As if it wasn’t enough of a death sentence to be in the AL East, the Red Sox have now acquired Chris Sale from Chicago.
Boston will send third-baseman Yoan Moncada, pitcher Michael Kopech, outfielder Luis Alexander Basabe, and pitcher Victor Diaz to Chicago.
Word is Chicago made the Nats offer public when Washington started to drag their feet, to which Boston then swooped in and made a larger offer.
Sale joins David Price, Rick Porcello, Eduardo Rodriguez and Drew Pomeranz in the Boston rotation that figures to be a nasty one next season.
Yoan Moncada’s scouting report
Signed out of Cuba to a record-shattering $31.5MM signing bonus (which came with a 100 percent luxury tax for the Red Sox), Moncada is a versatile switch-hitter that has spent the bulk of his minor league career at second base but has also been said to be capable of playing shortstop, third base and the outfield. Moncada’s 2016 season was nothing short of brilliant, as he batted .294/.407/.511 with 15 home runs and 45 stolen bases in just 106 games between Class-A Advanced and Double-A before briefly jumping to the Majors late in the year. To this point in his minor league career, he’s stolen 94 bases in 109 tries — a success rate of 86.2 percent.
Michael Kopech scouting report
Kopech, 20, ranks just two spots behind Moncada on that list of top Red Sox prospects over at BA. The former No. 33 overall pick (2014) generated plenty of buzz this year when he reportedly hit 105 mph in a minor league game, though Yahoo’s Jeff Passan tweets that some scouts believe that mark to be an embellishment. Nonetheless, Kopech regularly works in the triple digits with his fastball and reached Class-A Advanced as a 20-year-old in 2016, where he pitched to a dominant 2.25 ERA with 14.2 K/9, 5.0 BB/9 and a 42 percent ground-ball rate.
The rich just got richer, and MLB as a whole will be worse off for it.
The 22-year-old Diaz, not to be confused with the former Mets outfielder of the same name, spent the 2016 season pitching for Boston’s Class-A affiliate and worked to a 3.88 ERA with 9.4 K/9 and 3.7 BB/9 and a 58 percent ground-ball rate in 60 1/3 innings of relief work. He comes with the least fanfare of the four prospects in this deal but still has an upper 90s heater that has reached triple digits. MLB.com rated Diaz 28th on their midseason list of top Red Sox prospects, noting that in addition to a power fastball has a pair of inconsistent but promising secondary pitches in his slider and splitter. Diaz hasn’t made a start as a pro, so he seems like a pure relief prospect, but if he’s able to harness his control a bit and develop the secondary pitches, it sounds like there’s a potential late-inning relief arm there.
Fan Interference 
Moncado and Kopech look like really good prospects. The Red Sox had 63 million invested In Moncado. In return the Red Sox get three years of Sale at about 12 million a year, which is probably about half his market value were he a free agent. This looks like the rich Red Sox were willing to pay a premium to win now and it sickens me to say the White Sox smartly took advantage.
LikeLike
This is a really good point. Essentially, the Red Sox are paying $100M for 3 years of Sale, plus giving up Kopech, Barabe, and Diaz.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad to see you back Paper. Please don’t go away again just because you got into a tither with gator. We all need our friends and I count you as one of mine.
LikeLike
My presence or absence has nothing to do with OG, I just ignore him, generally.
LikeLike
They also picked up right-hander Tyler Thornburg. Fuck it. This is probably the last year we will care about sports, I am hoping that the Red Sox win the last World Series in human history only because I can’t believe the baseball gods are going to let the fucking Marlins win it. Are they? Nah, fuckit, if Pig scrotum Loria gets to lift the last WS trophy, then we are in hell now.
LikeLike
Also, I can’t let og live his last days any more smugly than he has lived his last several decades.
It would be true karma for the absurdist with no writing skills to get the last laugh. And a unknown Designated hitter will lead the way by up ending that atrocious CF “art” that the county will pay for until they have to shut down the schools to make ends meet.
Enjoy being the smartest person in Macando OG, it won’t last. Enjoy being the smartest person on the Web, it won’t last. Enjoy being the smartest person on. …..well, you get it.
I truly wish I didn’t hold you in such high regard, as I will assume that you figure me beneath your thoughts or time. It is me, not you. I just figured after 7 years of trying to impress you that you would at least let me know that I made an impact for the mountains of nuttiness I unleashed!
Nah, fucking with you too. I can still be me and most people need microscopic focus to even care about me. You, however, have a lot of people who want to write like you.
I am no longer one. Good night sweet prince, I will never mention your name or even care if you like me or not, but this will be the last time I ever mention you again. Obviously, no need to respond, but I would be remiss in not mentioning your friend the rabbit, she told me that anyone who doesn’t respond to you is ( I’m paraphrasing here ) doesn’t understand your drivel, doesn’t understand your context, or doesn’t understand your concern or maybe grammar.
Best advice ever. I only wish that I didn’t waste my time groveling for your acceptance when I was the only one trying to get it! Everyone else is either a sycophant or a hater.
