moonslav59

I think his ceiling is higher than that, but I can see not expecting more than that. The thing is, Wilson is not our 8th RP'er, so I do think he has a real good chance at sticking in the pen, when starters start returning. With Hendriks in doubt, he could end up being our 4th or 5th slotted RP'ers and see some high to mid leverage innings from the pen. It will be interesting to see how much pen time Criswell, Fitts and Priester get. Also, if and when all our 6 SP'ers are healthy (not counting Sandoval) will one of them get a meaningful pen role? Lord knows we have slots for all of them in our current pen.

Yes, the O's are still good. They have a young team that should see growth, but losing Burns and Santander did not make them better. I think they look worse, even with expected youth-related growth. They did win 91 games in '24, so 91-95 is still possible, but I'm expecting 87-91. I know the Yanks always find ways to stay above .500 and usually well above .500, but I think age and injuries will finally catch up to them. They just placed 8 guys on the IL, and that was after Cole, Gil and others were already on it. While we have a few older players in key roles, namely Chapman & Hendriks, the yanks have many more: 38 Carrasco 37 Goldschmidt 36 LeMahieu (IL) 35 Stanton (IL) & Tim Hill 34 Leiter Jr. 33 Judge & Stroman 32 Rodon & Reyes 31 Fried & Weaver I'm not writing them off, but I don't see a great roster, especially with no Cole, no Soto, no Cortes, Holmes and others lost from the '24 roster. Losing Gil was huge. I'm expecting 80-85 wins.

You don't have to DFA anyone to add Mayer or Anthony to the 40, either. Just put Perales on the 60 Day IL. There is no way Perales plays for the big club, this year, and certainly not in the next 60 Days. The second add would need a DFA or a decision to 60 Day someone else (Crawford? Bello?) I don't see Yoshida s depth to anyone but Devers, and even the DH slot could be filled by Refsnyder and a rotation of everyday players given a rest at DH vs RH'd starters. If an OF'er gets hurt, maybe Yoshida could play the shorter corner OF slot, but I'd still rather just call up Anthony to play FT OF, or even give Abreu that chance to play FT- not platoon, and let Ref play corner OF vs LHPs, as he will now, anyway. How valuable is a back-up DH only player?

Yoshida can be stashed in AAA, but it's hard to build trade value there. I guess, if he shows he's healthy and hits over .850 in AAA, some team might knock off a couple-three million off the cost and take a flyer on him. A contending team, in need of a DH, LHB or (gasp) a LF'er, might take him off our hands, if we pay $12-14M a year off his $18M/yr owed. That might still be worth it to us, unless Devers goes on the IL for a long time. Even then, we could DH Refsnyder vs LHPs and rest others at DH vs RHPs. Right now, we have no 40 man roster crunch, and when we decide to add Anthony and Mayer, we will probably have someone we can add to the 60 Day IL , maybe retroactively for Gio, Crawford or Bello, but we still have Perales, we could add today, if needed. Nobody will cry, if we DFA Sabol or Sogard to add Mayer, either. (We'd need to add Zavala to the 40, if a catcher gets hurt, but we can delay a DFA, until then.) One issue is, very few teams are looking to trade, right now, and even fewer for a DH-only player. Trading him for another roster dump player may be an option, but I scoured those options over the winter and found nothing that looked like a plus to both teams. Maybe I missed someone. I think, at some point, we will have to bite the bullet and cut ties with Yoshida, and try to minimize the financial loss as much as possible via some trade. I know including a prospect to lower the cost hit seem counterproductive, but we do have some bottlenecks at some positions, so maybe we can cut ties with a prospect before we lose them to Rule 5 or blockage. I'm not suggesting we trade any of these guys, but here are some Rule 5 guys coming up in December: Bleis, Castro, I Coffey, Dean, Hickey, Hoppe, Jordan, Liu, Monegro, Mullins, Paez, Ravelo, Sandlin & Sikes. Some of these guys would have to have very unlikely monster years to be considered for the taking via Rule 5, and some have very little trade value, but we could part with a few of these guys and not miss them, at all.

I agree. The Yanks, O's and Rays are all worse than last year, on paper. Maybe the O's youth and projected age progression can more than make-up for their off season losses, but at best, they look even. The Jays could be better, but they finished 20 GB in the ALE, last year. I also think the Astros and Guardians got worse. I'm not sure how much longer KCR and MN can keep up doing well. SEA might end up with the 2nd or 3rd best AL record.

Funny, how you bashed my "speculation" that Bregman would be the 3Bman from day one and Devers should DH (or play 1B) that I have been calling for for years. Somehow, that is "being wrong," while you have never admitted being wrong.

