i guess it is

i wouldnt put either of them in a deal with one of the 3 young catchers to get buchholz.

Maybe this is born out of desire more than rational thought

Yep

it doesn’t all boil down to stuff. i think the Red Sox see Masterson as a guy with solid stuff who absolutely knows how to get the most out of it and as a guy who has proven he can pitch in big games as both a starter or a reliever. I think they view Buchholz as a guy who has outstanding stuff but who is still far away from being able to handle the mental aspects of the game. A team like the Red Sox puts a premium on guys who have the intangibles that allow them to perform when it really counts. I am not arguing that they have given up on Buchholz, or that they are currently undervaluing him, but only that they probably think the other elements of Masterson’s game make up the difference in pure stuff.

We’re forced to trade a catcher this offseason. I’m in favor of trading the least valuable catcher for the best available talent (not trying to fill our own need). We’ve been pretty good at targeting low A players on other teams. That’s probably where we’re going to find our best return for Laird (especially if the other team is in a win-now mode), and I’d rather have a few high ceiling guys than major league ready mediocrity. In the alternative, maybe Laird will net us some bullpen help.

That said, I think Rangers fans need to get used to the idea that we may not be able to fill holes in the rotation with our catching depth.

Bloggers have such a short window of “value perception” compared to front offices. I don’t understand why so many think that major league GMs are going to change their perception of a player so quickly. If you’ve scouted a guy, in your own organization or another, since before he was drafted you have a pretty good overall picture of him. You’re not going to suddenly decide he sucks or is a hall of famer based on a few games.

Salty is a perfect example. His overall hasn’t changed a whole lot despite a disappointing regular season and a terrific few games in winter ball. To fans his perceived value has been on a roller coaster, but to the front offices in baseball his value has moved little, if at all from 18 months ago.

For a long time. But there are reports out there that it is going to take Dye to get Bailey from the Reds. So hence Laird and Byrd for Bailey.

uh.. everyone wanted laird for bailey. your memory fails you.

a top tier Catcher to win another WS or two. They might have all stars at 7 other positions.

That didn’t make much sense. I was just saying that if other teams don’t like Masterson and Boston is not willing to trade Buchholz then the only “major” piece that the Sox would trade is Bowden. What kind of catcher do you think you could get with a package centered around Bowden?

…it certainly wouldn’t take much to pry Laird from me, but I’m kind of an irrational Laird hater.

The Sox wouldn’t give up Coco for Laird last off-season (when Coco had lost his starting job, and Ellsbury looked like a ROY candidate); there’s no way they’ll give up Bowden for him. They could just as easily bring back ’Tek or platoon Dusty Brown/ George Kottaras without giving up any talent.

I have to admit that I was surprised to learn that Laird doesn’t have much accrued service time; looking at him on B-Ref it looks like he should be a FA soon…

right now with the Laird at 3B idea. I’m certain you were joking, and if you weren’t, never ever admit it.

but I also do have some opinions on them and their potential value in trade from scouting them out that obviously isn’t as rosy as some here. Here’s what I think, and why don’t you tell me where you think I’m wrong:

Salty projects as an offense first catcher with some questions behind the dish. He has the tools to be a good to great defender (although his size is probably working against him a bit here), but the gap between having the tools and turning them into on-field performance is still sizeable enough to cause some uncertainty.

Teagarden had MLB ready defense coming out of college. He hit well in college, but he’s carried a kind of scary K rate through the minors (and that usually doesn’t bode well for sustained success in the majors). He does offset that with nice plate discipline.

Laird, as I said above reads like a back up on a good team. He’s not as good as either of the other 2, and has cracked 100 games played and a 100 OPS+ only once each (and not in the same year). His defense is good, but not elite enough to make up for his bat. He’s a nice piece to have as depth, but isn’t anything anyone will give up that much for.

Ramirez can flat out rake, but he’s so big and immobile that most scouts think he’ll be lucky to stick at 1B (and since Texas has a great defensive 1B prospect in Smoak it won’t be with them) let alone C, especially as he ages and thickens up. He’s a DH.

Sorry if I’m making anyone stand-offish; I’m pretty much here to figure out what the other side is thinking on this proposed deal (a beautiful thing, this internet…)

mostly because i’m not confident he can handle the fulltime catcher work load yet injury wise.

One of the caveats of the rule 5 is not just they have to stay on the 25 man roster for the entire year but also for at least 90 days be on the active roster. So with Strop being out until June at the earliest that would put that time limit in danger. Just looking at a calendar you can see that basically if the player isn’t off the DL by July 1st then they won’t have 90 days remaining in the season. So that would mean that then the next season they would also have to be on the active roster for however many remaining days until the 90 is met. That may not sound like much but it essentially ties up a roster spot which you may need for a guy who used his last option the previous year.

I do think we probably should have protected him especially over Eyre or Bannister. But I don’t think the likelihood of him being selected is very high.

the injury is precisely why the pick makes so much sense. they can just stash him on the DL for the first half of the year.

If a team:

1) Wasn’t willing to devote a 40 man roster spot to him in September, when they could have claimed him on waivers, and
2) Wasn’t willing to devote a 40 man roster spot to him this offseason, when the Rangers got him on a minor league deal, then

What reason is there to believe he’d be claimed in the Rule 5 draft?

For the life of me, I can’t understand why people keep talking about how the Rangers should have put him on the 40 man roster, and why people were saying before the deadline that they thought the Rangers would add him.