moonslav59

He looked to be a legit starter, until the injury. My point was, were supposed to sign another OF'er at $10M? (If Story was healthy, we'd have Kike for CF.)

Bobby D had 10 Ks in 31 PAs at Woo, but he did walk 4 times and had a .357 OBP and .522 SLG.

Could be more important.

Story and Duvall were not legit?

I'm not sure how 10 game sample size, or less, are relevant, but it is what it is. So, Duran has played almost exclusively in CF, BECAUSE HE'S A VERY GOOD CF'ER? I'm not sure we can claim anyone of these 3 are better or worse than the others on D, and Yes, if Duran could hit significantly better than Tapia or Ref, he'd probably be playing CF, but if we are going off 2023 numbers only, whereby Duran has zero ML stats, wouldn't he have to hit better than Tapia's 1.357 OPS to earn the job over him?

The 97.6% LOB% is a big help. It's been between 67-75% every other season. The .174 BAbip speaks to MVP's point about the 4 leaf clover. That has helped lessen the damage from 5 BBs in 10 IP.

-14 is better than -11? BTW, Tapia is +3 DRS, career (449 innings) and +5 OAA. Why did you not mention that?

We are only 1/16th through the season with Whitlock, Bello and maybe Paxton to join the club, soon and maybe Story, Mondesi, Joely and Duvall much later. This was Bloom's make or break winter. I still think that. I'm not trying to move the goalpost by saying the price for big signings went way up, this past winter, and that limited what he could do, but that is not an excuse. This is his team, now. Sale may end up being a blight we can blame on DD, but as a percent of the budget, DD's share went way down for this year. I still like the Martin & Jansen signings. I'm hopeful Joely, Mills and Bleier can help and Wink or Crawford will contribute. I still like the Yoshida signing, despite the slow start with his BA. The Duvall signing was looking good. Turner is a late season hitter, so I'll wait on him. I liked the idea of choosing Casas as our FT 1Bman, so I can't really bash Bloom for that, but ultimately he will be judged. (I do recall many jumping on me for merely suggesting we trade Casas- not that I wish we did, just yet.) I liked the McGuire trade and wonder why Wong is playing more. The Story signing has to give us something, later on, or Bloom may be wilting and gone. Too bad Mondesi isn't ready, now. Maybe that's on Bloom.

In the antiuniverse: Ort 6.00 ERA 1.40 FIP

Why? Because of this? -14 DRS, -2 OAA

So, you spoke, too soon. Soon, you will be saying he and Cordero suck.

Two non-overlapping 25 game stretches with the Sox with ERAs of 3.76 and 4.02! Eovaldi's career ERA with the Sox is 4.05 (3.73 FIP) Nick's is 4.36. 2020-2022 Sox ERA Leaders as SP'ers 3.32 Wacha 23 GS 3.79 Nate 61 GS 4.27 Hill 26 GS 4.36 Pivetta 67 GS 4.65 Perez 34 GS 4.74 ERod 31 GS 4.87 Richards 22 GS (5.22 as SP) SP/RP 2.73 Whitlock (9 GS w 4.15 ERA as SP) 3.02 Houck (22 GS w 3.34 ERA as SP)

I'll take Whitlock and Bello over Crawford, and felt that way before seeing Crawford's bad start to 2023. I've not given up on Crawford, but Whitlock and Bello not only have better histories, but they both throw better stuff. I have always felt Houck's inability to go through the line-up 3 times makes him the "odd man out," but not in a bad way. We need someone to fill the very important role Whitlock filled these past 2 years: long relief/spot starter. I'm okay keeping Houck as a starter, if we yank him after 18 batters, but I think Bello deserves a chance to shine, too. 1,2 and 3 times through a line-up, career as SP: .587/.901/.573 (11 PAs) Whitlock (as RP: .615/.361/n/a) .490/.671/.1.091 (33 PAs) Houck (as RP: .588/.423) .660/.903/.837 (47 PAs) Bello It's important to note the small sample sizes these 3rd time through reveal. Also, it is interesting to see that Bello has faced more batters the 3rd time through, in his brief ML career, than Whitlock & Houck combined.

