn't "defending" him as a GM on the whole to suggest the very real truth that he deserves--as just one example--a ton of credit for developing and not trading an elite group of position players that we're all thoroughly enjoying when it could have helped him hold onto his job. How that discipline and the results it bore could not be appreciated by someone that roots for this team kinda astounds me.

(Also for the record, we're not living on a planet where, by rational definition, "nearly all" of Ben Cherington's major league moves were "disappointments or failures" (otherwise you missed a hell of a season in 2013), or that anyone here has said or suggested that Cherington was an "upper echelon GM!" I bet it felt good to type but doesn't make it much more than bullshit.)

 

[simplicio]

The problem was last season's starting staff, a pitching staff that contained, among others, the immortal Wade Miley. Cherington actually thought he could win with that staff, which also included another Ben Cherington brain fart: Justin Masterson. Cherington was convinced that aging pitchers like Lester and Lackey wouldn't be worth signing long term. Instead, he built a staff around a group of younger pitchers who would hopefully blossom into excellent starters, such as Joe Kelly, Miley, and Porcello. Wade Miley is a decent bottom of the rotation starter, but he isn't (obviously) on the same level with Lester and Lackey, and so it is fair to question Cherington's judgment in this regard. Cherington, I presume, expected Miley to perform at a pretty high level, but that was never going to happen.

Yeah, Masterson was pretty indefensible; he certainly shouldn't have gotten anything more than a minor league deal with a spring training invite, let alone 9.5 million.

But I still think the 2015 pitching plan largely went bust with Vazquez's TJ surgery; the whole idea was ground ball guys combined with a catcher who could steal low strikes enough to make hitters swing at things they shouldn't. It wasn't about having a staff full of threes, it was about having a secret sauce that would turn them into twos. You can go back to the 2014 Saberseminar thread to see how excited everyone was (BC included) about catching metrics.

I also think it's easy to trash dealing Lester and Lackey in retrospect (especially as they've both had a drink from the NL/Cubs/Maddon fountain of youth and are currently having career years), but both were pretty defensible decisions at the time. Organizational philosophy under BC was to stay away from handing long term contracts to older pitchers, which is perfectly sound when you're looking at a young core coming up and you don't want to yoke their prime years to declining pitching with albatross contracts. And for a year of Lackey we got multiple years of control over one of the hardest throwing young starters in baseball, who was coming off a 140 ERA+ year in 2013. How often do you even get a chance to make that deal, and why wouldn't you?

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

What exactly was wrong with Miley? He was acquired for prospects past their expiration date that haven't turned into anything and provided exactly what was expected.

Rubby de la Rosa has actually turned into a pretty serviceable #4 type.

 

[simplicio]

Rubby de la Rosa has actually turned into a pretty serviceable #4 type.

Yeah, life's not so bad in the NL West.

 

[smastroyin]

Vaz was not going to save last years pitching staff. It's fine to even significantly overrate the value of framing. It's another thing entirely to think that a catcher and his framing is something to build a staff around, and enough to make last years staff a positive.

This is even beyond whether Vaz is actually the guy his ardent fans think he is. Put another way, you guys were all pretty super loud about him in those first two weeks he was back...since then the pitching has been pretty terrible outside of Price and Wright.

The point is that framing and its effects were exceptionally exaggerated. Good framing doesn't turn bad pitchers good. Or, put yet another way, only a portion of command issues show themselves as the difference between ball and strike.

 

[IpswichSox]

Cherington was convinced that aging pitchers like Lester and Lackey wouldn't be worth signing long term.

Has this been proven in the Lester case because conventional wisdom is that that decision was driven more by Lucchino and/or Henry? I don't know that it's been established to what degree Ben agreed with that philosophy or merely operated within the guardrails that were established for him by Lucchino and Henry.

 

[zenter]

Forgive me if I misremember, but weren't our resident experts here pretty high on Webster and de la Rosa at the time as a good return for Gonzalez?

