http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/...s-spt-0530-20140530,0,7455709.story?track=rss
This brings up an interesting team as a sleeper in the Red Sox. Lester and Lackey have been good this year. Buchholz and Doubront have been shelled. and Peavy could also be better. Both Lester and Peavy are set to be FAs. This is interesting because they have Henry Owens(#26 on mlb.com), Allen Webster(#38), Matt Barnes(#73), Trey Ball(#83), and Anthony Ranaudo(#93). They also have Brian Johnson(50 grade), Cody Kukuk(45 grade), Teddy Stankiewicz(45 grade), Jamie Callahan(45 grade), and Simon Mercedes(45 grade) in their top 20 prospects as pitchers. Owens and Webster rate as 60's while Barnes, Ball and Ranaudo rate as 55's. As points of reference, they rated Edwards 60, Johnson a 55, and Ramirez, Blackburn and Hendricks as 45's. Additionally, this front office obviously knows that system well as they had a hand in drafting some of them.
All of the second grouping of guys is in A ball save for Brian Johnson(AA). Ranaudo, Matt Barnes and Allen Webster are all at AAA. Owens is at AA. Ball is in A. If we use the Garza trade as guide, Ramirez was a 45 and for the sake of argument let's consider Grimm a 45. 2 years ago Grimm was rated 4-5 spots ahead of Ramirez so he might be more in the 50 range but I'll round down. Edwards rated in at 60 prior to the season. Olt was also a 60 prior to 2013 but if you include his vision issues let's knock him down to a 55 for the sake of argument. That gives you a 60, a 55, and 2 45's. Reports I've read suggest that Shark would easily get more than that given his extra year of control.
Barnes would make a lot of sense to me given he's in AAA and his peripherals look good. I also like the looks of Brian Johnson and given he's in AA, as well as a lefty that's also a plus. For the second 45 level player I'd really be fine with Callahan or Mercedes. You'd still need a 60 rating guy. You could go with Owens, Webster, Blake Swihart, Garin Cecchini, or Mookie Betts. That would essentially get you to the Garza level deal without totally destroying their farm system. You're talking about 2 top 10 prospects and 2 11-20 guys. I'm guessing they wouldn't want to give away all their top end arms and given they already have Jackie Bradley Jr to play CF something like Betts, Barnes, Johnson, and Callahan/Mercedes seems like it would be a good starting point. If they put Blake Swihart on top of that package it would probably cement the deal.
If we compare that package to the Shields trade, the Rays got Wil Meyers(#4 in BA's top 100), Jake Odorizzi(#92), Mike Montgomery(was #19 a year prior to the trade), Patrick Leonard who ended up being a fringe top 20 prospect for the Rays for Shields and Wade Davis. The trade package above would be #51, #52, and #73 on mlb.com's list and 73 and 75 on BA's top 100 this year and Barnes who was #40 on 2013's list plus two lessor prospects. Meyers as a top 5 prospect is probably worth Swihart and Barnes together so from that standpoint it seems some what comparable. Cubs might have to offer up something more to make that happen but in this scenario they didn't have to give up Bogaerts, Owens, Bradley, and Webster who were their 2 best positional prospects as well as their two best pitching prospects prior to the season. Conversely, you could switch Swihart with Owens and Johnson with Christian Vazquez who's also a C. That would give you a higher end pitching prospect the cubs may want and it would allow the Sox to keep their higher end C prospect.
If they got that sort of package I might be on board with dealing Shark. From the sox perspective, they obviously have the money to re-sign him. They would be competitive which would make Shark happy. It would give them Shark and Bucholtz as 29 year old front line starters with several promising young arms(Webster, Ball, Ranaudo) as well as the payroll to add more via FA.
