Red Sox's Chaim Bloom Fleeced Multiple Teams At Last Season's Trade Deadline

Started by zenjak, May 02, 2023, 03:54:38 PM

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longgame

Pretty optimistic view considering it’s based on a pretty limited sampling of the players received. 

MongoLikeSox

An interesting series of takes of these trades. There's a lot more baseball under the surface than he writes about.

On the Vasquez trade, Houston traded two players they were not going to ever see for a rental catcher. Valdez and maybe Abreau would have opted for Minor League free agency. Vasquez helped them including winning a game for them in the WS. While Valdez is starting to pay off, he's way behind where he should be defensively. Abreau is an old school on-base machine. I think he's reputed to have a nice arm, but I don't know for sure. As a pure baseball move, the only way this is a positive is if the Red Sox were going to lose Vasquez. That was not the case. We also had to tie up two roster spots in November, which cost us spots to keep a pitcher or two that were gut punches to lose.

The Pham trade was a win for the Reds if anyone. They shed payroll, which is still costing the Red Sox $1.5M this year due to a buyout clause. I say "shed". For most teams $5M is not a shed, but for the Reds, it is. We gave up someone who would likely never play for us due to a massive K-rate. To suggest Pham was a "solid" player is really a stretch. His OF play was interesting, he hit .234 with over 31% K-rate while hitting only 6 HRs for us.

It's sad to see how poorly Groom has pitched since not making the Padres early season 6-man rotation. He was the odd man out and the pitching turned to crap with the demotion. He did rebound from a dreadful outing last week (8ER in 4.1IP) with a nice 6-innings of no-hit ball with 3BBs and 9K's. Point is that it's still too early to pull the plug on Groome when looking at this trade. Interesting note on Rosier is he's been traded in the middle of his first two pro seasons. 11HRs and 63SB's in 157 games in the minors ain't too shabby.

Now the trade that the writer is calling a phenomenal trade for Bloom. Diekman for McGuire and Broadway. Any trade that results in a team getting an over 300BA platoon catcher for a aging reliever that has subsequently fizzled should be a definitive win. However, this still feels like a consolation prize because of an entirely different trade. On top of that, it feels tainted because the utility catcher in question is having some throwing difficulties. At the time of the trade, this was a win for Chicago. We got worse with it by losing Diekman, as iffy as he was. Him being here or not likely had no effect on our last place result.

In the end, Chicago gave up a Catcher that was soon to be DFA'd with a throw in of a once promising pitcher they were cutting ties with for trade deadline BP help. That's one helluva trade for Chicago. Diekman also gave them a really nice effort until their wheels fell off in mid-September last year. Diekman's numbers were slightly better with them until then. After then, he allowed 10 runs in 6.1 IP over 7 games. Yikes!!!

The 3rd piece of that trade, Broadway's last couple outings this season did lower his ERA to 5.10. It's also only that low because his first outing of the year had a strange pitching line. 1IP, 4H, 0ER, 1HR, 2K's and 5R's. Yup, 5 unearned. Baseball is not without poetic irony, it seems. The error that caused this line was part of that first trade, the aforementioned Enmanuel Valdez. Good times!!!

zenjak


MongoLikeSox

Quote from: zenjak on May 06, 2023, 10:30:53 PM
"Baseball is not without poetic irony"

epic line
I think I was channeling Sarandon's character from Bull Durham. :)

MongoLikeSox

So, another very unpopular Bloom trade that only helped to send the Sox on a downward path last year seems to be getting closer to making it. David Hamilton's timing as far as when to blossom might be golden. He got off to a hot start as he did last season. Unlike last season when he tanked for several months, he got into and out of a slump in decent fashion. It was partially veiled by a 10-game stretch where he hit precisely 1H each game while hitting .256. He struggled horribly the next week going 2 for 20, but came out of it going 9 for 21 last week. The average is back up to .311 and his K-rate is low-ish at 20%.  15 Walks, 6 HRs.

