drewski6

not to imply i have a say

I love Gonzales, but if the names going the other way dont include tolle, i cant see me saying no

he might say no, lol.

I mean throw 350m at elly the second you get him.

That doesnt help us today

Well, sh*t

So they likely want guys with team control on the cheap? And multiple of them. Have you given any thought to what youd offer?

Maybe thats why the trade didnt happen.

Someone said that to me when I said Roman and ARias for Elly.

Pick 4 players who arent Tolle for Elly and I say yes. Bennet, Durbin, Arias, and a prospect? All day.

What do you think the Reds are stupid?

If you dont have a star and you can get a star, you get a star. You dont say, well Im going to pass on Michael Jordan because I like my SG, even though he is not a star and I have none on my team. Move your incumbent to SF. Or PG. Whatever. Just keep your options open. Positions are irrelevant to me when trying to get a star bat. Because thats what we need. So get an elite hitter, then you fill it in around them. I like Durbin, but if he was our supersub to start the year, I am positive he would be starting by the end of it. Im not closing off the 3b market because of Durbin when most 3b are 6'3 and Durbin is 5'3. Also, I think he has ample trade value. I like him, and I dont think hes a guy that we absolutely need to replace, but he found his way to the 9 spot in the batting order for a reason. And hes earmarked to hit 9 next year for a reason. Your ninth best hitter has to earn it. Im just not marrying him. Now one advantage he has is that if Mead plays 2b, you are getting more xtra base hits from 2b than usual, so maybe you can just pretend Mead is at 3b and Durbin is at 2b even if they arent occupying those specific positions. For the same reason you want 7 capable starting pitchers, I want 10 good bats. Because it turns to 4 or 5 by the end of the year. I am not limiting my view to any position. I want guys who will hit extra base hits. If I had to pick what position I would want that next guy to be, I would pick army knife. Because then, you know you can move guys around and fit in that bat. positional versatility > ideal positional alignment. WE have a lot of positional versatility on this team. Durbin can play 2b or maybe he can play SS. ID put him at SS. And if he cant move around, then his glove is overrated. Because versatility is equally as important as playing one position well.

Burn

Since we fired DD, we have finished an average of 4th place (3.7 is much closer to 4 than 3), and have one playoff series win....In 7 full years. If we've had a major shift since DD, can we switch back?

I do think Duran provides more as a fourth OF than most guys. And I also dont think 9m is outrageous for a fourth OF. For goodness sake, if arb 2 guys are "too rich for our blood" then I hope they cancel teh season. But I am concerned about him being a moody judy not playing every day.

The argument against keeping Duran is that he can prob still start and may be a locker room issue if hes asked to come off the bench....And you are never going to get past the yankees if your opening day lineup includes duran, durbin, cedanne (who disappears in the playoffs with the bat), and 5'11 lets work in a rookie Arias. If your catcher is hitting second, thats a real issue.

I feel quite confident that Mead will play 2b or 3b next year opening day, and Roman will be a DH (or not ready)

I think a lot of what you see on sports forums, is you have these really advanced minds for those sports - who can see things that maybe casual fans cant see, so they tend to underrate the things that casual fans can see. For example , if you jump over to a hockey forum, you will prob see a bunch of hockey minds talking about the little things that make a difference. I love player x, sure the masses dont love him, because he doesnt score a lot of goals, but he always gets back on defense, always wins faceoffs.....And sure, thats a good observation - but you know what is HUGE in hockey - scoring goals. But you have this situation where the highly intelligent hockey minds poo-poo that because everyone knows that goals are great but they want to focus on and talk about the stuff that only they can see. I think some of that applies to baseball as well. So like when people tell me, offense is fun but all the real baseball folks know that pitching and defense are what win....First of all, its condescending. Second of all, it isnt true. And I think its the same trap that Im talking about in hockey forums. Guys like Durbin? Sure hes cheap, and sure he will stay 20 bags, and sure hes great defensively. And if you are a guy who just loves dirty jerseys and defense, you'll love this guy. And hes fine. BUt you just cant have too many guys like that if you want to beat the super teams. So now you have a situation where many baseball minds poo-poo offense first philosophy because "thats for casual fans and im not a casual." But Im seeing with my own eyes this break down. Starting pitching is not winning championships when its getting pulled in the fourth inning of 0-0 games.

