drewski6

His OPS+ last year was 104. I thought 100 was average. Plus hes a year older next year. I like Story, but I dont think hes a #2 hitter. If we get 2 bats, lets say suarez and alonso (playing in your sandbox), looking at: RA (he cant hit lower because he doesnt get enough loft with his current profile, and I know its blasphemy to say that but its how I feel) Alonso (we arent batting our best hitter fourth in 2026, its not 1996) Suarez Abreu See I think we can REALLLY use one more very good bat in the top half. ANd I dont believe that "just good enough" is a thing with offense. I think top 3 in MLB or bust. But this looks much better to me, and I agree we're getting close. Now give me this + keep Breggie, and pray to the injury Gods, and Im starting to really like it. And I would be cool w flipping Duran for Ryan in this case because I dont love the thought of RA hitting anything other than leadoff.

People think that owners are looking for someone to tell them what they want to hear. And maybe, and if thats the case with us, we're f'd. But its usually not how it goes, and this team has been too successful pre-bloom for me to think thats how they operate. They are looking for someone to sell them on a vision, not get someone to buy into a vision of max budget efficiency.

Oh I believe that some GMs are out there having fun trying to patch with finite resources. Its no fun if you can just sign away your troubles, and these GMs have egos. They wanna prove they can do it with less. Its fun for them to see it like a puzzle That being said, I agree neither of us can prove. But keep in mind Im not necessarily talking about turning down more money, im talking about being too easy of a sell, e.g. not asking for more money, not being a pain in the butt for more money. DD would be in there and be like do you want to win or dont you? And thats what brought us championships. Gotta sell the chief decision makers, man.

Plenty of teams have a Jh Garcia and Campbell types. Other than that, you absolutely need to stop looking at players through the lens of their position. Duran is a leadoff hitter. Right now, you have 2 top of the order hitters in Duran and RA. ANd thats all you have thats a significant plus offensively. Abreu, sure but not as a top hitter in the lineup. As a #5/6 hitter, hes a plus. Story and Abreu are not #2/3 hitters. IF they are than Fed is right and we need to focus on 2032

No duran you traded him for ryan in this hypothetical. And this team is not fine. Anthony smashes the ball into the ground Story is a league average hitter Abreu is not a 3 hole hitter WHy the heck is alonso hitting 4th? What are you 100? You traded Duran Noodlebat Casas freaking stinks Mayer hasnt proved he can hit at MLB, he hasnt proved he can hit at AAA Catcher

My nickname for him was "low-impact", but I regret it now cuz I like him more these days.

Lavarnway's fine!

You can go to your bosses and demand more resources. ANd if you cant sell em on it, its on you. But BLoom was all too content to have funsies trying to rebuild slooooooow. Im a VP and if something goes terribly wrong, being understaffed wont save me. Cuz my CEO will say you should have been loud that you werent getting enough resources to succeed. And theyd be right.

Based on what? Bloom was honest. Unlike Breslow. Bloom told us that we were moving in the right direction every year. I think he was very happy doing everything he did and thought everything was working out great. After he got sacked he promised us that he put a future in place that would eventually win championships. He would give himself A++. Not because of doing what he could with finite resources but because thats just who he was. He was just too patient. To a fault. He wanted to play the looooooooong game, but you gotta operate with more urgency than that and that was his flaw. For example, Bloom told us at a deadline that he did nothing because the team only had a 25% chance of making the playoffs so why would he trade prospects. That how he operated. You just wait until 2027, hed say in 2024 , already 4 years into a rebuild. He thought he had a longer leash than he did. He thought he had more time than he did.

You would expect Cora to be able to diffuse, and maybe he did. But maybe Breslow's ego was dented and theres no coming back from that. We did see him fire someone for calling him a stiff. And he does seem quite pretentious to me.

I agree. Bonds was also a bad teammate, as was Ted Williams, as was Michael Jordan. Draymond Green punches his teammates. So does ex carolina wr Steve smith. Manny was a bad teammate. If you think Devers should do everything in his power to make the team better, that should also apply to Breslow. And the team with Devers at DH was better than no Devers. We might even still be playing right now. Of course , it would have quieted down. It had mostly quieted down. Winning cures.

"but with the hopes that Anthony an be a near .900 batter, we might be able to get by with just one real big addition (Alonso/Schwarber)" So who hits third? and fourth? and fifth? and sixth? You need more than 2 bats.

It is my opinion that MLB is in a bad spot right now. Most of the free agents are going to 1 of 5 teams, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening. And I blame the have-nots. They are just arent trying hard enough. The dodgers are juggernauts because the league let them. But at least they are trying. I dont blame them, I blame the other teams more excited about dumping contracts than anything else. And its the players too. When was the last time someone threw a damn punch. Everyone is just complacent. Theres no passion.

20 out of 30

Agreed. Certainly not trying to eat a large portion of the contract just to get like 8m in relief. At that point, you know hes going to clear waivers, so might as well just use him as a yo-yo.

