moonslav59

We could also stash Duran in LF and trade Verdugo, since they don't seem to want him in CF or RF, and his arbs will start becoming more costly.

Yes, I know, but he's supposed to be one of baseball's best defensive catchers and "pitcher whisperer." Oakland is loaded with young catchers. I'd love to see us trade for Montas & Langeliers, but I doubt they agree to these BTV approved trades: 37.0 Montas (1.6 yrs) 27.9 Langeliers (6 yrs) -5.0 Picotty (0.6 yrs) salary dump/RH'd OF'er (59.9 Total) for 48.8 Casas 6.8 Downs 4.6 Winckowski (60.4 Total) or 37.7 Yorke 14.5 Duran 6.6 Gonzalez 1.1 Ward (59.9 Total)

I think Cora will use Houck and Strahm as traditional closers, with Houck maybe going 1.1 to 2 inijngs every so often. Schreiber looks to be the 8th inning guy, for now. We could use another solid 8th inning guy, but our pen has been doing okay, recently.

I'm not sure we spend a big chunk of our winter spending budget on a catcher. (I think we'll trade for one- like we tried to do on Stallings.) Contreras turns 31, next season. Most catchers do not age well, but enough do. Hard to know if Contreras is in the age well category.

It's not a perfect methodology, but yes, I think 5 IP allowing 1 ER is doing okay to well. The ghost runner ******** is not the pen's fault. Sure, they could have done better, but the starter let bup 3 ER in 5 IP. Are you saying that was better? I did this study to show that the pen has done okay or better more often than not, even if you add the pen game as "worse" than the starters. Granted, the starters go longer innings and don't come in with 1-2 outs, like some RP'ers do, but overall the pen has a better OPS against than the starters. This isn't me trying to say our starters are a bigger weakness than our pen, because I don't believe that. My point is to show that maybe the pen has not been as awful as some here seem to think it has been. If going 5 IP allowing 1 ER, but 2 stupid ghost runners score is bad, then we can agree to disagree. The pen kept us in that game, and they blew it at the end by allowing a man placed on second to score, twice. How many runs would our starters have allowed, if a man was placed on 2B in some of their innings?

The pen is starting to be more helpful than not, of late. Here is my update... Starters IP/ER vs Relievers IP/ER SP- RP L 5.0/3 - 5.0/1 (2 ghost runs allowed) L 5.2/4 - 2.1/0 W 3.1/3 - 5.2/1 L 4.1/1 - 3.2/2 W 4.1/3 - 4.2/0 W 5.0/2 - 4.0/5 L 2.0/5 - 7.0/4 W 5.2/0 - 3.1/0 W 5.0/0 - 4.0/1 L 4.2/4 - 4.1/4 W 4.2/1 - 4.1/1 L 4.0/5 - 5.0/1 L 5.0/2 - 4.0/1 W 5.0/2- 4.0/0 L 4.0/0- 5.2/3 L 4.0/ 0- 4.0/5 L 7.0/2- 1.0/4 L 4.2/2- 5.0/3 (plus 1 ghost runner) W 6.0/1- 3.0/0 L 3.0/0- 5.0/0 W 4.0/0- 5.0/1 L 7.0/0- 2.0+/1 (+ ghost runner scored) L 4.1/3- 3.2/6 W 5.2/0- 3.2/0 L 5.0/2- 5.0/7 L 5.0/0- 4.0/8 L 5.0/3- 4.0/1 L 6.0/0-4.0/2 L 2.2/3- 6.1/0 W 3.0/3- 6.0/1 L 6.1/3- 2.3/2 W 7.0/1- 2.0/0 W 6.0/2- 3.0/0 L *pen game* W 5.0/2- 4.0/1 L 1.2/6- 7.1/3 W 9.0/1- n/a (Pivetta CG) W 2.0/4- 7.0/2 W 4.2/2- 4.1/0 W 3.0/5- 6.0/0 W 6.2/2-3.1/1 W 6.0/3-3.0/0 L 5.0/2- 3.0/0 W 4.1/5- 4.2/2 L 6.0/2- 3.0/9 W 9.0/2- n/a L 3.0/4- 6.0/0 W 6.0/1- 3.0/1 L 4.0/6- 5.0/4 L 5.2/0- 3.1/0 W 6.0/0- 3.0/0 W 7.0/0-2.0/0 W 6.0/1-3.0/1 W 9.0/0- N/A (Wacha CG) W 4.0/4-6.0/1 W 5.0/0-4.0/0 L 5.0/4-3.0-1 W 4.1/2- 4.2/1 The pen has done better in 27 games. The starters have done better in 22, counting 2 CG's where pen did not pitch.. They did about the same in 9 games. The pen as done okay to well in 40 games. The starters have done okay to well in 38 games. I did not count the "pen game" 7-1 loss to the Rangers.

