Prince to Boston possibilities (Revised)

[Invader3K]

Are there any indications that Boston would even be looking to move Ellsbury? Do they have some hot prospect in AAA that they are looking to call up? I honestly wouldn't know.

[TooLiveBrew]

So often on this site, statements [can] come across as though such projections are a total certainty, and therefore a prospect's got the same or greater value as a proven MLBer.

 

I definitely took care to say "could", because you're 100% right. Ellsbury certainly has value, in that he's shown an ability to get on base in the toughest division in MLB, & clearly is an elite basestealer. I think Lo Cain has a higher power ceiling than Ellsbury, so even if he wouldn't perennially match a .350 OBP, his SLG would make up for some or all of the difference. Cain clearly can't match Ellsbury on the basepaths, but I prefer a bat to a basestealer. Ellsbury at this point has pretty much shown that he's not a positive with the glove in centerfield, so that cuts into his value. It's just not that hard to find corner OF bats that can put up a mid-.700s to low-.800s OPS, and like I said I think Cain absolutely has the ability to do that, & relatively soon. Whether he will or not is, of course, the whole thing.

 

Cain's progression through the minors really is quite similar to Ellsbury's rise through Boston's system (of course Lo was drafted out of H.S., Jacoby out of college). At age 23, both players repeated AA after posting .800+ OPS tallies there the season prior. The main difference is that, in Cain's age-23 season, he suffered a season-ending knee injury in April, while Ellsbury stayed healthy in his & earned a promotion to AAA. Lo's progression as best I can tell is really only one season behind Ellsbury's, and it appears to be so completely due to injury. If he beats up on AA pitching like he should, he'll be in AAA near the All-Star break, & knocking on the big-league door in Spring Training 2011 at the latest. I apologize if I've posted about a bunch of stuff you already know, MNBrew. Just thought the similarities btw. Cain & Ellsbury were interesting.

 

If the Brewers had a need in leftfield, I think Ellsbury would make sense to ask about from Boston, even though he will be getting more expensive very soon. However, since that position is locked up for roughly the next 5-6 seasons, I'd rather them look for something else in return for Fielder. I am not familiar enough with Boston's MiLB system to speculate much further, though. From Jim Callis's Baseball America Top 10 from this past offseason, it looks like Casey Kelly would be my #1 target, but I have no idea whether that's fair value or not.

[804Sox]

Are there any indications that Boston would even be looking to move Ellsbury? Do they have some hot prospect in AAA that they are looking to call up? I honestly wouldn't know.

The Sox have a couple good CF/OF prospects in the upper-minors

 

- Josh Reddick is technically MLB ready now. He played a bit at the end of last season,showing flashes of what he can do. Unfortunately, he has struggled in AAA and needs to work on his plate discipline. He has a +/++ arm and is a decent defensive CF, but is probably best suited to play RF long-term due.

- Ryan Kalish is another near-ready player who is capable of playing CF, but is better suited for a corner. He is a more well-rounded offensive player than Reddick - with decent power, speed, and average on top of good plate discipline - but has yet to play above AA. He should get promoted in the first half od this season and be MLB-ready by season's end.

- C.H. Lin is a phenomenal defensive CF in AA, but is still at least a season away. He is reported to have olympic speed/range in the OF and a +/++ arm (not hyperbole when I talk about him and Reddick, I wouldn't throw ++ around lightly), but is raw offensively. He shows good OB ability but needs to work on staying back on the ball and driving it better.

 

I think Ells' name has been tossed around in trades because he's more replaceable, but Reddick needs to step up his performance, because he's not going to be handed a job (he did hit really well in ST, but SSS . . .). While there are some intriguing replacement options, Lin is the only one that projects as a pure CF, and none of the three is being blocked by Ells, per se.

[Tedaldtada]

I'm not sure the Sox are real high on Reddick. Why sign Cam and trade for Hermida if he is MLB ready? I see they just called him up as well. Rumor has it he won't play much, especially if Ellsbury gets healthy. He definitly has some upside, but his ship is starting to sail in Boston.

