Frayed Knot

So how many have left the Sox just in the last few days? -- Doubront, Lackey, Lester, Gomes, Miller, Drew, plus the always popular Mr. Cash ... I think that's it, but that's enough for one week. Last one out kill the lights. On the flip side, one would think Cherington et al plan on a very active off-season.

Ceetar wrote: Prado hasn't been real good and that catching prospect HAS looked good. Of course, they have McCann and two more years of Texiera at 1B so I guess they can spare him. Yanx always seem to have highly touted catching prospects but none ever seem to blossom. Dioneer Navarro, originally a MFY prospect, has carved out an OK career for himself but he's the only one since Posada and Jorge was an infielder during much of his minor league career.

So with the deadline and hour or so in the rearview mirror, unless there are uncounted votes still coming in from some of the rural precincts, I guess Bartolo will get to try for career victory #200 in a Met uniform after all ... and Muffy gets to try for the single-season NYM doubles mark.

Ceetar wrote: Kelly Johnson (BOS) is presumably now on a plane with the Yankees to travel to Fenway Park where Stephen Drew (NYY) is waiting naked in a hallway where they ripped off all his Red Sox stuff. Whoa, can't say I saw that one coming. I don't suspect L'il Willets can be too happy here. I suspect it'll be Kelly Johnson to 3B and the Sox will slide Bogaerts over to SS, and we already know there's no way that Drew is going to play SS in the Bronx; not this year anyway. Yanx also get Martin Prado from the Snakes in exchange for one of their catching prospects.

I figured that Price was going to stay as long as the Rays were streaking - but I guess we'll have to see how all the chips land on this one.

Cleveland SS Asdrubal Cabrera to the Nationals for Zach Walters. Cabrera almost certainly to play 2B for the Nats while Rendon mans 3B as Zimmerman is likely out for the majority of the season w/a serious hamstring issue. It also moves Danny Espinosa to the bench. Walters is younger (24) and more of an all-purpose guy with some pop but wasn't hitting this year and had been up and down between DC & Syracuse.

Mets � Willets Point wrote: I hope Allen Craig and Will Middlebrooks can avoid falling over one another. Good one!

seawolf17 wrote: Vic Sage wrote: Sure Lester would be willing to go back, if the BoSox will pay him what the FA market values him at this off-season. But Lester has already had substantial discussions with BoSox about an extension, so if the Sox and Lester agreed on his value, they would've extended him instead of trading him. And his price will not go down when he hits the open market. But IF there was a wink-wink agreement ("we'll pay you what you want, but let us go get Yoenis Cespedes to play left field for you too and you can spend a two-month vacation playing for a playoff spot") between Lester and the Sox... unenforceable, I know, but certainly not impossible. Lester might get a $100 million deal this winter. To believe that such an agreement is in place he'd have to pass up that opportunity to sign that now in favor of playing 1/3 of a season elsewhere while hoping that injury, bad performance, or Boston mgmt changing their minds/being replaced won't cause the offer to change and/or go away. That the two sides may have parted on good terms with promises to speak again after the season? ... Sure. That it's a done deal? ... Not a chance.

HRs in 2014 Cespedes = 17 Entire Boston OF = 14

Wheeler - 3.0 Familia - 0.3 Torres - 0.2 Murphy - 2.5 Tejada - 1.5 Duda - 1.5 Lagares - 1.0

Edgy MD wrote: Competitive balance picks can be traded. And traded to Boston, of all teams. How absurd is it that these things even exist? I still don't understand exactly how they do work. The one thing I do know is that 'The Competitive Balance Picks' are opening later this summer in a festival headlined by 'Florida-Georgia Line' and 'Government Mule'

btw, the Lester/Cespedes deal also includes Jonny Gomes and cash going to Oakland, with one of those 'competitive balance' draft picks heading Boston's way. It also triggered a side deal where the A's send pitcher Tommy Milone--who was sent to the minors despite pitching really well at the time of the Samardzija trade and had since demanded a trade because of all that--to Minnesota in exchange for OF Sam Fuld. Fuld hasn't been playing too much this year but he's one of those guys that makes the nightly high-light reel on defense whenever he does play.

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Probably against the rules, but it would be nice if there was a conversation like this: "Okay Jon, go win World Series with the A's and then resign with us in it the offseason. Deal?" Lester has already said that he'd be willing to talk to the Sawx in the winter even if they dealt him away so a return to Beantown is certainly possible. Which isn't to say that there's a formal or even informal deal because they could have all the wink-wink conversations they want but neither side would ever be able to enforce such a thing.

seawolf17 wrote: Jon Lester to A's, Yoenis Cespedes (!!!) to Red Sox. HOLY SHIT!!! I had heard that Beane was still after pitching despite the two starters acquired last month. Lester just a two month rental. Cespedes can be FA after 2015 despite it being only his 4th ML season.

