moonslav59

He would make for a very Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

As much as I wanted Fried (even more than Burnes,) I think not going 8 years is very understandable. That contract will take him to age 38, and not many pitchers do well up to that age. The guy does have a very nice prior 5 year stretch, despite missing half of 2023. He missed about 20-25 starts, which comes to about 4-5 per season, but these numbers are pretty freaking amazing: 54-25 2.81 (151 ERA+ is mindblowing for a 5 year stretch.) 3.7 K/BB, 1.09 WHIP and 3.11 FIP Burnes is slightly younger and will almost certainly get 8 years, too- maybe 9.He's missed only about 5-10 starts in 5 years (1 to 2 per year.) 52-31 2.88 (142 ERA+) 4.2 K/BB, 1.02 WHIP and 3.01 FIP Both look very close with their 5 year numbers. 3 years ERA+ 149 Fried (3.03 FIP) 128 and 3.33 in 2024 131 Burnes (3.49 FIP) 128 and 3.55 in 2024 (Both nearly identical, this year, but Fried better over last 3 yrs.) I will say, I'd rather have signed Fried than a Buehler every year for 8 years.

As long as they don't take up a 40 man roster slot, I'm fine with signing these guys that overlap, so that every year, one or two get healthy enough to make a run at joining the 40. The good thing is, we don't add the guy to the 40, until we need him on the 26. A guy like Sandoval, Hendriks and Paxton need or needed a 40 man slot. We can't/couldn't add them to the 60 Day IL, until the season starts, so they kind of create a brief, yet significant roster crunch situation. Wow, what a list of TJS pitchers!

They may not be done bidding, but when you keep coming up short on not only the AAV but the years as well, you are never going to win a high-stakes auction. $190/7 is $27.1M x 7. While that is a "fair offer," it came short on both ends. He signed for $227.25 x 8. They guys we win the auctions are: ($10M+) Story, Yoshida, Giolito, Jansen, Martin, Turner, Kike, Richards, Kluber, Paxton, Hendriks. ($5-9M) Diekman, Wacha, Duvall, Perez I, Perez II, Hill (1.5-4.5M) Pillar (re-sign,) Strahm, Marwin, Renfroe, Mondesi, Moreland (re-sign,) Sawamura, Peraza, Andriese, Joely, Lucroy _____________________________________ Extensions: $313/10 Devers $55M/6 Bello $50M/8 Rafaela $24/2 JBJ $18.8/2 Barnes $18.8/4 Whitlock $10/1 Kike $2/1 Refsnyder Notable trades for contracts: $8M/1 Ottavino & $5.9M/1 O'Neill

Excellent post. Lackey is another example of the team signing someone with injury concerns, and they even insisted on an injury clause for the deal that ended up being triggered. Lackey was a good signing, IMO. I think he pitched hurt, that one season, and that made his overall numbers look worse. We ended up getting Joe Kelly for him, along with the dud, Allen Craig.

Both Whitlock and Buehler have shown extended times of greatness. Both have dealt with injuries, and ended their 2024 season pitching very well. Whitlock's season ended in injury, while Buehler's ended in glory. I hope both find their mojo and go nutty in '25. We have a lot of pitchers on our staff that have had some great seasons, some not too long ago- some 5-9 years back. Most have had decent to excellent seasons very recently (1-3 years ago.)

Thanks for the kinds words, everyone. It means a lot. Merry Christmas, everyone, and may Henry...errrr...I mean Santa bring you all nice gifts and peace.

How quickly this team has become Breslow's. In just two years, half of the 40 man roster are players added to the 40, after his arrival, and a big chunk of them were acquired by him. (Many have come and gone, in between day one and now.) Here are his 16 acquired players on the 40: Crochet, Buehler, Giolito, Sandoval, Criswell, Fitts, Priester Slaten, Chapman, Hendriks, Wilson, Penrod, Weissert Grissom, Romy, Narvaez These may be joining the 40, at some point: Campbell, Arias, Cespedes, Cason Sandlin, Early, Wehunt, Tolle, Valera, D Reyes Let's see if he has one major signing in him.

I think Chapman and Hendriks will be given a 50-50 shot, going into ST'ing. If both fail to win the job, of suck after winning it, I think Whitlock might have the same shot as Slaten. People are all gah-gah over 10 innings of Buehler and a great season, two years ago, but Whitlock was lights out for his last 18 IP of 2024 and was great, two to three years ago, too.

I like our depth- now we need quality over quantity.

