"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
It is hard to find great pitching in the draft after the top 5 or 10 picks.
It is the job of management to do hard things. Even though it's hard, a FEW successes isn't, you'd think, be too much to ask.
Again, no SP from our own draft has stuck on the team since Buchholz and no ace since Lester (a 2nd rounder I might point out) who was drafted well over a decade ago. That's pretty damning.
If history tells us anything, the path to redeption for any bad baseball team is marked with a deep rotation of durable starters, a world class defense in both infield and outfield, a lineup that can generate runs in more than one way, a bullpen that won't steal defeat from the jaws of victory, and a top end catcher to hold the whole package together. These are the conditions by which victory is achieved, anything that does not accomplish these objectives is a waste of resources.
I'm sorry but with all due respect I always found that argument unreasonable. Do you think teams try more or less to draft the BPA? Every team is always trying to draft the guy who they think has the best chance to be the next Trout or Kershaw with every pick.
The reality is, it's a crap shoot. Even top 10 picks who have an astronomically higher chance of being MLB players than the rest of the draft bust 50% of the time. If you go back and look at the 1st round and top 10 picks in every draft one thing you'll notice is for every team that really hit on a player, usually completely busted on a top 10 player a year or two within that pick.
If we are looking back 10 years from now and it looks like we struck gold with Benintendi and Groome and Ball isn't even a reliever how much different will we look than other teams who drafted great in the top 10? The Orioles struck gold with Machado and Gausman and Bundy look like they are contributors now as well now that they are healthy.
You hear a lot of people talk about those guys, but no one ever talks about Matt Hobgood who was a complete BUST. Sandwhiched inbetween their Nick Markakais pick were 3 top 10 pitching busts in Wade Townsend, Chris Smith, and Adam Loewen. Pretty much ever team that has had mutliple top 10 picks within consecutive years has drafted a bust for every star they drafted.
I do think there is something to the argument that the Sox need to figure out what is going on with their pitcher development but to some degree I do think it is draft position. Think of it this way over the past 10 years the 5th best pitcher drafted between the 20th and 30th pick has been Daniel Bard 4.3 WAR so far.
Also things change, I remember a few years ago the fan cry in 2013 was how Boston just couldn't produce outfielders we HAD to draft an outfielder. Yet here we are with a Benintendi, JBJ, Betts two of which were already in the system. Also, Swihart could make a splash in the outfield and there's even some talk that Moncada may eventually end up there.
Again, I think we have to accept the reality of how much of a crap shoot a draft really is. I'm sure they don't draft a bust like Ball due to lack of trying, and if Bentendi becomes the player he appears to be then they did pretty darn good for having 2 top 10 picks.
Nah man, I don't know if we've flogged the Ball pick to death just yet. There might still be someone out there (perhaps in the Brazilian rain forest, or a monastery in the Himalayas) who hasn't yet heard that he isn't good and we should have taken Meadows instead. I think we need a few more pages about it, just to be sure.
We haven't always picked a pitcher with out highest picks.
I'm not defending our selections of pitchers. We've had a long stretch of misses. Clearly we have an issue identifying how young pitcher picks project.
Here's our top pitcher picks since Buchholz in 2005:
7 TBall (2013)
12 Groome (2016)
19 Barnes (11)
28 D Bard (06)
30 C Kelly (08)
31 Johnson (12)
33 Kopech (14)
36 Owens (11)
37 Light (12)
39 Ranaudo (10)
39 K Johnson (06)
43 C Clay (06)
45 Stankiewicz (13)
45 B Price (08)
55 Hagadone (07)
57 Workman (11)
71 Masterson (06)
77 Wilson (09)
85 S Fife (08)
87 Callahan (12)
88 Shaun Anderson (16)
As you can see, we've only chosen 3 pitchers in the top 27 picks in the past 11 drafts- Ball, Groome and Barnes, and Ball is the only top 10 pick we've chosen a pitcher.
Our picks from 28 to 85 haven't been that bad.
Kelly helped us get AGon. Hagadone helped us get VMart. Stephen Fife had a couple good years, and I think he helped us get Mirabelli back. Alex Wilson has been pretty good, and he helped us get Porcello. Bard gave us 3-4 good years. Others in this group are still in the mix, but other than Kopech, I'm not expecting much.
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"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
Good article to read how hard it is to come from High School to the Pros.
http://www.perfectgame.org/Articles/...?article=12960
This kid was the best High School Prospect there was in 14. Nation #1 ranked hitter in High School.
The problem here is that we don't know about the guys who are coming in due to guys leaving. Sometimes a CFO is really great because he has a great controller, so for all we know many of the guys getting promotions could be the real brains of the operations and the Sox could benefit from hiring from within.
This isn't a guess or an assumption, just a plausibility. Is plausibility a word? I know plausible is....I'm making it one if it isn't.
I would only worry about keeping the highest quality scouts. As to the rest of FO personnel, Jos A. Bank is always running BOGO sales on suits (2 for the price of 1). There is no shortage of mediocre business types, and they are all pretty much mediocre.
Romanski out for a little while. 50 game suspension. Probably not the best thing for a 26 year old prospect. He actually looked pretty good this summer. Hope this isn't the reason why.