Hugh2

Can't believe I forgot about Story. I made the edit and split him and Duran to keep in more L/R/L/R

HOW DARE YOU!!!!! lol

I've been giving some thought to this recently. Weighing past performance, projected future performance, and anticipating guys come back from their injuries on schedule, what the best lineup on this club would be if the playoffs started today. Because as of today we are a playoff team. RF - Alex Verdugo 1B - Justin Turner 3B - Rafael Devers LF - Adam Duvall DH - Masataka Yoshida SS - Trevor Story CF - Jarren Duran C - Connor Wong 2nd - Kike Hernandez I'm hoping Casas is the first baseman. I still have a very high level of confidence in the kid. He's putting together great plate appearances and I said the same thing about Masa weeks ago. Anyone who has the mental acuity to see balls and strikes better than most other people in the MLB will eventually hit. He's young, he'll be fine. BUT if the playoffs started today and everyone was healthy, you just can't be starting him right now. Turner can play 1B and Duvall is a better fielder than Masa. Depending on how things shake up during the next couple months, I could see a trade for some help at SS/2B

Kind of makes me feel a little hypocritical haha.

yup. Like me, I will always complain about people complaining.

It's not that some people don't believe in "clutch" it' just that some think there's a "reverse clutch" at play. Lets say for example said hitter has a lifetime OPS of .800 and he becomes an .800 OPS guy in the playoffs. Ok status quo, lets say for arguments sake that 25% of the population do not have the mental acuity to control their emotions and often let their anxieties get to them. I think this is reasonable, we've all seen a guy lose the strike zone, or a slumping hitter look lost at the plate. Baseball IS a mental game. What happens to said players' .800 OPS when 25% of the people he's facing in these clutch situations fold? his .800 OPS goes up to .950. Did it go up because he got better? or because the other guy folded? It seems much more plausible to me that "reverse clutch" is a thing, and clutch players are good players who have a high-level ability to control their emotions in those situations. I think that is a REAL skill and perhaps this is just semantics and we can attribute that to a "clutch" factor. But I don' think anyone is getting better. No one is increasing their cognitive ability to pick up a spin rate faster or magically becoming stronger driving the ball further. Maybe in a sense "reverse clutch" and "clutch" are the same thing. If you can continue to be the person you are under circumstances where many other people would fold that's a real skill. It's a debate I've always been fascinated with, but I'm a firm believer that there is a major "reverse clutch" component of clutch hitting.

Is it? Yoshida criticized by many here Duval criticized by many here Turner criticized by many here Mondesi, Chung, Kluber, Jansen, Martin, Joely, and Mills. To varying extents, all of these moves were harshly criticized by many in here. Why on gods green earth would we think Strahm would be any different.

I know. That was sarcasm. In my opinion, I don't think that is accurate at all. I think in hindsight it's easy to say that. Strahm last started in 2019 and had an ERA north of 5.00 This team needed serious pitching help and people were looking for "upside" People criticized almost every move made this offseason because it seemingly wasn't "big enough" or at least a lot of people did. I think it's very reasonable to point out that many would have criticized that move. Signing a career relief pitcher who looked horrible as a starter would not have flown over well on this board.

But Strahm will become good starting pitcher and should be resigned. Is what no one on this board said during the off-season.

Ummmm Wong is really good at baseball.

Chang, not Wang. my bad

THere's zero chance of that happening, and it would be a very poor decision if they did.

SOrry my mind was in 2021, Iglesias had a minor league deal with the Marlins that he opted out of. Still pretty funny that he was released for a guy named Junk however.

This kind of sounds like a different way of saying "dumpster diving" which oddly enough is harshly critiqued around here when the shoe is on the other foot.

That's right. released by the ANGELS for JUNK!!!

Why hasn't anyone else signed Iggy yet.... I don't get it.

Those last three are zero chance of happening. The cavalry ain't coming, and if it does it's going to be some version of Story/Mondesi/Wang.

barely gets you a bench bat now a days.

Here's the thing.....you don't think this is how things play out between team and player? "well you are worth this" "well we think my client is worth more than that, he's entering his prime" yada yada yada. If you don't budge, if you don't have incriminating photos of said player, or he isn't the small margin of players willing to take pay cuts to stay in their hometown (where is Verdugo from?) then you're going to have to loosen up that wallet a little bit. Like I said, it all depends on what you think the player will be moving forward. I think Verdugo is just entering his prime and his next 3-5 years will absolutely be his most productive.

And if you take out Nimmo year last year he was a 2.5 WAR guy, he had a career year in a walk year. What kind of payday does Verdugo get if he does that? how much more is it if he does it two years in a row? I'm not saying he's a 6 wAR guy, but in his prime do I think he can have a few seasons where he puts up 4-5? absolutely. Maybe you think that's dumb because you think how he is playing is a flash in the pan right now. I think Verdugo will come back down to earth but I also think he could be something in between, healthy, and in the middle of his prime. I suppose it all comes down to whether or not you believe in the player, because at the end of the day if Verdugo has two good years here, no one is going to give a s*** what his WAR was when he was 23.

Even if he's just a good reliever he's still worth the money.

You don't need vitamins when you have a perfect diet. I'am a little effing grouchy though, I drove all the way up to Boston last night to watch the Celtics blow game one.

Interesting you use Nimmo, because most of his WAR is attributed to only two good seasons. He put up a 4.6 WAR his age 25 seasons and followed that up with a .09 and a 1.8. Verdguo has already bettered his age 26 and 27 season the last two years and he still has all of this year to play. If he has a few good years like Nimmo did his last two and goes to free agency with a better track record than Nimmo had of staying healthy AND factoring in two years of inflation he would get more than Nimmo. It all comes down to what Verdugo wants. If he wants to stay here he will take a deal, if he wants to go to free agency he will get overpaid, and if he performs like he is now or something in between he's easily making 100+

Maybe 5/90 is too high, but I'd be willing to wager that Verdugo will get more money than the figures you all are throwing around here. This happens every time.

Verdugo also has a much better track record of staying healthy. If Nimmo had, he'd have got paid a lot more.