moonslav59

Woo won by shutout: B Keller: 6 IP, 4H, 1BB, 4K Weissert & Joely closed it out (3IP, 1H, 0BB, 3K) Anthony has struggled in AAA (.369 OPS.) Meidroth 2-3 w BB Grissom 1-3 Teel 1-4 (.277 OPS) POR won 10-2 Wikelman 4IP, 2H, 0ER, 1BB, 4K Gh Garcia 2-5 w HR Campbell 2-5 w 2B Castro 2-5 and Sikes 3-5 w HR GRE is up 5-1 with Mullins 5IP, 4H, 1ER, 4BB, 4K SAL is up 2-0 with Duffy 5IP, 2H, 0ER, 1BB, 9Ks! Carlson: 3 IP, 2H, 0ER, 0BB, 5K

The only real question might have been Gio vs Imanaga or Gio vs Lugo. It was never going to be 2 of the 3. If we keep adding just one SP'er, we aren't going anywhere.

He has options. Smith needed to stay on the 26 not the 40. I do think Dalbec gets the axe, this winter.

Yes, I almost mentioned that.

KC is romping CIN 11-0. They are not easing up, at all. DET 4 hit shutout the Yanks and Rodon. The top 6 batters in the Yankee line-up went 1 for 21 with 3BB and 7 Ks.

I agree, and maybe we can say they got lucky by hitting on Lugo and Wacha, but they did sign a few pitchers- not just the two starters. I will say, I do think Brez made a nice attempt at improving the pen, over the winter, but like Gio and the Sale trade, he swung and missed, too often. Getting Slaten was a steal. Too bad he got hurt. I Campbell looked like a decent addition, as did Weissert. Criswell was a stab in the dark, but he has done okay as a SP and RP. Booser worked out okay. The Garcia & Sims trades have bombed.

Yes, I think most would have been happy with more action than Gio (minus Sale.) I did forget about Uwasawa. We actually added Criswell, Anderson and Uwasawa as minor league depth. Murphy was an option, too, before he was lost for the season.

I knew it would never happen. I had serious doubts we'd add 2 solid SP'ers. I'm not thinking we'll add 2-3 this winter, either, but I hope we add 3-4.

I wrote this back on Sept 1st in response to a post about moving Houck and Whitlock into set up/long men roles... I wouldn't mind us having 4 guys in that role: Houck Whitlock Pivetta Crawford Set-up: Martin Winckowski Schreiber Closer: Jansen (No way this ever happens. We'd need to add 4 SP'ers or 3 and hope for a Sale miracle.)

The pen is killing us. The rotation ha shown some signs of rebounding, except for Crawford. Houck 2.13 ERA last 2 starts 4.04 last 6 starts (not great but better than the 5.19 in his previous 5 starts) Bello 3.18 last 3 starts 3.93 last 6 starts (5.40 ERA over first 16 GS) Pivetta 4.41 last 3 starts (6.46 previous 3 GS) Crawford: 9.75 last 5 GS (1.95 the 5 GS before these 5)

I totally agree on this. I was the guy saying we should sign 3 solid SP'ers and wanted to have Whitlock, and 2 from Houck, Crawford and Pivetta start the year in the pen. 1. FA 2. Gio 3. FA 4. Bello 5. FA 6. Pivetta 7. Crawford 8. Houck 9. Whitlock 10. Wink, Murphy, Criswell

O'Neill is back just in time to face a lefty. 1. L Duran CF 2. R Refsnyder RF 3. R O'Neill LF 4. L Devers 3B 5. R Jansen C 6. R Romy 2B 7. L Casas 1B 8. R Wong DH 9. R Rafaela SS

...as you have often said, once the season starts, not many teams are looking to make trades.

Yes, and I'm not sure when all these guys signed, but in terms of under-the radar SP signings, Criswell might be the best signing of those in all of MLB, last winter.

