Dojji

Don't really care right now if he is better or is not better than Nomar. He doesn't have to be better than Nomar to be a very very valuable player for this team.

nmy gut and eyes says Vazquez is still learning. All the talent in the world, but is still gaining proficiency and learning how to best use that talent at the big league level. Not to suggest he's raw or unskilled, but there's still some distance to go, if you take my meaning.

Pointlessly peevish postulation.

Reference my post that a700 quotes in his sig. Lineup optimization is so minimally effective in increasing runs scored as to be practically pointless. Once you have your 9 guys, they'll score practically the same number of runs in any order. Batting orders are a little more important win the playoffs when every little extra chance to score a run might mean something, but in the regular season, the only consideration of lineup construction is who gets slightly more plate appearances. Once you get past the 4th place hitter it literally. Does. Not. Matter.

Calling it now, Groome will be our 7th inning reliever in 2019, flame out by August and never be heard from again.

Wright, JBJ and Bogaerts are the answers here, and if I have to pick the order, it's Wright first, then JBJ and Bogaerts. Thing is, there's a reason I was arguing tooth and nail for Wright in the last rotation spot in the offseason -- because like the other 2, the signs were there for those who wanted to see them. Wright was a decently good pitcher going into this year, his numbers suggesting at least competence if not brilliance, showing that he could be consistent and durable in the starts he was given, he just had never had the chance to prove whether he was or was not a great one. I didn't see him making the claim to ace status that he's making now, but I went out on a limb in April saying he had a good shot to be our #3 starter by the midpoint because that's what his numbers suggested he might be over a full season. Turns out I didn't think big enough. I also called on Bogaerts becoming that franchise leading superstar he has the ceiling to be this season, breaking out still further after his breakout season last year. That prediction was a lot safer than my call on Wright, as Bogaerts is immensely talented and had already shown progress. he was always projected to be capable of this. It's nice to see it vindicated however. As for JBJ I was an openminded skeptic. He'd disappointed before, so he wasn't getting my undying support without earning it, but the upside was worth the chance he was being given. If Bradleywanted to achieve his potential and reach his ceiling this year I'd certainly take it, but I was prepared to be satisfied with average offense as long as the defense held up. He's been an extremely pleasant surprise.

Sandy Leon hits like a pitcher. That's the big reason he hasn't broken into the big leagues yet.

And then there's Wright who throws a pitch that can't be located and doesn't go over 75mph, and is completely unhittable. It's fine to speak in broad generalities, but be mindful of the exceptions.

We had an outstanding closer. The bullpen was a matter of mixed triumph and despair all year. We'd just get one or two guys going and someone else would get hammered. Oki was great for most of the year but fell apart. MDC was up and down. The Gagne experiment was an utter failure. I still think Mike Timlin's improbable second half run was responsible for far more of our bullpen success than gets remembered.

Now that's just not true. You're looking at a past era with the mindset of the current one. Offenses were much more powerful in 2007, that was roughly the era where the quality start was invented and an ERA of 4.5 was acceptable for the most part. No one had a problem with Wakefield or daisuke finishing with the numbers they had, except that Daisuke had initially been trending much higher than he wound up finishing with. And at the time Schilling's 3.87 ERA over 150 IP was good for an ERA+ of 121, which it wouldn't get close to today.

Some perspective on the subject of Steven Wright 1st in the AL in ERA T-1st in Complete Games 2nd in ERA+ 5th in innings pitched 3rd in H/9 T-9th in WHIP Just outside the top 10 in bWAR Food for thought. I have never, ever seen a pitcher who was completely off the radar explode onto the scene and emerge as aggressively as this to put up best-in-baseball type numbers. Wright is our ace, we started out joking about it but no one is joking anymore, he's the best pitcher we have and one of the best that anyone has.

There's a grace period after which they can be traded, but when it ends I'm not sure. After the World Series sounds a little too quick.

If that was true, we wouldn't be using a 4 man rotation right now. We have exactly 0 #5 starters.

If we were not in good shape for a playoff spot, I'm sure Papi would have played. Farrell is a little overcautious sometimes and has no real need to force matters right now..

There is very little new news about Panda, to answer your question with a bit less frustrating glibness. I think the media has more or less left him alone since he stopped busting his belts in public, and if I had to guess, I'd say it was fine by him.

