moonslav59

I forgot to mention infielder time at DH. Right now, it looks like the OF'ers will cover DH until Breg's return, but afterwards, maybe it will be wide open. The Toro-Romy experiment may be over by then, too, so Campbell could play 1B.

Now that KC, Mayer and Anthony are with the Red Sox, the WOO and POR line-ups look rather thin. We see a few promising players, but more dead end and AAAA types. The GRE club has been the fun team to watch, this season, and now it's like the only team to watch. Taking away the players now in the bigs, here are the OPS leaders at each level (non pitchers): AAA: .928 Jh Garcia (up to 100 PAs in AAA- the one true AAA everyday promise) .913 Hickey (I'm still not sold, but good to see him making a move.) .858 Jordan (not at 60 PAs w Woo, yet/ .928 w POR) .798 Thompson (AAAA profile) .742 Sogard (not sure he can ever be more than utility) .719 Grissom (has some interest and chances) .714 Sabol (AAAA catcher) AA .792 Romero (The only guy with real promise) .770 Ehrhard .768 Castro A+ .817 Arias (GG defense, too) .790 Bleis (on the rise) .759 N Taylor .716 Brannon A- .928 Encarnacion .924 Anderson (100 PAs, now) .856 Ju Gonzales .804 Azocar .804 Arias (promoted) .727 Yuten .721 Mussett .700 Nunez .698 Cespedes

Houck went 1 IP: 2 hits, 1BB, 0 Ks and 1 ER.

I want to see Devers playing 2B in our series.

Was he in the clubhouse? I doubt any current player would speak out against Devers. The fact that none have come out to say glowing things about Devers may or may not telling.

Let it be known: we CAN beat good pitching and good teams.

I don't think we keep any of our 3 prospects on the big club, if the plan is to start them under 50-60% of the games. Maybe even under 70-75%. I like Bregman at 3B, Mayer at SS and Story at 2B, but Story has looked better on D, of late, so maybe Mayer at 2B works, too. Campbell could play 2B vs LHPs and maybe some CF vs RHPs, but I think Cora really loves Rafaela in CF FT, and I can't blame him. Duran should not be benched vs RHPs, so the only other place for Campbell to get 60-75% playing time would be 2B vs LHPs and some 1B vs RHPs. I'm not sure we try that, unless Toro struggles between now and Bregman's call-up, which is possible. Currently, he's 2 for his last 17, so maybe the decline has begun.

Houck pitched one inning for Woo, today: 1 hits, 1 run, 1BB, 0 Ks

I'm not so sure we will be sellers. I suppose we could be both sellers and buyers, and Buehler might be traded.

He already must be, but Austin Wells is doing just fine, too.

If I had strong feeling our pitching can hold up, like this, I might be as optimistic, but we are talking about Gio, here. We have our hopes pinned on Dobbins and a couple senior citizen pen guys. I actually have more hope in Sandoval and maybe Crawford or Houck than I do in Gio, Buehler and Fitts. It's nice to have more than one or two guys to pin our hopes on, but I can't call it anything more than just "hopes." (I don't have a ton of confidence in our staff, based on 6 games.)

Fair enough. I'm not bragging, but I had high expectations on his defense and brought up the fact that he had decent farm numbers on offense (high OBP and 15-20 HR power if a FT player.) That being said, he blasted my expectations for year one. The guy just might win ROY.

It's painful, isn't it. Verdugo for Betts. We get Story, then lose Bogey. We get Bregman, then lose Devers. We lose Sale, Nate and Erod and get Kluber, Richards and Gio- now Buehler. We couldn't even replace Porcello's lost contract, and he sucked at the end.

Roman AnthonyMarcelo MayerFranklin AriasJhostynxon GarciaYoeilin CespedesLuis PeralesConnelly EarlyMiguel BleisPayton TolleBrandon ClarkeMikey RomeroJohanfran GarciaHunter DobbinsJuan ValeraJustin GonzalesYophery RodriguezDorian SotoRichard FittsDavid SandlinDalvinson Reyes

We can't afford to miss one more winter on our big FA signings. Yes, Bregman was a hit, not a miss, but he's also on the IL for 60 days or so, so even our hit has an asterisk. The Crochet deal was great. I wish we had thrown in someone else besides Meidroth, but I'm thrilled with the trade results and we also did what I said was essential in making the deal an overall plus: we extended Crochet until his peak prime years are over or near over. Yes, bring Bregman back is task one. But, we just have to strike gold on our two biggest signings or trades to more than make up for the loss of Devers. It's gotta be two steps up and one step back and not the Bruce Springsteen song.