Some interesting Yankee numbers: Cole 52 IP 4.15 ERA Rodon 131 IP 4.18 ERA Stroman 121 IP 4.01 ERA All 3= just over 300 IP and an ERA over 4.10. Team OPS: .778 is best in MLB (Bal .774 & BOS .770), but... The Yanks only have two batter with 62+ PAs and an OPS over .780: 1.175 Judge (542 PAs is 3rd on team) 1.047 Soto (548 PAs is most on team) Others: .780 Stanton (6th in PAs) .773 Wells (7th) .722 Trevino (11th with just 190 PAs) .683 Volpe (3rd) .670 Cabrera (9th) .663 Torres (5th) .660 Verdugo (6th) .522 LeMahieu (10th) Grisham .683 inn 186 PAs and Rice .687 with 155 PAs are 12th and 13th in PAs. Talk about an unbalanced line-up. That being said, maybe a balanced line-up is not all it's cracked up to be, as the Yanks have scored 8 more runs than BAL and 26 more than BOS. All of the Sox top 10 players by PAs are over .705. Seven are over .790. (Romy & Casas are over .790, too.) By position: .901 RF (Yanks 1.074) .866 LF (Yanks .659) .845 3B (Yanks .672) .801 DH (Yanks .868) .779 SS (Yanks .689) .775 C (Yanks .760) .718 CF (Yanks 1.019) .705 1B (Yanks .634) .535 2B (Yanks .665) By Batting Order: .841 1st (Yanks .646) .813 2nd (1.036) .756 3rd (1.164) .938 4th (.651) .718 5th (.738) .883 6th (.714) .649 7th (.723) .606 8th (.628) .697 9th (.701)

My question is, did JH insist on them spending on everyday players over pitching or just hand them a budget framework and let them sign who they wanted? If the latter, then the GMs deserves a lot of criticism. They chose Story and Yoshi over pitching. They chose Devers over signing several pitchers. Even Breslow chose to pay O'Neill over adding a moderate pitching salary. O'Neill did well, but still, when you consider we spent a net less dollar amount on the rotation as compared to 2023, then the choice of O'Neill looks questionable. 2023: $41M $27M Sale $10M Kluber $4M Paxton 2024: $37M $19M Giolito $17M Sale Spending O'Neill's $6M on pitching would have tipped the balance to 2024, slightly. Brez chose not to sign someone like Lorenzen over the O'Neill trade and budget addition. $1M Criswell

Maybe $14M/1 for Flaherty or $15M/2 for Fedde are too expensive to call depth signings, but neither was a huge long term risk. Here might be some that fit the bill: Gibson 131 IP 4.26 ERA ($13M/1, maybe too pricey, as well) Severino 134 IP 4.17 ERA ($13M/1) Lynn 106 IP 4.06 ERA ($11M/1) Lorenzen 113 IP 3.73 ERA ($4.5M/1) It's interesting to note than maybe the best SP depth signing for uner $4M, last winter was Cooper Criswell at $1M (63 IP 4.02 ERA and a 1.1 fWAR. That 1.1 fWAR is tied for 88th best in MLB among all pitchers and tied with Severino, Lynn, Bello and others. It's better than Montas, Cole Irvin, Detmers, Flexen, Scherzer, Cole, Luzardo, Monty, Paxton and many others. Maybe, this area was not as bad as we think. After all, we have used 9 SP'ers, this year, not counting openers: 24 Houck 24 Crawford 22 Bello 19 Pivetta 13 Criswell 6 Wink 4 Whitlock 3 Paxton 1 Anderson We lost Gio, Whitlock and Murphy as options to start. Other teams, like the Astros, have lost as many or more, so this is not an excuse, but Brez did have 9 options for 5 slots, and Criswell did okay. What hurt, a lot was counting on Bello to do at least as well as 2023, but he did not. Houck and Crawford have done better than expected, despite recent woes. Pivetta has done about as expected. Wink was in the dog house for a while and has done about as expected. Paxton and Anderson failed.

