moonslav59

It's been one season, but counting it as two is fine, since we traded Monty and Teel from previous drafts for Crochet. If we end up with a surplus of good pitching and face roster and Rule 5 crunches, years from now, we can trade some of them at premium prices. I do agree that our 2026 A- and A+ teams may look weaker on O than previous seasons, but I am not so worried, because we have a young core at the ML level that is under control for 3-5+ yrs. Only 3B and SS have vets with 0-2 more years of control. 4-6+ Years from now, we will see some of the top farm guys in the bigs. C: Jo Garcia, Brannon and holes (Salazar and Jo Rod) 1B: Jordan and maybe Tibbs or Gonzales? Encarnacion 2B: Romero (Cespedes?) Zanetello SS: Arias, Soto, Ramos, Nunez 3B: Cason, Alcantara, Anderson LF: Gonzales or Ehrhard(Castro/Rosier?) Riemer CF: Garcia, Azocar, Rivas, Fermin RF: Bleis or Taylor, YRod I'm not sure this looks all that badly, after we will have just graduated Anthony, Mayer, Narvaez and Campbell (Rafaela in '24, Casas in '23, Duran & Wong in '22)

I'd be leading that pack, but so what? We have the Devers money, and 4 years of control is different from the Crochet situation. Factor 2: Skenes just turned 23! He'll be 27 when he becomes a FA. While that means he will want a monstrous extension, at least it won't be for a 30 year old FA to be. Crochet just turned 26 and he had 2 years of control and would have been going into age 28 at free agency. Ideally, we extend Skenes for just 3-4 years, but he may demand much more. Maybe he'd take a 2 year extension, giving us 6 years of control, and he'd still be looking at free agency at age 29. Big pay day, if he remains great. BTW, someday Anthony will be wanting big money, too, and we have already started hearing extension talks with him and Mayer.

No Arias, Garcia and Clarke, either. I think any offer without Anthony or Mayer might take this: Campbell & Taylor/Bleis or Arias & Garcia Rafaela &Tolle plus one from Clarke, Valera, Sandlin or Early. I think I'd do a 5 for 1 trade like Rafaela, Campbell, Tolle, Taylor & Early/Sandlin Another idea might be to take some salary off PIT's hands to make it better for them. Instead of one prospect, add Abreu (not expensive) and take back Reynolds, even though I don't want him. Adding Keller helps their budget but would add to the needed prospects. Reynolds is falling off a cliff.

Of course, and pitchers are dropping like flies, these days. It's a huge risk trading everyday players plus a top pitching prospect for one guy- a pitcher. i'd hesitate to trade Anthony or Mayer, but I like the deals notin is suggesting. My tendency is to just throw more prospects into the mix, so we can keep the best ones, and maybe a team like PIT might like getting 5 really good prospects (from our top 12, instead of 2-3 of our very best 5-6 or 7. A rotation of Crochet, Skenes, Bello looks pretty damn good to me, going forward.

He's still prearb in 2026! He's got 4 years to go, and we just dumped Devers! He's worth trading for.

It does seem that way, but our farm needed a "correction," and this has only been through 2 drafts and IFA signing periods, so far. True, most trades have involved adding farm pitching and not trading them away, except the Narvaez and YRod recent deals. Even the Devers trade was for mostly pitching, but that was one big beef about the Betts trade. I think we may see a swing back towards everyday players, once Brez sees a balance. Our farm ranking may look skewed towards pitching, but look at the recent grad list and how many years of control many of our young ML'ers have, right now. We do need to be adding everyday players, now, to replace some of them in 2-5 years, but I think we look covered pretty well for this gap, except 3B and maybe Catcher. C: Narvaez pre arb/ Wong 3 yrs (Jo Garcia) 1B: Casas 3 arbs/Campbell 7 yrs+ (Jordan and maybe Tibbs then Ju Gonzales) 2B: Mayer pre/ Toro-Romy arb/ Romy, DHam, Grissom (Romero) SS: Story 2-3 yrs/ (Arias/Soto/Cason/Ramos) 3B: Bregman 0-2 yrs, Toto/Mayer (Romero?) LF: Duran 3 yrs, Anthony pre-arb (Tibbs/Rivas) CF: Rafaela 6 yrs+, Campbell (Garcia/Azocar) RF: Abreu, Ref 0 yrs (Bleis/Taylor) DH: Yoshida 2 yrs/ Romy 3 yrs (Cespedes?) We just added 2B Godbout, SS White & Martin, 3B Winnay, OF King I think our everyday situation looks way better than most teams. We still need ML pitching more than anything, right now. Our everyday players are locked up, except Bregman and eventually Story.

You don't trade guys like Skenes, either, but I get you guys' point. I am fine with trading top everyday players for top pitchers, though. A great SP'er often faces 750-850 batters per season, which is more PAs than any batter has ever gotten.

MIN could not afford Devers.

You gotta be the leadoff hitter, first, to later be demoted. Duran led off 2 games in 2021, and they weren't to start his MLB career. He hit .215 year one and .221 year two, when he did lead off mostly. He never earned the one slot in those two years. (.324 career OBP/.329 when 1st in order.) Rafaela has batted 1st in 18 or 170 MLB games, almost all year one, when he his .241 (.243 in 1 slot.) Rafaela did not earn the 1 slot, either, until maybe now. Career .288 OBP/ .274 in 1 slot. Few batters start off as leadoff hitters, unless they are late season call-ups. Nobody had to recover from phantom demotions from the 1 slot.

