moonslav59

I'm glad we kept trying, and maybe the demands were too overwhelming. Maybe not.

I share the deep concerns about our constant unwillingness to make deadline moves. To me, it is a reflection of our GM's refusal to overpay (Money and or prospects) for top talent. We have seen it played out in all the near miss FA non signings, but also in trade talks like Neto and Paredes, KMarte and others. At the deadline, the overpay part of trade talks are amplified, hence the stand pat results, year after year. There is merit in not grossly overpaying for "the one guy," and when you think maybe one guy might not be enough, anyway, it does make some sense to just say no, but at some point you just gotta agree to overpay. On Schwarber, the thing was, it was NOT an overpay. We got him cheaply due to his injury. Aldo Ramirez was not a big chip. We got lucky, in some ways. The Pivetta trade was a dump of Workman, so that does not count.

We might still have more deadline trade chips than others on this list, especially if we have unusually good health with our SP'ers.

Kutter may outpitch Cole in 2026, so would that still keep the Yanks one step up or two steps back.

On defense... Rafaela>Abreu>>Anthony>>Duran Duran should DH the most of all OF'ers with Anthony second. Abreu should only DH as a mechanism to get him rest while keeping one of the few power bats we have in the line-up more often. Rafaela should never DH for obvious reasons. (I'd avoid playing him at 2B unless as an ingame emergency/flex issue.)

Who is MH, and is he insane?

Let's break down only the SP'er numbers from 2025 vs what 2026 looks like.... IP and ERA Returning... (Stunningly very little) 205 Crochet 2.59 162 Bello 3.34 19 Early 2.33 10 Tolle 7.84_________ Lost... The Good: (152 IP) 145 Giolito 3.41 7 Criswell 1.29 The Meh (69 IP) 53 Dobbins 4.25 9 Harrison 4.00 7 de Leon 4.05 The Bad (63 IP) 41 Fitts 4.83 (1.32 WHIP) 22 Newcomb 4.43 (1.96 WHIP) The UGLY!!! (179 IP) 110 Buehler 5.40 44 Houck 8.04 25 May 5.68 As you can see, we lost more "UGLY!" than "GOOD," and we lost about the same "Meh" as "bad." You are focusing on Gio. We didn't lose Bello. We improved by moving him down on notch. Losing Dobbins is maybe the only other meaningful loss, but he wasn't great. The loss of the 2015 Houck and his 44 IP is not being mentioned much, but he really sucked. Newcomb's ERA looked decent but there was a reason we demoted then traded him, and his WHIP highlights why. Now, we added... Good 157 Ranger 3.20 40 Oviedo 3.57 (1.21 WHIP) Meh to Good 181 S Gray Plus Crawford (313 IP from '23-'24 w 4.23 ERA/1.12 WHIP) Sandoval (224 IP '23-'24 w 4.45 ERA/1.51 WHIP & ?236 IP '21-'22 w 3.17 ERA/1.29 WHIP) To me, the potential for a massive improvement looks highly probable. We lost Gio & Dobbins, but also over 240 IP of bad to ugly. We gained Luis Tiant III and Sunny Gray plus a couple proven starters -returning from injuries- as depth.

We didn't trade Bello. He's our #4 not our #3, so one can count that as another plus, if you choose to view it that way.

Good analogy, but we also got Ellsbury for a comp pick for OCab. The difference in this analogy is that we got nothing out of Harrison, while we did get real value out of Jake and Jed, before getting Holt & Hanrahan. (Plus, we got Kopech as a comp pick for Jake, and he was a major part of the Sale trade.)

Could be true, but he's pitched so little in 2-3 years. I do think Crawford fits that role better, and who knows what role is best for Oviedo. Earlier this winter, I had Sandoval as the #5. Now, I see it as a three-way tie, but my guess is Brez & Cora have an idea of who they send to the pen first. The second choice might take ST'ing to sort out.

If they were demanding Mayer, then we'd still have an infield opening. If they wanted Arias plus Tolle or Early, I'm not sure I'd like that deal more than the Durbin steal deal. Arias + Witherspoon? I'd probably say yes, despite Witherspoon's upside. With Neto, I'd be more willing to part with Arias.

