moonslav59

Who replace Wacha?

Agreed. I almost did not even list TOR or MN, and I doubt Bogey agrees to play 2B for even 2 months.

I really am not looking forward to a fire sale, but the thought is forcing its way into my brain. Could this be the 26 man roster in August? S1 Whitlock S2 Sale S3 Paxton S4 Pivetta S5 Seabold Closer Houck RP2 Taylot RP3 Diekman RP4 Brasier RP5 Barnes RP6 DHern RP7/8 Crawford/German/Feltman/Winckowski/Groome/Wallace C Wong & RHernandez 1B Casas 2B Arroyo & Downs/Sanchez SS Story 3B Devers LF Verdugo & JDavis/Granberg CF Fitzy & Duran RF JBJ DH Dalbec

Indeed, but we can try to not let it happen as often, going forward. Changing the closer situation seems easier to try than trying something to change the offense centered on 6+ guys free-falling as we speak.

The Angels might take 2 months of Bogey. If the Philles get in the race, they may, as well. Possible contenders with low SS OPS, so far: .415 STL .420 LAA .599 PHI .624 TOR .650 LAD .659 SDP .665 SFG .694 MN .695 NYY

In theory, we could get a lot by dealing anyone and everyone with a year left. Then, we could spend as much as this year and replace all those needing replacing and maybe improve. After all, price's $16M comes off the books, and replacing guys like Vaz & Plawecki should not be hard with their $10M. Replacing Strahm and wacha will not be easy at their prices. Replacing Nate, JD and Bogey will not be easy, either, but add Price's $16M and we'll have about $75M of their money to do it. (Maybe Nate comes back at $20M and JD at $10M per.)

I think it's a cinch he's traded, if we are out of it by the deadline- maybe even if we are back in it, too, but not a cinch. Other last year of control players: JD Eovaldi Kike Wacha Hill Strahm Robles Vaz Plawecki

You keep going back to blaming the closer. I think we all understand the offense and closer role have deeply failed, this year. We are all getting a bit repetitious in our focusing on certain areas.

Houck has been pretty good for the first inning or two and mostly as a starter the first 1-2 times through a line-up. We can't know for sure, but I think he'd have done better as a closer, than the committee has done. We can't know for sure he'd be good for just 1-2 innings at a time had he been used that way from game 1, but it's hard to imagine him doing much worse than what we've gotten, so far. We all have heard about his spike the third time through a line-up, but do we all know how great he's been the first time through? .504 1st .647 2nd 1.017 3rd I know many here despise analytics, but these numbers don't lie. His game logs, this year first 2 innings: 4/10 GS 1st: 0 ER (1 H & 2 BB) 2nd: 0 ER 1H 4/16 GS 1st: 0 ER 1BB 2nd: 0 ER 4/21 GS 1st: 0 ER 2nd: 0 ER 1 2B 4/24 RP (came in with 1 out and man on 1st in 8th) 1st: 0 ER (2 outs no runners allowed) 2nd: 0 ER (1-2-3 9th) 4/29 RP (came in with 0 outs and man on 1st) 1st: 0 ER (1H & 1BB) 2nd: 0 ER (1-2-3) 5/5 RP (Piggy back- fresh inning) 1st: 0 ER (1-2-3 w 3Ks) 2nd: 2 ER (BB & HR) 5/8 GS 1st: 0 ER (1-2-3) 2nd: 0 ER (1-2-3) He has yet to let up a run in his first inning pitched. He's had one bad 2nd inning pitched in 7 games played in. Again, I'm not saying this easily translates into him being a lock-down closer, but his past history has shown he does very well the first few batters he faces in each game, and gets worse as he pitches longer into games. Why not give it a go? Call up Seabold or Winckowski to start.

He has for his first IP.

Whitlock & Houck are ineffective pitchers?

The set-up and long relief part of our pen has really done much better than expected. It's when non-closers are asked to close the wheels come off. It's hard for me to blame the pitchers asked to do something they are incapable of doing. Sure, they share some of the blame. They are supposed to be able to get batters out, and walking the lead-off guy is always a no-no, but yes, Bloom could have signed a real closer, or Cora could have used Houck or Whitlock as the FT closer from day 1. Agreed.

As bad as this pen looks on paper, especially with Whitlock and Houck starting or piggy-backing, our pen has out-shown our starters in close to half our games. While all the losses make anything seem less than magical, I still think, overall, the pen has done better than expected. The closer role not being defined should not be held against the pen, as you have stated. It's on Bloom & Cora.

No, I missed typed: it's... Freakin' Chris Sale!

Exactly, and although the starters are doing fine, lately, they were doing worse than the pen for the first half of the games played, this season. Yes, the whole team has contributed to this debacle. Is it too late to turn things around, in a big way?

Or, the ones we have are being used everywhere else but at closer.

Our history has been more about nice starts to seasons with meteoric collapses and not poor starts and great comebacks.

Shines on his dump parade.

The analytics guys back then, told him not to.

Game by Game Breakdown (Updated after 4/30) 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 The pen has done better in 12 games. The starters have done better in 14. They did about the same in 3 games. The pen as done okay to well in 18 games. The starters have done okay to well in 19 games.

The pen has actually done better than the starter in a lot of games, just not so much recently.

We just picked up Carlos Martinez, and he started, today: 0.2 IP 4 H 5 ER 2 BB 0 K DHern is relief: 3 IP 0 h 1 ER 3 BB 4 K Fitzy his his 8th and Casas his 6th. Duran went 0-4 & Downs 0-2 w a BB. The Sea Dogs lost, too. Santos: 4 IP 7 H 5 ER 1 BB 4 K Koss with a 3-run HR. Granberg 1-2 w 2 BBs & Hamilton 1-4. Greenville won 10-3 without Northcut even getting a hit. Yorke 2-5 Espin & Erro 3-4 Binelas 1-3 w BB Jimenez 1-4 w 2 runs Drohan 5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K Salem lost the first game of 2. Ugueto & Lopez went 2-3 w a BB Kavadas & Jordan 1-3 Lopez has a dinger in game 2.

I'd put Fitzy ahead of Granberg.

The shift is definitely analytics related. Taking pitchers out earlier based on the 3rd time through data is related to analytics, for sure, but managers have always used data, match-up and things like pitch count, baater v pitcher data, which is also analytics- though maybe cruder- for many many years. When I look at teh data, I see guys like Wacha and Hill have done better than Eovaldi and Pivettta the third time through a line-up, yet Cora chooses the opposite as the analytics I see.

It seems like Cora makes a lot of "gut choices," but maybe something is telling him to do them. Managers have always looked at match-ups and splits to make many choices. Sure, they do it more, now and use more stats and metrics, but I'm not sure it's changes all that much.