 

[Toe Nash]

If the idea behind the 2015 staff was the have ground ball pitchers, why did they sign an average at best defensive 3b (who turned out to be terrible)? Also, going into the year, Bogaerts' defense was pretty questionable -- he made great improvements from 2014 to his credit but that was a pleasant surprise. They also messed with Porcello so he wasn't throwing as many grounders.

I always felt like they acquired a bunch of mediocre guys who happened to have high GB rates and SoSH decided they had more of a plan than they actually did. It would have worked a lot better if the left side of the defense was better and Napoli didn't crater, but it wasn't a brilliant plan.

Ben always seemed to be to be stuck between building for the next core (which we're seeing now) and trying to keep a competitive team on the field because Boston. So you get Lester and Lackey for Cespedes and Craig and Joe Kelly instead of prospects. If they had the luxury of taking a couple years off from competing things would be a lot different, I imagine. In retrospect, that would have worked out better since they sucked those two years anyway.

 

[moondog80]

Yeah, Masterson was pretty indefensible; he certainly shouldn't have gotten anything more than a minor league deal with a spring training invite, let alone 9.5 million.

I don't mean to single you out, simplicio, but people here carry way too much anger over Justin Masterson.

Masterson was bad in 2014, but even then he showed an elite ground ball rate and his FIP was only 4.50. The year before it had been 3.35. Dan Haren, who was four years older and coming of FIPs of 4.09 in both 2014 and 2013, got essentially the same deal, 1 year at 10 mil. That's what these guys cost on one year deals. There's zero chance he was going to be a spring training invite. Moreover, we're not the Rays. 9.5 mil is nothing. What would they have otherwise done with the money had they not signed Masterson? Please don't say "sign Lester".

It didn't work out. The same strategy was pretty good the previous year, though.

 

[Adrian's Dome]

This was a tremendously terrible post overall but these two statements in particular don't make you feel the slightest bit full of shit?

Reading your posts I get that for you there's only "ruinously bad" or "totally awesome" but it is possible for the guy that made some huge errors and deserved to be replaced to have also done things worth crediting him for. It isn't "defending" him as a GM on the whole to suggest the very real truth that he deserves--as just one example--a ton of credit for developing and not trading an elite group of position players that we're all thoroughly enjoying when it could have helped him hold onto his job. How that discipline and the results it bore could not be appreciated by someone that roots for this team kinda astounds me.

(Also for the record, we're not living on a planet where, by rational definition, "nearly all" of Ben Cherington's major league moves were "disappointments or failures" (otherwise you missed a hell of a season in 2013), or that anyone here has said or suggested that Cherington was an "upper echelon GM!" I bet it felt good to type but doesn't make it much more than bullshit.)

This is also a tremendously terrible post overall. Regarding your posts I realize they fully take a personal turn which you deem any point you disagree on bullshit, but hey, I'll play once again.

Your entire second paragraph, is, again, giving Cherington credit for "developing" and not trading prospects he didn't even draft. How is that a real positive? It'd be one thing if it was mostly his own draft class, but it wasn't. He didn't oversee those players in the majors, nor did he acquire them in the first place. Was he personally in the minors coaching them along the way? No, he wasn't, so to give him "a ton of credit" is a reach when, again, nearly all of his major-league acquisitions were awful.

Lastly, we've been over this before, but 2013 was the epitome of a fluke. I understand credit is due for it, but it wasn't a sustainable method for building a successful franchise, and I very clearly remember most of his moves that preseason being heavily questioned. Just because it happened to work out doesn't mean it was a viable approach. Getting lucky and being good are two very different things. I am not going to put equal amounts of weight in evaluation for one season when the remainder of the body of work is awful (and that's not just at the time, it's also in retrospect.)

I bet it felt good for you to throw your personal biases in play yet again and attack the poster but not the actual post, though.

 

[Adrian's Dome]

I don't mean to single you out, simplicio, but people here carry way too much anger over Justin Masterson.