A write up on him this morning. The article says he plays SS and CF, but that's only 2 career games out there. He's split time between 2B and SS for the past two seasons. 
https://www.mlb.com/redsox/news/boston-red-sox-minor-league-roundup-may-7-2023

I thought the real prize of that trade was going to be Binelas, but he's making AA pitchers look like Pedro Martinez since he got there. Awful K-rate and an BA to match.

SeaBeachFred

Quote from: MongoLikeSox on May 08, 2023, 09:03:38 AM
So, another very unpopular Bloom trade that only helped to send the Sox on a downward path last year seems to be getting closer to making it. David Hamilton's timing as far as when to blossom might be golden. He got off to a hot start as he did last season. Unlike last season when he tanked for several months, he got into and out of a slump in decent fashion. It was partially veiled by a 10-game stretch where he hit precisely 1H each game while hitting .256. He struggled horribly the next week going 2 for 20, but came out of it going 9 for 21 last week. The average is back up to .311 and his K-rate is low-ish at 20%.  15 Walks, 6 HRs.

A write up on him this morning. The article says he plays SS and CF, but that's only 2 career games out there. He's split time between 2B and SS for the past two seasons. 
https://www.mlb.com/redsox/news/boston-red-sox-minor-league-roundup-may-7-2023

I thought the real prize of that trade was going to be Binelas, but he's making AA pitchers look like Pedro Martinez since he got there. Awful K-rate and an BA to match.

Binelas has made sucking look like a good word.  He was crap last season and appears to be crap this one too.  That trade was the one that really turned my  venom deep into Bloom's miserable brain.  We trade a 30 homer, 100 RBI power hitter for him and Bradley????????-who, by the way was the worst hitter in baseball in 2021 (163)  There was no such excuse for such stupidity.  As far as Hamilton is concerned the j ury is still out but I doubt if he ever could be what Renfroe was and could have been for us last year and this if we could have kept him.

Sea Dog 23

Quote from: SeaBeachFred on May 08, 2023, 03:28:42 PM
Quote from: MongoLikeSox on May 08, 2023, 09:03:38 AM
So, another very unpopular Bloom trade that only helped to send the Sox on a downward path last year seems to be getting closer to making it. David Hamilton's timing as far as when to blossom might be golden. He got off to a hot start as he did last season. Unlike last season when he tanked for several months, he got into and out of a slump in decent fashion. It was partially veiled by a 10-game stretch where he hit precisely 1H each game while hitting .256. He struggled horribly the next week going 2 for 20, but came out of it going 9 for 21 last week. The average is back up to .311 and his K-rate is low-ish at 20%.  15 Walks, 6 HRs.

A write up on him this morning. The article says he plays SS and CF, but that's only 2 career games out there. He's split time between 2B and SS for the past two seasons. 
https://www.mlb.com/redsox/news/boston-red-sox-minor-league-roundup-may-7-2023

I thought the real prize of that trade was going to be Binelas, but he's making AA pitchers look like Pedro Martinez since he got there. Awful K-rate and an BA to match.

Binelas has made sucking look like a good word.  He was crap last season and appears to be crap this one too.  That trade was the one that really turned my  venom deep into Bloom's miserable brain.  We trade a 30 homer, 100 RBI power hitter for him and Bradley????????-who, by the way was the worst hitter in baseball in 2021 (163)  There was no such excuse for such stupidity.  As far as Hamilton is concerned the j ury is still out but I doubt if he ever could be what Renfroe was and could have been for us last year and this if we could have kept him.

David Hamilton would seem to have the same value as Valdez as MIF.  Can Hamilton play SS with any efficiency?  Valdez, as dodgy as his fielding is, has proven he can rake in MLB on the small sample size.  Hamilton is more of a singles hitter, also a high BB rate, and with his speed stealing bases, his singles/walks become doubles.

