moonslav59

A testament to just how deep our farm is, particularly non-pitching. The top 3 get a lot of press, and the next 3-4 are starting to get more and more talk, but the rest are pretty promising, too.

Agreed. This year, it's the Portland line-up that jumps out at me. BTW, they are 59-44 on the season. (WOO is 52-59.) I think these records may flip, next year, unless we call up 3-5 big names early in the season.

I doubt more than 1 or 2, if that. I'll be surprised with just 1-2 big names. More likely we sign another Gio type and 2 Criswell-types.

WOO won 6-3 as Fitts did okay: 6IP, 5H, 2ER, 1BB, 7K Weissert 2IP, 2, 0, 0, 3 Gasper homered (1.158 in AAA) Hickey hit a 3 run job. POR won 4-2 as Dobbins let up 8 hits and 2 BB in 4.1 IP, but just 2 runs. Teel walked twice. Ehhard 1-4 GRE & SAL washed out.

So, ... Casas is rehabbing in AAA and may just be days away from a call-up. O'Neill may return Aug 15th. Slaten has been cleared to throw 120 feet. ESPN lists Aug 16th as Est return, but I doubt that. Hendriks will face live batters on Saturday. His ETA is around Sept 1st. Not sure how much we can count on from these guys, but maybe we catch lightening...

No doubt. I keep thinking they have intentionally waited for the big splurge, until everything was lined up, just right. Now I'm not so sure. I'll believe it when I see it, but that should not be taken as me thinking it will happen, someday, anytime soon or ever. "How Soon is Now" has been my feeling for a while, now. To me, the team is "lined up," now. We have a solid 13 going into 2025 without even counting the ML ready or near ML top prospects. We are actually overloaded with everyday talent for 2025 and 2016 and should use it. While our pitching looks awful, right now, I do think some pitchers took strides and can be pencilled into some key roles for 2025 and 2026 or beyond. That being said, to me, we clearly have some major holes- and I mean MAJOR! We need an ace. We'll need a closer and a top set-up man. We'll need another solid SP'er and more SP'er depth. I'm thinking 4 pitchers is minimum, afterall, we need to replace Jansen, Martin and Pivetta. Adding just 4 barely replaces what we lost. More likely, we need 5 solid pitchers to join what we bring back, and hopefully some of the guys we bring back can be in less important roles. SP 1 ____ SP 2 Houck SP3 ____ SP4 Giolito SP5 Crawford SP6 Bello SP 7 Criswell/Priester/Wink/Fitts/Dobbins Closer ____ Set Up ____ RP 3 Hendriks RP 4 Slaten RP5 Whitlock RP6 Kelly RP7 Bernardino RP8 Booser/Fulmer/Mata/Weissert/ICampbell/Horn When you look at the ML and near ML ready prospects, they seem to line-up very well with out expected needs with several players "left over." Refsnyder, our best batter vs LHPs is under control through 2025, and RHB Campbell should be ready by 2026. RHB Jh Garcia should be ready by 2026. The Abreu-Ref platoon looks fine for one OF slot in 2025. Duran and Rafaela cover the other two. Anthony is surplus, or he could fill in, if we trade Abreu or Rafaela. I know many look at how awful our middle IF has been for over 5 years, and I can't disagree: it's been god-awful. This year's numbers don't look great, either, but I see a major improvement coming, and the last 6-8 weeks has already shown an improvement on what we have seen since losing Bogey (and Story to injury.) I know counting on Story is like expecting Sale to have a big year, err... wait! I realize we cannot count on Story for 2025 and certainly not beyond, but he is one of the many that can be used to fill the slots, adequately, if not very well. While I do not think we can afford to trade Mayer, due to the doubts on Story, I do feel a lot better about our depth than before, this year. SS: Story or Mayer, Romy-DHam 2B: Story or Grissom, Romy-DHam (Campbell, Meidroth) I do think if Mayer got us a TOTR pitcher, we could absorb the loss at middle IF. I am not one to think trading the best catching prospect we've had in 50 years is a good idea, even if we were certain Wong can continue like this. Teams want ML ready prospects, nit guys like Cespedes, Arias and Bleis. It has to be Anthony or Mayer to get anything close to what I'm thinking. I hope it doesn't take both. It will likely take something like Anthony, Meidroth, Valdez and Fiits for the type of return I want.

The top 6-7 is way better now, AND I do not think they felt we were one SP'er away from being a top contender, despite the 2021 results. Just my opinion. I'm thinking the "plan," if we can call a sham a plan, was always about 2025 or maybe even 2026. Why trade for a TOTR SP in 2022, 3-4 years ahead of the window? (Note: I wish we added a top SP'er every year.)

In a heart beat. I'm not upset. It takes much more than one game to do that. I was just commenting on how I felt really good about winning, last night, until the 5 bomb dropped on us.

