Also, it’s not likely that the Padres have three open spots on their 40-man to accommodate those guys either.
Red Sox Rumors - Just Kidding
- Thread starter jcormjmac
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I think there's a disparity between BTV & how actual real life teams view actual real life players. If the Padres see something in Pivetta I don't, they could certainly think he's worth more than his 2.6 BTV value. He has 2 more arb years & the Padres have a top heavy roster. They also have some outfield question marks & could think Duran is a real player worth much more than 5.9 BTV for his 4 more cost-controlled seasons.
The Padres don't seem to have enough infielders, so Dalbec could certainly be the right handed side of a 1B platoon with Cronenworth (even though Cronenworth was equally ok against lefties & righties last year).
I was gung ho about giving up Houck until the other day when I realized how great he has been the 1st time through a lineup during his career. Now I don't wanna.
I think they technically have 38 on their 40-man, including a fair amount of dreck.
https://www.mlb.com/padres/roster/40-man
https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SDP/2022-roster.shtml
I don't see BTV as any kind of end-all, be-all, but it can serve as a check against over-valuing our own guys. Personally, I'm not all that high on Duran (never have been) and don't see him as a fit for a team going for broke to get a title. I can see an argument for Pivetta having more value than BTV suggests, but not to the Padres. He strikes me as redundant for them with Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo on board.
No...I want to give them...DIFFERENT dreck. That's younger.
Before the Rule V deadline they added 1 guy...a mediocre 27 y/o reliever. That took their 40-man roster to 33 people. They do not have any sort of roster crunch & can easily add cost-controlled players if they think they will be useful to fill in around their expensive stars.
But yeah, they would probably have to at least throw in something of real value.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/12/padres-open-to-trade-offers-on-trent-grisham-ha-seong-kim.html
Would love to package Pivetta, Bobby, and a decent prospect for Kim.
Kim, Story, Hernandez, McGuire could be the strongest up the middle defense in baseball and would give the roster an actual identity.
Kim + a righty bat in right and this team gets real interesting real fast.
Would love to package Pivetta, Bobby, and a decent prospect for Kim.
Kim, Story, Hernandez, McGuire could be the strongest up the middle defense in baseball and would give the roster an actual identity.
Kim + a righty bat in right and this team gets real interesting real fast.
I wonder if the Sox could somehow swing two deals. One for Kim and one for Reynolds. Use Verdugo in the Pirates trade maybe.
LF - Yoshida
SS - Kim
3B - Devers
2B - Story
CF - Reynolds
1B - Casas
DH - Turner
RF - Kike
C - Reese
LF - Yoshida
SS - Kim
3B - Devers
2B - Story
CF - Reynolds
1B - Casas
DH - Turner
RF - Kike
C - Reese
I don’t think the Pirates would have any interest in Verdugo; he makes as much as Reynolds and is a potential non tender in a year. They want young pitching; unless we give up Bello it’s really hard to see a match.
Good point. I think you’d potentially give up Yorke in that deal, but I’m not sure the right assortment of players it would take. Would you do Houck?
I don’t love Reynolds for what the supposed asking price is. It seems that they value him somewhere around Soto from reports.
I suspect they’re looking for high minor prospects ready to make the big jump in ‘24.
They’d be asking for Bello, Rafaela and probably Casas too.
Ah. I hadn’t heard the asking price. That’s pretty crazy. Alright, then at least get Kim.
I can’t imagine giving up anything remotely close to that for Reynolds
I would love a Houck for Kim deal, but I'm not sure that gets it done, even if BTV has them at near equal value.
Even if they plan on moving Tatis to the OF, it looks like they're still an OF short unless they want to start Azocar full time. I wonder if Verdugo would have value to them to play LF with Tatis in CF?
Something like Houck and Verdugo for Kim and Zavala is dead even on BTV. Zavala is their #4 prospect, an 18 year old OF who reached A ball last year and struggled a bit at that level but has good upside. Houck gives them another rotation option who can shift to the pen, similar to what they did with Martinez last year and Verdugo gives them a league average LF with 2 years of control at reasonable money. Sox keep Story at 2B and get a solid bridge to Mayer at SS.
Even if they plan on moving Tatis to the OF, it looks like they're still an OF short unless they want to start Azocar full time. I wonder if Verdugo would have value to them to play LF with Tatis in CF?
Something like Houck and Verdugo for Kim and Zavala is dead even on BTV. Zavala is their #4 prospect, an 18 year old OF who reached A ball last year and struggled a bit at that level but has good upside. Houck gives them another rotation option who can shift to the pen, similar to what they did with Martinez last year and Verdugo gives them a league average LF with 2 years of control at reasonable money. Sox keep Story at 2B and get a solid bridge to Mayer at SS.
