moonslav59

He meant it, though. He's said it in non anti-Fred posts, too. Others seem to think our weaknesses are not bad enough to risk messing with clubhouse morale to try and fix it.

He's been playing great, for sure, but so have Anthony, Rafaela and Abreu/Refsnyder. If it wasn't for Rafaela's need at 2B, one would be benched, since we know YOSHIDA HAS TO PLAY!

I got my head ripped off by two posters for just suggesting we not DFA Alcala and keep Murphy on the 26. I can see a lot of merit in not adding non Rule 5 players, but adding Sandlin seems like a good idea.

Anthony is for real. With Rafaela needed at 2B, we can get a good long look at his defense, too.

Sandlin is Rule 5 and will be added in DEC, so I can see adding him earlier to get a look-see, but I think we have a few others ahead of him: Criswell has to get at least one more start. (May is here, now.) Harrison seems to be ready for a look. Burdi & Kelly are off the IL and did not do too badly, when healthy. Fitts & ICampbell are on the 40, now. Neither one clearly deserves another 2026 look, so maybe Sandlin could pass them on the depth chart. (Early, too.) I think there would have to be a 60 Day IL injury for either to be added to the 40, and Early is not Rule 5, so we will not add him and cause a roster crunch in DEC,

I do agree that we have lessened the areas of need on O and D, Our pitching cannot afford another key injury but looks very nice in some areas and okay in others. The 4 & 5 starter slots are highly questionable, but if we can make the playoffs, their importance drops off sharply. The offseason should be interesting. 1. Bregman or not. (E Suarez or Mayer are options) 2. Closer (Bring Chapman back or sign another one.) 3. SP (Improving on Buehler & Sandoval's 2025 should not be hard, but I think we need to go big, here- Ryan or maybe Keller is enough.) 4. 1B (Unless Campbell shines down the stretch. I'd be okay with Casass-Romy, if we fill 1-3 well enough.) 5. 2B (Mayer, unless he's needed at 3B. Getting some help might still be a good idea. Romy may be needed at 1B or DH platoon, and DHam's days seem numbered. Grissom?) 3 major areas and 2 moderate ones.

I don't think our D has been good, but on paper, they should be, and DRS likes us. We are 8th in least ERs allowed but 16th in least runs allowed, just 4 away from 19th. We all have seen how many runs we allowed by defensive mistakes that were not called errors, too. I think we make a strong run at Ryan, this off season.

I agree. We could have afforded an OF'er and a prospect or two not named Anthony or Tolle. Even losing an OF'er we'd still have a great OF and plenty of OF depth.

Probably right, but we do have team control.

Yup. And recent promotee just had a big game (Romero.)

Good news!

He will likely never get to the plus side of plate discipline, but he doesn't have to, especially as the whole league moves towards his end of the spectrum. I do think he can still improve, but maybe not at this pace (2025>2026.)

Yup. How many teams traded for a number 1 or 2?

Ok, on that sample size, yes, but... Since May 17th: 2.81 Giolito 3.11 Ryan Since June 5th: 2.17 Gio 2.73 Ryan

When Houck is healthy, he knows how to pitch, too. He's got some of the nastiest breaking stuff on the whole team. Did we ever find out what Crawford's non-pitching injury was? As of now, it looks like... Houck is out for the 2026 season. Crawford & Dobbins may miss start of the season. Sandoval should be ready. We have Crochet & Bello returning, and it looks like Gio won't reach 140 IP and opt out. Criswell, Fitts, Harrison offer experienced depth. We have 3-4 prospects that will be ML ready, too.

I totally agree. The weird thing about Wong is that in past years, his defense was in question, but he's really stepped that up this year, and catcher defense is super important- maybe even more than SS defense, if you include how pitchers do better with certain catchers, which I have always valued. The .423 OPS is worse than anything Sandy Leon or other defensive back-ups gave us, but I don't think he will remain that bad.

Some view Wong as weak, and certainly his bat has been epic weak. I don't think Wong's bat will be this bad, forever, now was it as good as it looked, last year. He's maybe a .650-.675 guy. Maybe we can do better, but we don't need a top catcher, if we do look for one.

I don't think we'll have a Rule 5 crunch. We lose a lot of players, and not all need to be replaced in kind, such as Buehler, Matz, May and maybe Refsnyder, and guys like Alcala, Burdi, Kelly, Guerrero, I Campbell, Eaton, Sogard, Toro and maybe even Hicks & Wink could be let go or traded. We only have 3-4 major additions needed: Closer, SP, P, 1B Our most known Rule 5's: Sandlin, Bleis, Paez, Uberstine, Mullins, Monegro (IL) Hickey, Castro, I Coffey, Drohan, Dean, Rogers, Hoppe, Song We may just protect Sandlin, Bleis & Unberstine. Maybe not Uber.

