It sounds like you're describing Ezequiel Duran, who really has no place to play in Texas. He played mostly 2B in the minors but the Rangers have used him at 2B, SS, and in the outfield. His defensive profile is a bit murky but he has a strong arm and was described in this CBS article as having a good right-handed power profile for Fenway Park.
We just need Alex Rios in RF and we can have Duran Duran watch as Rios knocks balls into the stands.
I hope it's clear my post about Ezequiel Duran was 100 percent baseball related...
Yeah, someone posted that on twitter the other day, I think it was just a suggestion by a media person rather than a rumor. There's no evidence the Rangers are considering it.
They get thrown in the “not much” bucket, yes. Kind of how Criswell, O’Neill, Campbell and Slaten are presently in the “not much” bucket for Breslow.
If the Sox decide to spend on any of SIM I think most of us will be happy that they've added any talent. I agree that any of them is a short term improvement to the pitching staff; I think the next question is how competitive Ownership wants to be. Is this still a year to rebuild and therefore keep the budget under the tax threshold? Almost by definition adding one of SIM also a sign that they're looking to be more competitive.
Im not trying to cherry pick good and bad results. That’s not fair.
If Josh Winckowski doesn’t count to you as a clear win as an acquired prospect then further discussion on this point is probably useless.
I honestly don’t know what to make of this passage. Can you show me where I gave any opinion at all about whether teams are right or wrong to have dramatically deemphasized the drafting of pitchers in the early rounds? How the hell would I know whether that’s smart or dumb? I’m a guy sitting on his couch watching baseball games and offering my thoughts on a discussion board. And from my couch, the clear and prevailing trend across the entire game is that teams have dramatically reduced the number of pitchers taken in the early rounds of the draft.
I think that this team is among the 28 other teams (aside from the Dodgerswho have seen squads like Arizona or the 2202 Phillies or the 2021 Sox get hot at the right time and roll to a few weeks of extra games*.
I don't know man. The results on first round pitchers for these franchises are not all that great. They're not terrible, but its not like any franchise has a pipeline of starter level talent coming into the majors because of those picks. Except for perhaps the Braves, but they have a mix of first, second, third, and fourth rounders. . .whom they also have to trade to shore up gaps at the ML level. . .pitching gaps. E.g., Soroka, Shuster for Bummer. Allard for Martin. 6 of one, half-dozen of another.
I'm not trying to cherry pick anything, I'm just confused about why you're bringing up drafting pitching as something about the Rangers's success to emulate. Their recent (very) high pick pitchers are looking like busts and the only starter they drafted that contributed to this year's team (Cody Bradford) was very bad.
I just gave four examples of teams that aren’t doing the same thing. (Atl, Texas, LAD, ChC). So it’s clearly not “the Sox AND the rest of baseball.”
I think there's a pretty wide spread between a super team (say the 2018 team) and a team that gets very lucky where all the talent lines up with career years at the same time (2013). In the middle they can build a reasonable base of talent with less variability that gives them a better chance of making a run.
The "edge" isn't directly competitive. Teams do it because because busting on high draft picks is the quickest path to a barren farm system. So teams desperately want/need to hit on those high picks. Deciding to play the roulette wheel just because the smarter gamblers are at the blackjack table isn't necessarily a "competitive edge". Now obviously you have a better shot with pitchers drafted at the top of the first round, but Boston had precisely one of those picks under the last management.
The point of the pipeline is that if you have cheap players playing the everyday slots, you can spend money on free agent pitchers where needed. Boston has been unwilling to spend on older pitchers in recent years. They were apparently willing to place a huge bet on the 25 year old Y2K (much like they were more than willing to give a contract like that to Devers). Ownership seems to hesitate to spend that sort of money on pitchers post-30.
Porter's got a great fastball, great change and improving sweeper. 6'4", 20 years old. Seems to be on track for a 2025 arrival. If he improves his control, maybe he's a #2/3 at some point.
Another interesting data point on first round pitchers: from 1990-2015, 7/11 pitchers to go 1-1 have been complete busts. For position players that number is 3/15.
Drilling down on that link a bit, the source appears to be a Bleacher Report tweet proposing entirely fictional trade proposals including the Jansen for Leiter idea. It's some blogger's fantasy, not something that's being discussed or proposed by either team. Might be fun to imagine but it is nothing to get excited about.
The bolded is where things get tricky for me.
I don’t know about cost in terms of trading prospects but Fangraphs looked into the “value“ of different levels of prospects. In your scenario, a 55 FV SP prospect is closer to the value of a 50 FV position prospect than they are to a 55 FV position prospect. When you get up to the 60/65 FV range the valuations are pretty similar between SP and position prospects.
There’s fewer of the former than the latter. The problem is that there’s so much variance in pitching prospects that teams have more luck with the quantity over quality approach, which is why they increasingly do it.
Also, "likely to finalize his contract before his posting window closes" really? You don't say, thanks Morosi
It’s not directly competitive, but if the majority of teams pursue the strategy it’s diluting the quality of hitter you get in the early rounds as you need to go deeper down your board with more getting selected. Just by way of quick comparison, there were 5 pitchers drafted in the top 30 picks this year. Looking back a decade, in 2012-14, there were at least 12 in the first 30 picks for all three drafts. So, picking at the end of the first round, in 2023 you get the 25th hitter off the board vs. the 18th a decade prior, or you get the 6th pitcher vs. the 13th. It’s on the margin, but it’s not nothing.
Thanks, and I will take another run at that article.
In complete agreement with stats. Been circling Imanaga for months now. He’s seemed like the best fit for a while when factoring in acquisition cost with floor and ceiling.
So long as they take a healthy swing at signing him. It’s part of the free agent process that sucks sometimes as a fan… the player gets to decide where he feels works best for his career/family and not just about the money.
I'm in conditional disagreement. If he signs somewhere else for 3/36, it will be a shocking whiff. If he signs with the Dodgers for 25 years at 3.4 billion, it will not be a whiff at all.
