moonslav59

Duran DURAN!!!

Mono has lost the magic.

We can't lose like this. Gotta pull this out.

Hull doubled in the winning runs in the bottom of the ninth in GREs win. Lets get the big club win.

We{ve seen our share of bench players not helping much, but this year has seen a pretty big share of successes. Some may have been short lived, but some fizzled out then came back to help again' like Gasper. Jones plus White are near 1.000 combined .844 Gasper .799 Sogard .739 Seigler .724 Monasterio League OPS is .719 .713 Wong .705 IKF

Rays lost. Yanks tied with Stros' the team that just canned their GM.

We just keep rotating these guys, then IL stints, demotions and repeat.

Tonight, Anthony homered, walked and has 2 hits. Arias has 2 hits, too. Paez looked real good. Justin Gonzalez homered and has 2 hits for the Sea Dogs tonight.

Looking at the top 30 and 60 lists, I kinda feel like I'm about ready to write off a bunch of players are being very longshots at making MLB and doing anything productive- beyond maybe as a utility player or RP'er. It's like I'm not even viewing on these guys as top 20: 9. Holobetz, 10 Wehunt, 16 Bastardo, 17 Paez, 23 Rivera, 21 Romero & 23 Mullins I tend to overvalue younger guys and their upside potential, but these might be some somewhat older prospects that might have one last shot at moving up: 13. Cespedes (only 20, but this is his 4th year in prof ball) 30. Castro (23) I've all but written him off. 34. Brannon (22) 35. Jo Garcia (21) Taking out these guys listed above, except Cespedes, Brannon & Garcia, this might be my rankings now: 1. Arias 20 AAA> MLB in '27 2. Gonzales 19 AA>AAA in 27 3. Primera 19 A 4. Hull 22 AA 5. Valera 20 AA 6. Scaffner AA 7. Godbout 22 AAA 8. Soto A 9. Delzine A 10. Mataczynski 18 A 11, Shelar 19 A 12. Cespedes 20 AAA 13. Gutierrez 22 AA 14. Winnay 23AAA 15. Heyman 23 AA 16. M White 22 AAA 17. Jo Garcia 21 AAA 18. LaFavor 18 A 19. Phillips 22 AA 20. Brannon 22 AAA

I agree. Of course, I'm assuming players don't get hurt tying their shoes over the winter, but with guys coming off the IL, our everyday player situation looks to have more bottlenecks than holes. I'd still like a big bat added, and we have some depth areas we can trade from, but I doubt we see more than one significant add. The pitching is a bit more uncertain, especially with Gray being a FA. The IL guys are question marks, too. Here is the all-healthy 2027 foundation: C: Rutschman & Wong (Jo Garcia-Gasper) 1B: Contreras/Romy (Casas-Gasper) 2B: Meade, Story-Soard-Monasterio-Seigler (Rodgers) SS: Arias/Story-Soard-Monasterio (Cheng) 3B: Durbin, Harris (Romero) LF: Anthony/Duran, Jones (Gonzales) CF: Rafaela, White (Ward) RF: Abreu, Eaton (Campbell) DH: Anthony/Yoshida & Story/Romy (Hickey/Brannon) Too many 2Bmen. SP: Crochet, Suarez, Tolle, Bennett, Houck, Crawford, Bello, Oviedo (Paez, Wehunt, Holobetz, Ziehl, Burgos) RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Miller, Slaten, Guerrero, Weissert, Moran, Kelly (Samaniego, Bastardo, Rivera, Gamboa, Olds, Song) Needs: 1. Big bat (LF/DH & trade Duran) 2. SP 3. RP

A few SP'ers on the farm are probably positioning themselves on the Sox SP'er depth chart. We do have the opener/ Bello option that looks pretty solid. We've used Burgos, and he's on the 40 already, so he is likely "the next guy." We can add someone for the Yankee doubleheader coming up, and it might be Burgos, but who is next? All these guys would need to be added to the 40, first: Paez went 5 today: 1 ER, 1H, 0 BB 8K, which is much better than the others' most recent starts. (2.92 AAA and .682 OPS Against overall- B$ tonight) Wehunt 3.56 (7.04 OPS Against) Ziehl 4.23 (.776) Holobetz 4.65 (.723)

I wouldn't bet on any place until I know wo is paying who and how much. My own opinion is that Sacramento could fill the void the A's left behind. San Antonio or Austin seem as viable as Nashville, if not more so. NC seems right to me, but people are too spread out among cities just barely too small to support a MLB team. However, Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia has 2.9M +10% growth in 5 yrs San Antonio- New Braunfels 2.8M +10% Austin-Round Rock 2.6M +15% Portland-Vancouver 2.5M +1% Sacramento 2.5M +3% (Las Vegas at 2.4M had less but got the A's.) 2.2M Indianapolis +6% 2.2 Nashville +9% 1.9 San Jose -1% 1.5 Raleigh (+13%) & OKL City (+6%) 1.4 Louisville +3% 1.3 Memphis (0%) & SLC +4%

It's funny how we viewed him as a good defensive 2Bman with great baserunning skills and okay splts to be a platoon type guy, at best. MIL moved him to SS and tried to make him a FT player.

Gasper 5th. Wow.

Seems like one year ago.

Or some cheap weed killer.

I always worry about this kind of thinking. The guy does a good job with a poor approach. I'd hesitate to try and change anything. Don't fix what ain't broke.

I'm not sure many have much trade value, and it seems like Brez has already purged the farm of most of the Bloom prospects. He even purged several prospects he had acquired earlier. I'm not seeing a major Rule 5 or 40 man roster crunch, this winter, unless Brez plans on adding 5-6 FAs or 40 man roster players via trades without 40 man guys going back in exchange. Last Fall and early winter, Brez was busy downsizing the 40 and bubble roster guys: He added Sandlin, Drohan and Uberstine for protection from Rule 5 and traded for Rule 5 guy Ryan Watson in exchange for a non 40 man prospect. That was +4. He non tendered Nate Lowe and Winckowski (-2) Traded Guerrero, Murphy & Bernardino for not 40 guys (-3) He also traded Alex Hoppe and T Gray for a non 40 guys. Traded Hicks & Sandlin for a non 40 guy (-2) Fitts and prospects for Gray and the 3 for 3 Brewer trade were 40 man washes. This cleared the way for... Signed Suarez, Coulombe & IKF and claimed Gasper & Cheng off waivers (+5) I doubt there is a lot of minor moves like last off season, but Brez is not shy on winter trades.

True on the "very." My bad.

Agreed, and behind Romy, too.

They must have a dozen minor league teams and support them well. I think they'd go to baseball games more than people from SLC. The problem is the population is too scattered in NC. Building a stadium between two cities might mean it's too far for either city to attend games. I'm not sure Charlotte alone can support a MLB team, but I'm not so sure about SLC or Nashville either. I never hear Indianapolis mentioned.

North Carolina is baseball rabid.

Yes, this farm is really the top 3, and all of them are very young for their level. Our 22 year old and older prospects don't look very promising, but some were just drafted this year or last year. They could change some minds. I'm still holding out hope for Brannon and Jo Garcia. The many 18-21 year olds in the top 15-25 can rise quickly.

Well, the Yanks when healthy are a force, but then we'd be better too by the same standard. The Rays have consistently done better than their run diff says they should. They know a secret that we hoped Bloom could tell us.

Indeed.