Maybe he's just more of a warm weather batter.

Half are still throwing 4 out of 8.

I fell asleep and had to finish the game, this morning. Houck was finally used as a traditional closer. It worked. Good to see Bobby Dee starting to make a difference. He's over .600, now, as Cordero has dipped below .700. Nice win. We need these against teams like this. One game at a time!

6 Walks will do that.

If he disliked walks so much, he sure stuck with Ottavino and others much longer than Valdez. Worst BB% 2021-2022 Combined 17 DHern & Diekman 15 Workman & Crawford 14 Rios 13 Ottavino 12 Sawamura 11 Taylor, Davis, Brice, Robles & Barnes 10 Valdez & Richards 9 Pivetta 8 Houck & Wacha 7 Perez, ERod & Sale 6 Andriese, Hill, Strahm & Whitlock 5 Schreiber & Brasier 4 Eovaldi 3 Danish

Covers.com lists the following injuries: 60 Day Paxton- Elbow (late August) Sale- Ribs (mid July) Taylor- Back (indefinite) 10 Day Kike- Hip Flexor (indefinite) Questionable: Barnes (Shoulder) Bogey (Shoulder) Eovaldi (Hip) I hope Whitlock's issue is mild and short-lived.

OPS Against 2022 .394 Schreiber .539 Strahm .554 Valdez .616 Houck (some as a starter) .621 Davis .631 Whitlock (298 PAs against) .641 Barnes 222 .659 Richards 113 .662 Taylor 209 .692 Robles 109 OPS Against in 2021 (Relief Only) .493 Houck 42 (PAs) .615 Rios (98 PAs against) another unsung Bloom addition .631 Whitlock 298 .641 Barnes 222 .659 Richards 113 .692 Robles 109 .700 Valdez 177 .702 DHern 182 .728 Ottavino 276 .742 Brasier 50 .768 Sawamura 233 .773 Davis 75 .942 Andriese 177 2022 High Leverage PAs Against (OPS Against) 44 Robles .592 40 Houck .920 (some as starter) 37 Strahm .535 37 Diekman .736 24 Schreiber .481 22 Barnes .960 21 Brasier 1.535 13 Davis .580 12 Crawford .750 9 Danish 1.159 8 Sawamura .821 3 Valdez .667 2021 142 Ottavino .621 113 Barnes .657 102 Whitlock .657 61 Taylor .497 (Really missed in 2022) 56 DHern .732 44 Sawamura .570 42 Andriese 1.003 20 Robles .671 18 Valdez .533 15 Davis .449 13 Brasier .891

Valdez had decent numbers, too, especially if you throw out his worst game (or two).

This is most likely, even if he doesn't need 60 days on the IL. He's not going to be called up in the next 60 days.

Bloom has largely missed on pitcher signings, until this recent winter. Wacha, Strahm and Hill were good signings. The trade for Pivetta, Rule 5 addition, Whitlock and waiver wire addition, Schreiber has propelled Bloom to a solid plus on the pitching front for 2022, so far. The Sale & Price costs were DD's doing. The $17M for Eovaldi still looks good in my book. We need Houck, Strahm and Schreiber to continue to carry the pen and maybe 1-2 other pen arms to improve, at least until Sale and or Paxton join the staff, or we pick up someone at the deadline. I'm not all that optimistic about the pen, but I've been surprised by Bloom's pen before. The rotation has been a huge plus, especially over their last 5-7 starts.

Yes, his numbers, including his .572 OPS Against are good to very good. I'm not sure why he bugs me so much. He was demoted, at one point, so Cora must not have liked him all that much, either, at one point.

Pivetta was struggling, but he still K'd 11 out of the 15 outs he got and left with just 2 runs scored off him. Sawamura let both inherited runners score to give Pivetta a worse line than he might have had with a capable middle man getting him out of the jam.

I've never agreed that managers should go all out to win every game. It's a 162 game season. Do I think Cora rests players too much? Maybe a little, but having players fressh in September and October is not a bad thing.

I'd put Duran in LF for 2024.

While I think Arauz is most deserving of a DFA, the weakness at depth in the OF and IF makes releasing a pitcher seem most reasonable, for now. I doubt it's Brasier, so who, then?

