moonslav59

He's got one year of control. That's a tiny window.

I'm not sure we want to use a 40 man slot for one of those guys. Guys like Heineman and Zavala are always out there.

Is DET the only other bidder?

We don't mix it up, like most top 10-12 spenders do. We are stuck in the "one year prove it" deals mode.

The 2 years of control bothered me the most about the trade. The one year of 65+ IP since before his college days was also a concern. I did like Teel, a lot, and I wish we traded Mayer, instead, but it's hard to value catching prospects accurately. Montgomery might be the real prize of the trade. If we extend Crochet at a reasonable cost, I'll feel even better about this deal.

I don't disagree with any of this, and a clear sign might be how we see them rehabbing him in April or May. We seem to be planning on "stretching out" Fulmer, but not being on the 40 complicates things. Assuming Sandoval is placed on the 60 Day IL, day one, we could add Fulmer, at that time. I think we currently view Criswell as the #7, and the rest do look highly questionable as someone you'd pencil in as a half season starter. We do have the chance of a Sandoval 2025 appearance, so maybe the 7th or 8th starter would not be needed to finish out the season. Maybe I'm higher on Fitts, Priester and Dobbins than I should be, but I like the odds on 2 of those 3 to look good enough to get a call to be more than just a spot starter. In 2024, we ended up needing 2 SP'ers to be more than just a spot starter: Houck & Criswell. Both worked out way better than anyone could have imagined, and we cannot count on that success again. I agree that Whitlock could become a consideration, but I think we should strain to give others a chance, before him, assuming they are looking good. It's interesting to note that out of Criswell and Fitts, only Criswell did better in AAA than in MLB. AAA/MLB ERA 1.40/4.08 Criswell 4.55/1.74 Fitts (one could wonder why he got a look) Priester was 4.63 in AAA and 5.44 in MLB. I'd say these 3 would have to be looking pretty bad to not get the call before a healthy Whitlock. However, if they do decide to bring him back "stretched out," then that could easily change. Dobbins is a total wild card. I could see Whitlock being chosen ahead of him.

As much as the Price signing really fizzled out, I felt that signing, at the time was very necessary. Had we signed Scherzer, the year before (and not Pablo & HRam) we wouldn't be talking about him, like we are about Price. I realize that this highlights the hot or miss aspect of signing big name FAs, but there are times when trading for one is not really a viable option. As it turned out, we traded away many top prospects and signed Price to ensure a ring season. One can argue we'd have won without Price or Sale, but that is not a sure thing. That Price signing did burn us in many ways. Not only did it help lower our chances at extending Betts and others, we ended up having to include him in the Betts trade, which lessened the return. I'd certainly take back the Price deal, along with Pablo, HRam and many of the contracts that came afterwards, but sometimes, it just seems like the best way to fill a big hole. Making big trades as some side effects, too.

We used 13 different starters, last year, including 7 starts by our pen (3 Bernardino, 3 Kelly and 1 Chase Anderson.) Hopefully, that will not happen, at all in 2015, but sometimes an emergency situation forces it. We basically used 10 starters, and many felt Houck was going to be the 6th starter, if Gio was not hurt. 33 Crawford, 30 Houck & Bello, 26 Pivetta, 18 Criswell, 6 Wink, 4 Whitlock (before he got hurt) and 4 by Fitts, 3 by Paxton (after a trade) and 1 by Priester (post trade.) IMO, we have 11-12 SP'ers I'd use before Whitlock, and I might try never to start Whitlock, again, unless as an opener type starter. Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Gio, Bello, Crawford AAA: Criswell, Fitts, Priester, Dobbins and non 40 man guys Fulmer, Gambrell and Drohan. (AA: Sandlin, Early & Wehunt) I really think the plan should be to work Whitlock back to health in the pen, only.

So many large and long contracts even go bad year 1 or 2. It is frightening. Every time I advocate for signing a big name FA, I worry about the high rate of failure and pretty high rate or near total failure. Perhaps a thread titled "Taking the Big Contract Way Hardly Works" would be more accurate than this one. I think the middle ground may be the best choice, or a mixture of all 3. Here are the largest FA signings in MLB history that were signed more than 3 years ago: 365/10 Betts, 360/10 Trout, 341/10 Lindor, 330/13 Harper, 325/10 Seager, 325/13 Stanton, 324/9 Cole, 300/10 Machado & T Turner 280/11 Bogey, 275/10 ARod '07, 252/10 ARod '00, 245/7 Strasburg & Rendon, 240/10 Pujols & Cano (counting inflation, these two would be much higher, as with some others.) 217/7 Price, 214/9 Fielder, 201/7 Scherzer, 207/6 Greinke, 185/5 deGrom, 184/8 Heywood, 182/7 Bryant, 180/8 Teixeira, 175/7 Semien Some from way back: 160/8 Manny, 152/8 Miggy, 141/9 Helton, 138/6 J Santana, 136/8 Soriano, 126/7 Zito, 126/7 V Wells, 121/8 M Hampton, 120/7 Giambi