I just find it hard to blame Brez for not signings someone like Imanaga, if you were not for it, last winter, especially after seeing what he signed for. Sure, it's fine to point it out, but it seems a tiny bit hypocritical to blame him, if you never said you thought he made a mistake at that time. Also, many of us wanted Montgomery signed, at the time, and thought that was a major mistake, once we knew Gio was out for the year. It turns out, Brez did a good job not listening to us on him.

.931 since June 24th (169 PAs) 6 HRs and 31 RBI comes to over 25 and 125 per 650 PAs! His higher OPS is surprisingly fueled as much by his SLG (.517) than his OBP (.414.) At the risk of being called a Bloom apologist (or worse) several of the moves he made that were absolutely roasted or deep fried, are looking better or slightly better, now. Yoshida DHam in the JBJ trade Abreu for Vaz Extending Ref Not trading Duran while many of us suggested it. Jansen signing Wink for Beni Wong worked out better than Dugo & Downs combined His draft and IFA choices

The schedule to Sept 1st: BOS: 2 @BAL, 3@HOU, 3 ARI, 5 TOR, 3 @DET (then 3@NYM, 3 CWS, 3 BAL) KCR: 2 @CIN, 3 LAA, 3 PHI, 4 @CLE, 4 @ HOU (then 3 CLE, 3 MIN, 3@NYY) MIN: 2 @TEX, 3 @SDP, 3 STL, 3 ATL, 3 TOR (then 4@TBR, 3 @KCR, 3 LAA) It looks like we may need to pass KCR by Mid September. Catching MIN could happen closer to the end of the season, as MIN ends with: 4 @ CLE 3 @ BOS 3 MIA 3 BAL (It may take a MIN sweep to do it.)

Oh, I understand why they passed on 4 years for Imanaga, and yes, it may end up being the right choice, as Shota turns 31 in just days, but $13M a year was a good risk-reward number.. I also understood the points many made here against the Lugo signing, as his history as a SP'er was short. I saw the lack of tons of IP as a plus, since the guy has excellent stuff. (He may turn out to be a meh signing, as well, but his deal was just 3 years long- one more than Gio's.) The $14M for one year of Flaherty was no chump change, but yes, lower cost depth signings were there for the taking, and not adding any was a gross oversight by Brez or a super cheap greedy demand by JH.... maybe a little of both. Either way, that has to be the most inexplicable mistake made, this winter (in foresight.) The Sale deal was clearly #1 in hindsight. Spending on Gio and not others on my list and other lists is worthy of debate, as well. (I remember much of the talk was Gio vs Stroman.)

I went to an opening day game in TB, once. We lost in the 9th in the "closer by committee" season. I thought it was kinda nice, there. There will never be a big fan base, there due to Yankee and Sox fans outnumbering available Rays fans.

So many SP'ers have options or opt outs, it's hard to know what the pool will be, but of course, Burnes has to be number 1. I think he would be worth one of those once a decade offers like we gave to Price. Cole has an opt-out, as does Snell, but I'm not all that high on either. Verlander on a 1 year deal? Fried might be a more likely get. Bieber is too risky. Nate might be the guy we end up with. IMO, trading for an ace and signing a #3 makes more sense.

Not many poster were high on Imanaga, even after we saw what the Cubs paid him. I'm not bragging, here, because I also like Montgomery, but I was also super high on Imanaga ($53M/4 is a much less AAV than Gio) and Seth Lugo ($45M/3, which is just $7M more than Gio but with an extra year.) I do not recall having many posters agreeing on those two. I also liked Sonny Gray, due to not needing a long term deal ($75M/3) and Wacha $32M/2.) I thought Flaherty at $14M/1 was a low risk, good deal. Depth signings like Lorenzen at $4.5M/1 and others were discussed, as well.

ERA by 9 game intervals: 6.67 last 9 5.00 July 28-Aug 6 6.40 July 14-27 4.38 July 5-13 4.61 June 23-July 4 3.49 June 13-22 4.22 June 2-12 5.13 May 24-June 1 3.84 May 14-22 3.62 May 3-13 2.73 April 23-May 2 2.60 April 13-21 2.47 first 14 games