moonslav59

Two ground ball singles are grounds for DFA.

The Jays tried hard to re-sign him and reportedly interested in trading for him, now. You'd think they'd know if being a "headcase" is an issue.

It's hard to know. Paulino is SP's #17 prospect. Maybe it would take Paulino and Mata (#18.) It all depends on what one other GM might offer and us topping them. I think Stroman gets traded to the highest bidder. He will not stay with the Cubs for the rest of 2023. Would it take Paulino plus Walter or Murphy? Maybe. Would I do that? Probably. Would the Cubs? It all depends on how their scouts value our prospects offered.

His BTV value is about what Paulino is worth. He is not going to cost 2-3 "prized prospects." If he did, I'm in agreement on not trading for any rental.

Indeed, and that is why there were reportedly only two offers of roughly the same return value. Any judgment of that trade has to be within this context, and to me getting just Dugo for 5 years makes the trade beyond criticism. I'm fine with those who do not think it was a "good trade," but I disagree. Dugo & Wong for 1 year of Betts was a good trade. The Price aspect makes it a no-brainer in my opinion. The Beni trade is certainly still incomplete as Wink a few more pre-arb years, so big gains may come from him. Gambrell is looking promising, finally. de la Rosa is my sleeper prospect who has failed to crack SP's recent top 60 lists. That trade also saved us $3M and IMO, it helped us be able to sign Renfroe. (One could argue we used the $3M on Marwin, instead, and that changes that point to the worse.) Nobody has to convince me the Renfroe trade was not s*****. It sucked from day one, and I said it then. Even the Pivetta trade involved us getting Seabold. Bloom rarely made any trade for just prospects. That's not the typical "Rays' way" of doing things. He has made prospects for prospects trades. The Groome for Hosmer and two prospects was unique for Bloom. He's made trades like Ottavino with German for nothing. He's made vets for vets and prospects often. He's made a few, like Moreland and Pillar for only prospects, and the most recent one was Vaz for Abreu and EValdez, but those seem rarer than the others. He has traded prospects for vets, like Aldo Ramirez for Schwarber, and a few more minor ones for guys like Pham, but those are rare, too.

Yes, I know. My question was about his prospect status and if he should count as a Bloom prospect helping the big league team.

It was the same with the great rotation dump of 2014. We played it halfway or both ways: Lester & Gomes for Cespedes & a comp pick. (Cespedes was later flipped for Porcello.) Lackey & Littrell for Alan Craig & Joe Kelly Doubront for Marco Hernandez Andrew Miller for ERod was the only prospect trade, and it was the best one.

There is also the argument we get more for Betts without Price dragging down the return. Even without counting the in trade prospects, Bloom provided the MLB club with more prospects than I expected in his 3.5 years, especially considering year 1 was COVID year and he drafted almost all HS kids, highly. One can argue these guys aren't great, and I won't disagree, but how much more help did you expect from a GM under these circumstances? Whitlock Bernardino Jacques Was Schreiber a prospects when acquired? I think he had under 30 IP in the bigs w Detroit? Again, I figured it would be 3-5 years for prospects to get to be ML ready (more like 5 with so many HS kids) and another 1-3 years for them to mature and contribute on a regular basis. Those who have no ML experience have values that are subjective and speculative. Only time will tell, and almost any opinion on their value is acceptable.

My guess is all these guys will be heavily shopped: 2 month Rentals w BTV values 9.7 Giolito CWS 8.8 Montgomery STL 8.5 Snell SDP 6.1 Stroman CHC 5.7 ERod DET 2.1 W Miley MIL Maybe some of these: 56.0 Keller (2.3 years remaining) PIT 51.4 Cease (2.3) CWS 40.7 Burnes (1.3) MIL 36.8 Musgrove (4.3) SDP 35.1 Sandoval (3.3) LAA 26.6 S Gray (4.3) WSH 24.1 Canning (2.3) LAA 22.4 Sears (5.3) OAK 21.9 Lynch (4.3) KCR 20.0 Singer (3.3) KCR 10.7 Blackburn (2.3) OAK 4.4 S Lugo (1.3) SDP 2.7 Houser (1.3) MIL -34.5 Verlander (2.3) NYM

That is not untrue. (See how I did that?)

if you replace a negative with a zero WAR guy, the addition by subtraction thing makes some sense, but is still not really accurate. Adding Schreiber should be a big plus. It looks like we may have no scrubs in our pen by mid August. Our pen has been amazingly good and deep, but can get even better from just returning pitchers. Add 2 decent SP’ers and our pen could become the best it’s ever been!