Masterson was bad in 2014, but even then he showed an elite ground ball rate and his FIP was only 4.50. The year before it had been 3.35. Dan Haren, who was four years older and coming of FIPs of 4.09 in both 2014 and 2013, got essentially the same deal, 1 year at 10 mil. That's what these guys cost on one year deals. There's zero chance he was going to be a spring training invite. Moreover, we're not the Rays. 9.5 mil is nothing. What would they have otherwise done with the money had they not signed Masterson? Please don't say "sign Lester".

It didn't work out. The same strategy was pretty good the previous year, though.

FIP doesn't tell the whole story, actual results do (and they were alarming and trending downward, along with his velocity.) That money very easily could've gone toward Andrew Miller.

 

[BaseballJones]

I think Theo and then Cherington got the organization some really nice young players.

Castillo, as it seems to have turned out, wasn't one of them.

It happens. Glad the Sox are willing to do what's necessary to move on.

 

[mfried]

Castillo would be a sad story (for himself as well as the Sox) except that he is quite wealthy, and can walk away from baseball and benefit mankind in some other way.

 

[simplicio]

I don't mean to single you out, simplicio, but people here carry way too much anger over Justin Masterson.

Masterson was bad in 2014, but even then he showed an elite ground ball rate and his FIP was only 4.50. The year before it had been 3.35. Dan Haren, who was four years older and coming of FIPs of 4.09 in both 2014 and 2013, got essentially the same deal, 1 year at 10 mil. That's what these guys cost on one year deals. There's zero chance he was going to be a spring training invite. Moreover, we're not the Rays. 9.5 mil is nothing. What would they have otherwise done with the money had they not signed Masterson? Please don't say "sign Lester".

It didn't work out. The same strategy was pretty good the previous year, though.

I think the anger comes from the fact that they ignored such clear signs of career-ending decline - Masterson's velocity had dropped 3-4 mph between summer of 2013 and 2014 - and they seemingly didn't check to see if he could even still hit 90 before handing him a contract. Then the anger is compounded by the fact that they kept running him out there every 5 days for a third of the season when it was clear from day one that he had nothing.

To tie back into Castillo a bit, I think it's a great strength of the current organization that they'll cut bait on a poor performer after giving them a fair chance, where under Cherington it felt like we were maybe taking on too many many projects at significant cost, while sticking by underperformers for way too long. DD may have a completely different mandate in that regard; none of us may ever know.

 

[TheoShmeo]

Your entire second paragraph, is, again, giving Cherington credit for "developing" and not trading prospects he didn't even draft. How is that a real positive? It'd be one thing if it was mostly his own draft class, but it wasn't. He didn't oversee those players in the majors, nor did he acquire them in the first place. Was he personally in the minors coaching them along the way? No, he wasn't, so to give him "a ton of credit" is a reach when, again, nearly all of his major-league acquisitions were awful.

It's a real positive because I think it's safe to assume that Ben received multiple offers for each member of the core and withstood the temptation to obtain players that might have helped the Sox win more games in the short run. Taking a longer view and holding firm in your belief in your best prospects -- and properly judging those prospects -- is something we should want all Sox GMs to do. I think it also bears emphasis that Jackie Bradley looked like crap at the plate at times, so holding onto him took some fortitude. And the same could be said of Boegarts to a lesser extent. There was a period during the 2014 season when he was not adjusting well to the shift to third and his hitting suffered when other GMs might have succumbed to the temptation to deal him.

In short, sometimes the deals you don't make are your best ones, and that we still have all of the Bs is going to serve the Sox well for a quite a long time.

 

[richgedman'sghost]

Two trades that I don't see brought up in defense of Ben are the Robbie Ross and the Steven Wright deals. Ranaudo has done absolutely nothing for Texas while Ross has become a valuable bullpen piece. Wright was acquired for the corpse of Lars Andersen (a failed Theo pick btw) and has of course developed to the point where he is receiving serious consideration to start the All Star Game. Why must every thread degrade into strictly black and white love hate. The hatred towards Ben by Adrian's Dome and Plympton 91 and others is unreal. You would think Ben Cherrington was the equivalent of Heywood Sullivan the old GM by the nature of their posts.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

FIP doesn't tell the whole story, actual results do (and they were alarming and trending downward, along with his velocity.) That money very easily could've gone toward Andrew Miller.