If you are trading Duran for pitching, Yoshida is more likely to bat clean up than he is to be optioned or traded

In an ideal world, you start Campbell and Mayer in AAA for one reason. Because you can. But payrolls and balance are a thing, so finite resources may push one into a role. But your best depth is found by sending down your people unless they have proven they are already very good major leaguers.

campbell at aaa is excellent depth. Im not looking to find him a spot on the MLB or to clear the money. I think you use your options and they are valuable. So you are not one injury away from starting DHam.

I know its fashionable to take a shot at our owners, and theyve been cheap - but I dont fully trust the consensus that its ownership pulling the strings even if it feels obvious. Maybe mandate a trade of Betts and when Bloom first came in. But I think a lot of what youve seen in recent years is as much Bloom as it is ownership. And I think its Breslow learning on the job, which also includes gaining confidence and even gaining trust from owners (at the risk of contradicting myself). I think Bloom wanted to go through the farm cuz hes a tampa product and i think that breslow , well its hard for a first year guy to come in and make all these splashes. Breslow has told you himself that his offseasons and his deadlines, he wasnt able to pull off a lot of the stuff he tried. I dont think theres a hard stop at 45m.

I honestly dont hate it, but I do agree with Hitchs reservations. I dont think the trade value is 0 (Duran, with Masa drag). May have to eat a bit of Masa contract, but I think you can get to the point where hes dragging him down from say 50s BTV units to high 30s.

short selling Adrian Gonzalez, allowing Boston to clear out a lot of room in 2012. When you looked at 2013, can argue it worked out

This is kind of what Im talking about. I think in all sports, you can be out in front of an inefficient market. It usually dries up. For example, in hockey nobody use to ever want any players under 6'1, and talented players could be had for cheap. But the league corrected. Obvs you still get points for size in NHL, but its not like you can just go get very good players under 6' for a song anymore. In baseball, I think the market is factoring in previous manager decisions, too much. It should count for something, because the fact that Alonso's previous manager played him at 1b gives him a lot of 1b experience. Thats obvs worth more than 0, but its not worth a ton. Alonso is a cusp defensive player, meaning on the cusp of being so bad, he can only DH. Ditto with Schwarber, ditto with Rooker, ditto with Alvarez, ditto with Devers, ditto with Casas, ditto with Ortiz. But there really isnt a huge dropoff going from Alonso to Schwarber or even say David Ortiz at 1b (lets say a 32 yr david ortiz with a time machine). But guys like Ortiz, schwarber , I feel get undervalued on the market because their previous manager had them DH, and so they are seen as a DH and this decreases their market value (in my opinion too much) because they get labeled a DH but really they are not terribly worse defensively than say Alonso. And I hunt market inefficies. We saw it with JD Martinez, he was still capable of hitting .300 and 20+ HRs but nobody wanted him because he was labeled a DH. ANd any DH who hits 2-4 in your lineup is not "just a DH", they are a huge part of your offense. So, I understand we already have a few cusp defensive players, and want to use our DH for overflow. BUt the thinking is too old school for me. IN 20206, pitchers are winning , so you need dudes who can capitalize on mistakes. You really need dudes who can put it over the wall if they are looking fastball and get one. Even a low one. Im sure more of you are watching these playoffs. Pitchers arent even throwing low fastballs to certain hitters because HRs will change the game. We need some of that and we need some of it badly. IF the dudes who give you this are affordable when they are DH, we should prob go that route. Heck Id get multiple and live with one in the field. Like trade for Brent Rooker and sign Schwarber and figure it out.

I dont hate the logic and think there is a universe in which, I agree. I would certainly care more about ideal defensive alignment if we werent starting from such a hole from a power perspective. If we already had one true middle of the order masher. But considering we are talking about our #2/3 , unquestioned best hitter on the team, and we dont really have a great offense around the guy we are getting (alonso vs schwarber) , I think that if you can save some dough with shcwarber thats my pref because hes giving you 20-25% more with the bat which is a lot. An A+ hitting DH is just way more valuable than a B+ hitting player who plays defense unless the latter is a plus defensive SS or CF. And I know Im in the minority on this, but I strongly believe it. Im not even really against getting schwarber and Hoskins.

I wont root for cheapskate billionaires. Go Dodgers.

My point is that I think the bidding for Alonso will get unfomfotable, and Im hoping that the fact that Schwarber is seen as a DH and not a 1b will cap his next contract significantly below what Alonso will make, and I think it could make sense to switch to Schwarber and either live with him at 1b or put him at DH cuz the difference between the contracts will allow you to go get somebody else too, and I dont put a ton of value in the fact that alonso plays 1b poorly and schwarber plays 1b very poorly. To me the difference in d isnt worth the 150m+ delta between the two contracts. I think Schwarber gets like 100m and alonso gets like 250m. Could be wrong but contracts generally go up not down.