Hitch

A step in the right direction maybe, but seeing as we've trade Mookie and Devers, I would say you can rule nothing out.

I can understand that for sure. But it can't come at the expense of improving. And there are several players I don't think are good enough and shouldn't be here next year. No amount of getting to know them will change that. But, I do get the point that it would be nice to know and like the team long term. Hopefully we can build that. I remain skeptical.

That may well be. It is separate to the point(s) I was making, however. He was our, or at least one of our, most important offensive players going into the season and we lost him for a large part of it. Now he has question marks over him going into next year (around health) and we can't build a project around him.

You've misunderstood. I was saying Old Red's opinion is skewed by hindsight and that Anthony was very much seen as the most important offensive weapon going into the season.

I get your point on seeing the players as human beings and wanting to root for them long term, but not many of the current crop are in the Betts. Bogey, Sale and Devers realm. Yoshida, Story, Duran (and Abreu to a much lesser degree) are players I could easily live without over having them to just 'cheer on' next year. Not to mention that lineup was terrible for most of the year. Running that back just to be able to support the same guys is insanity.

Not unless we want to trade him to someone he really wants to play for.

He looks exactly how I looked watching those last two games.

I think it's almost certainly unmitigated nonsense.

Yeah another way to frame it - imagine you were told about that summer run and then told we made the playoffs, you'd check the standings and play off results with excitement and no small amount of expectation of a huge season. Then you'd see the standings and results of the play offs and be left in disbelief.

The Anthony view is skewed heavily by hindsight. Going into the season after an encouraging signs last year and an encouraging World Baseball Classic, he was seen very much as our most important offensive player. Unfairly so, and too much pressure and expectation was on him, but the fact remains. Going into next year, not so much. Now there will just be concerns.

Yeah, it won't be easy. But he's in DFA territory now and hopefully there's a way to get him, Duran and Yoshida off the team and come out okay.

I've been holding off posting since that last game as I didn't want anything I write to be over-emotional. But I still feel quite angry over it all. My thoughts on the season and future: The season - I personally found it exhausting, and far from enjoyable. That run in the summer was sensational and felt otherworldly, but the rest of the year was torture. When we went behind it was almost always over and that is no way to enjoy baseball. We knew going in the offence had holes, the roster was uneven, but as always there's some hope that things will break your way. We also had some terrible luck with injuries. Every club gets this, but we lost our ace, our most important offensive player, the guy who was supposed to add pop in the run in and post season, taken out in his first game, and important bullpen pieces just before the play offs. It couldn't have gone much worse. The play offs - dreadful. I kept reading posts saying we were a 40/60 favourite to win it, and we had a good chance. I never felt that. I posted a few times in the lead up that I had little hope we would beat the Yankees there. But even I didn't think it would be that bad. I have no issue with Tolle being pulled when he did, not not much issue with going to Miller even if he had been cold. I also have little problem pulling Gray - the dude had runners on 1st and 3rd. He can complain and bitch as much as he wants, he didn't get it done in the 4th. No problem removing him. I have a huge issue moving him for Miller again. Absolute insanity. You have to do Suarez there. The season is on the line. Chad's decisions will look terrible with hindsight, but the guy is a rookie manager in the most intense environment possible, mistakes are likely, and we have to give him room to make them. Which leads me to... Chad Tracy - as mentioned above - he made some mistakes in hindsight (if Miller had kept the score level in both instances we'd be lauding him), but going to Bello was a head scratcher in game 1, especially as Chad's comments were that he'd given up on game 1 at that point. Let's ignore for now how damning and telling that is (when it comes to belief in an offence that a manager had given up on a game down 2-0), why burn Bello then? But yeah, a good learning platform for him. I thought he has been mostly excellent this year since coming in and I'm fine, if not thrilled, with him making mistakes and learning on the job. That's just the rub. I have faith in him going forward. Not thrilled with Gray or Wilson's comments after the game. Have some class. Throwing the guy under the bus is not cool. Breslow - what to make of him? Like every single GM, he is going to get calls right and get calls wrong. He has put together one of the best pitching staffs I've seen, and got them doing the right thing, but he's also traded away a lot of pitching, and we're now very short. I don't blame him for Sale, very few people saw Sale's resurgence coming. I'm perfectly fine with the Crochet trade even if the guys we sent away go on to be good players. But the Rutschman trade has the chance of being seen as an all-time shocker. And a great deal of us felt at the time it was an enormous amount to give up. If Rutschman doesn't sign and extension and be better than what we've seen, that could really bite. I'm a lot more patient than most posters on here (or sports fans in general) so I had no issues with Bres also learning on the job and making mistakes, but now is the time to step up once and for all. This is a big winter for him (assuming there is baseball next year - I think there will be buy much shortened). I was astonished to see posts proclaiming him a possible Executive of the Year. If these win totals had been spread out in a different way and not included that magic carpet ride, I think his job would have been on the online. He has delivered one of the worst offences I've ever seen. And he built a very unbalanced roster with players doing little other than taking a roster spot up (Yoshida, for example). He's got balls, I'll give him that. He's not afraid to make moves. He better get his next ones right or he'll be on the block again. And he has a lot to do for my money. The future - I'm not feeling as doomsday about it as some, but also, man we've got some work to do. Our pitching pipeline is bare. Our roster is unbalanced. And we have very little leadership. Personally, I would take any salary relief we can get next year for Yoshida and Story - even £10m combined and two roster spots is more valuable than what they give us. Try and trade Duran for a pitching prospect or two. See if there's a way to add some pop/leadership in one swoop. Try and figure whatever in the f*** is going on with Anthony and Campbell (two very different cases) and promote Arias. We need to get power into this line up. I'd personally be fine with us trading Abreu also if it meant making the end product better. He's streaky and can't be counted on when needed. I weirdly feel like I'm straddling two stools - we're in a good place to build from/we need some major surgery. Things always feel bad this close to the end, but it was so meek, as was September, as was much of the season. It would have probably been better long term if that run hadn't happened and we'd sold hard at the deadline. In fact, no probably about it. It would have been far, far better. But we're where we are at. I'm not worried about the money we will spend, I am worried we do what needs to be done. A deflating end to a torturous season.

That looks weak to me. Are any of those depth players out of options? I'd like to see Duran traded for pitching depth and then hopefully, we find a decent bat. I like the look of Mead and if he's real it'll help a great deal, but it would be dangerous to rely on that right now.

We do need pitching, but we also need more in the line up. Our offense hasn't been good enough for far too often this year.

This is sensible, and great for us if we still manage to get the last one in Saturday with the weather.