[BrewCrewForever]

Fielder for Kelly and Buccholz. Any chance they do that?

[Tedaldtada]

Brewcrew, in all honesty, no the Sox wouldn't do that. And it's pretty crazy if you ask me. Prince instantly makes them the favorite for the WS for the next two years, but, hey, whatever. I guess after you win a couple of WS after 100 years, you forget what got you there. Beckett, Wakefield, Pedro, etc all came over in trades. Do they miss Hanley now? I hope so, but as we know, the WS championship would be worth it. There is no way the curse gets broken without Beckett.

 

And, we all know that the Sox will easily extend Prince, so I don't want to hear any service time/money arguments. Prospects are just getting too valuable. That CC trade has really aged well for the Crew. Though still young enough I guess, LaPorta doesn't seem to have reached the lofty expectations. Brantley is what we thought he was. Bryson is no closer. I gotta think that DM would make that trade 100 times out of 100. Sometimes this stuff is so obvious.

 

The Red Sox should have Halladay right now. They couldn't pull the trigger and part with Kelley OR Westmoreland. They should have Santana right now. They didn't want to part with Bucholtz. Prospects are nice, I love following them, but people are just getting too crazy stingy with them.

[TooLiveBrew]

Prince instantly makes them the favorite for the WS for the next two years

 

I don't think that's true. They're more than one big bat behind the Yankees imo.

[nate82]

I wonder if the Brewers could trade Prince for Loney plus a couple of prospects from the Dodgers. Manny is probably not going to be brought back by the Dodgers next year and they are going to need someone to hit behind Kemp and Ethier. Prince would make sense for the Dodgers though that divorce could make that financial decision very sticky.

 

I'm not sure who the Brewers could get with Loney being in the mix or who the Dodgers would be willing to give up in their farm system. I believe this was Loney's first arby year this year. I wonder if the Brewers could lock up Loney for something like 5 years at $45-50m which wouldn't be a bad deal. Loney definitely isn't as good offensively as Prince but I think his defense could definitely make up for it where the Brewers wouldn't be losing out value wise. If the right pitching prospect would be added to the deal I think the Brewers could actually pull even on this trade.

 

Not my favorite trade but one I would consider. I definitely think the Brewers could lock up Loney to a deal that would be rather team friendly. I'm just not sure if the value of Loney plus a prospect or two would be a good haul for Prince.

[Tedaldtada]

Well, TLB, if that's the only part of my post you disagree with, then I'm happy. I should say that the Red Sox are currently regarded as a top 3-4 team. Adding a 5 win bat would def. make them top 2 with NY. Maybe they aren't favored in the sense of Vegas odds, but they would put some distance between them and TB, probably making them a lock for the WC. Anything can happen from there I guess.

[endaround]

At this point the Red Sox might be buried by May so adding Fielder won't do squat.

 

And why would the Brewers take back Loney from the Dodgers? At this point he's a non-tender candidate.

[Invader3K]

At this point the Red Sox might be buried by May so adding Fielder won't do squat.

Yeah, it's obviously still way early in the season, but right now the Yankees and Rays are running away with that division.

 

And yeah, Loney is an "OK" player, but not a guy I'd want to target in a trade at all. He would be a huge drop off from Prince in terms of production.

[nate82]

And why would the Brewers take back Loney from the Dodgers? At this point he's a non-tender candidate.

A non-tender candidate that has a career line like this? And this is playing the NL West that has only two parks that are hitter friendly the other three are pitcher friendly. Since when is a near .300 hitter a non-tender candidate?

 

PLITS	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Career	477	1680	210	497	88	17	45	272	153	223	18	8	.296	.354	.449	.803

[endaround]

Yes, now take out his first 475 PAs. Loney's WAR the last 2 seasons: 0.7, 1.5.

[nate82]

Yes, now take out his first 475 PAs. Loney's WAR the last 2 seasons: 0.7, 1.5.

