moonslav59

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.)

Bleacher Report Mock Draft 1.0... 1. SS Ethan Holliday (HS) 2. OF Jace LaViolette (TX A&M) 3. OF Cam Cannarella (Clemson) 4. SS Brady Ebel (HS) 5. C Caden Bodine- Coastal Carolina 6. RHP Tyler Bremmer- UC Santa Barbara 7. OF Ethan Petry- So Carolina 8. OF Devin Taylor- Indiana 9. LHP Jamie Arnold- Fla St 10. 3B Xavier Neyens - HS 11. SS Wehlwa Aloy- Arkansas 12.RHP Seth Hernandez HS 13. 3B Trent Caraway Ore St 14. SS Coy James HS 15. OF Dean Moss IMG Academy 16. RHP Matt Scott - Stanford 17. OF Gavin Turley Ore St 18. RHP Cam Leiter Fla St 19. RHP Josh Hammond- Wesleyan Christian Academy 20. OF Ty Peeples- HS

What do I know? Vandy shocked Bama! I guess MLB is not the only sport moving towards parity.

I think he "timed the market" more often than not.

I think they would for the right one(s.) What I find prohibitive is that Bassitt has just 1 year, Gausman 2, and the multi-year, Berrios is expensive and getting old. I would not give a top 4 for any of them. I might give Mayer and Yoshida and $6-8M for Gausman.

I'm not so certain that will be the case 2-3 years down the line, but I'd be shocked, if we come within $5-10M of the line in 2025.

The Sale trade and Gio signings both went about as badly as anyone could even imagine. There is no sugar coating this. I'm not sure this means Brez cannot be trusted with any future deals or signings. It's a worry, for sure, as is any major deal made by any GM. Everybody oohs and ahhs about the Dodgers doing what it takes, but imagine what Sox fans would be saying, now, if we had splurged for Yamamoto, DD resigned Nola, who did well, but he also led his league in HRs allowed, and a 3.94 FIP is nothing all that great. The SFG spent bid on J-H Lee who did squat. They did much better with the Champan signings (the 10th highest contract handed out in 2024.) Josh hader did well, but did not help HOU get very far. ERod and Bellinger were the 6th highest paid signings. Meh. Blake Snell was #9. All-in-all the Ohtani , Gray and Chapman signings look like the only good top 10 signings, so far. I do think Brez out-Bloomed Bloom. His lesser deals are off to very good starts or still show some promise. Ammons for Slaten looks like a major steal for Brez. The Criswell signing for squat looks real good, even if he does nothing more for us, going forward. Dugo for Fitts, Weissert and Judice looks like it should be worthwhile and possibly a real good trade. Santos and Robertson for one year of O'Neill worked pretty well. People are saying O'Neill may now get a 4-5 year deal for over $70-80M. Schreiber for sandlin looks very promising. Urias for I Campbell did not start off well, at all, although Urias did nothing, too, but Campbell has several years of control left. All of these, combined, do NOT outweigh what we got from the Sale trade- year one, or the Gio signing- year one, but we may still get some value from those two, next year and beyond with Grissom. I can't say I have complete faith in Brez on his next biggest deals, but I'm not using his first two to suggest he should avoid making any more big deals. I'm hoping he makes one big trade and one big signing, and they work. The return of Gio, Hendriks and Fulmer might end up working out well, too.

Yup. In Sept... 1.186 Ref (just 19 PAs) .882 Sogard (30) .790 Story (72) .790 Casas (76) .787 Grissom (27) .774 O'Neill (84 and a FA) .700 Wong (83) .657 Romy (55) .633 Yoshida (78) .618 Jansen (38) .593 Duran (115) .517 Abreu (78) .512 Rafela (69) .496 Devers (75, playing hurt) .367 E Valdez (34)

