moonslav59

I can't believe i left Montgomery off the list! I think our farm is deeper than many think it is, and it goes beyond the 5 or 6 that are ML ready, now. I also think the pitching will prove to be better than many think it is. Most, including me, never expected to see so many homegrown arms doing well in 2024: Houck, Crawford, Slaten, Bello, Fitts, Wink, Weissert, Kelly, Guerrero, Penrod, Priester... We have a solid core of young players and top prospects.

Big FA signings aren't the only way to have a higher budget. I also feel like JH wants to avoid ever signing anyone like Price again, although he did just fork over more money for Devers than Price got. I'm still not sure he never will, again. You make a very good point, but here is the issue and flaw I see in this presented plan scenario: while our rosters in the last few years had enough holes in it to spend on several FAs moderately, rather than spending on 1-2 at much higher prices, I don't see a 26 man roster with 5-6 holes in it. The might not even be 4 holes. The only thing not totally squeezing the 26 and 40 man roster, right now, is that out most promising ML ready prospects are all not even Rule 5, yet, and they do not need to be added to either roster until opening day or day 2, at the earliest. I see 3 major holes, and we don't need to spend like Price on any of them, but we can spend more than Kluber or Richards money. JH did spend $16M x 2 on Jansen, so I could see him allowing Brez to sign Tanner Scott. JH did allow a $38M deal for Gio, the biggest since Nate in 2019, so I do think he may allow Brez to go for someone like Flaherty or Nick Martinez at somewhat high money, but not break the bank levels. The third guy could be another RP'er (LH'd?) or a catcher on a short term deal. (or both for 4 signings.) Is this what you mean by "moderate?" If yes, I agree that this could be something JH could go along with. Is this a playoff roster? The 26: Houck, Nick Martinez, Bello, Crawford, Giolito, Fitts (long man) Scott, Hendriks, Whitlock, Slaten, Chaffin, Guerrero, Criswell Wong, Grandal Casas DHam-Grissom platoon (Campbell added during season) Story Devers Abreu/Duran Duran/Rafaela Anthony (added before opening day or after) Yoshida-Refsnyder platoon The rest of the 40 Gasper, Romy, E Valdez, Sogard Priester, Dobbins (R5) Wink, Weissert, Kelly, Bernardino, I Campbell, Penrod, Fulmer (R5), Booser or Jh garcia (R5) Gone: Mata, Murphy, Shugart We can add Campbell, Mayer, Meidroth or Teel, after opening day, perhaps when someone goes on the 60 day IL. This might be the best we can hope for, and I do not think this puts us over the tax line.

If $300M/10 was as high as JH would go, it seems they were pretty far apart. I do not think Betts ever countered with $360M/12, so who knows. It was stupid to let him go. It seems like $60M + 2 more years is not that much. Yes, this was on JH, and he will forever be to blame. I do wonder how we would have deconstructed the roster had we kept Betts at that amount, while coming close to the same budgets we saw in 2020 and 2021. He'd have had to have dumped full-Price and probably JD. Maybe they don't extend Sale and or Nate, instead. I guess we have to take Betts at his word, or do we?

Lots of teams bunched up around #12 with a lot of the season left to go. Here is my top 20 rankings: 1. ORE 8-0 2. Penn St 7-0 3. Georgia 6-1 4. Texas 7-1 5. Ohio St 6-1 6. Miami 8-0 7. Tennessee 6-1 8. Iowa St. 7-0 9. Clemson 6-1 10. Notre Dame 7-1 11. BYU 8-0 12. Indiana 8-0 13. Pittsburgh 7-0 14. Texas A & M 7-1 15. Alabama 6-2 16. LSU 6-2 17. Boise St 7-1 18. Ole Miss 6-2 19. KA St 7-1 20. Army 7-0 & SMU 7-1 Some big games coming up... Next week: Ohio St at Penn St, Oregon at Michigan and PIT at SMU Wk 11: GA at Ole Miss, MIA ay GA Tech, AL at LSU, MI at IN Wk 12: TN at GA, Clem at PIT Wk 13: Vandy at LSU, IN at Ohio St, Army at ND Wk 14: Tenn at Vandy, TX at TX A & M, KA St at IA St, ND at USC, MI at Ohio St Wk 15: Navy at Army

Some near-misses, today... #4 Ohio St held off NEB 21-17 #5 Texas beat #25 Vandy 27-24 #3 Penn St is up 14-13 at WI in the 4th Q #8 LSU lost vs #14 Texas A&M (Maybe A &M belongs in the 12.) Undefeated IN beat Wash 31-17. Undefeated BYU beat UCF 37-24. Both might be top 12, this week. Who drops out? #12 ND won big vs a top 25 team (Navy) 51-14. #16 K St barely won vs a bad Kansas.

