moonslav59

I'm still hopeful this is just a cycle, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am not expecting big spending, again. If and when it happens, great, but I'm expecting nothing.

If it's $19M x 5. that's the same AAV as Gio. I'll be bummed. He's not the only SP'er signed, I wish we had signed. It looks like the team is content with finding out, maybe once and for all, whether a bunch of our tweeners can stick as starters. I think Pivetta will start, all year, but he has one year left. Maybe we try to extend him. Maybe the payday he wants is out of our current range. Crawford, Houck, Whitlock and maybe even Wink will be given a look, again, at starting. If they fail, I hope it doesn't mess them up as future RP'ers. If they succeed, maybe we can get to the point where JH feels we are one big pitcher away from possible glory. I'm not confident that happens, but 2024 is shaping up as the "Look-See Season," on the farm, too. Catcher: Can Wong and McGuire step up their overall game and become complete catchers? Can one? Will one win the back-up role to Teel, if Teel looks great, this summer? 1B: Will Casas continue to build our confidence in him as a bigtime hitter while improving his defense? 2B: Can Grissom come close to the hype? SS: Can Mayer prove he belongs in the top 50 prospect list and earn a shot at the bigs, next season? 3B: Can Devers have a career year and get more consistent on D, and I don't mean consistently awful. LF: Can Duran keep the improvement rolling in 2024. That stretch in 2023 looked very promising. CF: Can Rafaela make contact enough to come close to a .700 OPS? His D would carry that. Can Anthony jump to the bigs by 2024? RF: Can Abreu prove he can win the RF job by the end of 2023? (If all 4 OF'ers take a stride forward, we can look very good, going forward.) DH: Yoshida looks to have the majority PAs at DH locked up for 4 more years. (EValdez?) SP: We have a few guys that may prove they belong in the rotation, going forward. The problem is we need 4 for 2025 (w Bello.) RP: We lose Jansen & Martin after 2023. Can we cobble together 8 RP'ers that can be better than average?

I can understand that, especially for a 31 year old to a team seemingly looking at 2+ years from now.

His biggest prospect traded was Aldo Ramirez for Schwarber. That's it. The vast majority of trades he made, involved a prospect or two. A few loo promising, but most do not. Wink Abreu Grissom Wong EValdez Fitts Gambrell

No. Far from it. I'm just saying that Brez was not handed an awful roster and farm. He has something to work with. We need SP'ers, and I doubt he can fix that without the okay to spend big money on it, soon. It will take years to fix the farm pitching development issues. Saying Brez has a "nicer roster" than half the league is NOT saying I'm okay with it.

I'm wondering at what price we would sign Montgomery and how far it will end up from what he ends up getting. It may be closer than we think.

Who is "we?" You and who else?

Yes, I know. I'm thinking we should be able to sign Lauer and Duvall and still be under that $10M line. Hell, we could probably sign Monty and be at the line.

Yup. A major flaw, for sure. Truthfully, is our team as good or better than other teams around #14 and #15 in MLB? Our tough schedule and division make us look worse than some teams in easier situations. IMO, we are better than 15 teams, despite worse pitching. It's not by a long shot. We are very close to several teams. IMO, we are maybe one top SP'er away from being 10th to 12th (maybe 8th or 9th, if a bunch of stuff goes right.) IMO, we are 2 top SP'ers away from being a top 7-9 team. (I'm sure many other teams can say the same, and there is no indication we are planning on adding even one solid SP'er.)

