moonslav59

LOL. He missed the playoffs, last year, too.

I have no idea how to view Houck, going forward. When healthy, there is no doubt he has some nasty, near unhittable stuff. He could be anywhere from great to zero, or more minus.

No, We don't know jack about just about any pitcher, and these days, even the very best can go down with an injury, at any moment. I gotta think Hicks will be better than Kelly

Since JH has serious people skills, too, I don't think he can even recognize that as a problem with Brez. We all probably think of Cora as a "player's manager," and feel he may be too cozy with players, but I keep wondering why he apparently never talked to Devers about playing 1B. A mester of people skills would/could have tried. I'm still a Cora fan. I'm still liking Brez. Some serious mistakes were made, and the biggest ones: the Sale trade and handling of Devers all have so much convoluted contexts attached, I'm not so sure they are fireable offenses. (I can't personally bash Brez for the Sale trade when I thought it made sense, at the time. In hindsight, he deserves severe bashing, I guess.) When you look at our farm, our list of young controllable players and the improved and deeper pitching staff, I think Brez should get some of the credit, and Cora has done well managing all the injuries and side issues going on. While the Buehler signing jumps out as a failure on the budget, the Story & Yoshida deals are not on Brez. (The Devers deal was not either.) I think we are on the right track, despite the Devers hiccup... okay, call it a throw-up burp, but overall we are on the upwards trend. Our farm appears to have addressed the lack of promising pitchers issue. Even when the 3 top prospects graduate (and don't forget Dobbins and Narvaez,) our farm will still be in or near the top 15 farms in MLB. Our every day player score card is both deep and talented. Other than Story and Yoshida, again not on Brez, it is surprisingly very inexpensive. Our pitching has many more shorter contracts, and that was and still is by design. The amount of longer term pitching failures is reason enough to avoid longer deals for anyone, except someone like Crochet and yes, we nailed him down up to the year his peak prime ends. We also have some young and entering prime pitchers with various levels of promise and or proven success, even if not consistently. 27-30: Whitlock, Houck, Crawford, Sandoval, Criswell & Weissert 25-26: Bello, Dobbins, Slaten, Wink, Fitts Plus a very long list of farm arms with serious promise or upside.

I don't see Brez making a deal just to look like he's addressing the hole on our lineup. He may be content with Toro-Romy at 1B, and since they are doing as well as Casas, when healthy (minu the power) I cans ee why he's waiting. While I do think the kids could have been called up sooner, I wouldn't use the word "belatedly." We had some other players worthy of playing time, and several were doing real well, especially the OF vs adding Anthony. The DH slot had Devers, so there was no "give" there in finding playing time. I think the initial boost KC gave to the team over the first few games, made us all think Mayer and Anthony would do the same. Several felt both deserved a look before KC. I like how Brez has handled it. I'm bummed we still have no obvious 2B solution after years of attempts, including a trade of a CYA winner for a 2Bman. Downs was also the great hope in the Betts trade. If you want to count 2020 and 2025 as one full season, we have a 2.1 fWAR at 2B since 2018. That's 7 seasons at about a 0.3 fWAR. The stat line: .241 13 66 (.298 OBP/.366 SLG/ .663 OPS and minus Defense: -19 DRS and -29 OAA.) We don't have a single 2Bman that had more than 550 PAs at 2B in 8 seasons combined! The cycling and recycling has been like a merry-go-round of ineptitude or mediocrity, at best. The short stint by Story was the only highlight, while Holt and Arroyo gave us "meh" play. Here are our 2Bmen since 2018. Note the PAs and think of their defense. 544 Arroyo .739 412 Holt .763 (was needed at other positions or could have had most) 396 Story .737 375 Nunez .615 350 EValdez .651 304 Kike .901 (did well for a half season) .254 Chavis .711 (We'd die for .711, now.) 227 KC .685 (8th in PAs is telling) 197 DHam .546 100-140: Kinsler, Marco, Marwin, Grissom & Reyes 50-99: Arauz, Peraza, Urias, Romy, Iggy 20-49: Y Sanchez, Sogard, Westbrook, Lin, owings, Pedey, Turner, Downs, Ceddanne 10-19: Chang, Lopez, Phillips, Wong & Gasper God awful bunch, here.

On defense, that looks totally correct. There may be hope he can hit, but the lack of power would mean he'd have to really step it up. If he can't hit .750 in AAA, I'm doubtful he can hit .700 in MLB, I'd rather have the speedy DHam at .625, due to his defense, but not against LHPs. Does Eaton really show more promise? (I'm not sure, but Brez must think so.)

You really should start a Go Fund Me.

How about our 8-9 batters snapping us out of our scoring slump? 5 for 8 from DHam + Rafaela 2 HRs and a 2B 3 Runs and 4 RBI Welcome back Wilyer (2 for 4 and back to .800.) Duran looked keyed in and focused (2-5 w a big SB)

Of course, you do. He's got Abreu beat by 17 points on BA. Throw OPS out with the baby's bath water. Demote DHam. Move Duran to CF. Fire Cora and Brez. This team sucks!

If being "politically correct" is right, then I wanna be wrong. Too bad we didn't demote DHam and do the "correct" think and keep KC on the 26. FIRE BREZ, TODAY!

I saw my first MLB game at Wrigley back in 1968. I've been a baseball fan, ever since.

All the night's games are over. The current standings: AL East -- NYY -1.5 TBR -3.0 TOR -4.0 BOS Wild Card +2.5 TBR +1.0 TOR -- BOS -0.5 SEA -1.5 KCR -1.5 C -2.0 MIN -2.5 TEX -3.0 LAA

Brez could go down in history with a simple hire.

Brez could gain a lot of cred, if he just hired Thunder as the Travel Secretary.

It's been a very long time since I've been this jacked up over a game in mid June.

Hicks is better than our 8th pen arm for sure and may be better than our 5, 6 and 7. He might challenge Weissert for the 4 slot. Harrison, if he doesn't take Buehler's job, will slot in nicely at 5, 6 or 7. Our pen is better, after the trade. Brez needs to be on the phone for a #2 SP'er and a big bat.

Gotta admit. That was momentous. I know I'm a homer and prone to optimism, but I'm getting a feeling I haven't had since 2021. I'm not making any predictions- just a gut feeling.

He did: wait for Hicks to come off the IL or for Harrison to be promoted.

All I can say is... DAMN! That was a sweet win!

He'd probably have refused to move to DH, anyway.

Oh, Nooo.. You Dih- ENT!

He's answering all those who complained he pulled guys too early.

Jordan has really proven me wrong. Wow! Uberstine down to 2.45. Tibbs got a couple hit for POR, too. Bleis up to .773, now w 2B.

Just a gut feeling, but this team looks like a totally different team. I'm seeing spark. Energy. Confidence.

Cal just passed Bench for more pre ASB homers, and he did it in 14 less games!