Apparently, Mookie says he'd have stayed with BOS for the same as what LAD paid him ($365M/12.) https://www.sportskeeda.com/baseball/news-absolutely-i-just-didn-t-get-it-when-mookie-betts-revealed-he-d-stayed-red-sox-365-million

My suggestion was for pitching, and pretty damn good ones. I agree that Yoshida will be our DH, this year- maybe a platoon with Ref.

He said not the "primary factor" not "no factor." I do not think the budget would have allowed for Gio and Sale, unless we did not sign O'Neill and traded someone else- like Martin or Jansen. (Some reports were out that we were shopping Jansen.) Maybe we should have tried real hard to dump Yoshida, last winter. (Maybe Story?) As it turned out, I know-I know, another scenario, we could have not trade for O'Neill, traded Martin and kept Sale and also signed Gio. That's pretty close to what we "saved" by trading Sale.

Fragile little birdies.

Maybe so, but you said No, not TOR. TOR is going nowhere and fast. They may look to dump a high-price pitcher to cut salary. They may lose Vladdy and want Casas. I can understand TOR saying no, but why you?

Can't you find someone who is not a DH?

I'm looking for a way to get a good pitcher at below market price. I also think the line-up without Casas could be about as good as with him, but this is no knock on Casas. It is my optimism on Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Meidroth and others that thinks they can come close.

We've been suggesting trades and signings based on tight budgets for several years. The Story and Yoshida signings were kind of surprising, and neither were mega deals. I'm going on the assumption that we don't spend more than '24 and may cut some. I also think we might spend a little more and get close to the tax line, but I am far from expecting it.

I'm not optimistic on spending, at all. I'm just unsure. I'm optimistic about our young foundation and ML ready, top prospects. We may or may not need big spending to win, again, but it would likely help. We will almost certainly need some moderate spending to win.

I dont know why anyone would think that hire was a "plus." Maybe, if you heard them explain why, there might be something that makes some sense. I do not think all their moves suck. We do seem to focus on the ones that do, and it's understandable, after 6 years of grief. It's too early to tell, but I like the Brez hire and have optimism towards our future. More optimism than I felt in 2018 (towards the future & extended future.) Somebody made some good chocies to get us here.

On the surface, the Lawson addition does seem suspect, but it was one hire out of many. I can also understand the cynicism. 6 years of futility can do that to anyone.

As for free agents, Soto is the prize, but i give us less than 1% chance of signing him. We have a bunch of OF'ers and the Yanks, Dodgers and others will offer a ton and a half for him. Here is who I'd like to see us go after: A: Burnes, Fried, Tanner Scott B: Flaherty, N Martinez, Peralta, Carlos Estevez & C Holmes (RP) Nate, Higashioka, Adames (if we trade Mayer) C: Montgomery, Wacha, Manaea & Kikuchi (C+) Snell (Just not that high on him), Bieber (tired of injury-prone pitchers) Roki Sasaki, Severino, Danny Jansen or d'Arnaud (on 1 year deals), H-S Kim (trade Mayer) M Kelly, Pivetta, Gibson, Verlander, Morton, Heaney D: Carson Kelly, Scherzer, Bregman (too up and down and more down, recently) F (good but not a fit) Santander & Teoscar H, Alonso & Walker (unless we trade Casas), Bellinger & O'Neill, G Torres

I would not hand Casas away, and I get the idea that we could be "selling low" on him, if we trade him, this winter. The package included with Casas would have to be better and or more players involved. I'm wondering what Casas, Abreu, DHam plus Dobbins could get back. Here is the possible team we could have without Casas and Abreu: C: Wong, __add__ (Teel) 1B: Devers, Romy/Wong (Meidroth?) 2B: Campbell or Mayer or a Grissom/DHam platoon SS: Story (Mayer) 3B: Mayer or Campbell or Grissom (Meidroth) LF: Duran/Ref CF: Rafaela/Duran RF Anthony DH: Yoshida-Refsnyder platoon I'm not sure this is much of a step down from one with Casas, if the kids come through.

Yup.