Max, I never understood your focus on small sample sizes, like 6 games, but now it's one game? I'm sorry, 3 hits, even if two are homers is not a feather in the offense cap. Our offense is and has recently been in bad shape. Losing 25% of our run production is and will be a major blow. We can hope and pray and explain away. We can point to 2 homers in one game and talk about players coming off the IL, but our team just got a lot worse, on paper. Luckily, they game is not played on paper, and to me, our team was better on paper than our record indicated before the Devers trade, so that was proof that "paper" means little. The fact is that Devers' production was not on paper. It was real. It was fungible. It cannot be easily replace by hopes, prayers and dreams. I'm not giving up on 2025, but I'm not going to try and minimize the loss of Devers by sugar-coating 3 hits, just because 2 were homers. We have 28 hits in the last 6 games. That's less than 5 a game. I don't care if Devers went 0-30 in his last or next 6 games: we'd be a much better offense with him still here.

Let's be honest: which of these players do we have higher hopes on now, vs right before the season started? Significantly Higher: Bregman, Abreu, Narvaez, Crochet (despite having high expectations in March) Dobbins, Chapman, Wilson, Toro/Romy Better: Rafaela, Bello, Whitlock, Weissert, Story & Gio (only because I had low expectations in March) About the Same: Refsnyder, Slaten, Mayer, Anthony, Fitts, Bernardino & Crawford Slightly Worse: Duran, Campbell, Guerrero, Kelly & Wink Worse: Houck, Casas, Wong, DHam, Criswell, Hendriks Am I wrong on any of these?

He really should be viewed as a DH/ emergency back-up 1Bman, going forward, and with Yoshida still in the system, I'm not sure we can afford to have both on the 40, let alone the 26. I'm far from giving up on Tristan's bat. Unlike Max, I think he'd have had a fine year on O, had he stayed healthy. I'm also at the end of the rope on wishing he stays healthy. I'm not okay with looking at a Toro/Romy platoon in 2026 at 1B. I have more faith in handing a 1Bman's mitt to Jh Garcia and giving him a shot. (I hope they prove me wrong and earn those roles for 2026, but I would not bet on it, even if given 3:1 odds.)

If you want to go by small sample sizes, look at our offense in the last 3 games, without Devers. Before the trade, the team scored 355 runs. Devers score 47 and knocked in 58. Minus the HRs that count as an RBI and Run, he accounted for 90 of those 355 runs! That's over 25% of all our run scored, while only being 1/9th of the line-up. BTW, 1/9th is 11% of the line-up. Let's not minimize how much of an impact Devers had on our offense. Yes, we can win with continued good pitching and improved defense, but we need to take up some of the slack our offense just lost. Bregman and Abreu's return should help, but they counted a lot in our previous offense over 2025, already. Bregman 67 Runs (32+35-11) 19% Abreu 47 runs (28+32-13) 13% We will need to make a trade or hope everyone step it up, like Story has been doing. None of the 3 kids are jumping out as the next Fred Lynn. (Mayer has done fine in his tiny sample size.) Just when Rafaela creeps over .700, and we start thinking, maybe he can hit well enough to at least not be a drag on the offense, he slips back down to .680 or worse. Campbell showed us some enormous potential, over his first week or so, but he's looked lost, almost the whole rest of the season. Anthony may just be an adjustment or two away from being a force, but we have no reason to expect him to be great- year one. We could easily think Narvaez has overachieved and could regress. Duran has regressed as some of us expected, but we could just as easily think he could hit like 2024, down the stretch. Abreu could also take on a heavier load. Bregman may bat second, now, so let's see how he ends the season. Can we really count on Toro/Romy to hit over .800 over the next 3.5 months? I'm hoping Ref continues being Ref, but we can't expect more from him. We will likely need several players to improve on O for us to have a legit shot at anything special, this fall. The loss of Devers is monumental.

True, but we've had some bloopers and seeing eye grounder hits over the last 6 games, too. Glad you got us another "Double You."

If we can forget about the start to Houck's 2025 season, the top 7 or 8 guys we have on the IL are better than some team's best 8 pitchers, right now. Houck, Crawford, Sandoval, Murphy (Perales/Drohan) Slaten, Winckowski, Burdi, Hendriks (Webb) On the active roster, only Buehler is stinking up our rotation of Crochet, Dobbins, Bello & Gio. We have a pretty solid top 4 in the pen: Chapman, Whitlock, Wilson and gasp... Weissert. The bottom 4 could use a serious upgrade: Bernardino (too up and down) Guerrero (maybe not quite ML ready) Kelly (about used up his leash length) and Alcara (fill in the blank on our 8th pen slot)

It's too bad his SS defense sucks, or he'd be a much more useful utility man w great PR value.

Very nice win, but the offense getting just 3 hits cannot go on for much longer. 28 hits in the last 6 games. (4 HRs) In the last 4 games: 15 hits w 6 of them XBHs (4 HR & two 3Bs)

Yes, they could afford Devers, but I think they view it as not an either or thing. It's do we pay $31M x 8.5 years for a DH only pouter/complainer/dogger or on someone else?

This year, Brez did have the foresight to create a rotation with depth to the 10th to 12th slots, and we've already gone that deep (Newcomb) but have yet to use Criswell and traded away Priester (but added Harrison & Hicks, who will be in the pen.)