I agree. All we've heard is talk on some b ig names, and almost anytime a number gets released, we are way off the final price tag. I love the Crochet trade, but I wanted to see some money where there moth has been, and all we've seen is a little more money spent on the same type of FAs- ones that are looking to re-establish themselves, because they have been recently injured or had a down year or two. So, we spent more on Buehler than Kluber, Richards and Paxton. So, he's been better in more recent years than they had been. It's still the same thing but with more fluff, due to his last 10 IP of 2024 (the playoffs.) Chapman is a worse signing than Jansen or Martin. I was hoping for actions not talk, and so far, no money deal has impressed me into thinking anything is different. You are right, there is still time, but I seriously doubt we sign Burnes or Bregman. I'll be surprised, if we sign Teoscar or Hoffman. They have me looking at Estevez as the best I can hope for, now.

If we weren't so thin at catcher, he may have been traded or DFA'd by now. The bottom of our 40 is getting better, and a little closer to a crunch, especially when you figure we may want to add Campbell, Anthony and Mayer, at some point in 2025. We could wait for players to go on the 60 day IL to do that, while also adding an extra year of control by waiting. The DFA/Trade list is shortening... Shugart Chris Murphy, Bernardino or Penrod would be traded, not DFA'd. I could see one of these three traded: DHam (the lefty,) Grissom or Romy. Yoshida has been discussed, a lot.

AAV Budget Update: 29.1 Devers- 9 23.3 Story- 3 + opt 21.1 Buehler -1 19.3 Giolito-1 + opt 18.0 Yoshida- 3 10.8 Chapman- 1 9.2 Bello- 5 + opt 9.1 Sandoval-2 6.3 Rafaela -7 5.0 Hendriks- 1 +opt 4.7 Whitlock- 2 ~4.5 Houck (Arb 1 of 3) ~4.3 Duran (Arb 1 of 4) ~3.0 Crawford (Arb 1 of 4) ~3.0 Crochet (Arb 2 of 3) 2.3 Wilson- 1 2.1 Refsnyder- 1 (All others are at pre-arb or minor league pay.) 175M Sub Total $7.2 Pre-arb + $2.6 Minors on 40+ $1.7 Bonus Pool and about $0.5 Hosmer - Ref credit for no buyout= $12M. Add $18M for player benefits and the total comes to about $205M AAV. That leaves us $36M under the first tax line and $56M under the second one. There is room to sign any remaining FA, including Burnes or Bregman. We could maybe sign Teoscar plus Hoffman for under $36M AAV. If we go to the second line, we could sign any two FAs, but we all know, we won't. In theory, we could sign Teoscar $21M x 3, Hoffman $15M x 4 and trade for Arenado and cash and stay under the second line.

Just don't call it a "sham," I guess.

What broke is our pitchers. The solution: sign more pitchers with injury histories and hope the don't all end up on the IL, at the same time. Sorry, if I'm not jumping on your bandwagon, just yet.

I probably wouldn't have known about his injury history and liked the deal. BTW, I was a stat geek as a kid, too.

He's on a minor league deal, so this opens a slot on the 40 for Buehler. No biggie. Narvaez was ahead of Gasper anyway. (We still need a catcher, IMO.)

Agreed. Tell me what you would give up. (I might give up what I listed minus Abreu.) We'd still have Anthony, Campbell, Arias, Perales, Bleis and the Garcia brothers (and Abreu.) This guy might be as good as Crochet, who cost us 3 of our top 8 prospects.

I've been rather pessimistic, recently. The state of the world and the recent loss of my dear mother and hospitalization of my 97 year old father might be part of it, but Christmas is here, so here is a joyous look at what might be in 2025. Here are the best fWAR years by our current pitchers, since 2015 (last 10 years) 2019 was a good year for many on the pitcher list. 5.2 Giolito '19 (4.1 in '21 and 2.0 in a 12 start '20!!) His 11.3 fWAR '19-'21 ranks 7th, just ahead of Buehler at 11.2. 5.1 Buehler '19 (3.1 in '18) 4.7 Crochet '24 3.9 Houck '24 (2.3 in '21) 3.9 Hendriks '19 (2.7 in '21 and 1.6 in '22) 3.7 Sandoval '22 (2.3 in '23) 3.6 Fulmer '17 (3.1 '16) 2.7 Chapman '16 (2.1 in '19, and he had a 3.2 in 2012) 2.4 Crawford '23 (1.9 in '24) 2.0 Bell0 '24 (1.6 in '23 and 1.3 in 11 GS in '22) 1.6 Whitlock in ;21 (1.4 '22) 1.5 Slaten '24 1.5 Wilson '15 (1.1 in '16 and '17) 0.8 Winckowski '23 Could we possibly see a 4.0 to 5.0 fWAR from Buehler, Giolito, Crochet and Houck? Hey... why not? MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