When we hired Bloom, I know my expectations were that he'd excel at finding cheap "gems in the rough", I call them, which would allow us to focus more resources on filling a few key roles not filled by gems or rising prospects. I use the word context a lot, as I think some forget just how bad our 40 man roster looked after 2019. They remember the 2019 roster being very similar to the great 2018 roster and somehow think Bloom should have been able to create a winner in 2020 out of thin air. Yes, he had a nice but small core of stars (Betts, Bogey, Devers, Beni, Eovaldi, Sale & ERod), but Betts was forced out the door by Henry, and Sale got hurt while ERod got COVID. 2020: I did expect Bloom to hit on more of his cheap additions than he did, and it's fair game to criticize him for that. He was hired to work magic with $20M to spend on 20 slots to upgrade. He failed on nearly every addition, that winter. His biggest signing, Perez, is doing very well, now, so maybe Bloom's timing- not judgement- was all that was off on that one. The Betts trade has been beaten to death, so I won't add anything to that. 2021: The additions made from during the 2020 season to the offseason were significant, but what is often most remembered are his largest cost additions, mostly failing: Richards at $10M gave us some relief help and scattered starting plusses, but has to be viewed as a failure at that cost. Perez started out well, and had the best of second best starter numbers after a third of the season, but he fell off a cliff and gave nothing afterwards- failure. The Ottavino trade was largely a failure, except we obtained Frank German, who might be our most promising pitcher on the farm, right now. I hesitate to call spending $3M on Marwin and $2M on Andriese major failures, but Bloom did fail at "finding gems" on those two, as well as Santana and others. He had enough failures from pre-2020 to the start of 2021 to think he wasn't the magician some of us expected or hoped for. The Beni trade has also been beaten to death, but Cordero is showing signs of worth, and maybe Winckowski can end up filling a role. 2022: The Diekman signing looks like the only "failure," so far, but there is a lot of season left, and he's one of the few signed beyond 2022. The Story signing was Bloom's first and only major signing in 3 off seasons. With 5.6 years to go, the jury is still out. The JBJ trade has been beaten to death, too, and again, the jury has to still be out on that one. Now for the pluses: Pre-2020: Not many additions have had any lasting affects. I guess the Springs and Mazza additions can be viewed as not bad, but he traded them. Maybe R Hern can be our back-up catcher, next year. Valdez, Arauz and a few others do not look all that promising. During 2020: The Pivetta & Seabold trade was a solid hit. Other prospects gained have not amounted to anything promising. The claim of Arroyo off waivers looked good, at first. 2020-2021 off season: The Whitlock steal is Bloom's crowning achievement, so far. Signing Kike at just $7M x 2 also looks like a plus, so far, despite his 2022 struggles. The Renfroe signing, using the savings from the Beni trade was a big hit, and we now have JBJ, Binelas and Hamilton to show for that addition (good or bad?) During the 2021 season: the rentals traded for and what we gave up for them has to be viewed as a significant plus. (Schwarber, Iggy, Robles, Shaw and Davis) 2021-2022 off season: This has to be viewed as an overall plus, so far, but we still have 2/3 of the season to play out and over 5 years of Story to evaluate. Story Wacha Hill Strahm Diekman Schreiber (waivers) Danish (minor league FA) Accepting the Vaz $7M option I won't discuss the drafts and IFA signings, except to say Bloom's additions to the farm through the draft, IFA and trades has been significant and largely viewed as positive. The 40 man roster is much deeper and stronger. The farm is deeper and stronger. The 26 man roster is light years better than the 2020 (post Betts) roster. Maybe the upgrades have net been as good or fast as some wanted or expected, but I'll come back to the word "context." $20M to spend year one with 20 weak slots on the 40. $40M to spend the next winter with 10-12 weak slots on the 40. Much more money to spend, this past winter with 6-8 weak slots. The progression and lessening of weak slots is noticeable and significant.

My comment was specifically aimed at last year's deadline and later moves (Iggy & Shaw). Schreiber and Wacha came after. Pivetta before.

He's been number one on my DFA list, for a while, but I don't think they view Fitzy, Sanchez or Downs as a better option. We've talked about the lack of ML- ready, organization depth in the OF, especially RH'd, but or infield depth is rather shallow, too.

I think they are stepping up Houck's high leverage appearances, and he hasn't gone more than 2 IP or 30 pitches in his last 4 games. Strahm can't close every game, unless we spread out our save opportunities. My guess is Houck will get a chance to close, very soon. If he does well, he'll get more and more opportunities. It looks like Strahm, Schreiber and Houck are reaching or at "reliable" levels, which is something this pen has needed for a while. There were stretches we had none of just one.