I do not see that 1-2 being available, nor do I see him becoming available in the next month. The problem with hankering after a TOTR starter is that literally all 30 teams hanker after a TOTR starter. That means that that guy is just often not out there and when he is, everyone else wants to give an arm and a leg for them. To suspend your search for all possible upgrades for the rotation while you wait for a trade that may never happen and might not even be a good idea if it does, is foolishness. I agree with you this much -- Yordano ventura is not someone you acquire with your mind on getting a top of the rotation starter. My position is that Ventura fills our immediate needs and far more importantly than that, is the bird in the hand, a guy you can get, now, that fills a need now. In that light, holding out for rainbow moondream tradess will not win this team any games between now and July 31st (which I see as the first realistic time one of those TOTR guys might become available). Having Ventura in the rotation might win you 1 or 2 more games in this tight division so it should be pursued. Make the trades you have to make, now, to improve the team, now, and get us maybe another game or 2 in the standings over waiting for the deadline and maybe having to sit pat because someone else blew your trade proposal out of the water for the guy you wanted. This choice does not seem particularly hard to me.

And I think you're contradicting yourself here. In my mind, a depth arm to fill out the bottom of the rotation is the extent of our "pitching problems" at the moment -- at least until someone else gets hurt. We don't have a great rotation (and even if we did, they wouldn't meet the laughably stratospheric expectations some of you have for what "great rotation" seems to mean to you), but we have a rotation that's good enough to allow us to compete on the virtue of the other things we do well -- IF we can plug that 5th spot in the rotation. All we really need to do that is a guy who can take the ball every 5th day without guaranteeing a loss. Ventura's a better gamble to accomplish that than anyone we have right now. That's why I'd be all for Ventura. He's as good a gamble as any that are currently available, to full that 5th spot. And he has the upside to give us more if we can get him moving in the right direction.

Bah freaking cold meds. hayfever season is the time of year for amazingly retarded posts. Of course Ventura is RHP, I had him mixed up with some of the Royals' LHSP prospects from a couple years ago. Regardless, kid is very talented, if there's any question of getting his head out of his backside and into the game again, there's no doubt at all that that DD should be kicking the tires here. Gotta love the people screaming for starting pitching trades in the middle of the season and turning their nose up immediately at exactly the kind of guy you get in a midseason SP trade -- a guy with some flaw another team can't live with. In order for a team to be willing to part with a decent pitcher there has to be a reason they can't keep him, and these days money isn't it, so there's going to be some problem with either the off field behavior, the on field attitude or the statistics. No guy we're going to be able to trade for is going to be very much better than Ventura, as there's so much money in the leauge just now that anyone worth keeping is kept. And the extenuating circumstances that make you guys cool on the acquisition are the only reasons he's acquirable at all. With the full knowledge that all we really need out of Yordano Ventura is a decent #5 starter, I'm still good for acquiring Ventura -- knowing as I say so that there is a potential for disappointment here, as there will be with anyone we might target to upgrade the 5 spot in the rotation. And also knowing full well that the upside could easily be worth that risk.

Absolutely I want him. No question at all. We're talking about a playoff proven power lefty who's having a bad year but has been a factor in the Royals making it to the world series both of the last 2 seasons. That level of playoff experience combined with talent doesn't walk through the door very often, even if it attached to a hot head and a bad year. Unless there's some suggestion that he can't get his form back, and at 25YO I don't see how there could be, or KC's price is flat out insane, which it might or might not be, I definitely want him. He at least looks like an upgrade to the 5th spot in our rotation, and the upside is both higher than Kelly's and closer to actualization than Kelly ever was. The floor of this trade is a boon to our depth and the ceiling is out of this world. DD should be on the phone to KC right now finding out how much truth there is to this rumor.

No sport's athletes are more fit than hockey athletes. You see the occasional spare tire around guys in every other sport, especially the NFL and MLB, but you just can't be a good, fat hockey player. because they have to be fit just to do their jobs I can believe hockey athletes will tend not to do the kind of injuries caused by lack of self-maintenance.

It's good enough for a team one year removed from finishing in the basement. It's gonna take more than 1 year to build a rotation from nothing.

I use an ad blocker and do not have this problem.

Yeah, so we had a bad turn through the rotation guys, it happens, and against 2 good offenses no less. It takes more than that to declare a rotation "exposed." tone down the melodrama a bit.

Which good prospect? Let's get specific here.