The other end of the spectrum has also proven to be very risky and nonproductive. I agree. There is a middle ground, and the Giolito signing was perhaps our one example of trying that route, and it blew up in our face. Relying on injured pitchers has continuously blown up in our faces, too, and when we finally tried to end one such deal, that one blew up, too (Sale trade.) Last year was not the norm, but so many mid level signings worked our very well. Gio was not one of them. $75M/3 Sonny Gray (top end of mid level signing along with Snell at $62M/2) $53M/4 Imanaga (looks like a steal) $45M/3 Lugo (maybe the steal of the winter) $39M/2 Gio (bust) and Stroman (meh) $32M/2 Wacha (nice) $28M/2 Manaea (nice) Lower mid levels: Monty 25/1+, Maeda 24/2, Mahle 22/2, Montas 16/1, Fedde 15/2, Flaherty 14/1 and Severino 13/1 were mostly ok to good. (Gibson 13/1) How about 2023? (Hmmmm) $75M/5 Senga (upper end) $72M/5 T Walker and $68M/4 Tailon $63M/3 Bassitt, $40M/3 Eflin and #39M/3 T Anderson $34M/2 Nate and $26M/2 Quintana $25M/2 Manaea and Heaney 2022? (Not good) $77.5 ERod, 71.3 Stroman, 56/4 J Gray, 50/2 Verlander, 44/4 Matz, 44/2 Rodon & 36/3 Kikuchi As much as none of these roads look wildly successful, I guess I'm just sick of sticking to one for failure after failure.

Would you give Mayer, Abreu, Cespedes, Fitts and Dobbins for him?

I suggested such a trade, long ago. Word is STL does not want to trade Helsley, but then there were rumors afterwards of teams talking about him.

I said your point was literally correct, but within some context. Now, upon further review, I think I was more right than I thought. Also, Fox did not get all the save opportunities until we got Kim. Here is every last inning save opportunity after opening day and up to Kim. Game 2, we took the lead in the 16th, and stuck with Lyon, while Fox was in the bullpen. Game 3: Fox got the save going in up 7-5. Game 4: We entered the 9th up 8-3, and Mendoza allowed 4 runs to create a save situation, but Fox remained on the bench. Mendoza was allowed to finish. (Fox blew a 1-1 game in between here) Game 10: Sox were up 8-4 going to the bottom of the 9th. Fox was rested. Timlin remained in the game and nearly blew the game by letting up 3 runs. We could have brought in Fox for a save and did not. Game 12: Sox up 2-0 and Wake got the 2 IP save not Fox. Game 14: Fox pitched the 8th, the Sox scored for in the 8th and Lyon pitched the 9th for the save. I'm stopping here, because this was clearly a closer by committee, right after game 1.

I think we can try to get STL to pay down Arenado's contract by adding a moderate piece- someone who is kind of blocked with us, anyway, like DHam. If we sign Teoscar, we could trade Rafaela and the $48M/7 still owed him to further reduce the $6.3M AAV hit on our budget. For argument's sake, lets say STL takes Fitts and Rafaela for Arenado, and they pay $10M in '25, $10M in '26 and $5M in '27. COL is already paying $5M for each of the '25 and '26 seasons. That brings the total cost to: $17M in '25, $12M in '26 and $10M in '27. The AAV would be $15.5M a year, but then subtract Rafaela's $6.3M and it comes to $9,2M a year for 3 years then a savings of $6.3M a year for 4 more years. That's pretty close to a washout in total dollars and AAV over 7 years. Bregman will cost $25-30M x 5-7 years, plus a comp pick lost. Yes, Bregman is better and younger, but he has a .795 OPS over the last 5 years. He is likely never going to hit like 2017-2019's .924 OPS (147 OPS+) His .795 OPS since then is still a 122 OPS+, so he's no slouch, but he turns 31 around opening day. Arenado has shown a very steep decline, but he is also as close to his last big O year than Bragman is. Bregman had a 134 OPS+ in 2022, while Arenado was at 151, the same year. Arenado turns 34, shortly after Bregman turns 31. His OPS+ dropped from 151 to 108 to 101 over the last 2 seasons. It's entirely possible he slips below 100 in 2025, maybe as low as 93-97. Bregman was at 122 and 118, the last 2 years, and his decline should be slower. He's still young enough to have a rebound year, too. I think getting Arenado instead of Bregman might allow us to also add Hoffman, Teoscar or more likely Estevez or Kittredge.