moonslav59

Based on just tonight? Team record: 26-26 w Vaz 14-11 w Leon (Not that this is the best way to judge value, but when you look at how much better Sale and Price do with Leon, I'm fine with letting letting Leon catch Sale every game. PH for him, if needed, especially since Vaz does very well with our pen. I'd even let Leon catch Price every other start. That gives Vaz 7 starts out of 10. That gives him the rest he needs.

Fantastic win! We finally had Sale's back. Marco with the huge HBP. Vaz, of all people, with the BIG HR! Chalk this win up as more to the pen than to the SP'er. Updated game by game running tally by my analysis: Starters 16-22 (Net: -6) Relievers 26-13 (Net: +13)

When you total every dollar we are paying for our pen, Thornburg's contract represented a pretty big chunk of it. Maybe it's a personal bias I have against him, but I thought we should have given up on him last winter. Yes, it's not a majot amount of money, but when we only have $5-6M in budget space, adding $1.75M could end up making a big difference in who we can get.

We'll be "in it." My guess is we look for 1-2 decent pitchers who have some salary dump dimension to them, but who do not cost enough that their pro-rated deals put us over the max line. I look back to the Addison Reed and Nathan Eovaldi type deals as ones we may try to look for.

Nunez has hit at .758 in his last 17 games (since May 26th). Maybe he's snapping out of his funk. Ithers since May 26th: 1.056 Bogey .977 JBJ .929 Holt .918 JD .823 Devers .782 Beni .760 Betts .758 Nunez .750 Marco .683 Vaz .648 Chavis .623 Leon

What word would you have used for the 2018 trade deadline Eovaldi? Sometimes getting a pitcher who has not been doing all that good works out like a charm.

$1.75M in July is equal to paying a pro-rated $5.2M contract.

NC must have about 25 minor league teams. They love baseball. The problem is their population is spread out, and there is no central location that is close enough for several cities to drive to the games. Charlotte is probably the best area, but even if you place the stadium on the North East side of the city, I doubt it would be close enough to Winston-Salem/Greensboro to up attendance all that much. NC is probably a better choice than Montreal. Other areas I've though of are: Indianapolis Las Vegas Sacremento or San Jose San Antonio Buffalo New Orleans, Memphis or Birmingham

Chapman with the 3 run HR in the bottom of the ninth with 2 outs to beat the Rays 5-4. Rays score 4 in 9th! Sox gain a half on the Rays and drop a half on the Yanks who won. We're now just 3 down in the loss column to TB.

Time to cut ties. We could have used the cap space.

I can agree to this, but I thought it was implied I meant only "so far this year."

MLB.com is not one of the best ranking entities.

Nice spin. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Here's a look at what the Rays have gotten for their best pitchers: (Listed by highest career WAR with the Rays) Pitcher- (ERA w TB/ after TB) Shields 3.89/4.17 with Wade Davis for Odorizzi, Wil Myers & Mike Montgomery Price 3.19/3.34 for Drew Smyly, Willy Adams & Nick Franklin Archer 3.67/5.15 (see Garza trade as the gift that keeps giving) for Tyler Glasnow & Austin Meadoes Kazmir 3.92/4.20 for Sean Rodriguez, Alex Torres & Matthew Sweeney Cobb 3.50/5.36 (2 yrs) Lost to free agency Garza 3.86/4.17 with F Perez & Z Rosscup for Chris Archer, R Chirinos, B Guyer & S Fuld Ordorizzi 3.85/3.78 (2 yrs) for Jermaine Palacios Niemann 4.06 Never traded MMoore 3.86/5.78 for Michael Santos, Matt Duffy & Lucious Fox Hellickson 3.74/4.49 for Justin Williams & Andrew Velazquez

What makes the idea work even better for the Rays is that they trade their good SP'ers, usually just before they decline, for more prospects. Then, they replace the guy with a (usually better) rookie.

Yes, exactly!

Come on. This guy was great for you guys last year and has these ERAs since 2015: 3.61 3.18 3.53 3.65 (2.69 with the Yanks) 4.59 this year WHIP last year 1.13 WHIP this year 1.21 He's doing significantly worse than last year, 2017, 2016 and 2015. And, he's doing worse that you expected him to be doing.

I agree, and if Eovaldi comes back, and our starters keep going deeper in games, that alone can take a lot of stress off the pen. Move Eovaldi to the pen for the playoffs. I'd still like to see us get a solid RP'er this summer. Our 11th-13th pitcher on the roster has killed us this year: ERA by "6th & higher" Starters As SP'er only (Games Started/IP): 6.41 Velazquez (7/19.2) 7.94 R Weber (3/11.1) 9.82 J Smith (2/7.1) 3.00 Johnson (1/3.0) 9.00 D Hern (1/3.0) "6th & higher" RPers (list in order of most IP) As RP'er (IP/WHIP) 4.22 Brewer (32/1.72) 4.74 Velazquez (19/1.37 7.71 Thornburg (19/1.66) 0.90 Shawaryn (10/0.90) 5.79 Lakins (9/1.71) 6.48 J Taylor (8/1.56) 1.13 R Weber (8/1.13) 2.57 J Smith (7/1.29) 13.50 Johnson (6/2.83) 15.75 Poyner (4/3.26) 12.00 E Ram(3/1.67) 0.00 D Hern (2/2.14) 9.00 Nunez (1/1.00) These numbers are horrendous. Other than Sale, Price, Porcello, ERod, Eovaldi, Barnes, Workman, Walden, Brasier & Hembree, we have sucked badly. Overall numbers of those not listed in the top 10 (if you discount Brewer, it is even worse): (Only Velazquez & Brewer are in our top 10 in IP.) IP Pitcher ERA 39 Velazquez 5.59 32 Brewer 4.22 19 R Weber 5.12 19 Thornburg 7.71 14 J Smith 6.28 10 Shawaryn 0.90 9 Lakins 5.79 9 Johnson 10.00 8 J Taylor 6.48 5 DHern 5.06 4 Poyner 15.75 3 ERam 12.00 1 Nunez 9.00 If we could pick up a solid RP'er, we could move everyone down a notch and drop some of these guys right off the play list.

If I were Houston, I'd trade Paul for a bag of popcorn, if the other team pays his whole contract, which I believe is $37M next year and the year after.

I remember saying he was due for a set back year, and you disagreed.

I always thought there should just be one Florida team with half the games played in Miami and half in TB. This is weird. Move TB to Montreal and have the Marlins play half in MIA and half in TB...change their name to the Florida Marlins.

The Devers & Vaz gains should just about offset the declines by JD & Betts. The gain by Bogey offsets the decline by Beni. Moreland's gain is not helping us now that he's on the IL, but he and Leon should just about offset the declines by JBJ & Nunez. To me, it's not been about OPS. It's been about timely hitting. 2018> 2019 OPS .792>.787 Runs/gm 5.4>5.4 High Leverage .854>.822 Late & Close .786>.835 RISP .872>.786 2 outs, RISP .840>.801 Tie Game .794>.783 Within 1 Run .779> .772

True, except if the regular season placed you in a WC game instead of a division winner slot.

I'd say it "had been" fine. I'm not sure if is going forward.

Did you look at mt my game by game breakdown of our starters vs our pen? Are there any games you disagree with my assignment of who gets the credit or blame? I'm not saying my study was perfect, but the disparity is so massive, it's hard for me to see how I could have been that wrong-- enough to swing it the other way.