How have pitchers done with Wong vs Narvaez by OPS Against? Bello: .618 (263 PAs w Wong)/.790 w Narvaez (125) Crochet: .597 (126 PAs w Wong)/ .564 w Narvaez (387) Whitlock: 598(65)/.595 w Narvaez (121) Dobbins: .729 (59)/.709 w Narvaez (197) Weissert: .580 (52)/.762 w Narv (119) Chapman .433 (42)/.392 w Narv (97) Bernardino .762 (41)/.464 w Narv (102) Bello & Weissert do better with Wong, but Chapman and Bernardino do better with Narvaez. The others are close of one pitcher has fewer than 40 PA as a sample size. Kinda even, right?

Here are some interesting numbers: High Leverage Leaders: 1.042 Resnyder .912 Rafaela .860 Narvaez (Devers .852) .830 Romy .780 Toro .777 Abreu .733 Anthony .689 Mayer .670 Bregman, .650 Story, .606 KC, .601 Duran

Yipee! We get to keep Duran & Abreu!

Anthony, Campbell, Sandlin, Paez & Mullins for Skenes & Bednar (Would you sub Clarke, Valera or Perales for Paez or Mullins?)

Houck is set to be activated, soon. Who gets demoted? Fitts (as we trade for a solid #2?) Alcala, Murphy, Bernardino? (Trade Hicks?) I'm pulling for Sandoval's return, but who knows?

I'm really falling for Ryan. Probably, too much. My offers may be too much, but as long as we keep Anthony, Mayer, Tolle, Campbell and hopefully Gracia & Arias, I think I may be in. I'd hate to lose Arias & Garcia and even Clarke or Valera, but one might have to go, along with Duran (or Abreu.)

1. Crochet (2.44 in league leading 20 GS and 129 IP) 2. Ryan (2.72 in 18 GS) 3. Giolito (0.70 last 6 starts) 4. Bello (2.33 ERA GS 1-5, then 2.69 in 10 starts from that May 18th bad game.) 5. Fitts>Sandoval

You took out the question mark, why? Why intentionally copy and paste, then remove a key punctuation mark? It's deliberate. I was responding to a post about needing to trade a top prospect for Gallen and offered a suggestion on how we might get him without losing a top prospect. I often suggest more than a site like BTV might accept, because I know I am a homer. I wrote in one post about what we got for Beeks and Aldo vs what we might get for 3 decent prospects and how the 2025 combinations of prospects look better than the ones that got us Garcia & Sims. Here is that quote: What can we get with a... #7 Tibbs & #17 Paez? #13 Bleis & #21 Uberstine? #16 Cespedes, #19 Jordan & #23 Mullins? My point is, we can do better than we did last year, because we have more to offer, and maybe we can find a deal like Schwarber or Nate, with a little luck or Brez magic. I'm not sure I want to do it for a rental, but the offers I suggested are about as high as I'd go for any rental. I'd think long and hard about the 3 I listed, but I might do it. Gallen is not pitching well, now, but he was better than Nate for several years, recently. Mullins is Rule 5. I'm not sold on Jordan. I'm higher on Cespedes than you are, I'd like to see us trade for Ryan.

To PHI: Duran, Mullins & Bernardino To BOS: Ryan & Strahm To MIN: Fitts, Abel, Romero & Sandlin (or maybe Abel, Clarke & Arias)

I'd do it and feel way better, if Brex extends Ryan.

I agree. The only way Abreu goes over Duran is if a team insists on him, and the prize is worth it. This in no way means I dislike Duran or undervalue him. I really hate to trade him, but he's more valuable to a team that does not have an Anthony, Abreu and Rafaela (plus Ref/Masa, KC & Garcia.) I think Duran goes to SD or Philly and a third team sends us a solid #2 who is not a rental. We kick in a few non top 10-12 prospects. As great as Duran is, we may not even see a step down to Anthony, especially looking beyond 2025.

I don't think anyone thinks Devers is better than Jim Ed up to age 30, but you made a great point.

Okay Max, but there is no proof he was ever lied to. Whatever Bloom said or promised, he likely meant it- no lie: no deception. Brez and Cora made no promises, as far as we know, so not only is there no lie, there is no deception, either. Maybe, if Cora did tell him, you will DH for the whole season, situations change, so it's still not a lie, unless Cora knowingly told Devers something he knew to be untrue. I fully understand Devers felt harmed, disrespected and deceived. IMO, he deceived himself, too, as the guy actually still thinks he's a plus defender at 3B, so he was never going to accept the reasoning for moving him. It's too bad, because I loved watching him hit. I would still like to watch him hit in our line-up, but I'm okay with what happened in the end. I'll be more okay if and when JH spends the "savings."

Maybe liverwurst.

His work is not done, for sure. He also extended Crochet. I think we never extended anyone under Bloom but Kikebust and the Martin Perez re-worked option year. The Wilson addition was sweet, too. I hated the fact that he was all they added to the pen with Chapman. Toro did better than Garrett Cooper and started out better than Dom Smith's time with us. The 2024 Gio signing kicked in well for 2025, too.

I liked Brez before the 10 game streak. I have to admit, I like him even more, now, but he's done a lot beyond just a few bold and impactful moves. I'm pumped up over the focus on farm pitching, as well as 26 man and 40 man roster pitching improvements. Okay, the Sale trade backfired spectacularly and horrifically. I won't relitigate on why it had some logic behind the plan. The Buehler and Hendriks deals have sucked, and $31M is $31M not spent elsewhere, but so many other moves have gone very well and insanely well. Brez has rarely traded away pitching for non pitching and even the Priester deal brought us back a decent pitching prospect. The E R-C deal brought us a catcher who has helped so many other pitchers improve, who cares? I love this last draft. Love the extensions given. Loving more, too.