And that is only two years small sample size. Loney is only 25 years old calling him a candidate for being non-tender is just lunacy. If Loney would play the majority of his games in the NL Central I believe his numbers would increase especially his power numbers. Loney to me is very comparable to Derrek Lee. I wouldn't be surprised if Loney were in the NL Central his numbers would look a lot like Derrek Lee's numbers.

[Funketown]

And that is only two years small sample size. Loney is only 25 years old calling him a candidate for being non-tender is just lunacy. If Loney would play the majority of his games in the NL Central I believe his numbers would increase especially his power numbers. Loney to me is very comparable to Derrek Lee. I wouldn't be surprised if Loney were in the NL Central his numbers would look a lot like Derrek Lee's numbers.

Since when is two years out of a player's 3+ year career a small sample?

 

Loney looks like a .300/.350/.450 guy at this point, and that's probably being generous. Lee's more in the .300/.380/.500 range. I don't think moving to the central would make him look that much better.

[804Sox]

I'm not sure the Sox are real high on Reddick. Why sign Cam and trade for Hermida if he is MLB ready? I see they just called him up as well. Rumor has it he won't play much, especially if Ellsbury gets healthy. He definitly has some upside, but his ship is starting to sail in Boston.

I disagree. He's still only 23, so it's a bit premature to say "his ship is starting to sail." On the contrary, I think this offseason's moves indicate that the Sox ARE high on him and the other OF in the high minors. The Red Sox have a recent history of making prospects force their way onto MLB rosters because there is an expectation to win every year, and the team has the luxury of being able to afford stopgap players like Cameron and Beltre (The Hermida trade was just an example of getting a good player at reduced value, in my opinion). Pedroia spent the first half of his rookie season in a platoon, Youkilis and Buchholz bounced back and forth between the minors and majors before sticking (despite Clay pitching a no-hitter and being like the #2 prospect in baseball according to BA), and Lowrie (even beofre all the injuries) never entered a season as the only starting option at SS. Before his emergency call-up last year, Reddick had never played above AA, and he struggled there to close out the year. I think that the Sox reluctance to sign Bay long term and interest in signing Cameron short term indicate (among other things) that the Sox believe he or one of the other OF prospects will be ready in the near term, but are not quite ready yet. I'm not completely sold on Reddick given his questionable plate discipline, but he has great power, good contact abilities, and is a superb defender capable of playing CF, so I think he'll carve out some sort of career on that basis alone.

[nate82]

Loney looks like a .300/.350/.450 guy at this point, and that's probably being generous. Lee's more in the .300/.380/.500 range. I don't think moving to the central would make him look that much better.

If you go from a pitchers friendly ballparks in the NL West to a more batter friendly ballpark in the NL Central then yes. You would see Loney's slugging percentage increase over than what he is currently doing in the NL West. I don't see how his numbers wouldn't increase taking into account the type of ballparks he would be playing in compared to the ones he is currently playing in the NL West.

[TheCrew07]

He's not going to pickup .050, you are over exaggerating the effect. He may be grow some yet as a player, but it's not like he's going to pick .050 just because he switches divisions.

[endaround]

If Fielder was traded to LA taking Loney back as a fill in isn't terrible but he looks to never have adjusted after his good 3/4 of a season. But he definitely is not a big part of anything and it would be more to free up some roster space for LA then anything else.

[nate82]

He's not going to pickup .050, you are over exaggerating the effect. He may be grow some yet as a player, but it's not like he's going to pick .050 just because he switches divisions.

I'm not saying he is going to pick up .050 points in his slugging. All I am saying is he is going to improve in his slugging from switching from the NL West to the NL Central.

[TheCrew07]

But if the net effect doesn't push him into elite territory then what is the point? The point of making trades from a Brewer perspective should be to acquire talent we won't be able to get any other way. If we could sign proven elite players, pitchers or hitters, then we wouldn't need to make trades to replace our losses. As it stands we have a risk going after high ceiling prospects because if they aren't already in the farm system that's the only means we have to acquire that talent.

