moonslav59

I fully realize Rafaela may be better, going forward, despite your hyper criticism of him (well, mostly his contract), this year, but we have duplicated values in the OF and nobody who can play 3B better than 29 other 3Bmen. My suggested trade also included adding a RHB OF'er like Grichuk. You gotta give to get. I'd start with an offer of Cespedes & Winckowski, but might go as high as Rafaela, straight up. (BTW, I chose Rafaela not just because of our duplicated OF values, but because he is owed about $49M to Arenado's $60M. The deal would make more financial sense to JH and his bean counters.)

I kept thinking the days of feeding the monster would cycle back around, one day, but it really has not happened. The Story signing, and to a lesser extent, Yoshida deal didn't even match the amount of salary we have lost over those years. The Devers extension was massive, but it too did not put us near the spending and spending rankings we used to be at, years ago. It was also likely only done to quell a fan revolution. I will say, that despite these guys being mainly "figureheads," there is still some major disconnect going on within the FO. Are they really this stupid? Are they really just blatant liars? Are the both? If the Kennedy statement about the tax line not being a priority, this winter was true or close to the truth, then what is the hold up? Is someone saying, "It's okay to spend up to $260M," but then nix every big offer suggested, only because they'd rather spend the money on other players? What "other players?" Again, it looks like it is not happening. The so-called bidding on Soto was a mirage and fed the idea that our FO is willing to spend, but just on certain players that we never make the top offer on. I'm tired of the circle jerk. This was the winter for action- meaningful action. Okay, Crochet was meaningful, but where is the spending to go along with that trade and open up the window wide, even if just for Crochet's 2 years of control? Cricketts, as always. (Please, nobody say the name "Buehler" as an effort to spend us to glory.)

MLBTR reported that Arenado's contract has $74M remaining, of which COL pays $10M and deferred payments brings the actual amount owed to $60M. Forget giving them Yoshida: they want to cut salary. We could trade Rafaela (owed about $49M/7) and the AAV hit would only be about $18M a year with no money pitched in by STL. That would leave us enough to sign Grichuk and or Estevez. Of course, I's only do this, if we moved Devers to 1B/DH and not play Arenado at 1B. It creates an issue with Yoshida, but he's an issue, anyway. In theory, we could platoon Yoshida/Ref in LF and Abreu/Grichuk in RF, until Anthony is called up, and alternate Casas and Devers at 1B & DH.

No other team sports "award" a win to a single player. A pitcher can let up 8 runs, while a batter hits 3 grand slams, but guess which player is the only one with a chance at the win?

Not sure, and not sure it matters.

How many here would be happy if we ended the off season by adding Grichuk and Estevez and traded Abreu for Catcher Caratini (1 yr at $6M) and RHP Luis Garcia (2 arbs left)? Adds: Crochet, Buehler, Chapman, Sandoval, Caratini, L Garcia, Grichuk, Estevez & Wilson Lost: Jansen, Martin, O'Neill, Pivetta and a few others, plus 3 of our top 8 prospects 1. L Duran CF 2. R Campbell 2B 3. L Casas 1B 4. L Devers 3B 5. R Grichuk LF 6. L Anthony RF 7. R Story SS 8. L Yoshida/R Refnsyer DH 9. Caratini-Wong C Bench: Rafaela & DHam/Grissom/Romy SP: Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Bello, Giolito RP: Chapman, Estevez, Hendriks, Slaten, Whitlock, L Garcia, Crawford, Wilson

My bad on Kikuchi. I was looking at his age at debut. I still would like that signing- just not as much. Forget the signings by players who took less to play where they wanted to, ie Burnes & Teoscar. What signings that have already been made would you think would have been worth bidding more on?

Agreed. We've been watching that strategy fail for a half a decade. One of our biggest hopes was a return to form by Sale. I'm tired of hoping. I gave up on expecting, a while ago.

Teoscar took less to play in LA, where he wanted to play. He's 32- not in prime. O'Neill got $50M/3 and had only one season with 390+ PAs, before 2024. He's 29. I suggested Kikuchi at age 27 (28 in 2025.)

I don't disagree, but are we sure JH would have nixed a higher bid on every FA that has signed, already? He said "No" to $65M/3 for Kikuchi and $220M/8 for Fried? It looks like Kennedy was either lying when he said the tax line was not a priority or JH stabbed him and Brez in the backs by saying no to every ask.