And who refuses to replace Boone?

ND is looking good at Navy, so far (38-14 in 3rd Q.) Undefeated #19 PITT won, last night vs Syracuse. #17 Boise St beat UNLV by 5, #4 Ohio St is struggling vs NEB (up 14-9 in 3rd Q)

To me, it's not about being "low" on Casas: it's about trying to determine who we can or should trade to get a good pitcher. We have to give something to get something good in return. Casas may be the lowest value as a centerpiece of a big trade out of Anthony, Mayer, Campbell, Teel and Duran, so I can see why waiting on him makes sense, but here are some reasons to choose him over others: 1. Story is such a health risk that keeping Mayer over Casas makes sense. 2. Anthony has the highest ceiling of anyone, except maybe Duran. 3. Good ctahcers are so hard to find, that keeping Teel makes sense. 4. Campbell is the only RHB out of all on this list. 5. Duran has already proven he is a top notch 5 tool player. 6. Trading Casas allows Devers to move to 1B and improve the defense at 3B and maybe/likely 1B, too. Nobody wants to trade Casas, but we want a really good pitcher more than anything else. Yes, it's easy to just say, "JH can afford to spend on pitching," but until I see it, I'm thinking what is the best trade we can make to get one. What player can we part with that has the least negative effect on the roster. Part of what goes into determining this is who do we already have in the system that can replace who we give up. Trading a prospect seems easiest, since they do not currently have a role on the big club that would need replacing, and the big 3 have higher trade value than Casas, but their upside potential and positional value is more important than a poor fielding 1Bman, IMO. To me, Devers should be at 1B (75%) and DH 20% and 3B 5%, while Casas DH's 75% and plays 1B 25%. That makes the other chocies, who actually play important positions and well, between choices to keep, IMO.

Yup, but we could end up choosing Mayer as "the one" to bring back a pitcher. To me, he makes more sense than Anthony, Campbell or Teel.

They have been trying to walk a fine line, by spending as little as possible on rosters they think are as close to be competitive for a WC slot as they can get. Of course, it hasn't been a total budget slash, except for maybe 2020, and even then they spent a little on Perez, Pillar and a few others. The swing and misses on Story, Yoshida and Gio really gut-punched us.

I did not like the Gio signing, and his big plus was supposed to be durability and dependability on taking the ball every 5 days and going 5+ innings, almost every 5 days. The injury was totally unpredictable and unexpected, but that is the risk we took, and certainly 99.9% of anyone who knows anything about baseball would have expected Gio to start more games than Sale in 2024. Had we spent the same or less AAV on Lugo ($15M x 3) Imanaga ($13.3M x 4) Wacha ($16M x 2) Manaea ($14M x 2) or even Flaherty ($14M x 1,) you would not be lumping the Sale trade in the same way. The Gio signing was a seperate mistake than backfired, too. Together, the two moves killed our chances. I can see how linking them makes sense, because the "savings" from the Sale trade could be counted towards allowing Brez the budget space to sign a pitcher, but just because Brez swung and missed on Gio, doesn't mean the Sale trade made any less or more sense, at the time, IMO. Ideally, we keep Sale and sign Lugo or Imanaga- two guys I was very high on, back then. (To be fair, I was also high on Monty and Gray.) Brez messed that all up. We can hope Grissom salvages some of what we lost, and Gio gives us something special in 2025, but neither looks all that promising, right now. Brez did make several savy and good moves, over the winter. We have to hope he does more, and most of all, we need to have a better success rate on our biggest winter deals. 2020: Martin Perez D 2021: Richards F, Martin Perez D, Ottavini C+, Kike A '21 and D '22 & overall C+, Cordero/Wink C-, Renfroe A-, Scwarber A 2022: Story D-, Yoshida D+, Kike F, Wacha B+, Hill B-, Strahm A, Paxton F '22 & B- for '22 and C- overall 2023: Jansen A-, Martin A-, Turner A-, Kluber F, Duvall B+ This has been about a 50% success rate, with some of the successes being mixed or near a C+ value. We need to do better. If you look at just the biggest deals (10M+): D- Story D+ Yoshida (The two very biggest suck, so far.) F (so far) Giolito A- Jansen D Kike I + Kike II A- Martin D Barnes extension (The $15-$40M are 40-60) A- Turner F Richards F Kluber (The $10M-14M deals are 33%.) 6 of the top 9 are D or lower. Our top 3 are Ds or Fs.