moonslav59

His .461 OPS against by lefties led the team last year. I agree though, we don't need him. Ross and Scott did great vs lefties as well. Kimbrel kept lefties at a .514 OPS and Thronburg has a massive reverse split of over 200 points. He's much better vs LHB'ers. Abad is also expected to make close to $2M in arb. I'd trade him, but I'd try to get another RP'er almost as good but with options remaining. We'd save money and keep the pen depth.

I stand corrected on Romo. He'd be better than Storen, but much more costly as well. If we could get him for $4.5 to 5.5M, we'd still have some nice flex to trade for a starter, if needed at the deadline.

Good point, but I can't help but feel irked by posters who continuously have knee-jerk reactions to tiny sample size performances (good or bad). I mean, how many times do they have to be proven wrong to realize a player's last 50 PAs or 25 IP'd is a valid indicator of how good or bad that player has been or will continue to be. That's just my own personal beef. Nothing personal.

I've been right alongside you with the JBJ support. I never gave up on him. Although I argued he didn't ever need to hit well to still be a significant plus, I never felt he'd always be a sub.700 hitter. JBJ's minor league numbers were just too overpowering for me to think he couldn't make the necessary adjustments needed to get over .750. His .830+ OPS over the past two seasons combined have been about what I expected him to become. The issue many have here is how he came to those numbers. Like Napoli before him, I don't really care all that much as long as our guy ends up over .800. Sure, I'd like a more consistent .800, but those 1.000 streaks can really carry a team almost single handedly.

$3M and no lost prospects is pretty inexpensive for a quality FA set-up man RP'er these days, especially one with some positive closer experience. Granted, Storen has some big questions or concerns. I'm not saying I wish we signed him at $4M. I'm just saying it might have been a good idea to sign someone like him than to try and trade for a RP'er doing well mid-season. We need to try and keep our prospects at least for a while.

I think Holland will cost much more, Papelbon is a bum, Smith and Romo have little closer experience. Look, I'm fine with not signing another RP'er before the start of the season. I like having the flex money for the deadline, but I'm still very concerned about asking Thornburg to replace Uehara, Ziegler and Tazawa. I understand Carson Smith may help at some point in 2017, but I'm not very confident in Kelly, Barnes, Ross and Hembree/Abad/Scott taking up the rest of the slack from losing 3 of our best RP'ers from a pen that was about average last year.

I don't disagree, and maybe his "upside" is not any higher than Barnes or Hembree's. It's his experience as a closer that is attractive to me. I'm not sure Thornburg is that kind of guy.

I actually got through the whole post, and it was a good one. Let me ask you this about JBJ: assuming JBJ continues to get support on keeping his "stride right", do you no longer anticipate any pro-longed slumps by JBJ? I think this whole random- not random argument has gotten out of hand. While there may be mechanical or other reasons for a player starting or ending a slump, looking at the numbers from a fan or mathematician's standpoint, when a player starts or ends his slump (for whatever reason or in some cases for no reason but just plain luck) is random or as good as random. Even if we knew JBJ was working with Rodriguez to adjust his stride, would that help us pinpoint (or project) the exact time we thought his slump would end? Mike Napoli is probably a better case to dissect. The guy had dozens of mini-slumps and torrid hot streaks as well as big variances in final season numbers. Here are his final season OPS numbers: .815-794-960-842-784-1046-812-842-789-734-800 His 2013 monthly OPS numbers varied from .668 in June to 1.227 in September. I remember countless posters screaming for him to be benched or cut during his long slump that year (15 for 71 followed by a 5 for 46 stretch in August)). He ended up going 22 for 64 from AUG 31st to the end of the regular season with 6 HRs and 6 DBLs. His .850 OPS and 27 RBI's in April helped carry us for that stretch. After his sleep apnea issue was corrected, many felt his 2014 season was going to be better than 2013. Instead, he totally yo-yo'd: .932>.606>.954>.760>.679>.682 2015 was not much different: 519-878-595-792-749-900 (1st half .648/ 2nd half .903 mostly with TX) Even with CLE last year: 672 852 777 971 888 612 (Below .550 in 56 playoff PAs)

Agreed, but I think you might find, in most cases, that a good fastball hitter "owns" fastball pitchers with bad secondary pitches.

