Good article and good trade possibility?

I liked reading this article from Grantland.com reflecting on the aftermath of the Red Sox collapse. Basically, I agree with what this guy is saying a lot, the gist being that Boston is freaking out and driving their excellent manager, GM, and possibly players, out of town on a rail. It's just going to put them in a worse spot than they are in even now.

But my favourite part is the end of the 8th paragraph. This is super-mega-baseless speculation, but if the player in question actually ends up being shopped, this could be the next great AA guy-who-is-being-run-out-of-town-for-no-reason-so-is-cheap trade.

7 months ago SuckaMD 11 comments 0 recs |

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Jon Lester...?

I dunno. I’d love to have him, but Cherlington can’t be THAT dumb, right? Even if the owners demand it he can’t just go and shop his best pitcher

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by Pikachu on Oct 14, 2011 3:22 PM EDT reply actions

if he's being undervalued by the Sox

he’d be a great pickup for us, though the conversation probably starts at JPA or d’Arnaud

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by benk on Oct 14, 2011 3:23 PM EDT up reply actions

I just think it's a stretch

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My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - JL

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by Pikachu on Oct 14, 2011 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions

if for some unknown reason they want to blow up the team

all the better for us. he won’t be cheap, but he’s a big upgrade to our rotation

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by benk on Oct 14, 2011 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions

of course

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My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - JL

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by Pikachu on Oct 14, 2011 3:47 PM EDT up reply actions

What if they make us take Lackey too?

"What's so special about Lou Gehrig? Shouldn't EVERY Yankee have a disease named after him? "

by Sean Coleman on Oct 14, 2011 10:55 PM EDT reply actions

would hurt

but it means we’d have to give up fewer assets, so could still be a good thing. Lackey wasn’t really that awful by DIPS (his SIERA was 4.5 – bad, not monumentally awful) and he is probably about as good as Cecil, though much more expensive and older. I don’t think he’d earn his contract with the Jays, he’d probably be $10M or so negative value, but if it gets us 2009-2010 Lester, it might be worth it. Lester’s 1 K/9 drop this year is a little worrisome, though

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by benk on Oct 15, 2011 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions

I'll take Lester and lackey

and eat half of lackey’s contract and trade him to the NL. Probably worth it.

Sad, Drunk, And Poorly

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - JL

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by Pikachu on Oct 15, 2011 1:06 PM EDT up reply actions

defence-independent stats overrate Lackey's 2011

because his linedrive-rate was so high. The issue is that xFIP does not differentiate between linedrives and groundballs but does differentiate between linedrives/groundballs and flyballs. So Lackey receives no penalty for higher than average linedrive-rate but receives a bonus of lower-than-what-it-would-be-otherwise flyball-rate.

Balls in the air are either flyballs or linedrives — realistically linedrives are worse but xFIP actually sees them as better because they don’t impact FB-rate (how xFIP estimates HR-rate) and also don’t impact estimated BABIP.

It is the opposite problem that xFIP has in describing Ricky Romero’s 2011 season — his linedrive-rate was low so xFIP penalizes him by assuming a higher flyball-rate but estimating the same BABIP.

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by jessef on Oct 15, 2011 8:26 PM EDT up reply actions