moonslav59

Very well said. My point was about the "how," too. What adjustments are being made or asked to be made, and how any adjustments or attempts to adjust might affect other aspects of batting. There have been a few relatively "free swingers" who hit pretty damn well. Maybe the never had a 10 to 1 K BB rate, as pretty much nobody has, but Rafaela's K:BB and K% rates are not the worst in MLB, anymore, and the whole league seems to be moving towards more Ks. In theory, we can wish away that Rafaela can swing at less balls out of the K zone and not mess up anything else, but I'm not sure it's that simple.

I'd say Romero and maybe Bleis & Cespedes are level 2. Taylor looks level 2 with #1 potential. Soto is too far away to know much. Godbout should give us better read in the coming few weeks.

Arias& Garcia are both a top 100 prospect in the nation. Do you disagree? Granted Arias did slump for a bit, but seems to be waking up, again. JH Garcia is only getting better by the week.

Jh Garcia is supposed to be a plus defender, so it seems like a waste to move him or any of our fine defensive OF'ers to another position, including our best defender, Rafaela, to 2B. I think the obvious solution will be to maximize player value by trading a LHB Of'er this winter (Duran or Abreu) and promote JH Garcia as the platoon/4th OF'er who can also DH, some. LF Duran/Garcia CF Rafaela/Garcia RF Anthony/Garcia DH (1B?) Garcia/ Campbell/Romy (Yoshida) or LF Anthony/Garcia CF Rafaela/Garcia RF Abreu/Garcia platoon DH (1B?) Garcia/ Campbell/Romy (Yoshida) With the trade we make a massive upgrade to our rotation by packaging some prospects with the OF'er chosen to trade. (We could also trade JH Garcia, but we won't get the same return.)

The new CBA, assuming there is one... LOL, could throw a wrench in the whole calculation of these sorts of signings. I'm glad we have so many of our key young players locked up through pre and peak prime. None go beyond peak prime.

I've seen enough of Narvaez to lock him up for 8 years. I'd roll the dice with Mayer, too- injury issues and all. (The injury issues will also keep his "sign no" cost down.) Tolle, Whitherspoon? Seems too early, to me. Duran turns 29, very soon. He'll be turning 32 at the end of his last season, here. We have him under control for his prime years. If he'd agree to a 1-2 year "extra years," maybe.

How long is Buehler's leash? Has Criswell earned another start (or two?) What about Harrison?

On another team, Abreu would not be platooned, just for his defense, alone. If we did not have Refsnyder, and now Anthony on the 26, he'd have been FT. If Rafaela is no longer needed at 2B and Ref retires, maybe Duran and Abreu alternate days off vs LHPs, and Anthony DHs vs RHPs.

No brainer- yes.

You said it better than I. Trying to realize earlier and doing so, may affect how a batter performs, and it might not all be good. Tinker with something that is working may mess it up for some batters. The theory looks good, on paper.

What did I do?

What was Alcala's projection?

Big Road trip for a team not doing all that well in this split. 14 of our next 19 games are on the road! 3 @ SDP 3 @ HOU off 3 v MIA 2 v BAL off 4 @ NYY 4 @ BAL Those two days off should hep our starters get some extra rest, as well as our pen. How we look after these 19 games will be very telling.

You crack me up. I try to be balanced and truthful. Fred is right, pretty often. Because I say it is not enabling him to continue being negative. He's been like that long before my first reply to his posts.

No, but they knew who was good and bad as hitters.

I disagree. If Abreu shows improvement, he will play FT, assuming we relieve the OF logjam, soon. Look at this... Jarren Duran: .438 v L in 2021 (28 PAs) 6 gms started v L (20 v R) .509 v L in 27 PAs in '22 (42 PAs) 6 GS v L (48 v R- platooned) .749 v L in 49 PAs in 2023 (9 GS vs L & 73 v R) mostly platooned. The platoon stopped after 2023. .665 v L in 2024 (230 PAs) 43 GS v L & 117 v R (No platoon) .578 v L in '25 (163 PAs) 28 GS v L/ 82 v R (No platoon) .570 Duran '21-'23 in 119 PAs: stopped platoon. .588 Abreu career in 135 PAs v L _________________________ .632 Duran '21-'24 in 349 PAs .615 Duran career in 512 PAs .588 Abreu career vs L ______________________ Duran's speed keeps him in the line-up, but Abreu's great RF D might keep him in the line-up if he can get his numbers up a little v L.

Jh Garcia was at .892, before tonight (AA+AAA) I think he is for real. .318 18 HRs 65 RBI in just 339 ABs Some of the lower level kids are getting larger sample sizes (ABs & OPS) 52 Louis Andujar 1.102 91 Josue Brito 1.025 110 Franklin Primera .889 81 Edwin Darville .888 93 Chris Alvarado .884 109 Miguel Welch .879 117 Hector Ramos .846 Soto is at .823 in 138 ABs

bWAR per PA .0117 Bregman .0095 Rafaela .0093 Anthony .0084 Romy .0081 Abreu .0078 Narvaez .0077 Refsnyder .0069 Duran & Devers .0059 Story

mlb.com posted the prospect most on the rise from each team. Boston: Red Sox: Brandon Clarke, LHP (No. 4) After missing most of the previous two seasons and having little history of throwing strikes, Clarke became the top junior college prospect in the '24 Draft and went in the fifth round out of the State JC of Florida (Manatee-Sarasota). He has raised his profile even more this year, when his fastball has clocked as high as 100 mph and he has developed a wipeout slider that touches 91 with huge sweep and depth. Blister issues have limited him to 35 2/3 innings between two Class A stops and hampered his control, but he has posted a 3.79 ERA with a .119 average-against and 35 percent strikeout rate.