Sorry to pile on, but this is bogus. Yes, FIP doesn't tell the whole story--no one metric does--but the whole reason for the existence of FIP, xFIP, SIERA etc. is the recognition that actual results don't tell the whole story either, because a substantial amount of luck combines with skill to produce them. (It's pretty funny that just one post above, you dismiss 2013 as a "fluke". Apparently actual results only tell the whole story when they make Ben Cherington look bad.)

 

[LuckyBen]

Two trades that I don't see brought up in defense of Ben are the Robbie Ross and the Steven Wright deals. Ranaudo has done absolutely nothing for Texas while Ross has become a valuable bullpen piece. Wright was acquired for the corpse of Lars Andersen (a failed Theo pick btw) and has of course developed to the point where he is receiving serious consideration to start the All Star Game. Why must every thread degrade into strictly black and white love hate. The hatred towards Ben by Adrian's Dome and Plympton 91 and others is unreal. You would think Ben Cherrington was the equivalent of Heywood Sullivan the old GM by the nature of their posts.

Agree and people still bashed Ben for holding on to Ranaudo too long and selling low in regards to that trade. This ball club is built for the future thanks to Ben. There was plenty to bitch about when Theo left and there will be plenty when DD leaves.

 

[shaggydog2000]

I think you should look at international signing like draft picks. They're not all going to work out. Castillo demonstrated he couldn't make contact in the US. It happens, you won't be right all the time in scouting guys. But you need to take the risks, especially if you have the money like the Sox do. Because then you don't get a guy like Moncada, who wasn't signed in exactly the same way, but was effectively a similar move. This may not have been a great risk to take, but not taking the risk in the recent past had caused the Sox to miss out on some excellent Cuban talent.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

If everything didn't go right in 2013 and the team went a pedestrian 81-81, I wonder if things would have played out differently with Ben. The moves on paper suggested it was a "bridge" year. Had it played out that way, 2014 would have been more of the same and there probably wouldn't have been a pressing need to sign Sandoval or Hanley in 2015 because people would be buying into the youth movement. I think 2013 changed peoples expectations. Overall, he was a pretty poor GM. Most of the prospects he should get credit for are still a few years from contributing and still in A ball, Benintendi excluded. He could take credit for EdRod but that was a trade and I'm not sure if Boston should get credit for developing him or Baltimore. The only really big contributors he was responsible for bringing to the 2016 team is Rick Porcello and some of the bullpen (Koji, Layne, Ross, Hembree). Hanley Ramirez too, though he could probably be replaced for a fraction of the cost.

Also his 2012 and 2013 drafts are looking terrible. 2014 looks like it could be promising, but Kopech has make up issues, Sam Travis doesn't have a really high ceiling, and Chavis and Ockimey have strike out concerns. Good news about Chavis is he's cut his strike out rate from 31% last year to 13% this year, while Ockimey has went from 34% to 23% while moving up leagues. 2015 it's too early to tell but bNES alone will probably make it a success Of the 2012 class, you can still hope Pat Light and Brian Johnson can offer something and Marrero looks like a career UT. The 2013 class has Trey Ball who has been a huge disappointment but is still too young to write off, picked up Dubon (another possible career UT guy) in the 26th round and Nick Longhi in the 30th. Longhi is only 20 and holding his own in Salem. It's still too early to tell, but they may need Longhi to save this draft. Carlos Asuaje will probably have a major league career of some sort too, even if it's just a cup of coffee. Joe Gunkel as well.

Of course he is also responsible for Moncada, the Basabe twins, Espinoza, Raudes, and Devers. Moncada, Devers and Espinoza are well documented but Raudes is only a few months younger than Espinoza and putting up similiar performances and Luis Alejandro Basabe is hitting the quietest .313/.414/.467 a 19 year old in Greenville could possibly hit.