I'm not. The only reason for having any hope we do signing him is that he is the only real major guy left, next to maybe Scott. I have no expectation we signed either of these two. The guys I liked are all gone. Some seemed intent on signing with a team and nobody else, Like Burnes and Teoscar, so it's hard to get pissed on losing out on them. Others got so grossly overpaid, I can at least understand why we didn't go higher. A few I thought were worth the overpay and maybe we should have bid more than what they signed for, but I'm not sure if that would have been enough. I was not high on Kikuchi, but $63M/3 looks pretty good, to me. $218M/8 Fried was a close call on going to $220M/8 or more. $60M/3 Walker??? (Would have to trade Casas or DH him.) $75M/3 Nate and Manaea is borderline, but I'm fine with missing out here. All the others were too overpaid for me or bound to certain teams. I suppose I could think there isn't too much to get so upset about. Fried or Kikuchi? So, what's left? Bregman or Scott? Alonso (trade Casas?) Give Santander 5 years? Flaherty? I'm not thrilled with any choices left. More likely we sign Estevez and Grichuk.

Our largest new FA signings since Price in 2016 and JD in 2018 are... I'd say Story and Yoshida are lower range major signings, and it's just 2 of them in 7 years. 3+ Years: $23.3 x 6 Story '22 $18M x 5 Yoshida '23 (not counting posting fee) 2 Years: Maybe 2 significant and 2 near significant, in terms of money spent. $19.25M x 2 Giolito '24 $16M x 2 Jansen '23 $9.125M x 2 Sandoval '25 $8.75M x 2 Martin '23 $7M x 2 Kiki '21 (extended for $10M/1 '23) $5M x 2 Hendriks '24 $4M x 2 Diekman '22 1 Year $21.05M Buehler '25 $10.25M Chapman '25 $10M Kluber '23, Paxton '22, Richards '21 $7M Duvall '23 & Wacha '22 $6.25M Pearce '19 $6M Martin '20 $5M Martin '21 & Hill '22

Very few of those 30 look like fits, although plenty of pen arms are there. When we look at the context of Kennedy's 90-95 win and the tax line statement, all the best fits are off the board. While I agree on your Santander comment, signing one of the best FAs almost always includes paying beyond projected usefulness and overpaying in AAV, too. You just have to bite the bullet. Tradses mean giving away possible future assets and are fine, but not too many, at the same time.

The Sale trade shook the ground. To me, it was the biggest deal the Sox made since signing Manny. The 3 years of control was a huge part of my excitement on trade day. We got the best pitcher in MLB: "Chris Freakin' Sale!" (The Pedro trade was probably the most impactful in my lifetime.) The Nate trade rivals the Schilling trade. Both led to rings and legendary playoff performances. The Kimbrell trade seemed like an overpay, at the time, but shortly afterwards the price of closers skyrocketed. The Pom trade seemed like an overpay, as well, but he did give us a very nice 2017 season. He was no help in 2018. The Thornburg trade looked good, at the time, but the injury ruined it. The hindsight, all the prospects DD traded did not equal the returns we got. I counted over 20 players DD traded that were, at one time (not always at the time of the deal) were a top 20 prospects. It's easy to lazily blame him for the long lull we saw in farm help from his era into Bloom's, including the stretch from Devers to Houck/Duran, but as it turned out, he kept almost every prospect that amounted to anything, including Devers, Houck and Duran, and some of his far-away prospects have ended up doing better than the top prospects he did trade, namely Moncada (1) , Espinosa (3) Margot (4) Kopech (5) Beeks (6) and Guerra (6) He kept Devers, Houck, Duran, Casas, Bello, Crawford and others.

I'm not really for playing Yoshi in the field. I'd rather bench him or trade him for whatever we can get. I think Cora mentioned that the 2024 injury was the main reason he did not play in LF, and that he was open to playing him there, once cured. (I could be wrong.) Again, Bregman was not who I wanted, but he would fix 2 problems, maybe 3, if Devers is better at 1B D than Casas (Casas to DH.) If the only problem he creates benching an $18M DH, then it may still be the best FA choice remaining. We aren't signing Scott or Santander. Profar and Santander creates an OF squeeze and may force a Rafaela and or Abreu trade. Hoffman would be nice, but none of these other guys move the needle like Bregman would, IMO. To me, this really highlights the disfunction of our FO and ownership group. Even if we end up signing Bregman, it looks like a knee-jerk reaction based on no pre-planning and a need to just "do something" that helps. From the "full throttle" statement, last winter to this by Kennedy: "Even if it takes us over the CBT, our priority is 90-95 wins and winning the ...division for multiple years." We are not a 90 win team, unless nearly everything goes right and injuries are very low. We are over $30M under the tax line with square pegs left to sign and round holes to fill.