I am sure they view him as a big "addition," but I hope they decide we need another even better SP'er.

I don't think we had this sort of high prospect value, recently, and not the bottleneck situation we have, now. I also think the unspoken plan was to build for 5 years (starting with mid season 2019.) That 5 years is up. This is a new management team, but JH is the still here. I will no longer predict or expect him to spend heavily on a SP'er again. I think it's easier to envision him deciding to trade prospects for a lower cost TOTR pitcher, despite that not happening since Sale,

To be honest, I was actually surprised at how few batters had OPS over .700 or .800 with these selected low BB%s. Most of the successful high K players in MLB history, were able to walk at over a 7 or 8% rate. When I think of great batters known as "free-swingers," Vlad comes to mind, but he was not a big K guys and did walk over 8% of the time. It's weird that Bobby Dee's best season (2021) saw his lowest BB% at 6.2%, and his K rate of 34.4% was just below his career 36.8%. Middlebrooks had that awesome half season in 2012 with a 4.6 BB%, which was below his career 5.2%, and a K% of %24.5%, again just barely better than his career 26.3%. That being said, I don't see rafaela as that type of hitter. The low BB% of 3.3 is concerning. So is the 26% K rate, but I think he will be fine on O.

Dalbec is likely gone, granted. Westbrook might stick around, until the middle IF is settled, but no big loss, if we lose him. Gasper or Kavadas can be Jordan's back-up at 1B. I'm not sure we protect Guerrero, so he may be taken. Our prospects seem to be highly regarded by Rule 5 scavenger hunts. Even losing all these 4, the AAA teams looks about a strong as I've seen in years- maybe even decades. The wait has been a long one. Most of us knew the farm could not be rebuilt overnight, under the changed rules from years ago. The time is now. We already have a well-documented everyday 13 going into 2025, so it is soon to be time to use that depth to trade for pitching. If we can get JH to splurge on another one, we might just be a top 3-4 favorite in 2025.

I'd love to see us sign a big FA guy, like Burnes, but I've given up thinking it might happen. That is why I have been on my big trade a top prospect plus some mid tier ones for a solid SP'er with 3+ years of control. It seems like the most realistic way it might happen. We may swing and miss, no matter which road we take, and I won't be shocked if we add nobody more highly regarded than Gio was, last year. Sad but pretty likely, IMO.

These two teams are not push overs, but I’m glad the Astros have cooled off since going something like 50-33, not too long ago. One game at a time

Crappy loss, after it looked pretty bright for a while- mid game.

I would debate the "3 good seasons" comment, but signing Price was needed at the time and did help bring us a win and 3 division championships. Price had an ERA+ of 127 in the previous 5 seasons before the signing and 118 with BOS (ages 30-32.) That was very helpful but in one of those "3 years" he only started 11 games. Lackey did so-so year one (99 ERA+) and was at 117 in 2013 (ring year.) He was at 111 in 2014, when we traded him- not his fault. He started 28 or more games, every year with us, but 2012. He was still worth the money, which was much less than Price's. Either way, both signings pale against the trades for Sale, Beckett, Schilling and Pedro. Even the Nate and Peavy signings look better.

We should walk Whitt every AB, even if the bases are loaded.

Wow! POR scored 7 runs in the 8th! Anthony 4-5 (Marrero, too.) Campbell 2-4 w BB Teel 0-4 w SF Woo won 9-6 Westbrook 4-5 Gasper 2-4 w 2BB Casas 2-6 w 2 2Bs Grissom 1-5 w BB GRE scored 9 runs in the 10th! Jh Garcia 4-6 w 2B Castro 3-5 w BB- a homer short of the cycle! Turner 1-5 w BB & 3B SAL won 5-3 with a nice pitched start by Kirwin (4 IP, 1H, 0ER, 0BB, 5K) Encarnacion 2-4 w 4 rbi

Agreed. There is no excuse for not trying to find a few more Criswell types. Sure, we might end up with 1 Criswell and 5 Chase Andersons, but we signed just the two.

At least the others have been showing glimmers for 3-4 IP, here and there.

Seriously?

I was thinking the same thing. This KCR team is tough.

Crawford needs to be shut down- for how long, who knows? He is toast, right now.

They could work on improving in those areas at AAA, too. I will say, we may have one hell of a AAA club to start 2025: C: Teel, Gasper 1B: Jordan, Dalbec 2B: Valdez SS: Mayer 3B: Meidroth LF: Westbrook, Rosier (maybe Campbell mid season) CF: Anthony RF: Sogard, Sikes DH: Hickey/Valdez/Dalbec SP: Fitts, Priester, Penrod, Gambrell, Dobbins RP: I Campbell, Weissert, Horn, Mills, Guerrer

He is the kind of guy I expected Bloom to find 10 of.