SO when those of you were high fiving about getting something from Betts before he hit FA, you were wrong. When those of you who were high fiving that we didnt get Bregman and ALonso, you were wrong. Those of you who were high fiving that we "saved money" because Devers was "just a DH" - you were wrong (I understand that the chemistry/personality complicated that one). You just cant be overly focused on economical position players right now. Because starting pitching is 1/3 of 1/2 of the game, relief pitching is 1/3 of 1/2 of the game, positional player defense is 1/3 of 1/2 of the game. But scoring runs is half the game. The full other half. And the fact that we have gone economical here, and have prioritized defense and pitching.....Is why we are coming up short. We need a philosophical reset. BATS FIRST

While its true there is a shortage of FA bats this go-round, it is important that we examine why, and how this impacts other decisions - so we dont continue to fall into the trap of throwing up our arms and saying "what did you want the front office to do?" Ive seen that question posed multiple times by those who believe Breslow is exec of the year (not you, Randy). But honestly (and this isnt directed at you) - Im sick of seeing the excuse. Im not saying we can just wish better free agents, Im not even necessarily saying we can go for trade for bats...What Im focused on is how much the landscape has changed in just the last 5 years. Because Ive heard some try to convince me that WAR per dollar spent is king. And I think its a great metric, but I think we need to accept the new reality, and understand why this may not be as good of a north star as it was just a few short years ago. See, the premise of chasing highest WAR you can for as little spent as possible is to create a foundation of relatively cheap players, who are good value for their money, and this creates budget room to add around those guys, and you can even overpay a bit there since you have the core of affordable guys. But one recent change that really gets in the way of this is that its never been harder to turn budget room into actual difference makers, ESPECIALLY with the bat. Joe Brady and I have debated this. I have told him that if you try to build a base through value guys (acknowledging that up until recently, this was an excellent strategy) - you create the budget room to get elite guys, but often there are no elite guys to get especially on the offensive side of the ball. And Joe countered will then Id have 5 aces (he said licking his chops). But thats just pulling aces out of 0-0 games in the fourth inning when playoffs come around. And we literally just saw that movie play out. Im not sure how to fix it now. Its going to be a challenge. BUt its a challenge of their own making by not signing Bregman and Alonso. And now I dont know how you go get the bats, but I do know that trying to win playoff games 2-1, or 1-0 is a near impossible task. Because you need elite starters, you need them to stay healthy. You need elite relievers. You need elite defense. And its just not realistic to expect our run prevention side (Starters, relievers, good defense) to put up 0s game after game all the way through the playoffs. I do still think its a good strategy for getting to the playoffs, but the playoffs are not as much of a crapshoot as those who want to chase sustainability want it to be. Its not random that we are getting bounced out of the first round, 2 years running. This is another key recent change. The league has become quite top heavy. You are not going to beat all-star teams by trying to put value at every position. You are not going to beat Jordan and Pippen by having 5 above average guys. Having solid , value guys will help you get to the playoffs, but Im thinking unless we have a fundamental philosophical reset - we will just continue to come up short. Beat up on most teams, make playoffs, lose to the top teams. Like I always say, if you want to know what direction baseball, hockey and football are moving, watch the NBA. Its always a little bit ahead with modernization. ANd in the NBA , super teams came first. But now theyve come to baseball too. And your just not going to beat a super team with an offense thats made to be as efficient as possible to save as much budget as possible for pitching. Things change fast, and I think we are a bit stuck right now because we havent fully embraced these recent trends.

You were not alone, I was there with you Though far apart, you were in my heart.

If he has an option year left, so if hes healthy, hes good insurance to add some hitting to the lineup if contreras or DH need a little break. I agree , a bit hard to carry him on the 26man, unless he can catch well enough to spell Adley, but I kind of doubt it. Probably the bench will be a lefty specialist (like romy) , sogard, 4th OF, backup C.

Blake Swihart?

I did like Contreras slow trot around the base paths. I dont mind being an instigator, pest. Getting in their heads. But it doesnt seem like Contreras is a guy who picks/chooses spots well. He seems out of control. And hes super quick to run his mouth. Dont mind it when its directed at the other team (chirping). I think hes significantly more out of control than Duran, who is borderline.

We'll all cross our fingers and hope that he gives us something similar next year to what he gave us this year, but hes 35 and he has next years ketel marte written all over him. I would advise trading for his brother, maybe that would keep him invested in the team if we didnt have Adley. I dont think we can count on either "Roman" or "Contreras " to be "that guy" next year, but I think they should start at 1b and DH. And tbh , Im not sure which one should play 1b.