moonslav59

Maybe Romero or Ronald Rosario to AAA. I'm not sure they want to move Arias to AA, so soon & same with Bleis. Jo Garcia taking Rosario's catcher slot at AA might happen, later this year, but not soon. Gonzales, Cespedes and Mussett may go to GRE, at some point. I agree that more moves are likely with pitchers: To AAA? Early, Sandlin or Mullins To AA? Tolle, Rivera and maybe Holobetz To GRE? Fajardo or Brooks? D Reyes to SAL?

We are now a half game behind SEA and CLE for the last WC slot. The Jays and Rays are still in reach.

It comes down to MIL being sellers, or not. Hoskins is making $18M, this year.

I'm fine with riding it out a bit longer with Toro & Romy at 1B, and until Bregman comes back, Toro can and has played some 3B, too. I think we are actively looking at a trading for a rental 1Bman.

I think we see a bunch of promotions, soon.

I said, they looked like the had a good shot at winning, a few times. They had more hits than SF and the same amount of homers and errors. No, they did not look good, very often, except for the dingers.

Garcia his his 8th later in the game! He's up to .992! Rosier is on fire, too (.858 w a tater.) Hickey homered and KC went 2-4 w a 2B and BB. POR pitched a no hitter, as sandlin went 6 and Troye and Brand went the other 3. They won 10-0! They had 12 hits and 7 BBs. Ravelo went 2-3 w HR. Ferguson 3-3 w 2BB. Ehrhard 2-3 w 2B and 2BB. GRE lost in 10, but Tolle pitched a gem: 6IP 5H, 1ER, 1BB & 9K. Sanasone went 3 I allowing 3 hits, 0 BBs and had 4 Ks- 1 ER. Arias and Brannon each had 2 hits- Bleis had 1 hit & 2BB and is now at .782. SAL lost 6-4, but Azocar homered and Gonzalez had a 2B and 3B.

That might be more on Bailey. I see a major uptick in pitching being a high priority on the farm. I'm talking drafting them higher, drafting more of them, and paying them higher bonuses than we've seen our last few GMs do. Brez has given IFA pitchers more bonus money than we've seen in recent years. He's traded for pitching prospects and young pitchers, including older pitchers for younger ones, like Schreiber for Sandlin, Priester for Holebetz and Booser for Fajardo. He's trade a big package for Crochet, then extended him. He traded Verdugo for Fitts, Weissert and Judice. He traded Devers for 3 pitchers- 2 of then young. Back to the draft: he drafted 12 pitchers in our first 16 picks in 2024, but almost more importantly, he gave a large percent of the bonus pool money to pitchers, including a few much higher slot money. Take a look at IFA bonus money. Our top pitcher bonuses were like $125M, and every now and then $200K or $300K. This year, we gave $500K to Delzine and $350K to Cordero, plus $100K to Montero. We don't know, if all these kids will produce, but Brez has made a clear effort to effect a change for the good.

They never even made an attempt to spend the $300M on Betts, not the contracts let go, like Porcello, Kimbrel, JD, Nate and others. I suppose Story and Yoshia were half-hearted attempts at throwing a bone to rabid fans, but it did look like a legit change, when we extended Devers and then saw the jump in spending, this last winter. Now, the Devers dump opens the whole can or worms, again, and the unsettled feelings return, front and center. It's like we can't even enjoy one second of feeling good about anything. They make a great move or two, and we end up expecting another shoe to drop. At least this time it was two steps up (Breg & Crochet) and one step back (Devers.)

At so many pints in this game, I felt we had a good shot at pulling it out. The D let us down, and the pen just couldn't get that extra out the defense forced on them. I think we gave our all, this series, and it's the first one we've lost in a while. I'm hopeful we get back on track but this growing IL list is getting absurd.

Well said. I like the way you broke it down.

Mayer or Story may end up solving the long-standing 2B issue.

Nobody is bragging about DHam's O.

Fitts has not looked very good at Woo. Maybe because he was told to work on his secondary pitches, but this is not a comforting thought. I wonder if Uberstine might be added to the 40, soon.

Maybe, at least mention... Crochet > Sale (and he was extended and paid more than Sale got.) Bregman > Devers (and he got a higher AAV than Devers got.) Yes, he traded our two best players by career stats, only, but he replaced them with better players and paid both handsomely. Crochet, Bregman, Buehler, Chapman, Gio, Hendriks and others did not save JH a penny. Our budget has gone up under Brez, I'm not defending his style and communication skills. I think we all agree on those areas he is lacking in. I think he has taken a huge step in rebuilding the team and the farm, particularly with the much needed major focus on pitching: adding quality MLB pitchers, adding quality and quantity of farm pitching and changing the farm priorities toward acquiring, paying and developing young arms. While this still needs to be proven, his attempts at improving it cannot be denied. Social dufus or not.

