moonslav59

Yanks just acquired Josh Donaldson and his full $50M owed to him & Kiner-Falefa for Gary Sanchez & Gio Urshela!

Price was drafted while Bloom was in the Rays organization. True he was promoted to a bigger role, the year after Price was drafted, but I think he may have had a say in that pick. He got a couple good years from Matt Moore before dumping him. Stanek did pretty well as a starter. He traded for Glasnow. Shane McClanahan would be our 3rd starter, this year.

Doesn't "sell high" imply you get something of value back? (sarcasm alert)

Agreed. I'm nearly certain we add a RH'd OF bat that may delegate Duran to AAA to start the season. My point was that as of now, he's about the only plan B we have.

Jake Diekman? Am I missing something? I mean, you guys hated on Ottavino. (I did a little bit, too, I admit.) Diekman is 35. He's coming off a 5.0 BB/9 season, which is exactly his career number. His WHIP was 1.335, which is also close to his career 1.335. His HR/9 number (1.5 in '21) was over twice his career 0.7 mark. Sure he K's a bunch of people, but so did Ottavino and so does DHern. 12.3 K/9 in 2021 (11.5 career) Ottavino was 35 wen we acquired him (not a lefty, I know). He was coming off a 5.1 BB/9 season, but had a career mark of 4.0 not 5.1. He had an awful WHIP in 2020 and had a career mark of 1.312 before 2021. His career HR/9 is 0.9- about the same as Diekman. His career k/9 was 10.4 and was 12.3 in 2020- close to Diekman's numbers. DHern is 25 and has one of the 8th highest K/9 career rates in MLB history at 14.2 (78+ IP). Sure, his 7.4 BB/9 rate blows Ottavino and Diekman away, but he lets up way less hits (6.3 over the last 2 seasons). His HR/9 rate is about the same at 0.9. Look, I'm not saying I'd take DHern over Diekman, but lets not get carried away on this guy, just yet, anyway. Taylor has better numbers: 3.9 career BB/9 (4.3 in '21) 11.3 K rate (11.3 in '21) 1.329 WHIP (1.427 in '21) 0.8 HR/9 (0.4 in '21)

The guy walks 5 per 9- career and in 2021. If he's our best lefty pen arm, that's a tiny incremental gain.

I'm talking about going into the season as a top 4-6 contender, like we were in 2018. That's what you try to do every few years. The 2013's are the pipe dreams, as was our chances in 2021. Yes, miracles can happen, but I think building for a ring window of a few years is the way to plan. Right now, the plan is not to win it all in 2022. It wasn't in 2021, either, and the proof was when even after a great start, we did not do much at the deadline. Had we spent big, this winter, maybe we could have cracked the top 4-6, but I do not think the top brass sees this as "the time."

Also, looking ahead, the following players see their team control end after this season: Sale (opt out option) Bogey (opt out option) JD Eovaldi Kike Vaz JBJ ($8M option makes him leaving doubtful) Paxton Wacha Hill Strahm Plawecki (Not countign arb choices) The rebuild is far from over. The Devers choice is looming, if not already upon us.

I don't disagree, but looking at the roster, does it look like one finished rebuilding or in the midst of a normal overhaul of its 40 man roster? We've added 12 names to the 40 man roster since opening day 2021. The fact that we did so well, last year does not mean the rebuild was complete. Sure, we will be projected to win more games in 2022 than we were before the 2021 season, but we have a ways to go to get to top contender status, and looking at the players we added, this winter- almost all on 1 year deals- I'm not seeing signs Henry and Bloom feel like "this is the year," despite what we hoped would happen. No major signings. No major trades. Lost ERod and Ottavino, who despite struggling near the end of the season was one of our best RP'ers, last year. One can say Wacha/Hill/Paxton can replace Perez/Richards/Robles, in kind, but who replaces ERod & Ottavino? Our hope is a full year from Sale and Diekman/Strahm. Who replaces Schwarber/Iggy/Shaw? JBJ, Duran and more play from Arroyo? We are far from the promise land.

We need to add to the RP pool, not take away. Having DHern start the year in AAA is not a sign we are deep enough to trade RP'ers away. Even if we add McHugh, I could see us not trading away DHern or Davis.

