moonslav59

I know about the COVID. I know it's a lefty on the mound. I know Dalbec has to start, but Santana? We already have Plawecki up 6th and Iggy/Arauz 8-9. Watch him go 2 for 5, tonight!

Better said than I.

It is hard to get a grip on next year, which leaves a lot to be discussed. The JD opt out is not the team's choice, so there is not much to discuss, except will he/won't he or should he/should he not? We can discuss the Richards ($10M/$1.5M buy out), Perez ($6M/$500K buy out) and Vaz ($7M/$250K buy out) team options, in terms of what we like to see done. There are positional moves being discussed, but I doubt anything major, like Devers to 1B or Bogey to 3B/2B are even being discussed by Bloom & Co. There are trade possibilities and of course, FA signings to debate. Not knowing the new CBA or budget limitations makes it hard to figure much out, here, too, but we do have some identifiable high need areas. Nothing wrong with discussing those what ifs. As of now, I have to think we add a SP'er for ERod (or bring him back) and a RP'er for Ottavino as a bare minimum. That would leave this as the foundation to 2022: Sale, _____, Eovaldi, Pivetta, Whitlock, Houck (RP?), Seabold _____, Barnes, Richards(?), DHern, Taylor, Sawamura, Valdez, Brasier Vaz, Plawecki Dalbec (Casas) Arroyo, Arauz Devers Bogey Verdugo, Duran (Cordero) Kike (Rosario?) Renfroe JD M (Schwarber?)

It would have been more had they known we weren't going over the tax line 2 years and row, at least. Many felt we'd never hit a cliff due to spending so much. Others spoke in vague terms about rebuilding the farm, like it was an easy thing to do without trading pieces or tanking one year to get Mayer & others.

It's not that simple. You have to mix up your pitches or guys like Cruz will kill you, anyway.

It was not Bloom's choice. While others may be overstating the turnaround, you are understating the turnaround. Many felt it would take 2-4 years to get back to where we are, and that was assuming we'd be over the tax line after 2020 NOT 2021.

The Rays are uncatchable. The wild card winning team will almost surely face them. As for the WC, we are still 1/2 behind the Yanks, who are keeping pace with our losing. TOR is 2 back but tied in the loss column. SEA is 3 back, and the A’s 3.5 back.

My point was about Schwarber not JD.

The rises and falls of Dalbec over this season are epic. Here’s a few selected cherry-picked sample dates: .507 on 5/6 .674 on 5/15 .595 on 6/8 .705 on 6/20 .651 on 8/7 .726 on 8/14 .708 on 8/23 .785 on 9/7 He’s been over .860 since May 7th- a longer sample size than his very nice 2020 partial season.

I was almost the only guy never to say we should demote him. I was soooo close,

They swept a 2 game series vs TOR then took 3 of 4 vs NYY near the end of July, but that’s it.

I just threw that JD number out there to make a point. If he gets a $35M/3 offer, my point doesn’t change.

If you project his numbers over 650 PAs, it’s more like 35 HRs and 110 RBI. If you project just the 2021 numbers over 650, it’s more like 30-100.

It makes it harder, yes, especially when our high need areas are pitching and defense, and we don’t seem to need a fix at 1B or LF.

Max, did we ever look even close to this bad on D at any point in2018?

I do think Cora is a great manager, but I also feel like having to defend him so often gets tiring and makes it look like I think he can do no wrong. He makes mistakes and I disagree often. I don’t always view my disagreeing as being critical, so I am see how I look hypocritical to some, and why is it okay for me to be critical but not others. I thinks a heat of the moment thing for some, who just need to lash out at something or someone. The manager is always the easy target. I guess what bothers me is the apparent talking out of both sides of the mouth, and the hindsight what ifs. When I hear things like “he’s handing this game away,” my skin crawls.

JD makes $19.4M next year. His choice might be to take that and see what he can get afterward or go for something longer term as a higher security position. I dont think he opts out but he might. He might opt out and get $60M/4 while Schwarber signs for $68M/4. It’s a guess at this point.

JD will probably not opt out, so it's not hard to imagine us thinking we can't pay two guys big money as primary DHs and poor defenders anyplace we put one of them. One scenario is we sign Schwarber to $16M a year and trade JD while paying $6M a year of his 1 year left and end up spending $22M on a DH- same as this year. (Would someone take JD +$6M?)

Kinda the same as the first FA to sign. If it's with the same team, it's basically an extension, but he did hear out other teams, first, I guess.

He probably shouldn't. I was just pointing our a possible scenario.

He could extend before free agency.

I get that, but they take it our on Cora (and Bloom), while some seemingly like and care about those two.

They play 26 games in the next 27 days. (2 days off and one double header) Much is said of their 12 games remaining against TBR & NYY, but their other 14 games look very winnable: 7 vs BAL 7 vs MIN They end the season with 3 v BAL at home, while we play 3 away at WSH.

Agreed, and the D sure sucked for the scrub pitchers that came in during games past, but Cora was blamed for those losses.

If there is such a thing as "choke," we saw it yesterday.