Yes, 1.4 to 1.2, but they seem to be heading in different directions. Maybe my #1 reason for liking Bello more is the 58 GS in the last 2 seasons. His career HR/9 is 1.1. His 8 Ks to 3BBs per 9 and 4.14 FIP are not great. His .724 OPSA is underwhelming and the .796 second half is worrisome. Crawford is close on GS'd (56 in 2 yrs) with a 1.5 HR/9 career mark. His K/BB is slightly better than Bello (8.5 to 2.5 per 9.) His 4.35 career FIP is close, too. I guess it could come down to who looks better in ST'ing.

I'll be shocked, if we do. I am pretty certain they think Hendriks and Chapman can both fill the role. I like Slaten and a healthy Whitlock as our 8th inning men, and maybe one could eventually be a decent closer, but IMO, if we got an excellent closer, these 4 would be a very nice set-up crew for the 7th, 8th and 9th innings.

IMO, our pen is still a weak area, and Whitlock could be a key part of improving it, significantly. Right now, Bello and Kutter will be our 5-6 starters, so two guys would have to be out to get to our 7th starter. I'd much rather give the pitcher doing the best from this group, the first shot: Criswell, Fulmer, Fitts, Priester & Dobbins. (Only Fulmer would need to be added to the 40.) Chances are, 2-3 of these guys will be doing well, if and when a need arises. Keep the pen as strong as possible.

I like Bello as the 5th starter and Crawford as the long man/ spot starter in the pen. I'm not sure why I don't view the choice as being all that close, as the reasons for choosing KC are compelling. Maybe it's the HR rate (1.7 KC to 1.1 BB) My guess is both KC and BB should get a chance for 28+ GS, if they pitch well enough, so maybe it doesn't matter much who is the opening season 5th starter. I doubt we add another top SP'er, and if Sandoval returns, this summer, maybe we'll have a nice dilemma facing us.

You must be confusing me with someone else. I was never concerned about losing Pom-pom. I mentioned not replacing Porcello in 2020, but not by bringing him back. No, it wasn't a pretty sight watching our vaunted rotation implode, and I fully realize even the most durable and dependable pitchers can get hurt or have a bad year. My point is that I'd rather have more dependable looking pitchers than the kind we've been adding since 2019. Every pitcher is a question mark, but some are more than others, and to me, we've been adding too many on the wrong side of the spectrum. Martin and Gio were the only two I can think of, who were viewed as "taking the ball every 5 days" types of pitchers. Martin's skill level was not great and Gio was somewhat removed from his better years, although he did look very good for the first half of 2023. The rest were all injury-rehab hopefuls, that we were adding to a staff that already had Sale and Nate on it as our 1-2's. Richards, Kluber, Wacha, Hill, Paxton were the top money signings for the rotation, until Gio. These signings have led me to become biased against more of them, such as Buehler & Sandoval. It's not as bad, this year, because we also added Crochet, but even he had never pitched over 65 IP in any season, going back to college, until 2024. (I love the trade, but in this sense, there is still some doubts about his durability.) Really, I'm fine with people who like or love those two additions. I'm hopeful they both work out, too, but I'd rather pay more for durability, even if it ends up backfiring like Gio did. I get that risk is always going to be there.

I think I'd do that, but I really think we need Casas in the 3 or 5 slot of our line-up. He is one of our few lefties that hit LHPs well. Now, if we added Teoscar to the line-up, I'd be more enthusiastic about this deal. As much as our SS depth is in doubt, I think I'd rather offer Mayer. Maybe PIT would be okay looking further down the road and take a mix from Arias, Cespedes, Bleis, Romero, Sandlin or the Garcia brothers, along with Rafaela or Abreu.

I'm not sure how accurate injury reports are over the winter, as I doubt there is much updating going on. Here is what I found on the ESPN and CBS reports: ESPN & CBS agree on all 8/1 Sandoval (I'm counting on 4/1/26) 6/1 Chris Murphy (not really in our '25 plans, anyway) 5/1 Whitlock (hope it's not June or July) 2/1 Giolito, Hendriks, Yoshida & Perales Only the Whitlock situation seems very concerning. Without a true closer, we could use all the good set-up men we can get.