I learned more by reading you for seven years, both good and bad ( if I am honest, mostly good ) but you’re never anyone I would want in a foxhole and I regret trying to make you make me feel special. Fuck Slappy, I don’t blame you.
I just feel foolish for caring in the first place.
Have a great life OG, I will gladly never bother you again. Cheers
LikeLike
This is what happens when you have more money to throw away than most teams have to spend total. MLB is going to have to level the playing field one of these days.
LikeLike
Not going to happen. Those that obtain power will not voluntarily
relinquish power by rejecting the means by which they have obtained power unless they’re shamed and compelled by to do so by a majority of their fellow human beings.
Even though the odds are nearly hopeless, how dare you do nothing?
https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19-4a78160a-023c-4ff0-9069-53cee2a095a8?pt=AVBldGl0aW9uANJPhQAAAAAAWEd4gWU7TzxkODQzMTYwNA%3D%3D&source_location=discover_feed
LikeLike
Not going to happen, because those who have obtained power will not voluntarily relinquish power by the alteration of the means by which they have obtained power unless they are shamed and compelled to by the irresistible majority demand of their fellow human beings.
Ahem: it is highly unlikely that this will not change the reality that we are falling into the abyss of nuclear weaponized idiocracy, but when there was still the slightest chance did you stand for who you love and why you love them.
LikeLike
So with Sale out, that begs the question. What’s next for Jose Abreu, David Robertson, Todd Frazier, and Melky Cabrera? The Sox are clearly throwing in the towel with their current roster and may as well do whatever they can to prospect up.
LikeLike
But, hey, they still got the Fat Panda!
LikeLike
Pablo’s no longer the Fat Panda he used to be, sadly.
LikeLike
He doesn’t have a problem losing weight in the off-season. He has a problem keeping it off during the season, so we’ll see.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Correction * the fat fuck panda. Also, you’re 100 percent right. Must be all the sunflower seeds.
Hahaha, either that or it could be all that bubble gum, and every 1st grader knows if you swallow gum it blows up in your tummy for 7 years.
LikeLike
Dang, Red Sox rotation looks pretty stacked.
LikeLike
The 2015 Nats had Scherzer, Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez, and Doug Fister, and they won 83 games.
I’m not saying that rotation was an all-timer, but on paper, you’d have thought it good enough for, oh 93-95 wins, maybe?
Point is that nothing’s guaranteed.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Going from White to Red sawx. There’s a Curt Shilling joke here somewhere.
Besides Shilling himself, I mean
LikeLike
White sale?
Red tag special?
Blue light special? No that won’t work.
LikeLike
What’s white and red and is afraid of blacks all over?
I
LikeLike
I see DD is using his same playbook. Win before he clears the farm, BoSox.
I’m not bitter.
LikeLike
As long as the Petulant -elect, agent orange doesn’t ” Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of. …wow my daughter looks hawt in that blouse, has anyone got a phone, I have the best tweet. ” before Thanksgiving day 2017, I may have one last happy moment.
When the missile comes through the defensive grid, I just hope I can get to Boston in time to see the flash and cherish my ten seconds of life before disintegration just giggling on how “real America ” carrot worshippers will have to slowly die and resorting to cannibalism to extend their miserable lives before radiation sickness just makes them to weak to celebrate.
Enjoy your fondest wish Trumplers, no one will fuck with ‘mericah’ again , that’s for fucking sure!
LikeLike
Nah, screwing with you guys. I am really hyper about these trades. I am glad DD got who he got without giving up any real MLB players other than Shaw.
Yeah, I am fucking TERRIFIED of IL Douche 2, but we have faced worse and survived. I mentioned up thread Thanksgiving day 2017, in all honesty that is when I believe the impeachment process will begin. I also think it will be brought on by terribly disappointed flaccid yam voters. With the 20 percent of Republican party voters who vote against their own self interest pissed off? If they don’t take out their own fucking trash, they will be evicted.
Don’t hate your Trump voters in your family, try to get them to see reality. I personally convinced two 23 year old cooks to think their vote over. They only Facebook and Twitter. First vote, really knew nothing about Hilary, Bernie or The Zeppelin of chaos, it’s their dad’s choice ( this is Maine ) and we listen to our dad’s here. I had them fb the adult male trump abominations and showed them pictures of them killing an elephant and cutting off its tail.
They love hunting and they think it’s gross. Then I reminded them that, that is the closest thing to war that any of the people in his cabinet is ever going to get to war. The people who start war never have any blood in it, and by the way, remember when you turned 18 and signed up for selective service? Yeah, if they want to reinstall the draft? I guess Eric Trump can raise your daughter while you learn to speak Arabic with 8 weeks of martial combat training.
Put it this way, in ten minutes, I turned a fuck you vote into the most dire regret of their lives. Either way, I bet they stop lifting weights, so two less meatheads in the gym ladies, and you’re welcome, and I bet the smartest of the two will enroll in college. WIN fucking Win baby.
Only 62 million personal encounters to go. I can’t do more than 35 million, but I figured with you guys. MAYBE?
LikeLiked by 1 person