I expect more production on O from 3B than 2B. That is one issue, but yes, if you just flip the two, it's the same. My point was only considering that Mayer + Story = only 162 games of SS and nothing else. In reality, it could be much more than 162 games. 162 at SS and maybe 81-120 at 2B or 3B. If that happened, Grissom would be squeezed out over Campbell in my plan. If Grissom is viewed as the better defensive 3Bman by more than the flip of Grissom vs Campbell at 2B, then yes, I'd prefer Grissom at 3B and Campbell at 2B. I happen to like DHam at 2B vs RHPs, and think a Grissom-Dham platoon at 2B would be okay, when Story or Mayer our on the IL (only.) I guess we could go: vs RHP: DHam at 2B and Campbell at 3B vs LHPs: Campbell at 2B and Grissom at 3B But it might be better to not jerk Campbell around. He needs to learn one position, first, IMO.

If STL is really looking at re-tooling, this winter, dumping Arenado and Sonny Gray's salaries might be something they'd like to start with. Gray is owed $65M/2 with a $25M x 2 CBT hit, and unless we plan on getting close to the line, this might not matter. Arenado is owed $52M/3 with a $25.5M CBT hit. (He has differed money, and I think COL pays some.) I know a team looking to retool does not want a guy like Yoshida and his $54M/3 still owed, but if they are able to shed $117M to add $54M, maybe whatever we add to the package makes them say yes. Would you give Casas and Yoshida for those two? Maybe add Fitts, Priester or Dobbins. Throw in DHam or Wink, if they want. Maybe Casas, Abreu and Yoshida? We'd get a quality SP'er for 2 years, a huge upgrade on 3B defense and push Devers to 1B and or DH. Our cost would be $63M over 3 years. The AAV hit would be $50.5M - $18M for a total of $32.5M for year 1 & 2. In year 3, Gray drops off and the Tax hit is just $7M more for Arenado over Yoshida. It might take Yoshida + Mayer. I'm not sure about that one.

Yes, the late season drop offs are very concerning, but nothings is more concerning that our pitching, IMO. To me, our 5-8 RP'ers should be our 8-11 RP'ers or even 9-12. I'd add a top 2 RPer and other top 4 RP'er, which would push back a couple of our top 4 into lower slots. We need a SP'er, badly. While I like Fitts, Priester and Criswell, I have way less confidence in them combined than just one of Anthony or Campbell and maybe even the oft-injured Mayer. Every concern you note about our bats can be easily doubled or even tripled when taking about our rotation and pen.

To me, the bigger reason to trade Anthony over Campbell is the larger return. I'm not so sure Campbell hits much better than Anthony vs LHPs, and we faced a LH'd starter 43 times, this year, which is only about 1/4th of our games. POR vs LHPs .893 Anthony (9th best in Eastern League) .813 Teel (17th) Campbell was at .865 but did not qualify for rankings. with smaller sample sizes at WOO: .925 Anthony .810 Campbell .431 Teel It's not always about being a RHB when it comes to hitting better vs LHPs. (I'd like to keep both and trade Casas or Mayer.)

I don't think it needs to be saved, but I'm also not saying I have complete confidence in it. I do not think clutch hitting is a skill-set, so I hope we do better there, next year. I'm going on the assumption that we have a limited winter budget and trading prospects or top producers is a long shot. I look at who we have and who we are losing. We lose one big bat and he's RH'd: O'Neill. That is nothing to neglect, but when I look at who we have to possibly replace him, I am more encouraged than when I look at who we have to replace Pivetta (our #2 fWAR SP'er), Jansen (our only clear closer) and Martin, our second best RP'er from 2023-2024. If the wallet is open wider than I expect, then maybe we can work on adding a solid RH bat for CF/RF, 2B or Catcher, but to me I have way less faith in Fitts/Priester /Dobbins to fill Pivetta's slot than Abreu-Ref, more OF time for Rafaela, plus Anthony & Campbell to fill O'Neill's void. I may be over simplifying things, but it seems like a very clear advantage to the bats. I maybe be wearing pink glasses to be hoping Story, Grissom and Campbell can take up a big chunk of O'Neill's bat v LHPs, but to me, my glasses are gray when looking at Fitts, Criswell, Priester and Dobbins. We could see an uptick from Houck, Bello and Crawford, and or a good year from Giolito in his big contract year coming up, but we need all 4 to come true and still need a 5th. That need is much greater than a RHB need or any positional need, other than catcher. With Teel in the wings, I can't see any catcher being added beyond a 1 year deal. What can we get for a one year RH power bat, catcher? Name one, and maybe I'll prioritize him above the second pitcher we need. I see our priorities as such: 1. Solid SP (1-2 slot) Big gap... 2. Closer or solid set-up RP'er (LH'd would be a big plus) 3. Another solid RP'er (if #2 is not a lefty, this one should be.) Moderate gap... 4. RHB (Catcher more than OF or 2B) 5. Pitching depth Tell me what slots you'd move around. I'm not pretending to be an expert on this.