Bloom has done a good job building up the farm and 40 man depth, but with limited funding and so many slots to fill it's a wonder we won 92 games, last year. It was not about how little he had to spend, IMO, as it was about the amount of holes he needed to fill. He actually spent quite a bit, last year and will again, this year, but almost exclusively on 1 year deals. The added $20M on the lux tax gives him more wiggle room, but there is still not enough to spend on a $25M+ player, without going over the tax line. IMO, e will be allowed to go over, soon, perhaps next winter. I think the top brass still views the roster as not quite being at the point where a couple big expenditures would make us a top 3-5 contender, and that is the time they are waiting for. In hindsight, one could argue we were 2 big players away, in 2021, and adding Schwarber nearly got us there. The additions we made, so far this winter, hints that this is still team waiting and slowly building to the point where we will pounce. $12M JBJ (1-2 yrs of team control) $10M Paxton (1-3 years of team control through options) $7M Vaz option (last year) $7M Wacha (1 yr) $5M R Hill $??? Diekman $3M Strahm Does this look like additions made by a team done rebuilding or just filling out role slots to supplement the top 17-19 players on the 26? These guys are expected to play a lot, except for Paxton. They are filling the shows of ERod, Ottavino and some others not nearly as good as these two, but who played a lot.

I think Bloom also thought Renfroe needed replacing- both for defense and possibly the belief his O was bound to regress. I hope he's not counting on Duran to take up the slack.

I keep thinking we will trade for a SP'er, but who knows?

McCullers was second in IP for the Astros, last year, so I'm not sure you can say just missing the WS means they made it without him. We lost Richards, Perez and ERod. Two might be considered additions by subtractions, and bot Perez and Richards lost their rotation slots, but it's hard to see Wacha, Hill and later, Paxton as vast improvements, especially thinking of who replaces ER0d. My hope was we added a SP'er capable of keeping Houck and Whitlock in the pen, but sadly, that was not to be. One or both will likely be needed in the rotation, at some point in 2022.

I think Wacha or Hill might move to the pen, but for now, I see our rotation as being... Sale Eovaldi Pivetta Hill Wacha (Paxton late in the season) Our pen from best to worst: R Houck R Whitlock R Barnes L Diekman L Taylor R Brasier R Sawamura/ L Strahm/L Davis (L DHern in AAA) That's 5 of 9 being RHPs and the 4 lefties all being in the bottom 5 or 6.

You do have to look at how well the lefties do vs RHBs, but you have a point. As of right now, our best 3 RP'ers are all RH'd: Houck Whitlock Barnes Brasier and Sawamura will be favorites to make the 26 man roster, so that's 5 RHPs in the pen that may be in the top 7. The lefties mostly look like bottom of the pen types. Taylor, Strahm and Diekman might be top 8 in the pen. Davis is only a favorite to make the 26 man roster, because he's out of options. DHern has never lived up to the hype and can't get his walk rate under control. Valdez and Bazardo, both RHPs might win a slot from a lefty at some point.

So, we had 1 roster slot and just signed two RP'ers: Matt Strahm LHP for $3M/1 Last 4 seasons: 1.17 WHIP 9.1 K/9 2.1 BB/9 1.4 HR/9 Jake Diekman LHP for "multi-years at ???$$$ Last 4 seasons: 1.36 WHIP 12.0 K/9 5.3 BB/9 (OUCH!) 0.8 HR/9 Who is on the DFA short list? My list (which is never right): 1. Hudson Potts 2. Jeisson Rosario 3. Jonathan Aruaz 4. Eduard Bazardo 5. A Davis or K Crawford 6. Wong or R Hernandez

No doubt, but there are varying degrees. It's been a long time since we last signed so many 1 year deals and had this much roster turnover.

Sonny Gray to Twins for Chase Petty & Francis Peguero Ottavino to sign with Mets for $4M

I'm not sure what this has to do with the fact that we almost totally rebuilt the 2019 roster and added 12 new faces to our current 40 man roster from opening day 2021 with at least another 7 or 8 of those carrying over from the opening day 40 man roster on the short list for possible DFAs, this year. We could possibly see 18-20 new members to the 40 man roster from opening day 2021. We are still rebuilding.

What are the chances both Sale and Eovaldi have seasons like Eovaldi's 2021 season? I like how both look, but I'm guessing we might be lucky to see one do as well as that.