More arms can't hurt, especially if they hold some promise. I'm actually more than okay with our 9-18 pen arms and okay with our 6-9 rotation depth. We've spent a while building up our roster depth from the bottom and into the farm. I felt like this was the winter to build quality at the top of the rotation and the pen. Moving everyone down a notch would further strengthen the middle and bottom of the depth charts. Crochet was a necessary addition and did just that. Houck is now our #2, and Bello, Gio and Crawford look better in the 3-5 slots than 2-4. Criswell, Fitts, Priester, Fulmer and Dobbins look like better 6-10 starter depth than we've had in a long time. Some have big questions, but 2-3 should be fine, this year. I don't view Chapman or Hendriks as a closer, so we still need that slot filled, this winter, but at least they were not additions to upgrade our 7 & 8 slots, like Wilson was. They should slot in the 2-4 rang,e nicely, along with Slaten and Whitlock. I don't like these 4 as 1-4's, but they are not awful. Maybe one can step up and be a decent closer. My hope is we get a great one. After our top 4, it gets a little dicey, but we do have the numbers. I just hope we don't have to cycle through 10 guys to settle on a working 5-8. Right now, it looks like the 5-8 slots might start with Guerrero, Winckowski, Wilson and maybe Adams or Bernardino. The AAA depth looks decent, to me: Penrod, Kelly, Weissert, I Campbell, Bernardino, Mata, Mills & Shugart Some AA depth (Sandlin, Early, Wehunt, Hoppe, troye) could rise quickly, or a minor league SP'er could fill a pen slot, well. If we added a Scott, Hoffman or Helsley, I'd really like our pen and its depth.

That pretty much means Bregman or Burnes, and I agree. Anything less, and it's another winter of bluster. They could maybe come close by signing Teoscar and Hoffman, but I doubt we even do that. By getting Teoscar, we could maybe fill another need by trading Abreu or Rafaela for a catcher or more pitching. I feel like I'm going down another rabbit hole of unrealistic hopes, but hey, it's Christmas, so... Sign Teoscar & Hoffman and trade Abreu, Wink & Sandlin for Helsley. This could get my hopes back up, without a big splash winter signing. (The "splash" was Crochet.) 1. Duran CF 2. Teoscar LF 3. Casas 1B 4. Devers 3B 5. Campbell 2B 6. Anthony RF 7. Story SS 8. Yoshida-Ref DH 9. Wong-Narvaez C Rafaela and DHam or Grissom Utility SP: Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Bello, Giolito RP: Helsley, Hoffman, Chapman, Hendriks, Slaten, Whitlock, Crawford, Wilson

You certainly could be right, but out offer was fair. MLBTR projected $156M/6 and we went $34M/1 over that. We are not sure how close we got to a "Yes," and I'm not so sure JH & Co. were so sure our last offer would be rejected. As much as I've been bitching about all the outbidding, 8 years for Fried is 2 years too much. I'm fine with one extra year, which we offered. In another sense, I think I'd rather have 2 extra years of Fried at $27.25M x 8 than Eight straight years of signings like Buehler at $21M/1. Yes, it's $6M more a year, but he seems like more of a sure bet for 4-6 years than the continuous revolving door of injury projects.

We may just go with Narvaez, who is very good on D and ML ready. He showed some power on the farm and has a decent OBP, but his K rate is scary. Here are the FAs still available: Curt Casali (36) Elias Diaz (34) Yan Gomes (37) Yasmani Grandal (36) Andrew Knizner (30) Luke Maile (34) Martin Maldonado (38) James McCann (35) Reese McGuire (30) Omar Narvaez (33) Tomas Nido (31)

There is no curse unless you think Liverpool is No No Nannette.

This has been the ongoing belief, but there was more to it, than just the 2004 season and playoffs. While 83 IP is a lot, these days for a closer then 14 IP in the playoffs, could easily be viewed as the "sole reason" for his " burning out," he was 31 in 2004 and coming off these IP totals in prior seasons: 105 in '99 (67 games) 88 in '2000 (72 g) + 2 playoff innings. 81 in '01 (72) 78 in '02 (65) 87 in '03 (72) + 5 in the playoffs for OAK. That's a lot of innings for a late inning RP'er. Here is his IP in playoff games in 2004. He actually had some rest between most games: 1.1 IP Oct 6 1.1 IP Oct 8 (1 day off between games) 0.1 IP Oct 12, 0.2 Oct 13 (back-to back, but just 1 IP total) (3 days off) 2.2 Oct 17 and 1.1 on Oct 18 (back-to-back and 4 IP is a hard push), then 1 IP Oct 19 (3 days off) 1.2 Oct 23, 1.1 Oct 24 (back-to-back w more than 1 IP) Day off 1 IP Oct 26, 1 IP Oct 27 (back-to-back)

1. RP, if Scott or Hoffman (or trade for Helsley) 2. 3B (move Devers to 1B/DH and Casas to Dh/1B share) 3. SP 4. Catcher (via trade) I would not sign a 1Bman or 2Bman. I'd be okay with a RHB like Teoscar, assuming we'd trade Abreu or Rafaela for a RP'er of note.

Isn't Moran out until next year? We may add Campbell or Anthony after opening day and the 60 Day IL addition(s.)

Going stealth.