moonslav59

AP Rankings 1. Texas 5-0 2. Ohio St 5-0 3. Oregon 5-0 4. Penn St 5-0 5. Georgia 4-1 6. Miami 6-0 7. Alabama 4-1 8. Tennessee 4-1 9. Ole Miss 5-1 10. Clemson 4-1 11. Notre Dame 4-1 & Iowa St 5-0 ___________________ 13. LSU 4-1 14. BYU 5-0 15. Texas A & M 5-1 16. Utah 4-1 17. Boise St. 4-1 18. Indiana 6-0 19. K St & OK 4-1 21. Missouri 4-1 22. Pitt 5-0 Some big games, this weekend: 2 Ohio St @ 3 Oregon 1 Texas @ 18 OK 4 Penn St @ USC 9 Ole Miss @ 13 LSU (The winner likely stays in front of or jumps over ND. The loser will be below ND, if ND wins.) Stanford @ 11 ND

Exactly. If it wasn't for the 60 Day IL for the toe injury, 2023 would have been a lot better looking, except for the defensive bump. Duran's O has been very good for 1.5 years: his D for just 1.

I think they would have trade JD, had the signed Schwarber. They could not have afforded both with those budgets we had.

Very well stated. I've always been for building up a rotation from the top. Trying to add a 3/4 to bump out your 5 is no way to win. I've also been saying we need at least 2 solid SP'ers, but I doubt it happens. I'd be okay with Houck as the 2, but Bello and Gio should be 4-5 and Crawford in the pen. That means, at worst, we need a solid #1 and #3. Again, I doubt we add 2 SP'ers, unless one is like a Criswell addition, and if we do add one, it will be a #3, not a #1.

It is truly wide open.

The big RHB has been a key to all our ring seasons, just as having two TOTR pitchers has been, too. 2004: Manny 1.009 (43 HRs and 124 RBI) 2007: Manny .881, Pedey .823 & Youk .843 2013: Napoli .842, Pedey .787 & L/R Nava .831 & Vic .801 2018: JD 1.031, Betts 1.078& Bogey .882

hUH?

I don't think anyone wants to trade these two and even several others. When you look at all of our top 6 trade chips, one-by-one, I'd like to keep all of them: Duran, Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Casas, & Teel. We could find a way to plug our holes without trading any of them, but it would take one or both of these things to happen: 1. JH to open his wallet or Brez to strike gold on mid level signings. 2. Brez to strike gold on mid-level trades (like Abreu, DHam, Wink or other non blue chippers..)

He will still be paid less than FA, but arbs are on the rise. His 3rd and 4th arbs will not be cheap.

Campbell could also play OF (instead of Rafaela) or 3B (move Devers to 1B, DH or 1B/DH w Casas) Or, as notin suggests, play Grissom at 3B and Campbell at 2B. I'm all for giving Campbell a wide open chance to make the 26 man opening day roster. Unless we trade Abreu, it's easier to find a spot for him than for Anthony.

I still think trading for a SP'er is the best route to take. Use the limited budget on 2 solid RP'ers, pitching depth and maybe a decent catcher with some RH'd pop. I guess we could trade Abreu and DHam for pen help and sign a big FA SP'er, but I'm thinking Flaherty might be the best we'd pay for.

We really do need to view this as a 4 year window that begins in 2025. I hope they don't narrow it to 3 years, starting in 2016. Since we may lose Houck after 3, I'd view the next 3 years as our best chance. 9 yrs Devers 7 yrs Rafaela 5+ Anthony, Mayer, Campbell, Teel and other prospects 5yrs Bello (counting option) Abreu, Slaten, Fitts, Criswell, Griffin, I Campbell, Weissert and many others 4yrs Duran, Casas, Crawford, Wong, Wink 3 yrs w opt Story 3 yrs Houck, Whitlock (countin option) Yoshida 2 yrs none 1 yr Hendriks, Refsnyder, Giolito (plus option) We have a nice core, but we also have some big needs. GET IT DONE, BREZ!!!

Funny how you mentioned Dalbec, who had an OPS over .800 after a year and a half. I honestly think many teams would prefer anthony over Duran, but it's a close call. Several would likely rather have Duran.