From the: 'And you think YOUR team is stupid file': the Pirates managed to walk into an inning-ending double play last night in SF. Pirates leading 5-4, Top 6th, 1-out via a sac bunt which put runners on 2nd (Travis Snider) & 3rd (Gaby Sanchez). Catcher Chris Stewart draws a walk so it's about to be bases-loaded and one out ... EXCEPT THAT: - Snider on 2nd seems to think the bases already were loaded and starts strolling towards 3rd - Giants realize this and throw down to 2nd and eventually tag him out in a run-down - Sanchez sees Snider coming towards him at 3rd and makes a break for home, but doesn't do so early enough and finds himself in a run down and is also tagged out ... Inning Over! Pirates lost 7-5

Gwreck wrote: Losing one (or even two) prospects but no draft picks sounds like a fine way of improving the team at this point. In general I'd rather lose draft picks than prospects. MOST draft picks fail, even 1st rounders. Prospects on the other hand (meaning those high up on a team's depth chart) are those who virtually by definition have reached a point where they've survived the weeding out process that eats up the majority of picks and turn them into guys who either never will make the majors or will wind up as part-timers and roster filler. Odds are that most if not al of your next ten 1st rounders never reach the point where they have the promise that Syndergaard has now. There are a ton of other factors involved of course, not all draft picks the same anymore than all prospects are, but I wouldn't be so willing to deal those who have in effect already succeeded twice: getting drafted in the first place then going on to shine through the minor league system, while holding on to some future somebody who is only now approaching step one of that process. Draft picks are also much further away, so if you're looking to contend in '15/'16 then leave the gun and take the cannoli. As far as the more general points: * Do I want to upgrade at SS? -- SURE. * Should we look into Tulowitzki? -- Absolutely. But at the same time there's always trouble if/when you get yourself into a mindset where you think you HAVE TO HAVE THIS PLAYER and you have to have him NOW!!! costs be damned. Fans and media (sometimes for different reasons) tend to get hung up on snagging the prettiest girl at the dance as if she makes all others not even worthy of consideration. * Who should we give up? -- Everything's negotiable / don't rule out anything / but always be willing to walk away. There'll be another bus along after this one, and another one after that, and if they run out of buses then there are other ways to get to work. There's a difference between not being able to afford Tulowitzki and thinking it's not a wise investment even though you could afford him. * which of course brings us to: MONEY! -- Sure, a NYC market team SHOULD be able to have a higher payroll. But if the stories about the team losing money are true--because they have to pay down the cost of their new stadium, because they built just as the economy tanked, because they over-estimated the projections of fans x seat prices at the new stadium (see: economy), because SNY isn't the windfall they thought, because their rainy-day money flew the coop w/Madoff, because they've gone ultra-conservative in their approach since Madoff, because the Madoff prosecutor was much more aggressive than they thought in trying to re-coup lost money from them, because of past bad deals (Bonilla, Bay, Santana), and yadda, yadda, yadda--then we can say SHOULD all we want but if the money's not there then the money's not there. Now maybe things have turned the corner and the 'Pons are looking over their grounds optimistically saying "Tomorrow is Another Day" like a couple of cereal-eating Scarlett O'Haras, but I have no idea. The bottom line (no pun intended ... well maybe it was) is that I don't get myself all worked up over what the payroll level should be because I don't have the facts to back it up, or where it's going to be in the future because there's nothing I can do about it.

Duda - 1.5 Flores - 0.3 Eveland - 0.2

deGrom - 4.2 Familia - 0.7 Mejia - 0.7 Duda - 1.3 d'Arnaud - 1.3 Tejada - 1.0 Abreu - 0.8

Niese - 1.5 Wright - 1.5 d'Arnaud - 1.0 Tejada - 0.5

Wheeler - 3.5 Familia - 0.5 Eveland - 0.5 Murphy - 0.75 Wright - 0.75

Carlyle - 0.5 Murphy - 0.5

One of the more common complaints from back in the days when the Mets DID consistently have one of the higher payrolls in MLB was: 'well sure they spend, but they don't spend it in the right places or for the right players'. And with Tulowitzki hitting many of the topics--turning 30, oft-injured, Coors-inflated, lengthy contract, paying for his twenties but getting his thirties, will require money AND players to obtain--which can and will be cited, if and when he fails to live up to expectations, as proof that even a retarded gorilla coulda/shoulda have known he was the wrong guy at the wrong time, both trading for or NOT trading for this guy lays the groundwork for complaints no matter what happens. The only question remains whether those complaints will read: 'They're too Cheap' or, 'They're so Stupid". In short, I really don't care what they do and I don't believe Tulo is going to be dealt this week anyway (he may very well be on the winter-time block). Of course obtaining him will strengthen the club as SS but it's virtually by definition going to weaken them elsewhere, how much depends on who and how many get sent the other way. As far as the money, I don't pretend to know what the team's finances look like now or in the future or what the constraints are. I've never cared much how much these players make except to the degree that if affects what other moves can be made and, make no mistake, any time ANY team imports a $125 million commitment it is going to affect other moves.

Frayed Knot wrote: Nationals, up 6-0 much of the game in Florida, go into the 9th up by 3 still but Raphael Soriano blows the 'cake' save and the Marlins win it walk-off style 7-6 For the 2nd time in three games, the Nats went into the 9th inning this afternoon with the seemingly easy to protect three run lead in Miami. This time they went to Drew Storen rather than Soriano and it worked ... that is if you call giving up two runs and leaving two on to squeak out a skin-of-the-teeth win 'working'. The pen has been a strength for the Washington's all year but suddenly they're looking awfully shaky.

KC is close to WC and/or division contention (Tigers looking beatable these days) and should be in "go for it" mode, so they'd make sense from a logic POV. Have no idea about their higher prospects right now as they "graduated" or traded many of them in the last year or three. The good thing about Bartolo from the acquiring team's side is that he's signed through next season and so isn't just a two month rental. The bad thing about Bartolo from the acquiring team's side is that he's signed through next season and so isn't just a two month rental.

TransMonk wrote: Duda is a STUD. Just shy of being on pace for 30 HRs (as today is the 2/3 mark of the season) And when we figure in the ABs that he missed in April before being awarded the 1B job full time you can project that he IS on pace to reach the 30 mark and maybe crack it.