Yes, and while people are worried about injuries to Devers, Casas seems more fragile. If they both DH'd 80 times a year, maybe both could stay healthier and fresher when they are at bat. To me, Yoshida has not role on this team, unless Devers, Casas or Refsnyder is injured.

It is what is best for the team. Good call, Cora.

These were the season ending rosters in 2023, before Brez took over the team vs what we have now: Rotation: MLB- Sale, Houck, Pivetta, Bello, Crawford (Paxton IL) >> Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Bello (IL) Crawford (IL) Giolito (IL) Sandoval (IL) Fitts, Newcomb (both would be in AAA) AAA: Drohan, Barraclough, Van Belle, Walter, Gambrell & AA: Wikelman, Dobbins, Liu, Sharp, Bastardo & I Coffey >> AAA (Fitts & Newcomb) Priester, Stock, Dobbins, Fulmer, Van Belle & AA: Sandlin, Early, Paez, Monegro, Wehunt, Uberstine Pen: MLB- Jansen, Martin (IL) Winck, Whitlock, Schreiber, Bernardino, Nick Robertson, Llovera, Murphy, Kelly & AAA: Joely, Ort, Mata, Weiss, Jacques, Garza, Politi, Gillaspie >> Chapman, Hendriks (IL) Slaten, Whitlock, Wilson, Bernardino, Kelly, Weissert, Criswell & AAA: Guerrero, Wink, Mata, Mills, I Campbell, Adames, Burdi, Harris, Webb, Moore (IL) Adams, I Coffey C: Wong, McGuire, Ro Hernandez, C Hamilton>> Wong, Narvaez, Zavala & Sabol 1B: Casas (IL) Turner, Dalbec, Kavadas>> Casas & Toro 2B: E Valdez, Reyes, Urias, McDonough>> Campbell, DHam, Romy, Grissom SS: Story, Koss>> Story & Mayer 3B: Devers, Sogard>> Bregman, Devers, Sogard LF: Yoshida & Duran>> Duran & Ref, Anthony CF: Duvall & Rafaela (late)>> Rafaela (Duran) RF: Verdugo & Abreu (late)>> Abreu (Ref & Anthony) DH: Turner/Yoshida>> Devers, Yoshida/Ref

MLB.com reports that a poll of some MLB execs, showed these teams improved the most: Dodgers & Red Sox: 6 votes Mets: 4 votes Athletics: 2 votes Astros: 1 vote

I could see them waiting, if the injury happened very soon. Another option could be... 3B Campbell SS Story 2B DHam-Romy platoon

That's been my suggestion for years. He actually has a pretty good glove and moves quickly for a pudgy guy. The other factor is that the bar is set very low with casas at 1B, now. He only has to be better than one of the worst defensive 1B in MLB to improve our defense.

Yup. Let's split the difference and say we are about 1/110th of the way.

Yes, for some reason, JH need to spend way less from 2020-2022, and while he still spent a lot in 2019, there was not much "new spending." That being said, they did choose to pay Sale, Nate and Bogey over Betts. That is probably a better comp than Betts vs Devers.

I think Mayer takes over 3B, if there is a major injury, but Devers would play 3B for a game, here and there, when Bregman needs rest or has a minor injury. Yes, it's a good idea he still takes reps at 3B. (Romy could play 3B, too.)

I'm very hopeful that Buehler can and will have a big season for us. While I'm tired of the recent injury pitcher signings, this guy looks a cut above guys like Richards, Kluber and Paxton. We need a SP'er or two to have great seasons. There may be a better chance of this than for 5 of them to have really good but not great seasons.

I thought you'd like that one! Hey, we're 1/81st of the way through the season. The sample size is huge!

Devers missed a lot of ST'ing, so maybe he just needs to get back into the "swing of things." I'm not worried about his bat.... yet.

I thought we had the best rotation depth I'd seen in a long time, before Newcomb made the squad. You can never have too much SP'er depth, and this guy looks pretty good. Using Criswell in the pen helps that area get better. I wonder, if that is where Fitts and Newcomb end up, once our starters start returning.

The ALE is the only division with no losing record team.

Didn't look too good, today. Had the one big chance with bases loaded and our two big money players up. Gotta take the next game. Buehler needs to be sharp.

He pitched well: 4 IP 0 ER 2 Hits 1 BB 6 Ks Wink and I Campbell let up 4 ERs on 9 hits in 4 IP, combined. Toro hit a dinger. Mayer and Anthony went 0-7, but Anthony drew a BB.

The team is so much better with Bregman at 3B. That's the reality.

I wasn't saying he should or will. My point was that he has a better case than Abreu. I'm not worried at all about Ref getting ABs vs LHPs, so keep up the strawman arguments. I know he will get them, because Cora is no fool.