Passan: Betts and Price to Dodgers

[DrungoHazewood]

9 hours ago, atomic said:

So is the AL East going to have 3/5ths of the division tanking?

Tanking looks a little different when you have $500M in revenues.  It's like when Arsenal/Tottenham/Chelsea/Man U have a train wreck season and they're still around .500.  Or more like when Man City crashes and burns and still ends up in the Champions League.

[Redskins Rick]

Watching EPSN and college bball last night. ESPN had this stat. Betts 42 WAR through 6 seasons, ranks him 7th all-time in MLB.

 

[wildbillhiccup]

My takeaways from the trade. 

1) Great move by the Dodgers. Well worth the price they paid. Barring any significant injuries I expect them to run away with the NL West and use most of August / September to rest and position themselves for the playoff run. 

2) Great move by the Twins. They realized that the AL Central is ripe for the picking with no really strong contenders and adding a reliable arm like Maeda to their rotation is huge. The only question will be if he can hold up to a true starter's workload since the Dodgers have protected him over the last few seasons. Granted some of that "protection" was monetarily motivated. The White Sox are the only true competition I see for the Twins, but I still think they're a significant step behind. 

3) Bad move for the Angels. Pederson is a VERY flawed. Not great defensively (especially at 1B) and unplayable against lefties. If they plan on platooning him and splitting his time between OF and DH they can probably camouflage some of those weaknesses, but they're already stuck with Ohtani and Pujols at DH. Yes, they've made some moves this off season, but aside from getting Ohtani back (as a pitcher) are they really that much better? 

4) Bad move for the Red Sox, only in the sense that they should have never put themselves in the position of having to trade the face of their franchise. Yes, Verdugo and Graterol are a pretty good haul (and a good example of why the Orioles should have traded Machado before the 2018 season), but Graterol has control issues and I'm really not that high on Verdugo. I think his power is very limited and his ceiling might me a Nick Markakis/Alex Gordon type. I'm not sure how valuable those numbers are in the juiced ball era. 

[wildbillhiccup]

7 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

Watching EPSN and college bball last night. ESPN had this stat. Betts 42 WAR through 6 seasons, ranks him 7th all-time in MLB.

 

Speaks quite a bit to his defense since he's had a few sub par offensive seasons sprinkled in. 

[Enjoy Terror]

 

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, weams said:

Back 

https://www.mlb.com/news/alex-verdugo-back-injury-issues

That’s the key to this trade.    I like the return the Red Sox got if Verdugo is healthy.  

[Redskins Rick]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

That’s the key to this trade.    I like the return the Red Sox got if Verdugo is healthy.  

As an Oriole Fan, I like the trade, Betts is gone from the AL East.

If I was a Red Sox, I would feel like we did, when we lost Manny.

 

[Moose Milligan]

13 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

As an Oriole Fan, I like the trade, Betts is gone from the AL East.

If I was a Red Sox, I would feel like we did, when we lost Manny.

 

Was at the gym this morning, this Red Sox fan that I talk to is BITTER.

Put a little spring in my step, not gonna lie.

[Ripken]

Over/under on Yankee wins in 2020?  135?  

[Frobby]

19 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

As an Oriole Fan, I like the trade, Betts is gone from the AL East.

If I was a Red Sox, I would feel like we did, when we lost Manny.

 

This wasn’t going to be a great year for the Red Sox, and Betts had made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested in signing long term.  Yeah it’s a slight step-down for 2020, but it puts Boston in good position to reload quickly.    

[wildbillhiccup]

31 minutes ago, Frobby said:

This wasn’t going to be a great year for the Red Sox, and Betts had made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested in signing long term.  Yeah it’s a slight step-down for 2020, but it puts Boston in good position to reload quickly.    

Does it though? I'm really not impressed with their young talent. Benintendi and Verdugo seem to have very low ceilings to me and their pitching situation is an absolute mess. Plus they're still stuck with the Bogaerts and Martinez contracts which is just wasted money if they're not going to be competitive over the next few years. The only bright spot, to me, is Devers under team control for three more years. 

Granted, the Red Sox have deep enough pockets to dig themselves out of rebuild mode pretty quickly, but it really doesn't feel like they're positioned for long-term sustainable success with who they currently have on their roster. 

[wildbillhiccup]

43 minutes ago, Ripken said:

Over/under on Yankee wins in 2020?  135?  

Under, but not by much. It's going to be a boring AL East ace this season with Tampa and maybe the Jays vying for the Wildcard. 

[Enjoy Terror]

I think the Rays are going to be a surprising team.

[Philip]

The Yankees should send the Red Sox a fruit basket, because now they are the clear favorites in the East. The raise should, too, because they are now clear favorites for second place.

[Hank Scorpio]

Good organizations have foresight.