Yeah, I'm thinking there's far too much confidence that Refsnyder has another season like 2022 in him
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The vibe I'm getting is that Bloom may think of himself as a new version of Billy Beane where he feels he's the smartest guy in the room. I sincerely hope he's right, but even if there is some logic to his current team construction, there were enough bad decisions leading up to this point that have me questioning things. Now don't get me wrong, Billy Beane had his John Mabry trades that made little to no sense too, but the actions of Bloom scream that he has a bigger plan. It just seems that he's executed a small fraction of that plan.
Perhaps it truly is that a sustainable farm system / development machine cannot be in place before 2025 and handcuffing ourselves prior to that date doesn't make sense. But if that's the plan, I still can't explain last year's trade deadline. I would understand this offseason better if they traded JD, Eovaldi and others at the deadline last year to at least get under the cap.
What's more likely to me is that this is just a bad front office.
Perhaps it truly is that a sustainable farm system / development machine cannot be in place before 2025 and handcuffing ourselves prior to that date doesn't make sense. But if that's the plan, I still can't explain last year's trade deadline. I would understand this offseason better if they traded JD, Eovaldi and others at the deadline last year to at least get under the cap.
What's more likely to me is that this is just a bad front office.
Kim would be the ideal (realistic) scenario to solve the middle infield problem. Not great offensively but plays gold-glove caliber defense and is still young and controllable. I’d prefer Willy Adames if we’re giving up this much but I haven’t heard much on his availability.
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Kim only have 2 years remaining due to his contract structure, which should make him all the more affordable.
It’s a great stop gap to Mayer, if that is how they are viewing things.
It’s a great stop gap to Mayer, if that is how they are viewing things.
IMO Offensively speaking he seems perfectly fine. Not a huge impact bat, but he looks to have a little bit of pop, a little speed and the ability to drive some runs in. Dropping him into the 8th or 9th slot should help lend a bit of stability to the bottom of the order.
We're talking about the 2023 season and we are still in December of '22. Does that not seem possible to you?
One thing I’m absolutely confident in saying is that there’s not one GM that is in their position to be clever. Nobody is trying to make a magic roster from cow poop.
Every single one is working within the confines of ownership’s budget direction. That’s it.
And from my POV, Henry’s is bi-polar and one of the most difficult to navigate.
It’s a reasonable question in that there are few options at the moment from what I can tell. Here’s the list of remaining FAs, who seems like an upgrade to you? Which rumored trade candidates seem like both upgrades and players the Sox will plausibly meet the asking price for?
Kim for Houck and Verdugo is fine on paper, but who replaces those two on the roster? I think the team is better off just signing Andrus or Iglesias. Certainly neither is as good as Kim, but the combo of one of them plus Verdugo and Houck seems better than Kim and whomever would replace them.
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I look at the current roster construction (ignoring the weird ride to get to this point) and it seems very Tampa Bay-esque, especially on the mound. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Similarly, Tampa has historically had a weak lineup but I've always felt there was flexibility there. The current offense has little to no flexibility, no margin for error and could be very vulnerable to injuries, especially to Devers.
I know the season doesn't start tomorrow. I know needs can be addressed during the season. But they seemingly don't have the resources to make this team a contender, yet they have made moves this offseason that absolutely indicate an intent to compete in 2023 and 2024.
Personally, I'd love to see a lot of the fat trimmed from the 40 man roster. I'm looking at guys like Dalbec, Durran and Darwinzon that should probably be evaluated with the same critical eye that saw them DFA Jeter Downs. I would sign Iglesias and then look for a marginal offensive upgrade elsewhere in the lineup via trade. The obvious candidates for me would be Right Field and/or behind the plate.
If they opted the free agent route and rounded out the roster with Profar, Gary Sanchez and Iglesias that would be an interesting offseason and one that I think many of us would sign off on. I'm sure Sanchez catching 120 games scares most people on here, but the bat obviously has a history unless I'm missing something.
I don't think they are trading Verdugo. He's entering his age 27 season, so to sell on him now wouldn't make sense from a value standpoint. If he's going to find his ceiling, now is the time. More broadly, I think they are counting on him and Casas making offensive strides next year that will make up for some of the production lost from Bogaerts (along with Story & Hernandez having healthy years). But many of the remaining tradeable pieces from the 40-man are guys who have lost value through exposure to the majors--Duran, Dalbec--which I think makes it a challenge for swing a trade for any useful piece in return.
Sanchez's bat isn't really all that intriguing to me. Certainly not enough to carry his abysmal work behind the plate.
His last three seasons: 1089 PA, .195/.287/.394/.681, 90 OPS+
That's the kind of line you tolerate at catcher when he's a plus defender/receiver. It's not an upgrade to McGuire and Wong.