This is the 3 year foundation core (all under control for 3+) All w MLB experience/ no true prospects listed: C: Narvaez & Wong 1B: Campbell & Casas (Romy) 2B: Mayer/Campbell (DHam/Grissom) SS: Story, Sogard 3B: [Bregman/Mayer] LF: Duran CF: Rafaela RF: Abreu/Anthony DH: Anthony/Romy SP: Crochet, Bello, Crawford, Dobbins, Houck, Criswell, Fitts, Harrison RP: Slaten, Weissert, Bernardino, Murphy, Wink, Kelly, Guerrero, I Campbell Call me a homer, but this looks impressive, to me. Most are pre-arb or just entering prime, and many are under control for 4 or more years.

I guess we could call 2019 a "flop," as the expectations were high going in. 2020 was a total write-off. Very low expectations, so no flop. 2021 was a surprise. Expectations were rather high for 2022, due to 2021, but most of us were very pissed off at the lack of positive moves that winter. We only had one winning month in '22, so despite the nice June, I don't call it a flop. 2023 saw many of us with low expectations going in and maybe half of us wanting to sell at the deadline, including myself. We were sub .500 to start July and had a good month. We fell apart, so I guess "flop" kinda fits, but nobody thought we shoulda won it, so to me, the word "flop" for 2023 is hyperbole. So, maybe 2-3 flops in the past 5 seasons. One could argue the front office flopped 5 years ina row.

The deficiencies have been beaten to death all season long, but of course less, recently as we have been winning. The trolls have disappeared. We've talked about our defense ad nauseum. I've posted several times how we lead the majors in unearned runs scored, and when you look at pitching metrics that weed our bad defenses, our pitching looks much better. Players like Story we blasted into outer spade for years. It's only recently, that has stopped. To me, and others have agreed on some, we are weak at: 1B 2B until Mayer returns DH as long as Yoshida keeps playing SP4 SP5 Some think back-up C. (That does not bother me, but we could do better than Wong, but probably not mid season.) Maybe more pen help, but the pen has been our strong area, nearly all season. That's 2-4 major weak areas. (We can DH Anthony, when/if Mayer returns.) FYI, the game threads are ripe with hyper critical comments about how much so and so sucks, and just about every players has "sucked" according to someone, at some point, this season. I'm not bothering to visit the game thread for at least one night, as a result of the absurd level of negativity.

Harrison seemed like the prize of the Devers trade, to me. One could argue Criswell should get another start, too. Uberstine finished the game going 4 IP, 3H, 1ER, 2BB, 8K. 15 Ks for Woos pitchers! GRE won 7-3 as Jo Garcia continues to shine. He homered and walked and is up to .745, now. Cohen pitched well.

I've posted my list of weak areas several times, so there is no need to say nobody else does it. Others do, too. How is adding Crochet, Bregman and Chapman "failing miserably at bringing the kind of players needed to improve...?" (Maybe you just meant at the deadline, when return costs are grossly high.) "Not a lot of chatter?" LOL Many made comments that they wish or expected we'd do more. Even after last night's loss, we still have the 9th best record in MLB (4th in AL.) We are 2 games behind being 5th! We are 4 GB having the second best record in MLB. Maybe we flop: maybe we don't, but we have a young and deep team. We've gotten this far with 4 of our top 6 or 7 SP'ers out all year or near all year. Hendriks and Slaten were expected to be 2 of our top 4-5 RP'ers, this year. While our everyday players have stayed healthier than most teams (Casas and Bregman injuries notwithstanding,) I think we've shown we have a nice foundation. Most of our best players are young and have 3+ years of control. You rarely speak of the good, while chastising everybody else for rarely speaking about the bad. There was a ton of talking about the bad, when we were bad. That is well documented. We are playing well, now, and there is no reason to think this is "another flop" year. There are no dominating AL teams. The Yanks are sucking. The Astros have injuries. The Tigers look beatable. The Jays have looked good, but look at their roster and tell me why you think we are "steps away" from being as good as them, DET & HOU.

It's hard to get a read on next year's starting point for the player budget, since the Bregman opt-out looms large, as well as the Gio and Story nuanced options, but here is a stab at it: Lux Tax Dollars according to cots 28 Crochet 18 Yoshida 16 Anthony 10 Hicks 9 Bello 9 Sandoval 8 Duran (team option, then 2 arbs) 8 Campbell 6 Rafaela 5 Whitlock 2 buyout of Hendriks $12M mutual option 2 Devers ("CBT True Up") 20 (18 Player Benefits + 2 Pre-arb bonus pool) $143M Total before arbs and options. $32 Bregman, if he does not opt out (maybe more, if we extend him) $23 Story, if he does not opt out, or he does and we take the add a year option. $14M Giolito, if he does not reach 140 IP and Sox take option. It may be $19M mutual option w $1.5M buy out if he reaches 140.) These three contracts could add $59M or more, bringing the pre-arb number to about $202M Arbs: Houck (2nd of 3: made $4M in '25) Crawford (2nd of 4: made $3M in '25) Burdi (3rd of 4: made $500K) Wong, Bernardino, Casas, Kelly (arb 1) I don't see big arbs, here. Maybe we add $12M and get to $214M, total. That would leave $30M to spend to the line and $50M to spend to the second line, assuming Bregman, Story & Giolito return. cots says $58M, but I'm not sure they count arbs, Gio or Duran. We'd need to add a closer, for sure. Would we have enough to sign a big FA SP'er. or could we trade for one and use the rest of the money on the pen and maybe 1B? (Did I miss someone?)