MongoLikeSox

Hamilton had a prolonged slump last year. Hot start and hot finish. Mid-May thru end of August was awful. It's also his first year with double digit HR's. Makes me wonder if he was given an assignment from upon high to hit more extra base hits or enjoy the Minors for a long time. It would make sense given some of Cora's recent remarks about 'hitting the ball hard now'. How he is in the field is something I didn't see enough of. I think I saw one bad throw in the limited action I saw. I suspect with Meyer coming up that he won't stick at short for long, but he's got the speed to cover ground.

When I saw Valdez on MiLB-TV, there was a lot of swing and miss from getting fooled on breaking pitches. He was leaping out of his shoes. How he swung and missed like that in late-Summer and doing well in the big leagues right now is impressive, if not surprising.


MongoLikeSox

straight from MLB.Com in an article on Abreu getting hot last week, per Brian Abraham.

"“His bat-to-ball skills is an area of focus for him this year. Some of it last year was adjusting to a new organization, new staff. That can be a lot to deal with both mentally and physically. We wanted to see the player he was before we started trying to make too many adjustments,” Abraham said. "

Anyone else here seeing any sort of a pattern? Yoshida a few weeks ago and now Abreu. What's that Pink Floyd line go like - "leave them kids alone...."  LOL  Sort of makes you wonder about the Rafaela and Kavadas early struggles in Portland. (btw - Rafaela stole 9 bags in two games over the weekend. Damn!!!!)


Sea Dog 23

Shane Drohan was promoted to Worcester.
The 24-year-old flamethrower was selected by the Red Sox in the fifth round of the 2020 MLB Draft and has been steadily moving up the farm system ever since. Sox Prospects has Drohan as the No. 5 prospect in the organization.
They also released P Jake Thompson and Edwin Diaz from Worcester.

longgame

Whether a position player or a pitcher I hoped they learned something of a lesson with Duran. They pushed him up when he wasn't ready.  He looked completely lost last year.  This year, after building skills and confidence (that was shaken by his MLB stint), he looks like a complete ball player.  Hopefully Casas will sort that out at the Major League level.  But let these guys coming up develop and have some consistency!

MongoLikeSox

Quote from: Sea Dog 23 on May 18, 2023, 07:46:53 PM
Shane Drohan was promoted to Worcester.
The 24-year-old flamethrower was selected by the Red Sox in the fifth round of the 2020 MLB Draft and has been steadily moving up the farm system ever since. Sox Prospects has Drohan as the No. 5 prospect in the organization.
They also released P Jake Thompson and Edwin Diaz from Worcester.
I watched some of that game last night. Drohan looked OK for a little bit, but the control was way off. Eventually it caught up with him, but I had stopped watching by then.  This is a guy who's walked 12 all year, but 6 of them were in the past two games. I think he hit a batter or had a WP or something along with the 2 walks in one inning last night.

MongoLikeSox

Quote from: longgame on May 19, 2023, 08:37:45 AM
Whether a position player or a pitcher I hoped they learned something of a lesson with Duran. They pushed him up when he wasn't ready.  He looked completely lost last year.  This year, after building skills and confidence (that was shaken by his MLB stint), he looks like a complete ball player.  Hopefully Casas will sort that out at the Major League level.  But let these guys coming up develop and have some consistency!
His was promotion was very strange in both years. I thought he was done for. I'm not sure I ever remember a rookie looking that ate up. Both years, too. Maybe worse last year. The first year I thought it was a good start that went to crap quickly. At the time I thought his semi-platoon role that came on quickly had messed him up. Like one more thing to worry about.

Last year looked like a regression. He also got caught up in his team-mates dis-enchanted and disgruntled attitude towards management. The team was not filled with happy campers. Bad situation for anyone to come up in.

Sea Dog 23

Bloom trades Greg Allen to Yanks in exchange for cash and pitcher Diego Hernandez from the Dominican Summer League.  DHern was 48-14 Ks to BBs, 2.10 era. 18 yo. He's a few years away from any impact in the minor leagues.