 

[E5 Yaz]

espn: Red Sox outfielder Rusney Castillo cleared waivers and was outrighted off of Boston's major league roster and assigned to Pawtucket, the Red Sox announced Monday.

 

[AB in DC]

So what actually happened with this guy? How does a player go from OPS'ing .900 during July-August 2015, with plus defense, to being persona non grata the following spring?

 

[Sprowl]

So what actually happened with this guy? How does a player go from OPS'ing .900 during July-August 2015, with plus defense, to being persona non grata the following spring?

Some times he couldn't hit the slider from RHP. At other times he couldn't hit the fastball from anybody. He whiffed a lot, and the rest of the time he grounded out. Basically, he couldn't hit any better than Michael Jordan.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

So what actually happened with this guy? How does a player go from OPS'ing .900 during July-August 2015, with plus defense, to being persona non grata the following spring?

All it really was was a hot 22 game stretch from the point he was called up in July until about mid/late-August (the 24th is when his season OPS peaked), in which he OPSed 1.024 and had a BABIP of .441. I think a combination of BABIP luck and the league catching up to him brought him back down to earth and he's apparently not been able to make the necessary adjustments. You remove that month from his resume and he looks decidedly hopeless at the plate.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Your entire second paragraph, is, again, giving Cherington credit for "developing" and not trading prospects he didn't even draft. How is that a real positive? It'd be one thing if it was mostly his own draft class, but it wasn't. He didn't oversee those players in the majors, nor did he acquire them in the first place. Was he personally in the minors coaching them along the way? No, he wasn't, so to give him "a ton of credit" is a reach when, again, nearly all of his major-league acquisitions were awful.

Lastly, we've been over this before, but 2013 was the epitome of a fluke. I understand credit is due for it, but it wasn't a sustainable method for building a successful franchise, and I very clearly remember most of his moves that preseason being heavily questioned. Just because it happened to work out doesn't mean it was a viable approach. Getting lucky and being good are two very different things. I am not going to put equal amounts of weight in evaluation for one season when the remainder of the body of work is awful (and that's not just at the time, it's also in retrospect.)

It would benefit your perspective to take a hard look at what you're saying and be honest about the places where your conclusion maybe hasn't been proven true and to be realistic about what that says regarding your point. Presenting every single event to us here as highly suggestive proof of your thesis is a bizarre way to spend time and I promise you no one finds it convincing.

This is stuff little kids do. You're saying he wears all his failures entirely but that the successes, of which there were many that there is no sense debating or devaluing, are all someone else's doing or couldn't possibly be credited to him, or were a fluke, etc etc. It's laughable, sorry.

I've never attacked you personally. I'm responding to your posts. You're actually mocking the value of developing and not trading elite minor leaguers like we're all a pack of rubes for crediting that decision. It's a simple, non-controversial observation but you're actually doubling down trying to paint it in a forgettable light because you need to bolster the absolute axiomatic nature of your own argument for some reason. It's ridiculous on its face. That's imminently mockable and I was just pointing to the fact that you do it routinely to make a point about why you are, again, wrong.

 

[chrisfont9]

Isn't Castillo's downfall more in line with the fairly common occurrence of top draft picks -- even college kids -- who don't pan out even though it seemed like all the tools were there? To me it seems silly to go on and on about how terrible it is that they missed on a guy who they scouted and believed he had the tools he'd need to succeed, but they didn't translate. This happens several times a year to every team. The mistake is that they got caught up in seeing the Cuban market as a place full of guys who you could count on differently than other prospects, or that the market was so rich in talent that you had to spend extravagant sums to buy prospects. Some of these guys may be a little easier to hit on because they are more physically mature, for example, which was the big selling point on Castillo. But in the end he was just a prospect, as are all Cuban guys or anyone else who hasn't played in the majors, and $72 million was the cost of getting a little too over-eager in a gold rush frenzy. But on the other hand, it was the only player acquisition strategy that didn't come with any strings attached, besides money.

