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Thread: 2018 ESPN Prospects Stuff (Sox Related)

  1. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by moonslav59 View Post
    Yes, Theo and Ben built the arm up nicely, but as of right now, we have 0 in the top 80 according to BA and 1 in the top 75 by ESPN.

    Recent grads will carry us for a while, but when their prices get higher, we'll need some fresh and inexpensive young players on the roster. How many of our prospects will give us significant value between 2 and 4 years from now?

    This is what is concerning to some of us.
    When the price gets high, you pay some of them - no farm system stays indefinitely stocked. After all the farm exists to serve the big league club - however that happens. Now whether Dombrowski has replenished is a fair question. Right now, the answer is "some". But every system has these cycles - including the Theo years.

    And - for the most part, Dombrowski's decision involving prospects to deal have been defensible ones - perhaps even correct.

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by sk7326 View Post
    When the price gets high, you pay some of them - no farm system stays indefinitely stocked. After all the farm exists to serve the big league club - however that happens. Now whether Dombrowski has replenished is a fair question. Right now, the answer is "some". But every system has these cycles - including the Theo years.

    And - for the most part, Dombrowski's decision involving prospects to deal have been defensible ones - perhaps even correct.
    The system was different under Theo's reign and a little different under Ben's.

    No more swooping in and drafting better players with lower picks due to signability issues with poorer higher picking teams.

    No more unlimited spending on international free agents.

    No more stockpiling comp picks.

    If we keep winning and spending, we will get lower draft picks. We will pay more and more in taxes. We may face penalties, including having our picks lowered further and pool money reduced.

    There's no guarantee our farm is doomed until we lose more than we win, but it won't be easy. Losing Flores so tragically hurt. Trading so many once highly ranked prospects in such a short period hurt our future badly. I'm not upset by this. I would not have gone so far, but I understand the idea of not playing things halfway.

    Top prospects traded recently, as ranked by soxprospects.com (highest ranking while here):

    1 Yoan Moncada
    3 Manuel Margot
    3 Anderson Espinoza
    5 Michael Kopech
    7 Luis Basabe
    9 Mauricio Dubon
    13 Logan Allen
    18 Luis Basabe
    20 Carlos Asuaje
    21 Victor Diaz
    24 Josh Pennington

    Other lessers
    3 Cecchini
    6 Javier Guerra
    9 Nick Longhi
    11 Coyle
    12 Wendell Rijo
    13 Pat Light
    30 Aaron Wilkerson

  3. #18
    The sox have done the two things you cannot do for sustainability. They dealt their top prospects and they didn't replace them with big talent. I think their draft from a year ago was reasonable, but none of the players there are anything more than talent sans production. They drafted Groome in DD's first draft, and while his stuff has carried, his production has not. Nobody has taken the reigns from his first draft or from the 2015 draft and established themselves as top level prospects.
    Hal sucks

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by jacksonianmarch View Post
    The sox have done the two things you cannot do for sustainability. They dealt their top prospects and they didn't replace them with big talent. I think their draft from a year ago was reasonable, but none of the players there are anything more than talent sans production. They drafted Groome in DD's first draft, and while his stuff has carried, his production has not. Nobody has taken the reigns from his first draft or from the 2015 draft and established themselves as top level prospects.
    In all fairness, Groome was a high school pick and has less than 65 innings pitched in pro ball. His not being a top 20 prospect at this age and point in his career is not necessarily a ding on DD's record.

    CJ Chatham was the 51st pick in 2016. Not many of those rise to the top 100 in less than 2 years.

    The 2017 draft is too recent to judge. Sure, some draftees from 2017 made the top 100, but I'm not sure how many lower picks made the list.

    I'm cautiously optimistic about our picks over the last two years, but your point is well taken. Nobody has jumped out as being something very special in a limited time period. Maybe someone will this season, but I doubt we come anywhere near as strong as our farm was 2-3 years ago for quite some time.

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by moonslav59 View Post
    The system was different under Theo's reign and a little different under Ben's.

    No more swooping in and drafting better players with lower picks due to signability issues with poorer higher picking teams.

    No more unlimited spending on international free agents.

    No more stockpiling comp picks.

    If we keep winning and spending, we will get lower draft picks. We will pay more and more in taxes. We may face penalties, including having our picks lowered further and pool money reduced.

    There's no guarantee our farm is doomed until we lose more than we win, but it won't be easy. Losing Flores so tragically hurt. Trading so many once highly ranked prospects in such a short period hurt our future badly. I'm not upset by this. I would not have gone so far, but I understand the idea of not playing things halfway.