Exactly! Very well said. By not thinking Wins is an important stat to judge a pitcher by in no way diminishes how much wins matter for a team. Pitchers have a huge impact on winning, and SP'ers even more do, due to more IP. The more they prevent runs, the better they are and the chances of winning increases. A pitcher can allow zero ERs and still get the loss. Nuff said.

How about 2010, when Felix won the ERA crown but went just 13-23 in 34 starts? No decisions with these ERs allowed 0 NDs with 4 or more ERs allowed 2 w 3 ERs 2 w 2 ERs 2 w 1 ER 2 w 0 ER Any poorly pitched wins? Nope! 2 wins with 2 ERS 6 with 1 ER 5 w 0 ERs Now, look at all the "unfair" losses: 0 ERs in 6.2 IP once (6 unearned runs) 1 ER in 8 IP once 2 in 7 IP three times 3 in 8 once Not really as bad as I expected.

I looked at the game logs. He certainly could have won more, but let's start with some of his wins: 5 ER in 5 IP 4 ER in 9 IP, 3 times That's not a lot of "lucky wins." Now the No Decisions: ER/IP, including a 10 IP 0 ER game 4/7, 0/10 WOW!, 5/5 and 4/5 (He could have gotten a couple losses here.) Now, some of the losses 2/7, 3/9, 4/9 (part of 6 losses in a row, some bad starts) later... 2/11 and 1/8 I think there are about 3-4 games where a win was a near must, but maybe 2-3 where he could have gotten a loss in games he won or got a no decision.

Felix still ended up with 169 wins and just 136 losses in 15 seasons. (13 full seasons) He probably could have gone 200-105 with a high scoring team.

Yes, I can see why he wants his big payday, next winter. Hopefully it works out for him, since that would mean he did great for us.

The main problem with Devers' defense is his arm. I think he would be fine at 1B. Since Casas sucks on D, my guess is Devers might be better or equal. Devers and Casas can share the 1B and DH slots in the line-up. They would not need many days off, as they could "rest" at DH. Okay, that causes an issue with out $18M DH, but we'd improve our 3B D and maybe our 1B D and add a RHB at 3B. We fix 2-3 problems by adding a good RHB 3Bman. I don't want Yoshida in LF, but if that is what we have to do, I'd rather have bad LF D than really bad 3B D. Maybe once Yoshi gets healthy, we can trade him and take a salary hit. I can see how that sort of makes signing Bregman cost Bregman's contract plus what we have to pay off Yoshi's deal, assuming he'd be our DH, kif not traded, even after we add Anthony, Campbell and Mayer to the line-up. Without trading Yoshida... 1. Duran CF 2. Bregman 3B 3. Casas DH/1B 4. Devers 1B/DH 5. Campbell 2B 6. Abreu> then> Anthony RF 7. Story SS 8. Yoshida LF v R/Refsnyder LF vs L 9. Wong-Narvaez C Utility: Rafaela & DHam (Romy/Grissom) Not ideal, but an improvement, IMO.

That's clue #1. LOL.

No prob. It was not highly advertised. I think Narvaez is #2 and Zavala #3, but it's just a guess.

I'd be fine with Bregman as our 3Bman, only. I do not think he is the right guy to "pick and see through on signing," but at this point, he's the best of the rest. He'd make us better in 2 significant ways: RHB and 3B defense.

Nick. Bregman is a pretty good defensive player and may be better or equal to Campbell at 2B. Maybe not. Bregman has done worse in his last 4-5 seasons over his first 3-4 seasons, but he's been pretty steady of the last few years, with slight decline in the last 2 years.. OPS+: 117>113>134>122>118 fWAR: 2.1>5.4>4.5>4.1 3B DRS: 2> -4> 5> 6 (OAA: 0>4>1>6)