I didn’t expect much on the ML roster from Bloom’s farm in just 3.5 years. It does make sense we should expected something from the Betts, Beni and Renfroe trades that involved prospects, but that is not so cut and dried. All those trades involved getting a vet- Dugo, JBJ and Cordero, and two involved salary relief, as Price was a dump and Beni saved us $3M that one could argue allows us to sign Renfroe for $3M, in the first place. All I’m saying is we have seen some help from Bloom’s farm- more than I expected, by now. Of course they still have more to prove or disprove. I’m excited seeing all the farm help, much of which are DD remnants, but I’m glad we are seeking a more sustainable plan. I have no idea, if it works or not, but I choose optimism in this front.

It's annoying and weird, since you have to do added work to make it like that.

Wink may very well be worth more than Beni gave. Gambrell and de la Rosa are still in play a bit. Wong and Dugo for 1 year of Betts and the Price dump was a good deal, and the best available. Bernardino has helped. He may suck, starting today, but he has looked good. Whitlock was a steal. Valdez and Abreu look very promising. It's not often you get these immediate results from your farm in under 3 years.

Where did I come even close to hinting Bernardino is a "great find." I'm saying I am impressed by what we have gotten from Bloom's farm, since I expected about nothing for 3-6 years after his hiring. I have not "made up my mind." I have said over and over much of the value placed on Bloom's farm is highly speculative. Recently, I said it could end up being like Ben's that looked good on paper and got us some value through DD's trades but underperformed expectations. I am very open-minded and know Bloom's farm could crash and burn.

Bloom also drafted mostly HS players in the top rounds, so expectations for earlier returns are totally unrealistic. I have actually been impressed by how many Bloom prospects have made an impact, despite all those HS picks and the lost 2020 season of development and shortened draft. Whitlock Rule 5 Winckowski Trade Wong Trade Bernardino Waivers To a lesser extent... E Valdez & D Hamilton via trades This is pretty decent immediate help, considering.

...and from way back: Pedro Martinez ...and more recently & to a lesser extent... Rick Porcello Nathan Eovaldi

Where do you think they should be ranked? How much do you know about other farms of teams these ranking services have behind us? We have graduated a lot of prospects, recently, so I do think we may have moved down a bit due to attrition, but I think the power of our lower farm will help us rise back up to the top 10 within a year or two. Our next grads are not on the same level as Bello, Duran, Casas, Wong, Bernardino, Crawford and Winckowski. All these guys graduated after July 1, 2022. Players that may graduate before July 1, 2024: 10. E Valdez 11. B Walter 13. C Murphy 22. D Hamilton 47. J Jacques Longshots: 18. B Mata (if he ever stays healthy) 20. W Abreu 25. L Guerrero 26. R Fernandez 38. S Scott 39. P Sikes 43. C Koss 48. AJ Politi 51. T Denlinger I Coffey, G Gambrell, N Sogard, R Fitzgerald I can see why this class can bring you down, especially when compared to the recent class of graduates, but shortly after the above class reaches graduation potential, we will see these guys (by July 1, 2025:) 1. Mayer 3. Rafaela 5. Yorke 6. Drohan 9. Wikelman 12. Bonaci 14. Meidroth 15. Jordan 17. Paulino 21. Hickey Plus some from the above list that failed to graduate by 7/1/24. Call me a homer, but I'm excited about our younger prospects: Age: 19 Bleis #2 Anthony #4 Romero #8 Rodriguez-Cruz #19 C Coffey #27 L Ravelo #29 B Brannon #31 Y Monegro 32 J Paez 42 E Lira 49 N Yuten 50 A Lugo 60 18 Joh Garcia #16 M Alcanatara #28 F Encarnacion 45 17 Y Cespedes #23 F Arias 46

It shows how building a sustainable farm system and not trading away top prospects can work like a charm. (I realize there are many examples of teams that fail with this plan, mostly ones that never spend on good free agents.)