No mention of the "butterfly man?"

Would all in have meant signing a stud back-up OF'er and SS?

It may suck not having a stud to back up Duvall and are using Kike to back up Story, but really, were we supposed to sign 2-3 more big name players as back-ups? I can certainly see why we went "stopgap" at SS (Mondesi 1 year) and CF (Kike 1 more year) and didn't really add anyone at 1B, except Turner as bench strength. We have mayer and Rafaela as our best prospects with 1-2 years on ML readiness. I do wish we added another SP'er, but one could argue Sale, Paxton and Whitlock (from the pen) with Kluber made some sense. We also have some pretty-highly ranked pitchers that are ML ready, now: Mata, Walter, Murphy along with recent grads Bello, Wink and Crawford. I'm not saying mistakes were not made, but there is only so much a GM can prepare for and spend enough money on.

It's not a huge mismatch... 2021-2022 (Careers) ERA/FIP/WHIP 2.73/3.07/1.062 Whitlock in 152 IP 2.47/2.98/0.942 McClanahan in 178 IP

I wasn't trying to imply anything about tonight. I'm not sure how well Whitlock will do in his first ML start in many months. I was thinking about the full season. I've been on the Pivetta train for a while. To me, he is one of MLB's best #5s and a pretty good #4, as well. He's probably as good or better than many team's #3's. I've spoke about his long stretches of very good pitching, in the past 2 seasons. I'm hopeful he can do it for 33 starts, this year. 3.76 ERA 17 starts from 9/1/2020 to 6/28/2021 4.02 ERA 25 starts from 9/1/2020 to 8/13/2021 3.83 ERA 25 starts from 4/26/22 to 9/7/2022, including a 3.33 stretch of 15 GS'd 25 game stretches are not small sample sizes.

It was almost entirely about Cora, except the title. Yes, much was about his time with Houston, but I doubt you posted this on any Astros sites.

We did add Story (5 years), Yoshida (5 years) and Devers (10 more years) in less than a 12 month period. We slightly expanded the concept of "stopgap" from 1 to 2 year deals, or one year deals with options (all club options, except Turner's, which is a combo player-club.) It's not like fans are going to be thrilled we got 2 years of Jansen, Martin, Kluber and Joely, but 2 years is a little better than 1. We extended Kike from 2 to 3 years, too. I know that thrilled many fans. With guys like Rafaela, Bello, Mayer, Casas and others knocking on the door, I can see why we put off adding long term at a few positions.

2022, 2021, 2020 We actually signed way more players on 2 year deals or options for the 2nd year than the last 3 seasons. 10 Devers 5 Yoshida 2 Jansen 2 Martin 1 + 1 option Kluber 1 + 1 option Turner 1 + 1 option Joely (+1 arb) 1 + 1 option Bleier (via trade) The only 1 year players added were Duvall, Kike (extended last summer), Mondesi via trade and Paxton (took option.) 2022: (Bogey, Nate, Vaz, Kike and JD were on their last years) 5 Story 2 Diekman (traded away) 1 + 1 opt Paxton 1 Wacha 1 R Hill 1 Strahm 1 Robles 1 JBJ via trade 2021: 3 arbs Renfroe 2 + 1 opt Sawamura (Let go) 2 Kike 1 + 1 opt Andriese (Let go) 1 Richards 1 Perez 2020: Nobody was signed for more than 1 year 1 Ottavino (via trade) 1 Perez 1 Marwin

I doubt we'd play his full contract. BTV has him at -$7M. We could send them Brasier and ask for $4-6M with DeJong. That may keep us under but leave very little for deadline deals, if needed.

Whitlock may be a bigger key to this year's success than Sale and Paxton combined.

Half the team isn't hitting, now. He might have more 2023 promise than Arroyo, Wong and maybe even Turner & Casas.

Indeed, it's nearly impossible to make major additions, now. It's easy to just say, "we need to add someone, now," but the cost would likely be something hardly anyone would agree is worth it, especially other GMs.