moonslav59

Look at the year 2014. It was the year all these players had their first season with 200+ PAs or 75+ IP: Betts Bogey JBJ Vaz Workman We won't be seeing that again under this system and with this current farm.

I thought you gave up on him.

One could argue Henry is greedier than Mookie.

They haven't had a real high draft in a while. Like I said, they seem to do best with getting average Joes having career years with them. The Astros are also good at finding a way to get players to do better when on their team.

Nick, your point wasn't about the trades being good or bad. You asked about what players we traded would be wanted now, and it seemed like you were implying none.

Let's assume it's 3 impact players- maybe not all stars but also not 0 to 0.5 WAR guys either. Let's say they stay for their full team control years, including their arbs, which may become expensive but won't reach FA value, unless you're JBJ. Let's say that's 5 years. That means those 3 are "cycled out every 5 years with the new 3 coming in. That's just 15 players at any given time giving meaningful value to the 25 and soon to be 26 man roster. The rest would have to be free agents. 3 is actually too low a number. 4 would mean we'd have around 20, at all times, and would only need 5-6 free agents- maybe some at a low cost. While Chavis, DHern, Taylor, Shawaryn, Kelley & Lakins might total 6, but let's not kid ourselves. How many of these guys from this years "crop" will become meaningful players over the 5 years fo their team control? Maybe 2? That might be generous.

3 that make a significant impact is- for us. Also, I took the 3 number as the minimum significant players needed per year to sustain competitiveness.

I doubt it was Cora, but do you think he stopped throwing it earlier, on his own?

LOL. Fire the guy who convinced him to not throw it.

Their best area seems to be two-fold: 1) They trade away very good talent just before they decline. 2) They pick up journeymen, scrubs or decent players via trade or free agency who then go on to have a career year or two. They don't seem to draft all that well, but do find pitchers way better than we do. My question was more about who are the people behind this or what is their system that we can copy or hire?

To me, the Astros & Dodgers are better, on paper.

I'm not saying I'd like to reverse all these deals, but here's my take: I'd love to have Kopech and Logan Allen for next year and beyond. We could trade JBJ and have Margot in CF. Moncada could be our 2Bman or DH(1B?). Dubon could play 2B or utility. If we go farther back beyond DD, we could have Montas, Rizzo, Shaw (DD) & others.

Their back-up to their back-ups blew us away.

Maybe it's more important, now.

They sucked, at first.

The Rays have changed GMs and coaches through these years. What has been the common denominator?

It helps to have your team score over 9 runs 10 times in your starts (17 times at 7 or more and 20 at 6 or more.) He should really could have been a 20 game winner, if he could just have had an ERA or 4.77 and a little luck.

I'm thinking the Nats or the Stros- maybe the Phillies.

We'd have traded Beni for a pitcher, if we were in the NL.

The Yanks had 10 times the injuries we have had.

It's very difficult to keep feeding 2-3 solid players a year from your farm when you keep having picks from 24-30 or worse due to tax penalties. The IFA market is also very hard to dominate, these days. I'm not saying it can't be done, but we need to get some people in our scouting and talent evaluation area who know what their doing. Management has to set the tone. It's hard to demand accountability from the players, coaches and the manager, if an important area keeps coming up short. Gone are the days where we can sign Devers and DHernandez or Bogey, Iggy & Montas in 2 international signing periods. Gone are the days of drafting Betts, Barnes, JBJ, Swihart, Owens and Noe Ramirez in one draft with the help of 4 comp picks or Ellsbury, Buchholz, Lowrie, Hansen & Bowden in another with the help of 6 comp picks. Trying to rely on just spending big can never be sustainable. So, who can we hope will be the "3 per year?" We'll need a lot of luck to get 3 every year from this group: 2020: D Hernandez (unless you counted him for 2019) Dalbec Chatham Ockimey or Duran 2021 Houck Duran Ward 2022 Groome Casas Mata 2023 Jimenez Flores Lugo Decker We'll need a hell of a lot of luck!

Sure does. I guess it's possible they might have more IP had we been "in it," but no doubt Sale & Price are a big reason for our huge drop off from 2018 to 2019, but this list shows others may be more "to blame." I know some here hate WAR, but let's look at the fWAR variances from 2018 to 2019: -4.0 Betts -3.0 JD -2.6 Sale -2.2 Beni -2.1 Pearce -1.9 Eovaldi (just with the Sox!) -1.3 JBJ (mostly on D) -1.1 Porcello -0.5 Brasier -0.4 Moreland -0.3 Leon -0.2 Barnes -0.2 Velazquez -0.0 Price -0.0 Johnson +0.1 Holt +0.8 Walden +1.3 Bogey +1.4 ERod +2.1 Workman +2.8 Vaz +4.3 Devers Chavis +0.9 vs HRam DHern +0.4 vs Wright Cashner +0.2 vs Pom Lakins +0.1 vs C Smith Taylor -0.3 vs Kimbrel Brewer -0.3 vs Poyner Weber -0.2 vs Kelly

Yes, as to who is better. ERod has been huge for us over the last 2 years. Reaching 200 IP this year would be a landmark event for Eduardo.

Sale had a roller coaster season: 7 ER in 3 IP 1 ER in 6 9 ER in next 2 starts (9 IP) 2.44 ERA in his next 12 starts (77.1 IP) 5 ERs in each of his next 3 starts (15 ER in 16.1 IP) 2 ER in next 2 starts (12 IP) 14 ER in next 2 starts (9 IP) 0 ER in 8 IP 3 ER (5 runs) in next start (6.2) It was feast or famine with one nice 12 start stretch. Worst starts 8 ER in 3.2 IP 7 in 3.0 IP 6 in 5.1 (18 ER in his worst 3 starts - 12 IP) Take away those 3 starts, and his ERA is 3.59 not 4.40. 5 in 4.0 5 in 4.2 5 in 5.2 5 in 6.0 4 in 5.0 4 in 5.0

Many times, it was just one bad inning after 2-4 good to excellent one in those starts he failed.