 

Trading an elite talent in Fielder would mean that the Crew would hopefully be looking for some elite talent coming back. I've had my fill of these high floor/low ceiling players that Melvin has been going after. Sure Loney mitigates the risk somewhat, but does he have any chance to be special? If not, then I don't really see the point in trading with that organization.

 

The Dodgers have no pitching or hitting at the top of their system that interests me, the same could be said of Boston now that Buccholz isn't really an option.

[JohnBriggs12]

What makes anyone think that the Brewers would get anything approaching Fielder's worth as a player back in a trade? It's not going to happen and never was going to happen.

The biggest net gain for trading Fielder is salary flexibility in the future. Of course they could get that by keeping him through his current deal, letting him walk and taking the draft picks.

 

Any team you would trade Fielder to, it would logically make sense that you'd get that teams 1B back as part of the deal. In that respect, they could do a lot worse than Loney who's a cut above guys like Overbay.

[Invader3K]

If the Dodgers were going to trade Loney and a very good pitching prospect for Fielder, I guess I'd be open to the idea. I'm not sure they have any pitching prospects that are really targetable at this point, though.

 

Also, the Dodgers might not even be in contention this year or next with their messed up ownership situation.

[endaround]

Loney hasn't been as good as Overbay the last two years. Now Overbay is 33 while Loney is 25 so over 2011-2013 I'd guess Loney has a better chance outperform Overbay but that still just provides average at best production and the Brewers can get that in house. Loney is a guy you take back as a throw in not any type of major piece.

[TheCrew07]

What makes anyone think that the Brewers would get anything approaching Fielder's worth as a player back in a trade? It's not going to happen and never was going to happen.

The biggest net gain for trading Fielder is salary flexibility in the future. Of course they could get that by keeping him through his current deal, letting him walk and taking the draft picks.

 

Any team you would trade Fielder to, it would logically make sense that you'd get that teams 1B back as part of the deal. In that respect, they could do a lot worse than Loney who's a cut above guys like Overbay.

Again what makes you so sure that they can't get 2 players who would surpass Prince's value? Prince isn't a 9 WAR player, he's not the best of the best, he's a just a premium offensive talent, if we got 2 3 WAR players then we're better off on the whole. We should target premium talent in prospects because drafting with the compensation picks likely won't yield the same level of talent as the top 15 picks in the draft are protected, and all of our star position players were drafted before the 8th pick in the draft. Loney is not an elite player, he's an average player, and we have plently of averagish position players in the minors. Trading for a player like Loney is exactly like trading for a guy like Dave Bush, there's not much risk associated with the move, but there's not upside with the move either nor are we getting him for 6 full seasons.

 

We have plenty of hitters who profile to be league average to good, we only have a couple with the talent to be impact players. If you're trading an impact player like Fielder, then you should be looking for impact talent in return. No one is going to trade a young impact talent with MLB experience for a rental, so if we want impact talent back it's always going to have to be in the form of AA type players with significant talent who still have development to do.

 

It's the same argument I made in the Hardy debates, Hardy was a 4 WAR player, I still think Escobar will be a 2 WAR player in his first full season, so for the net effect to be better we only had to acquire a pitcher who was worth 2 WAR in his first full season, as the last pitchers at the back of the rotation all pitched below replacement level last year and so far this year.

 

As an organization we've needed impact pitching talent forever and we're starting to get thin on impact bats as well. As a small market I think acquiring significant talent through as many avenues as possible should be the goal. The only way the Brewers have acquired significant in Melvin's tenure has been the draft, that's been his shortcoming as a GM. We aren't drafting high enough anymore to be able to draft players of Fielder's caliber, we aren't going to get the best hitter in the draft anymore, so he needs to be more creative. He needed to be more creative to address the pitching as well, but as that didn't happen either I'm not expecting Fielder to be moved, I still think Melvin will play it out exactly like he did with Sabathia. They'll make an offer, make it public, and when the player signs elsewhere say "We tried."... that's just not good enough for me.