The 2019 team was mostly dismantled by 2021, so yea, I still saw the 2021 team as a rebuild or "bridge" team. Did you see my post about 30 players on our 40 man roster were not even on the 40 man roster at the end of 2019? How is that nit viewed as a major rebuild? That was not some routine and ongoing replenishment of the roster all teams go through, virtually non-stop. It was major as major can get! We added 3 players to the 40 man during the 2020 season: Pivetta, Arroyo & Houck. We filled 21 slots AFTER 2020!!! TWENTY-ONE!!! We used about 40 players to find the 21 that stuck by the time we reached the present. Call me wrong for thinking that is a major rebuild, even after 2020, but it was. It's not an insane position- not that anyone called it that. Not one big name was added to the roster after 2019. Sure, some grew into a pretty big name, but we were not done rebuilding by opening day 2021, IMO. We had Pivetta, Perez and Richards as 3 of our starters, and nobody, even me, who was higher on Pivetta than just about anyone, felt he'd be a very good starter. Our pen was headed by your favorite RP'er, Barnes (sarcasm alert) and Ottavino. Yes, Houck looked promising, and a guy named Whitlock tore up ST'ing, but really? Andriese and company? Few expected Dalbec to do well, even as late as July. Many felt Kike was a gloried utility man not up to playing 155 games. Arroyo, Cordero and Marwin were expected to fill 2 key roles. Some felt JD was in serious decline. Our defense was a joke from day one. Maybe we all see the word "rebuild" differently, and no, I did not expect us to be anywhere near as bad as 2020, but I still felt we had a long way to go to get to top 5 or 6 in the league status, which is what I consider strong contention. The vast majority of outside additions to the 2021 roster were one year deals. That hints at seeing 2021 as a rebuild or bridge year. We added Duran, Schwarber, Robles, Davis, Shaw and Iggy during 2021, and only Duran & Davis remain on the 40 man. While having 10 open slots on the 40 man roster after 2021 is not a real large number, some of the 30 carrying over to 2022 are questionable to various degrees: Hudson Potts Jeisson Rosario Ronaldo Hernandez Eduard Bazardo Jonathan Arauz Phillips Valdez Connor Wong Jay Groome and even Bryan Mata, DHern, Brasier, Plawecki, Seabold and Duran. Don't get me wrong. I think Bloom has done a great job rebuilding the 40 man roster and the farm beyond the 40, but we still have a ways to go to approach the rosters of 2013, 2007, 2004 and the great 2018 roster.

I'm not sure who called it a cliff, first, but I'm not hiding I thought we'd have a cliff. I was thinking more like 2020-2022, or if we spent more maybe 2021-2023. I've admitted I was wrong about how quickly we could rebuild the farm and the bottom 18-24 slots on the 40 man roster, under the more difficult rules the league had established to punish spending and winning teams. At the time, we were both.

I've agreed 2021 was not a cliff year, but almost all of us felt we still had some rebuilding to do to get to strong competitiveness status. Yes, many teams go through this and are not considered in full blown "rebuild mode," but look at the roster beyond the big 6 (Bogey, Devers, Sale, ERod, Eovaldi and JD), plus big questions lingered around 2-4 of those 6. Sale was not expected back until July. ERod was a big Q mark. JD, was a bit of one, and Eovaldi ended up pitching his first full season in 6 or 7 years. Hardly anybody had faith in Pivetta, Richards, Perez and the whole pen- top to bottom. (Whitlock was a god send.) Many felt Kike could not play FT, Marwin was a joke, Dalbec was a huge Q mark as late as July, and the Cordero experiment went horribly wrong. Who thought Renfroe would do that well? BTW, many bad teams have a "core" of 6 players, and it's the other 20 that make them bad. The O's have Mullins, Means, Mancini, Mountcastle, Hays and Santander. They are clearly in worse than rebuild mode. On May 31st, Marwin was 7th on the team in PAs- just 4 away from Kike and 9 away from Vaz, who was under .650. Dalbec was 9th and under .650. Cordero was 10th in PAs. Richards was 2nd in IP, Pivetta 3rd, Perez 5th, Andries 6th and the staff as a whole was generally thought to be over performing.

I didn’t say we’d suck, and I also said it wasn’t a “cliff year,” but look who we added from the putrid 2020 team: they were rebuild type signings. Even Ottavino was just a 1 year bridge addition and had shown signs of decline. We traded Beni for 5 prospects. We signed… Richards Kike Perez Renfroe (non tendered by another team) Marwin Sawamura Andriese Nobody viewed these signings and moves as more than stop gap additions and only the return of Sale and ERod offered the hope we could win 80-85 games. We were not even close to being favourites to win it all and barely had hopes of making the wild card play in game before 2021. Read the posts after the sweep by the O’s early in the season and tell me how much hope and promise the fans had for the MLB roster at that point. Let’s not kid ourselves. Sure there were less than a handful of posters with rosy glasses, but we all knew we were still a year or two away from greatness. Also, while many poo-poi’s our deadline and later moves, can everyone agree we make the playoffs without Schwarber, Iggy, Shaw, Davis and miracle spirts by Richards and others?