Gotta love Duran's 2023-2024 numbers projected to 162 games: .288 18 71 but... 51 2Bs, 10 3Bs and 79 XBHs/303 TBs. 36 SBs- 6 CS and an .832 OPS. Plus defense in LF or CF! He makes so much happen.

It's not a good idea to trade your best all-around player, the catalyst to your offense and a guy who shows up every day (Duran) -Dgale Duran was on the 60 Day IL, just last year. He also was suspended, once, missed some time with COVID and struggled with mental health issues in 2022. I'm not calling him injury-prone, but he does not "show up every day."

What reports? On trading 28 year old Duran vs Anthony: 1. I'm not for trading either one, but arb costs are higher and higher, now. 2. 6 years of Anthony vs 4 years of Duran is a real value (2 years pre-arb costs) 3. Anthony has very good splits vs LHPs and RHPs, although unproven at the ML level. (Duran does not.) Number one prospects have enormous trade value, when they are ML ready.

The whole "durable pitcher" and "affected by his divorce" was a hollow mantra. Not many liked the Gio signing, and it was nearly twice the money we spent on Kluber and Richards. I hope our top two deals get better results, this winter.

Sonny Gray might be a real good pitcher, but 20 GMs could not afford his $65M/2 remaining contract. Mikolas is owed $16M/1 Matz $12M/1 Gibson has a $12M option w $1M buyout. Fedde is owed $7.5M/1, which is a nice contract, but just 1 year. Pallante is 25 and won't be traded. No way will JH pay Gray that much. STL would have to pay over $20M or take Yoshida and some cash to offset that $65M/2 deal. I don't want Mikolas, Matz or Gibson. I guess Fedde makes the most sense, but we could have traded for him in July. Getting their closer makes the most sense to us, but Hesley will get a big return and has just 1 arb left. I think, if we do make a big splash trade, it will be for a longer window pitcher. Even gausman's 2 years is too short.

I'll believe it, when I see it, but we certainly have more trade chips than we have in a long while. We also may not have to get super bold to fix what needs to be fixed, and we may end up trading for some players none of us mentioned or even thought of. I never heard of Fitts, Priester, Slaten and Sandlin, and maybe those are the types we are looking for, but maybe a little better or who are actual ML pitchers with some sort of track record of ML success. These "under-the-radar" type pitchers will still be expensive, in terms of return packages. Almost all teams know which young pitchers are very promising, and the bidding on any of them will be steep. To me, we have to add at least 2 solid pitchers. I know my wish for 3-4 is a pipe dream, but 2 should be doable. If we settle on one, we better strike gold.

He was actually good in 2023, too. Almost the same OPS, but if half the PAs. I'd kick the tires on a 1-2 year extension beyond his arb years. We have to remember, Duran has 4 arb years and just turned 28. That means he reached free agency at age 31. That is the age many players start to decline.