I doubt we see too much movement in the NCAA rankings, this week, unless we see some huge upset. #24 Texas A & M throttled #9 Missouri, so maybe MO drops from the top 12, but that might be it. ND has a bye week before playing Stanford, next week. Next week has some top teams playing each other: #3 Ohio St at #6 Oregon (The loser will likely still be top 12) #7 Penn St at #11 USC (The loser could drop below #12, esp if USC) #12 Ole Miss at #13 LSU (The loser will drop below #12) #2 Texas at #19 Oklahoma (Texas would still be top 12 with a loss.) Of course, ND needs to win, but they may be ranked ahead of Missouri at #13 before next week. I'm not assuming anything with ND, but we could easily be top 12, after next week.

I guess, if we get an ace and replace Duran with Anthony, the step down to Anthony should be less than the step up we get from the SP'er over Fitts as our #5. (In theory.) Note: I am not for trading Duran. The kid does too much on the field, at the plate and on the bases to part with, but I do think anyone and everyone can be traded, if the return is better and fills a bigger need. I think trading Anthony is just as big of a risk. Trading Mayer, Campbell or Teel might be equally as risky, due to another 1-2 years of control over Duran. I do not see trading Arias, Cespedes or Bleis, now, when their stock might be low is worth what we'd get back. I've mentioned trading Abreu, DHam and Wink, but even all together, we won't get a top pitcher in return. We need to bite the bullet and choose one to trade from: Casas, Mayer, Teel, Duran, Campbell or Anthony. Houck is a top 7 trade chip, but we need SP'ing, so I don't include him. I seriously doubt any of these guys get traded, but to me, it will probably take trading one to get us what we need. I'm certainly not counting on JH to fork over the money needed to buy a top pitcher or two.

There is a lot of talk, down here, about the team not spending on keeping everyone: Bregman, Tucker and Framber, to name 3. In the past, they had players ready to step in to replace departing stars, especially with homegrown pitchers. They were able to not miss a beat, when they lost Springer, Cole, Correa, Morton, Keuchel, Verlander and a few others. Now, they already have some big holes with nobody in sight. Adding more holes by letting one or two of those big 3 go, will likely hurt more than those others lost. They still seem to keep adding homegrown pitchers, just about every year. This year, they had a ton of SP'ers on the IL for all or almost all of the season: Verlander, McCullers. Javier, Garcia, Urquiddy and France. Hunter Brown starts 30 games 3.49 (3.58 FIP) Ronel Blanco starts 29 at 2.80/4.15 Spencer Arrighetti starts 28 at 4.53/4.18 They trade for Kikuchi and the team goes 9-1 in his starts. They have a gaping hole at 1B (.651 OPS) and Pena dropped off on O at SS (.700 team OPS at SS,) but he's a plus defender. Their OF had a .721 OPS, but Tucker missed much of the season. Dubon and Myers played a lot of OF and were under .660. McCormick was the #4 OF'er at .576. If they spend to fix 1B and OF, then they can't afford to keep 2 of the big 3, I mentioned.

I don't disagree, but one could certainly think 6 years of Anthony will outproduce 4 years of Duran. Duran does have split issues, but I don't see him as being the "flash" Ellsbury turned out to be.