Meanwhile, they did the same thing with Moncada (under slightly different rules), and so far it looks good, with the potential to be a huge acquisition worth way more than they spent. We'll see. But again, my point is that they're still prospects until they get here, and their only sin with Castillo is spending too much (not my money) and maybe letting the hype get too big around him (lesson learned, one hopes).

 

[Maximus]

Has this been proven in the Lester case because conventional wisdom is that that decision was driven more by Lucchino and/or Henry? I don't know that it's been established to what degree Ben agreed with that philosophy or merely operated within the guardrails that were established for him by Lucchino and Henry.

Yep, Lester was on Lucchino. Ben was dealing the hand he was dealt there.

 

[Van Everyman]

Were you Lucchino's cabana boy or something? How do you know that for sure?

 

[Buzzkill Pauley]

How does a player go from OPS'ing .900 during July-August 2015, with plus defense, to being persona non grata the following spring?

Now there's a low-hanging fruit.

Still, Rusney could still probably single-handedly drag the Red Sox team baserunning stats down to dead average, given regular playing time.

So good timing for this move. If his tools are needed, he can be added back onto the 40-man. And considering those tools that's a lot more likely than for Craig, at least somewhere down the road.

 

[Detts]

He needs a live chicken

 

[Wake's knuckle]

... he could be going through a mechanically difficult patch. He might figure it out with enough playing time, who knows?

 

[TheoShmeo]

It's likely that having missed on Jose Abreu, and then seeing him perform so well for the ChiSox, played some role in the rush to offer such a huge deal to Castillo. After all, as noted above, Rusney's last strong season in Cuba was in 2011, yet Ben signed him to that contract in the off season of 2014.

That Abreu plated the go ahead runs on the same day that Castillo got outrighted likely did not escape the attention of those who played a role in his signing. Poetic injustice for the rest of us.

 

[smastroyin]

The biggest problem with Castillo is that they treated him like a ready to play in the majors guy. They promoted him quickly to get him into Fenway within a couple of months of signing, which is fine, they had nothing to lose, but I think it set the expectation in the wrong place. He blew through the minors when noone knew who he was and presumably got fed a lot of fastballs. There was probably also a likely dovetailing of two concerns - first, the Abreu miss, second the JBJ sinkhole season. So another CF who could step in quickly seemed like a great idea.

But to me the whole thing was they gave too much of a guarantee, and seemingly were bidding against themselves after a certain (much lower) point. So he seemed much more like a major league FA and even though those guys also have varying success (hello Carl Crawford) you don't expect the total washout.

 

[reggiecleveland]

View attachment 2520

He needs a live chicken

This sums up the signing, except the part where the guy learns to hit.

 

[simplicio]

It's likely that having missed on Jose Abreu, and then seeing him perform so well for the ChiSox, played some role in the rush to offer such a huge deal to Castillo. After all, as noted above, Rusney's last strong season in Cuba was in 2011, yet Ben signed him to that contract in the off season of 2014.

That Abreu plated the go ahead runs on the same day that Castillo got outrighted likely did not escape the attention of those who played a role in his signing. Poetic injustice for the rest of us.

I thought it was more Puig being a human highlight reel followed by Abreu doing his ROY thing, and suddenly everyone thought all Cubans were unicorns. If Puig hadn't started it I doubt Rusney and Olivera et al. would have the deals they do.

 

[Plympton91]

I suppose he could still learn to hit. It's good that he doesn't count against the luxury tax while he does.

 

[mauf]

I thought it was more Puig being a human highlight reel followed by Abreu doing his ROY thing, and suddenly everyone thought all Cubans were unicorns. If Puig hadn't started it I doubt Rusney and Olivera et al. would have the deals they do.