Here is a cursory look at the other AL team weaknesses. I could be wrong on some, as players are injured or returned from injury, that I may not know about, and maybe I missed a key tarde or two, but here it goes: TEX ranked 12th of 15th in everyday player fWAR, but 2nd in pitching (avg 7th) Weak areas: 15th DH, 10th Catcher & RF, 9th at 1B, 8th at 3B & LF (6 or 9 slots are below average) SP 1st/4th pen (enough to offset all the other weak areas?) SEA 5th in everyday and 9th in pitching (Ang 7th) Weak areas: 13th RF, 12th at 1B (added Suarez), 10th at 3B, 8th at SS & DH (5 of 9) SP 7th/10th pen OUCH! (I think we are better, here.) NYY 1st in everyday and 8th in pitching (avg 4th/5th) Weak areas: 12th at 3B, 11th at SS, 8th at 1B (3 of 9) SP 6th/12th in pen (added 2 guys) Hard to know with them. HOU 6th in everyday FWAR but 1st in pitching (avg 4th) Weaknesses: 13th in LF (added someone) and DH, 10th at 1B, 9th at 2B, 9th at 3B (added Correa), 8th RF (5 of 9 slots are below avg.) SP 4th/1st pen Looks like the best on paper, but we just swept them! DET 4th and 6th (avg 5th) Weak areas: 11th CF, 10th at SS, 9th at DH (3 of 9) SP 2nd/14th in pen (Not sure a weak pen and 3 other is much better than us.) TOR 2nd and 12th (avg 7th) Weaknesses: 9th in LF, 8th at 2B (2 of 9, but look at pitching) SP 13th/ 8th in pen (Gotta think the pitching will hurt them, too much) BOS is 5th and 5th- a perfect balance. nobody averages even 4th. 9th in SP, before today/ 3rd in pen

More OF depth on an already crowded ML roster. If we didn't need Rafaela at 2B, not trading an OF'er could have ended up being grounds for a criminal investigation.

Agreed, and what is also amazing is how some of the players leading this team were considered "depth" before the season started: Narvaez was our "back-up" catcher. Romy was a 26 man bubble player. Anthony, Mayer and Campbell were considered farm depth, until Campbell's surprise promotion. When Bregman went down, Mayer was called up a bit later. Toro held down the 1B job for a while, along with Romy and a little from Sogard. Our rotation depth has been put to the test and has passed, for the most part. One could argue our healthy 5 might have been Crochet, Houck, Buhler, Gio and Crawford (maybe Bello) with Sandoval at #7, Fitts & Priester 8 & 9, Criswell 10, and then Newcomb jumped over everyone to win a slot. Dobbins was maybe #12, depending on how you viewed Wink or even Whitlock as starters, Dobbins, Fitts and Criswell have done pretty well as deep depth starters. The pen needs no explanation. Most of us were horrified at the lack of solid pen additions over the winter, and some of us figured the plan was to convert our SP'er depth to cover pen weaknesses, but that could never happen. Our "all healthy 8" was likely expected to be Chapman, Hendriks, Slaten, Whitlock, Wilson, Weissert, Bernardino & maybe Wink, Kelly or a SP'er like Criswell. Slaten has missed over half the season and Hendriks more. Wink as well. Kelly, Guerrero and others have been hurt, but guys like Wilson, Murphy, Burdi and even Alcala for a bit stepped up when needed. Dobbins did okay, too, in relief. I can't say the depth of the pen has been great. It's been more about solid seasons from Chapman, Whitlock, Wilson & Weissert, but you can't be ranked a top 5 to 7 pen without the rest of the guys doing well enough. We may see Harrison, May and Matz take on meaningful roles, before the season is over. Maybe Criswell can repeat his last start a few more times, or close to it. It's taken 5 years to build up this depth. We hoarded depth, perhaps at the expense of making package deals for one guy or quick fix deadline rentals, but we are reaping the rewards, now.

Actually, Max did.

He has 75 Ks in 401 PAs. Last year, he had 151 in 571 (OVER 26% K Rate.) Yes, he had 45 in his last 169 PAs, when he may have tired, but if he does that again, he'll end up with 120 in 570, which is a big improvement. I'm not saying we should expect further improvement, but I think we can safely think he may stay near his current K rate, which is under 19%. Last year, he was ranked 22nd out of 129 qualified batters in K rate- now it's 96th out of 158. He's actually in the lower half! The K:BB went from 151-15 to 75:17. That was one of the worst ratios in MLB history (about 10 to 1) to 4.4 to 1. The league BB/K is now 0.38. Rafaela is at 0.23, this year (17th worst) WITH ANOTHER 14 players within 0.05 from his mark. Last year he was dead last at 0.10 with only 2 players near him. Why do you seem to discount the chance of a young player improving on his weakest area?

Even when trying to "discuss," it's never a true discussion. It's a waste of time. I was responding to SK who thought his post was satirical, or maybe he was being satirical saying it was satirical. Man- my head is spinning.

No problem having an ace and three #2 in my book. Plus, someone will get hurt or struggle: they always do. This year, we lost Houck (our preseason #2) Crawford (our preseason #4 or 5) and Sandoval, who was supposed to be ready by August to be slotted 4/5. We then lost Dobbins, who was pitching like our #2/3, at the time. We tried Newcomb, Fitts and a couple of pen games before giving Criswell a shot in August. To me, we should put a #2 SP as our #1 priority after a closer.