He should have spent the Story and Yoshida money on pitching, assuming they'd have let him. Instead of $10M on Kluber + $7M on Duvall, maybe spending $17M on a pitcher would have been a better idea. I'm not arguing Bloom was a great GM: he was far from one, but there should be context involved, just like many are seeing with Brez. Did he, or did he not have a horrific bottom 15-22 of the roster going into 2020? Did he, or did he not see no meaningful farm infusion, other than Houck for about a 5 year period? Did he, or did he not see a massive budget cut, year one, and then a slow return to even near 2019 spending levels over the next 4 years? Bloom is deserving of a lot of criticism, but this context is important to the overall picture. Is it not? It's not excuse making to point out the difficult circumstances he faced. He failed at what he was hired to do, except for MAYBE building up the farm. He failed on changing the system to better produce top pitchers. He failed to land any meaningful SP'ers, even at bargain rates. (Wacha and Hill were his best two, and they cost less than Richards and Kluber.) He failed to make bold moves, at the deadline, except for the Schwarber trade, and maybe the Pivetta deal back in 2020. He failed to quickly address obvious holes that developed on the 26 man roster, beyond just the rotation- like SS in 2023, 1B and RF in '22, the pen in '21 and '22, plus a few others. He seemingly failed on a large majority of his largest signings. (Story & Yoshida are still pending to various degrees.) He forced Cora to play players out of position, way too often. The context may have limited his abilities in some of these areas, but he failed to get them done.

It's a nicer roster than half the league. Our farm is ranked top 3-8, everywhere. It may not work out well, but I'd rather be 3rd than 23rd.

If the idea is that Duvall is in play, we can afford Lauer, instead. If we can't afford either, then so be it.

I don't think Lauer would break the bank...errr... budget.

I'm no expert on bargain basement SP'ers on the market, but Eric Lauer was pretty good from 2021-2022. 277 IP over those 2 years does not seem all that good, but it ranks 60th in MLB. 3.47 ERA ranked 30th out of all pitchers with 250+ IP (ahead of L Castillo & P Lopez) 84 ERA- ranked 31st (ahead of G Cole, Nate, Monty & Sonny Gray) 1.19 WHIP ranked 39th 4.16 xFIP ranked 58th (just ahead of Pivetta, Taillon & T Walker) 2.8 fWAR ranked 67th Add 2023 into the sample size, and the rankings drop a lot... 54th ERA at 3.92 and 54th in ERA- at 94 75th xFIP at 4.36

That post actually improves his cred.

By "controlled," do you mean call up Dalbec for 1 game, then send him back to AAA? (Play whack-a-mole with the 8th RP'er at the same time?)

Duran LF, Rafaela CF and O'Neill RF is better than Duran in CF, O'Neill in LF and Abreu RF.

Maybe, only if they lied or misled him about the plan. He's still got a good job, a nice roster and some young stars on the way.

It's probably a better investment.

Yes, a minority but a vocal one. Certainly, Bloom made his share or more than his share of blunders, non moves and deadline paralyzations. That being said, with 20+ holes in the roster going into 2020 and a paltry budget, it's no wonder he started out behind the eight ball. The following winter budgets barely kept up with players sent packing. In many ways, you get what you pay for. My biggest beef was not focusing more on pitching, but until the Story signing, I'm not sure any long term deals were allowed, and it's hard to sign top pitching on one year deals. He could have done more. He could have done better, even within this context.

No surprise he wasn't brought back in 2016. There were some key additions to the 2016 team, but one major reason for the big jump in wins was the jump be many returning vets: 2015> 2016 Porcello: 172 IP 4.92 ERA> 223 IP 3.15 ERA Wright: 73 IP 4.09> 157 IP 3.33 ERA Mookie: 654 PA .820 OPS> 730 PA .897 OPS Bogey 654 and .776 > 719 and .802 Pedey 425 and .797 > 698 and .825 JBJ 255 and .832 > 636 and .835 Papi 614 and .913 > 626 and 1.021 HRam 430 and .717 > 620 and .866 (An amazing 6 returning vets with 620+ PAs and an OPS over .800!)

That's just a dream. I will be pissed, if the price drops down to near Gio AAV levels.

Just play Rafaela in CF to improve the D. There is no other position easy to upgrade on D without hurting the O, or costing too much. I'd rather we sign Lauer than Duvall or Soler.

Every penny spent should be for pitching.

That 2015 team was really quite the roster. Beyond Betts, Bogey, Papi and Pedey, these guys had 288+ PAs: Holt Pablito HRam Napoli Swihart Castillo The IP leaders: 194 Miley 172 Porcello 134 Kelly 122 ERod 113 Buch 73 Wright 63 Owens 59 Masterson 65 Ogando 65 Breslow 61 Ross 59 Tazawa 48 Layne 43 Barnes 40 Koji