I don't know if you meant that as sarcasm, or what, but in actuality it does not matter what player do after your team trades them. All that matters is how valuable they are perceived by potential trade partners. And in this case, Moncada was ranked as the 5th best prospect in baseball and Kopech, the 67th. ANd not only did the Red Sox pick up more salary with Sale, they still had to finish paying off Moncada's signing bonus.. Given all the money going out along with two ranked prospects and two other players, I'm wondering whether they could not have made a better trade.
Alternatively, we could just say that the minor league prospect ranking are completely worthless and never, ever bring them up on this board again.
Huh, and here I had been wondering when crazybird would show up again.
Look, Moncada was a stud prospect but it's hard to argue with DDski choosing either Devers or Benintendi over him, after the MLB season each of them has had.
And It's not certainly not time for a rebuild. It's time to make the most of the next two 2-3 years. After the 2019 season, we can start talking about rebuilds.
RED SOX 40-MAN ROSTER:
2023 - Devers, Maddox, Johnson, Lin, Velazquez, Travis, Taylor, Owens
2022 - Price, Benintendi, Marrero, Scott, Swihart, Hernandez (DL)
2021 - Pedroia, Rodriguez, Barnes, Hembree, Elias
2020 - Betts, Bradley, Vazquez, Smith, Leon, Workman, Wright (DL)
2019 - Sale, Porcello, Bogaerts, Holt, Thornburg (DL), Rutledge (DL)
2018 - Pomeranz, Kimbrel, Ramirez, Kelly, Ross (DL)
2017 - Nunez (DL), Fister, Moreland, Reed, Young, Davis, Abad, Boyer
There are eight 40-man slots opening up in November, but five 60-day DL players who might be added back onto the roster. Most of them are role-players.
However, the MLB club's average-hitting 1B (Moreland - 99 OPS+) is among them, and this team won 93 games with an offense devoid of power. 1B is the obvious place to upgrade to bring in some thunder. Next is Hanley's 95 OPS+ out of the DH, since dead-average offense is unacceptable production for a full-time DH. Maybe the team can gamble that he bounces back, but maybe DH needs an offseason upgrade.
The other corners -- 3B, LF, and RF -- are all manned by up-and-coming young players. Betts was the best overall player on the team and was only 24 this season, and the other two are terrific-looking rookies. You could potentially upgrade at either 3B or LF, but it's easy to project overall offensive improvement from both Benintendi and Devers, and they were average or better offensive players already in 2017.
Only after deciding what to do about those two glaring problems - 1B and DH - should the team start thinking about which premium defensive position with roughly-average offense could stand an upgrade: Vazquez (93 OPS+), Pedroia (101), Bogaerts (95), or Bradley (89). These are tougher decisions, because they have to figure out how much defensive value is lost in relation to how much offense gain might be projected. For example, Bradley's 89 OPS+ was below average but didn't prevent him from becoming the 2nd-most valuable two-way player on the 2017 team by B-Ref (2.8 WAR), or the 3rd-most by Fangraphs (2.3).
Still, with the Red Sox starting pitching locked-in until 2019-20 at the earliest, this is no time to panic. It's time to fix the lack of power by filling big-power roles with actual power bats.