With no additions, this could easily be the opening day 13 man pitching staff: SP: Houck, Giolito, Bello, Crawford, Fitts (or Criswell/Priester) RP: Hendriks, Slaten, Whitlock, Fulmer, Wink, Criswell, Guerrero, Penrod (Kelly, Weissert, I Campbell, Booser, Shugart, Mata) The pen has 2-4 pitchers who should be AAA depth- good ones, but still AAA depth. Between Fitts, Criswell and Priester, we might find a decent 5th starter, but should we have more faith in them than Anthony, Campbell, Mayer and possible upticks by Story & Grissom returning? Plus, what are the chance that Houck, Bello and Crawford all do as well or better than 2024, because that was not enough to get us to the playoffs? How much faith can we put in Gio, Hendriks and Fulmer? This seems like Kluber, Richards and Paxton redux. Aren't all of us sick and tired of hoping against hope some aging pitcher, who used to be pretty good, and is coming off a major injury, is going to somehow regain his past glory and lead us to the promiseland? (Granted, it does happen to some players and teams, but quite frankly, I'm done wishing up stars.) I'm not 100% convinced our offense will be the same or better, but I do have more faith in it than the pitching. Many felt losing Turner, Dugo and Duvall without adding anyone but O'Neill was going to mean a decline in offense. We even lost Casas and Story for most of the year, and O'Neill some, too. Devers played hurt for over a month, and others missed time, too. Somehow, we held our ground vs 2023's offense. Of course, we should expect injuries in 2025, too, but our depth was a strength in 2024, and we are adding 4-5 ML ready prospects to the options available- all looking pretty good on offense and defense. Having more faith in the offense over the pitching is not the same as predicting greatness. I see our pitching, minus Pivetta (#2 in fWAR in our '24 rotation) and Jansen & Martin as being ranked 15th or so. (It was about 11th, this year.) Also, the fixation on needing a RHB does not consider than Anthony and Mayer both hit LHPs very well, and Campbell is a RHB. You don't need RHBs, if your lefties can hit lefties, well, and we will still have Refsnyder (a top 25 batter in MLB vs LHPs since 2022,) Story, Wong, Campbell, Grissom and Rafaela. Our defense was horrific, but unless the team decides to do some major shuffling at corner infield or adding a solid defensive catcher to "bridge" to Teel, we won't see any improvement in those 3 positions. I do see a big opportunity for major gains at SS, 2B and OF, although our OF defense was pretty damn good in '24. A big key to improving our defense is all about Story's health, and wishing for him to play 140+ games is like the Kulber-Richards-Paxton dilema, but at least we have Mayer as a back-up plan, something we haven't had in a long time at SS. We say -12 OAA at SS from Rafaela, DHam and Reyes combined. Story was +2 in limited action and could provide a huge swing in SS defense, if healthy. (Mayer, too.) Now, 2B: with no DHam at SS, we can use him and others like maybe Campbell or Mayer to rplace these awful numbers on D at 2B: -8 OAA EValdez (the worst on the team) and -3 OAA from Romy at 2B. Grissom was -2, as well, so if he plays a lot, maybe we don't see a big gain, but if he sucks on D, we have replacement options better than the recent past ones. The OF gets better on D, the more Rafaela plays CF not SS. It's a double gain, there. Also, O'Neill was -3 in LF and Ref -2. In RF, O'Neill was -1 Nad Ref -2, while Abreu was +7. Anthony is no slouch on D, so if Ref plays mostly at DH vs LHPs and we replace O'Neill with more OF play by Rafaela and Anthony, it should get better. Find a good defensive catcher, maybe a RHB with some pop, and that might be all we need for the offense and defense, in terms of external additions.

More upsets than I expected, yesterday. #4 TENN lost to Arkansas, too! 1, 4, 9, 10 & 11 all were upset. #8 MIA nearly blew their game vs California 39-38. This might be the new top 12 rankings: 1. Texas 5-0 2. Ohio St 5-0 3. Oregon St 5-0 4. Penn St. 5-0 5. Georgia 4-1 6. Alabama 4-1 7. MIami 6-0 8. Tennessee 4-1 9. Ole Miss 5-1 10. LSU 4-1 11. Texas A & M 5-1 12. Notre Dame 4-1 (Close to #11-12: Clemson 4-1, IA St 5-0, BYU 5-0, MO 4-1, OK 4-1, Indiana 6-0)

I don't pay for BTV, and I mnetioned the 2 years of Gausman as a reason not to do this trade. It's a close call to me, and maybe I'd insist on an extension before agreeing to it.

I've explained it. I'm fine with anyone not agreeing, and hoping Story and Grissom can help mitigate the loss of RHB O'Neill is questionable. My main argument is this: replacing O'Neill with hopefully more PAs and better production from Story and Grissom PLUS, I have more faith in Anthony, Campbell and Mayer adding offense than I do in these guys even coming cloew to even with what we lost in pitching. I also mentioned part of the plan can be to swap LHBs Abreu and DHam (throw in Wink) for a RHB: Replace Pivetta with Giolito and more from Fitts & Priester Replace Jansen with Hendriks Replace Martin with more from Guerrero and Penrod. Honestly, who do you have more faith in. I'm basing my position on the belief that our budget will not be high enough to fill all our needs, so I am choosing the ones where internal options seem more questionable, and that to me, is clearly pitching, pitching and PITCHING. Like, literally, the top 3 priorities.

#11 USC lost to Minnesota. Louisville lost, too. There goes ND's strength of schedule numbers. #10 Michigan lost to Washington. Looks like ND might be top 12, this week. (Not sure they can hold a playoff slot.)