I agree, but my thought is that we can probably trade Abad and Hembree for RP'ers who are not out of options, thereby keeping the depth but in a more flexible form. To me, the downfall of signing Storen, assuming he'd have come here as a non-closer, is the loss in flex spending, however the money needed at the deadline should not be that much as we'd only be paying 2/3rds of a player's salary. $8M is enough to trade for two guys making $12M each for the season. The upside is possible closer depth (like Uehara was for Kimbrel).

Can't blame him. If he has a great season as a closer, he'll be a very rich man.

I always liked the sound of Joaquin Andujar.

My head hurts.

Not as bad as Johny Dickshot or Dick Pole! Let us not forget Jack Glasscock, Pussy Tebeau, Stubby Clap, Cannonball Titcomb and Pete LaCock On a lighter note, how about.... Bud Weiser Orval Overall Coco Crisp Mysterious Walker (a pitcher) Boof Bonser Snuffy Stirweiss John Wockenfuss Razor Shines Sugar Cain Sibby Sisti Milton Bradley Chicken Hawks Charlie Manlove Tony Suck Phil McCracken...no just kidding, it was Quinton McCracken Harry Cheek (No joke, I once worked with a guy whose legal name was Harry Butts)

Drew Storen signs for $3M with a chance at $1.5M in incentive. Missed opportunity or better fish on the horizon?

All three. He wanted a closer, he wanted to end the drought and he knew the fans would be happier. It's no coincidence that the three rings we have were all in years with superior closer performances.

I had argued that we could have easily traded for KRod and signed Clippard, and maybe we'd have done just as well with those two instead of Kimbrel. The cost in money would have been close, but we'd have been able to keep Margot & Guerra for a later trade (maybe those two for Pom not Espi for Pom). It's easy in hindsight, but I hated the CK trade at the time. In all fairness, I also mentioned D Day or Benoit as possibilities, and they were disasters.

...and there trade of him alter reflects how quickly things are blown over. Of course, when they got him, there were some doubts about suspensions or charges.

The Yanks seemingly ended up getting more for Chapman than they gave up to get him.

Maybe because he came along before OBP became so highly valued.

You could be right. Once JBJ got to the mid 20's in HRs, maybe he looked too hard at the number 30. I, too, would prefer a better BA/OBP guy than one who hits 10 more HRs. I will say, I don't think his approach and swing looked as bad late last year as it did before he made the adjustments that turned his career around.

I agree, but when you said "He made himself into...an OBP with pop." I wanted everyone to know he was always a high OBP guy. The "pop" part did develop late as he usually hit about 10 HRs per 600 PAs, then went to 16 at age 28 and 29 at age 29 (without sacrificing 2Bs, I might add)..

They got the "best" available closer on paper at the time, but my argument was that we paid a hefty price twice: one in too many good prospects and two in "near FA market cost". The cost has gone up dramatically since then, but there a lot of options that winter. Free agent signings (not all did so well, but neither did CK): D O'Day $31M/4 R Madson $22M/3 T Clippard $12.25M/2 S Cishek $10M/2 T Cahill $4.25M/1 N Feliz $3.9M/1 J Broxton $7.5M/2 F Rodney $2M/1 Trades: J Benoit for Enyrl de los Santos & Nelson Ward K Rod for Javier Betancourt & Manny Pena Pomeranz & Jose Torres for Yonder Alonso, M Rzepczynski & Jabari Blash D storen for Ben Revere K Giles for V Velasquez, B Oberholtzer, M Appel, H Arauz, T Eshelman A Chapman fotr Rookie Davis, Eric Jagielo, Caleb Cotham & Tony Renda

I'm hoping he can be more consistent or at least have more and/or longer "hot streaks" going forward, but I'd be happy with a streaky hitter that ends up near .830 most years.

I doubt we eat up that much flex spending room for Plouffe.