It wasn't just Puig and Abreu -- Chapman, Cespedes, Fernandez and (Alexei) Ramirez all worked out nicely for the teams that signed them, and considering how overheated the free-agent market has gotten, Castillo didn't have to come close to meeting expectations to be worth his $73mm contract. Of course, it was inevitable that one of these big-money Cuban emigres would eventually be a bust, and there were warning signs that Castillo was an excellent candidate to be that guy, but it still wasn't irrational to take the risk, and I don't doubt that another club was willing to swoop in and pay only slightly less if BC had gotten cold feet.

 

[TheoShmeo]

It wasn't just Puig and Abreu -- Chapman, Cespedes, Fernandez and (Alexei) Ramirez all worked out nicely for the teams that signed them, and considering how overheated the free-agent market has gotten, Castillo didn't have to come close to meeting expectations to be worth his $73mm contract. Of course, it was inevitable that one of these big-money Cuban emigres would eventually be a bust, and there were warning signs that Castillo was an excellent candidate to be that guy, but it still wasn't irrational to take the risk, and I don't doubt that another club was willing to swoop in and pay only slightly less if BC had gotten cold feet.

Fair that it wasn't just one or two guys.

The irony with Abreu last night was hard to miss but you are clearly right that there were several other success stories.

Still, I do think that Castillo's lack of performance since the 2011 season made it irrational to think he would follow in the prior guys' footsteps.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

The biggest problem with Castillo is that they treated him like a ready to play in the majors guy. They promoted him quickly to get him into Fenway within a couple of months of signing, which is fine, they had nothing to lose, but I think it set the expectation in the wrong place. He blew through the minors when noone knew who he was and presumably got fed a lot of fastballs. There was probably also a likely dovetailing of two concerns - first, the Abreu miss, second the JBJ sinkhole season. So another CF who could step in quickly seemed like a great idea.

But to me the whole thing was they gave too much of a guarantee, and seemingly were bidding against themselves after a certain (much lower) point. So he seemed much more like a major league FA and even though those guys also have varying success (hello Carl Crawford) you don't expect the total washout.

I seem to remember that any suggestion made since he was signed that Castillo needed time in the minors to "develop" and didn't need to be in the big leagues in 2014, let alone 2015 was always met with "but he's already 27-28, he's not a prospect" type responses. Between injuries and defecting, he was effectively out of action for over two years. He clearly needed time to develop and adapt, but between the contract (and its associated expectations) and his age, he was never given the chance. I'll grant that he may never be the player they expected or be a player that will live up to the $72M contract, but his time in the Red Sox organization hasn't exactly been spent optimally either.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

Lastly, we've been over this before, but 2013 was the epitome of a fluke. I understand credit is due for it, but it wasn't a sustainable method for building a successful franchise, and I very clearly remember most of his moves that preseason being heavily questioned.

2013 wasn't supposed to be sustainable - it was supposed to be a bridge to the players that BC decided not to deal. While I suppose it could be called a fluke, was it more fluky than not having much go right in 2014 and 2015 (and not having the youngsters develop quite as quickly as expected)? If you're going give full marks for 2014/2015, you probably should do the same for 2013.

Also his 2012 and 2013 drafts are looking terrible. 2014 looks like it could be promising, but Kopech has make up issues, Sam Travis doesn't have a really high ceiling, and Chavis and Ockimey have strike out concerns. Good news about Chavis is he's cut his strike out rate from 31% last year to 13% this year, while Ockimey has went from 34% to 23% while moving up leagues. 2015 it's too early to tell but bNES alone will probably make it a success Of the 2012 class, you can still hope Pat Light and Brian Johnson can offer something and Marrero looks like a career UT. The 2013 class has Trey Ball who has been a huge disappointment but is still too young to write off, picked up Dubon (another possible career UT guy) in the 26th round and Nick Longhi in the 30th. Longhi is only 20 and holding his own in Salem. It's still too early to tell, but they may need Longhi to save this draft. Carlos Asuaje will probably have a major league career of some sort too, even if it's just a cup of coffee. Joe Gunkel as well.

I think we need to start having different expectations for draft results. 2011 is not happening again - the tax and cap issues are going to prevent any team from drafting that much talent.