Count me as someone wanting nothing to do with Sanchez. His bat has looked good in one of the last 5 seasons, and he's an immediate defensive downgrade from McGuire.
It's possible that Bloom has made offers to the likes of Andrus and Iglesias at this point and is waiting for one of them to raise their hand and somewhat grudgingly accept the offer.
I also think that Verdugo is the type of player who benefits from elimination of the shift too. Over the past few years, he's been trying to elevate the ball more (launch angle steadily increasing YOY as a Sox from mid teens a few years ago to a career-high 23% LY) and becoming less pull-happy (from low 30s to the mid-20s last two seasons.) He seems like the type of hitter who could benefit from his more natural line-drive approach and get back to pulling the ball more regularly and being rewarded for it rather than punished by defensive positioning.
I'm not convinced the Red Sox want Verdugo playing RF full time, especially in Fenway.
Unless they plan to DH Yoshida a lot, I think they'll probably trade him for SS help or someone better suited for RF.
Unless they plan to DH Yoshida a lot, I think they'll probably trade him for SS help or someone better suited for RF.
I hope you're right, I like the player. But Bloom did trade Benintendi whom had put up a 10.1 bWAR / average 2.02 bWAR through his age 25 season based off a horrendous 14games in a pandemic through his age 25 season - when he was under control for 2 more years. Conversely Verdugo has put up an 8.5 bWAR / average 1.42 bWAR through his age 26 season.
Not that I'm against trading Verdugo, per se, but if the best you get is the equivalent of Franchy Cordero and Josh Winckowski, I'd hold on to Verdugo, even if we do get a better right fielder. Teams do in fact carry 4 outfielders at times, so it's not like there wouldn't be at bats, even if we DID improve the position.
If he were part of a trade in a package for "Reynolds", "Kim" , or "Woodruff" (types), absolutely consider dealing him. But I don't think moving him for minor leaguers of the Cordero / Winckowski caliber makes any sense. Having a young OF that still has some upside, is controlled for multiple seasons and is a pretty good bet for a full season bWAR of around 2 (I used all seasons for full data and averaged, but Verdugo's "first two years" were a combined total of 50 games for a 0.0 bWAR; he'd be an average 2.12 bWAR removing those) is not a bad thing.
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As The Gray Eagle pointed out, Verdugo was not a problem in Right Field until last year and Cora (hopefully) motivated Verdugo to come to camp in great shape.
I see no reason to trade Verdugo unless it is a part of a deal for a great player (like Woodruff). He is turning 27 this May, has shown the ability to play well in Boston, doesn't become a free agent until 2025, and his offensive stats were really good from June forward last year (.304/.356/.447 after the ASG).
I don't think anyone has him as the optimal choice in RF, and if that's where we ends up I wouldn't be sad to see Refsnyder get more playing time this year. Or maybe as Yo La Tengo suggests we can flip the play better switch on him this year.
I've said before if we could swing a trade of Verdugo+ for Nate Eaton I'd be excited about that. I'm not sure there are other reasonable options out there I like more.
The OF market as a whole may kinda be waiting on Reynolds at this point.
Is this a Red Sox discussion thread or a Red Sox Rumor thread? I come here for rumors, and I read discussions.
I was thinking a free agent (Adam Duvall, for instance) or via trade (Kepler,, maybe a buy low on Avisail Garcia in a Pablo Lopez trade, etc). I wouldn't want to go into the season with Refsnyder as the everyday guy.
IMO to ask "is it even possible" at THIS point of the off season seems a bit odd. As has been mentioned across the many threads here, the remaining FAs don't offer a whole lot and the likely path is via trade. Kepler and Reynolds are of two of the most mentioned names, but there are certainly other viable options that may become available when other teams have tweaked there rosters. There are a few trade chips that the Sox can offer that won't greatly alter the MiL system and there is still the possibility of a Devers trade.
Trading Devers to upgrade the outfield seems like the baseball equivalent of the Gift of the Magi.
I would think one of them is coming here, but I also get the vibe I did during the 2021 trading deadline when I was expecting a 1B to be added.
The question is, who would be available to play RF?
The Avi García option is interesting, in that scenario we get a pitcher back. The Marlins want to put Bryan de la Cruz from center field to a corner, where he's currently blocked by García and Sanchez (and Soler at DH).
Garcia was reportedly motivated for a bounce back after an out of shape year in 2022. OTOH, he really was dreadful last year, and his chase rate has been horrible for several years now.
How about Robbie Grossman? Like Garcia, he's another guy who had a dreadful 2022, particularly the first half of 2022. But he put up a 118 wRC+ in 863 PAs over 2020-21 and he's at least an average right fielder. He struggled against RHP last year, but was shifted on in 82 percent of his PAs against them, and would stand to benefit there. He'd fit really well with the team's emphasis on plate discipline, high walk rates and low chase rates.