IFA Singings since 2020: 2020-2021 Miguel Bleis (#2 on SP's (Salem- on IL) Enderso Lira #49 SP's (DSL) Luis Ravelo 29th on SP's (Salem) Jedixson Paez #42 (Salem) Ahbram Liendo Alvaro Mejias Andy Lugo #58 (FCL) Armando Sierra .897 (CPX) 2022 Fraymi de Leon Freili Encarnacion #45 (FCL) Johanfarn Garcia Jancel Santana Natanael Yuten #50 (FCL) .969 OPS Crisofher Paniagua Yosander Ascencio .951 OPS Marvin Alcantara #28 on SP's (FCL) Yordanny Monegro #32 (Salem) 0.60 ERA 2023 Yoeilin Cespedes ranked 23rd on SPs (.878 OPS w DSL) Franklin Arias #46 (DSL) .814 OPS Yoiber Ruiz Kleyver Salazar

Do you really think us selecting Yorke and Jordan is such a bad thing that we need to discuss it for pages and pages. I think we did fine with those picks and that draft. If it ends up we swung and missed on that draft, I'd say the others look to make up for it, and then some. Our IFA signings, the last 3.5 years seem to be showing a lot of promise, too. Our farm is ranked about 10th to 15th, despite seeing many recent graduates. I'm not sure why you seem to be obsessed with tearing it down.

I'm assuming one of two things: 1. They are waiting until they think they are one Curt Schilling away from ring contention. 2. They are trying a new strategy of actually keeping almost all the top prospects until fruition. Castillo was traded last summer. Free agency might be an option, at some point.

I'm just talking about the farm. Did you really expect us to rebuild from a bottom 5 farm to a top 10 in less than 3.5 years? Chosen prospects take time to develop, and then often need more time to mature once called up. Yes, I think this is a long term winning strategy that takes patience- something our society sorely lacks.

Too bad, our farm is so weak.

BTV has these values: 2 month Rentals 9.7 Giolito CWS 8.8 Montgomery STL 8.5 Snell SDP 6.1 Stroman CHC 5.7 ERod DET 2.1 W Miley MIL Longer Term (Years) 56.0 Keller (2.3) PIT 51.4 Cease (2.3) CWS 40.7 Burnes (1.3) MIL 36.8 Musgrove (4.3) SDP 35.1 Sandoval (3.3) LAA 27.4 Senga (1.3) NYM 26.6 S Gray (4.3) WSH 24.1 Canning (2.3) LAA 22.4 Sears (5.3) OAK 21.9 Lynch (4.3) KCR 20.0 Singer (3.3) KCR 10.7 Blackburn (2.3) OAK 4.4 S Lugo (1.3) SDP 2.7 Houser (1.3) MIL -34.5 Verlander (2.3) NYM Sox Values 63 Mayer 51 Duran 49 Bello 42 Casas 35 Devers 32 Houck 28 Bleis & Anthony 20 Crawford & Yoshida 19 Yorke & Verdugo 17 Whitlock 13 Rafaela 9 Alcantara, Schreiber & Romero 6 Paxton & Paulino 5 Drohan 4 Wong, Perales, Wikelman, EValdez & Walter 3 Meidroth, Pivetta & E R-C 2.5 Hickey & Brannon 2.4 Abreu, DHam, Cespedes, Jordan, Wink & Monegro 2.2 Bastrado, Mata & Murphy 2.1 Encarnacion 2.0 Guerrero, Castro, Refsnyder, Bonaci, Fernandez, Blalock & Lugo I have to think, despite Paulino maybe being overvalued, I'd make these trades: Paulino for Stroman or ERod Paulino & Mata for Montgomery or Snell Paulino & Walter for Giolito