    Top prospects traded recently, as ranked by soxprospects.com (highest ranking while here):

    1 Yoan Moncada
    3 Manuel Margot
    3 Anderson Espinoza
    5 Michael Kopech
    7 Luis Basabe
    9 Mauricio Dubon
    13 Logan Allen
    18 Luis Basabe
    20 Carlos Asuaje
    21 Victor Diaz
    24 Josh Pennington

    Other lessers
    3 Cecchini
    6 Javier Guerra
    9 Nick Longhi
    11 Coyle
    12 Wendell Rijo
    13 Pat Light
    30 Aaron Wilkerson
    All true - which is a bummer. There is - so far - exactly one major league starter from that pile. Dombrowski chose to keep a couple of the kiddos - and so far it has looked like the right answer.

  6. #21
    In all fairness, you don’t bring in Dave Dombrowski to “finish a rebuild”. You bring him in to immediately turn your team into a winner and forsake the future. The funny thing is, DD was a builder when he was younger, but I anticipate the directive when he signed and his recent MO suggested a rapid turnaround
    Hal sucks

  7. #22
    Deity Bellhorn04's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jacksonianmarch View Post
    In all fairness, you don’t bring in Dave Dombrowski to “finish a rebuild”. You bring him in to immediately turn your team into a winner and forsake the future. The funny thing is, DD was a builder when he was younger, but I anticipate the directive when he signed and his recent MO suggested a rapid turnaround
    I don't think DD was supposed to 'forsake the future'. My position has been that he had little choice but to trade a lot of prospects to upgrade the pitching staff.

    To date, DD has done next to nothing in terms of acquiring position players. It's been pitching, pitching, pitching.

    His legacy as a Red Sox GM still has a little while to play out.

  8. #23
    If the sox won a title, then his plan worked
    Hal sucks

  9. #24
    Deity moonslav59's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sk7326 View Post
    All true - which is a bummer. There is - so far - exactly one major league starter from that pile. Dombrowski chose to keep a couple of the kiddos - and so far it has looked like the right answer.
    It's early on judging the players traded away, but Moncada and Margot are both starters. He also traded post-prospect Travis Shaw- a starter.

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bellhorn04 View Post
    I don't think DD was supposed to 'forsake the future'. My position has been that he had little choice but to trade a lot of prospects to upgrade the pitching staff.

    To date, DD has done next to nothing in terms of acquiring position players. It's been pitching, pitching, pitching.

    His legacy as a Red Sox GM still has a little while to play out.
    Good points.

    His positional player acquirements and Sox OPS are...

    .892 Nunez
    .773 Young*
    .769 Moreland* (only starter wire-to-wire)
    .595 R. Davis
    .577 A Hill

    * Only two signed in the winter.


  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by moonslav59 View Post
    It's early on judging the players traded away, but Moncada and Margot are both starters. He also traded post-prospect Travis Shaw- a starter.
    Fair point on Shaw - Margot looks like a legit starter ... Moncada has not proven to be replacement level yet, although he probably could be ... again, I think Dombrowski's view is a fair one, that you keep the stars and everything else is fair game ... and the guys he has chosen were the highest ceiling of the bunch.

  12. #27
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    Org rankings ... #24 (down from 16) http://insider.espn.com/mlb/insider/...0-farm-systems

    To quote one of my favorite cartoon characters, "the system is down, yo." Years of promotions coupled with several big trades have finally tumbled the Red Sox from perennial top-10 status to the bottom third, and there's a lot less certainty among their top 10 than there has been at any point since I started ranking prospects within orgs. Their 2017 draft class was one of the best given where they picked, with three potential first-round talents coming in their first five picks.

  13. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by sk7326 View Post
    Org rankings ... #24 (down from 16) http://insider.espn.com/mlb/insider/...0-farm-systems
    Well, I like the last sentence, anyway!

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bellhorn04 View Post
    Well, I like the last sentence, anyway!
    Royals were #26 ... again the vestiges of making moves to win 2 pennants in a row. At least if you are going to trade for the big league roster, at least you are stocking a team that plays in October.

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by sk7326 View Post
    Fair point on Shaw - Margot looks like a legit starter ... Moncada has not proven to be replacement level yet, although he probably could be ... again, I think Dombrowski's view is a fair one, that you keep the stars and everything else is fair game ... and the guys he has chosen were the highest ceiling of the bunch.
    Moncada started the last third of the season and posted a +0.9 WAR in 54 games. Prorated to 162, that's 2.9. That's way better than "replacement" level.

    He's a starter.

    Again, I'm fine with not playing it halfway, but I'm also not going to deny the long term effects (not that you are).

    When we traded away almost our whole pitching staff years ago, I was fine with the idea. We were losing those guys anyway. What I disliked about the return we got was that I felt Ben played it "halfway". I felt he should have tried for higher ceiling players rather than established ML players and fully ML ready youngsters.

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