The Bregman signing was absolutely the right thing to do. We needed a big RH'd bat for years. We needed to make a major step at improving our defense, and our corner IF slots have been the very worst on D for several years running. No doubt, we should have handled the situation better. We had our manager saying Bregman would be a great 2Bman. We had our 3Bman clinging to the idea he was a plus defender at 3B and was promised by the old regime he "was the 3Bman." While I don't blame management for thinking and expecting a player to do what is best for the team, they have to anticipate that all players may not agree with your view on what is best, and once the saw pushback, they should have handled it better. Maybe Devers was so set in his ways, that nothing would have worked, but the reports are that Cora never even asked him to play 1B. That exposes some serious dysfunction at best or insubordination by Cora and or Devers at worst. I've aways felt Devers could become a better defender at 1B than Casas, who sucks at D. Getting Bregman should have made his move to 1B or a DH/1B share with Casas the plan. At worst, they should have told Devers we want him to be the DH, but that 1B is on the table, and he should start practicing 1B, even before Casas got hurt. This is not hindsight babbling on my part. I've been saying this for years. Brez, Cora and the FO dropped the ball, no doubt, but that does not take Devers off the hook. It was clear he was being belligerent and was not willing to do what was best for the team. Those Oakland and Yankee players involved in feuds were the opposite, IMO. They would give anything to win and do anything to make their team better, even with their massive egos.

Those Yankee dugouts and clubhouses had some serious issues, at times, too. The Reggie Jackson-Billy Martin feud was on public display, It's not all about just clubhouse feuds. Reggie was pissed, because Billy yanked him in the middle of an inning. Reggie was not complaining about being forced to play where he did not want to play. He was bitching because he was being told not to play (for part of a game.) Big difference. Yes, Reggie dogged it, at times, and that was not a "good example" to set. Oh, and by the way, the Yanks let Reggie walk just 2 years removed from two .900+ OPS seasons and right before he hit .907 and led the league in HRs for his new team, the following season (1982.) I hate that we traded Devers. I hoped he was a Red Sox forevers not a Giant forevers. I'm not upset we traded him. I will be, if we sit back and do nothing to even try to replace what we just lost.

You never said this until he was traded. Had Devers gladly moved to DH and asked to play 1B, when Casas went down injured, I think he'd still be here. Maybe, he'd eventually be traded, as they viewed $31M AAV as too much for a DH/1Bman, but I seriously doubt the plan was to trade Devers. They'd have done that, last winter, before all the drama brought down his return value.

Houck does not have the clout fo cause a shitstorm. He may not like it. If he goes public with his dislike, maybe he'll be traded, too. If he can regain his form, he will earn back the rotation slot. The lowest bar, currently, is Buehler. it's not hard to do better than him. By the time Houck gets ramped back up, and assuming he is doing well in rehab, a few weeks from now, maybe a slot opens up. If not, he will get a shot at the pen- likely in long relief, where he can still work his way back to the rotation, by showing he deserves it. I have zero concern over any Houck drama. I think Sandoval will have a better claim to a rotation slot than Houck, assuming all goes well with him.

Max, I do not think Devers was gone the minute we signed Devers. It happened after Devers failed to do what is expected of every player. I do not want Yoshida as our DH or platoon with Refsnyder or Romy DH. It may end up being the best plan, but this is a long way away. We need a bat, now. For now, I'd like to see Duran at DH v R and LF v L and Ref or Romy at DH v L. Anthony can DH some, v R, too. When Bregman returns, maybe an infielder gets cycled into the DH, as well.

Our rotation has missed a lot of starts: 16 Crawford & Sandoval (Murphy was deep end depth) 9-10 Fitts (not due to injury) 7-8 Houck 5-6 Dobbins (not due to injury) 3-4 Bello & Buehler This pales to what the Astros can say, but it's still a lot.

It wasn't really even a full half season in '24. It was about 2 months. (4/25>6/64) .844 for 42 games. (132 PAs) .553 in the 36 PAs beforehand. .602 in 149 PAs afterwards - a larger sample size than his "good stretch."

None of these guys have even the hope Jeter Downs had, but I hope we get something out of the prospects or Harrison can give us what Verdugo did.

He not only failed to step up as a good teammate would do, but he stepped downwards.

This is not an easy injury to come back from. We may be more than a month or even 6 weeks away from joining the Sox.