Exactly. Why should they? I'd like to know what the package was. Without knowing, it's hard to say the Durbin deal was better or worse.

Did your account get hacked? Because someone posted this just a few posts back... ...we don’t know the Angels asking price, so it doesn’t matter now....

Buehler sucked- so did DMay and some of the other pitchers that Gray & Suarez are replacing. Oviedo is a question mark- much like Dobbins, Fitts & Co were, last year. BTW, we also "added" Crawford & Sandoval. I think you are underselling the significance of the rotation upgrades. I may be underselling the losses on offense, but I have spoken about losing over 1150 PAs from our top 6 batters in 2025 and replacing that with maybe 550-600 PAs from Contreras (who projects to do about the same as Bregman in 2026.) I hate needing to rely on 300 more PAs from Anthony and 300 more from Mayer to try and replace the 350 from Devers, and 250 from Lowe & Ref, but they may take a bite out of that loss.

If one wants to look at this like Devers for Durbin, then count the money, too: Devers for Durbin IK-F and Suarez plus another FA after Suarez and I K-F are gone.

I think what they wanted does matter. If they wanted way too much, I won't care if Neto does better than Durbin. Maybe down the road, if the guys LAA wanted end up sucking, we can go back and think "what if..." Neto looked like a much better target, and the demand must have been way higher than Harrison and scraps. Hell, even Harrison is a doubtful piece in any trade. I wish we had Neto, but they probably thought the disparity in trade offers ve returns significantly favored the Durbin deal. I'm pretty certain Neto will do much better than Durbin, and I'm not sure the extra 2 years from Durbin make up the difference. I really like the comp pick, as we lost our #2 and it's bonus money with it.

We are one injury to a top 3 RP'er away from serious trouble- agreed, but the hope is Crawford, Sandoval or Oviedo can slide into a high leverage role. Tolle & Early should stay starting in AAA as long as we can afford to do it.

Suarez & Gray dont have to improve on Gio and Bello- they will improve on Gio and Buehler. Bello is still here and moved down a notch. The Contreras bat should be almost equal to what Breggie gives this year. It's the Devers and Ref numbers that went unfilled. We are a better team, IMO- it's just a matter of degree.

His splits with KCR only- kinda like you used for the Rodgers HOU tiny sample sizes, but in reverse.

Neto hit HRs at about 30 per 650, last year. 30 SBs, too. The .319 OBP was not good. The K's were not good. At 24, there is a lot of room for growth. Oh well. I gotta admit, it's getting very tiring hearing about how close we came to this guy and that guy. It's worse than hearing we missed by a mile on guys like Alonso. If the Halos wanted Tolle, Valera and Arias or Witherspoon, I can understand moving onto Durbin, who looks like a steal at this point, but we needed a power bat and an infielder and we missed out on KMarte, Paredes and Neto.

True, but we got zero GS from Crawford and Sandoval. Merloni is super high on Crawford: I have my doubts, but both out guys are pretty talented, too. I'd prefer to not count on much from any returning-from-injury SP'ers on all teams.

The more I think about missing out on Neto, the more I wonder how close we got, and of course what the demand was. I like Durbin and his upside, but Neto looked like the infielder and power bat we needed- all in one. High K rate, but can steal bases and showed some flash on D, despite not so good metrics. Let's see how this pans out. Word is the Angels were asking for a ton.

Bieber to start season on IL. Another ALE pitcher not making the opening day roster.

LOL! And throw in Sandoval & Eaton.

I think soxprospects.com does a fine job. When you read the summaries of many of our higher ranked prospects, they often sound very cautious. Here are some examples: Tolle: Potential mid-rotation starter, but projection is fluid Early: Potential fourth/fifth starter. Ceiling of a quality third starter. Arias: Potential everyday regular at shortstop. Ceiling of a quality regular who provides value with his glove and contact ability. Witherspoon: Has mid-rotation upside Valera: Has the early makings of a potential high-end starting pitching prospect.