drewski6

Why? Because they audibled to building an elite pitching staff when they couldnt land the guys who would have fixed the offense. And here we are. But somebody is going to need to play 2b, and they may go get an experienced infielder. Even still, there will be injuries/days off and being able to move guys around is a plus.

To get in the lineup sometimes? Yes To get in the lineup daily? No You use your depth and keep guys from sitting too long, especially early in the season. If Yoshida is on the team, and he likely will be, he shouldnt and wont sit for entire months. And the times when you'll want to get him will present themselves you wont even have to try. Someone will need a day off or whatever. If, say, Mayer has a kid and is gone for a weekend....

He and we would be better for it. Anthony NEEDS to incorporate more loft, slug, and punishment into his game. At present, he makes good contact and controls the zone, but its mostly walks and singles, and we dont have the guys hitting behind him to take advantage of that approach. Hes a good enough contact hitter instinctively where he shouldnt need to do the things that people need to do to juice their contact metrics, like stay back, choke up, other way.

If you are moving Duran in a move to fix the offense, that infielder better be like a top 10 offensive player in baseball, because he needs to not only fix the offense, but fix the offense AND overcome the loss of Duran, who is one of our best , if not our best, offensive player. I dont see it. Most trades involving Duran make us worse offensively. Most Duran for infielder trades I see are more defensive fixes than offensive fixes.

I embrace versatility, so if I saw that Duran was working on 2b defensively, I wouldnt be against it. But if we open the season without any additional acquisitions, I lean towards Cedanne at 2b to start because there would be less learning curve. Hes already got quite a head start towards getting good there defensively, and I wouldnt expect the position change to be permanent. I also dont believe the advanced defensive stats saying Cedanne isnt a good infield defender. Hed be a good defender anywhere on the diamond except maybe catcher. Its not like hes so good in the outfield because hes so fast. Its his instinct, jump, determination, focus, arm. Some of that I expect to cross over. I think eventually injuries / slumps will clear up any logjam and when I talk about Duran and/or Cedanne at 2b, I mean until there is an injury or acquisition, or even a breakout (maybe Campbell forces himself to be called up).

Y'all are being a little harsh. At least Pumpsie put out his reason why he didnt consider Gray to be the "#2 pitcher" (btw numbering pitchers is for noobs) But so many other people were like gray is not enough! we need a better pitcher after crochet than what we got! THen we got a guy with less projected war than sonny (by a considerable amount) and its high fives got our #2 woop-woop ANd Im gonna laugh when Gray starts game #2 Who is the #2 , who is the #4 these arent real questions. Whenther someone starts tuesday vs wednesday or makes 33 starts vs 32 is just a fan thing. The reason we got both ,is because if one gets hurt we'll still have the other. If end of year, we go into playoffs with Crochet, Gray, Ranger - its kind of a misallocation of resources (unless we trade Bello) Cuz we'll roll with 3.5 starters should we make the playoffs, and Tolle or Early will be one of them.

she looked good too but i was pretty far back.

I saw Lita Ford live like a month ago. She brought out Dee Snider for the Ozzie parts. That was okay, but Dee did his thing after and Im not sure it was planned but she obv let him go a bit. It was also a loooooong concert. He did his 2 and then covered an AC/DC song He looked and sounded exactly the same. Hes still ripped at like 70

And Drohan and Song left and came back.

He might be better if he started every inning with a runner on base. He seems to settle down and execute his sinker whenever he gets into trouble. But play with fire like that enough and youll get burned and he did end of last year/playoffs. I dont know why a sinkerballer doesnt pound low and away like prime D.Lowe He tries to come upstairs from time to time with a cement mixer slow cutter or a straight as an arrow 4 seem and he gets in trouble. Just stay downstairs and mix up your sinker, sweeper, slider, and change.

Do you think Early is as good as he showed? Im still a Tolle over Early guy personally, but Im open to the possibility that they will both be awesome. Tolle just has some things you cant teach (like size)

What about shattered dreams? (thats when wwe wrestler goldust blatantly kicks you in the nuts and gets an intentional dq) On a serious note - i agree with mvp. I think water finds its level. IF getting called up a little early ruins you, you were alwasy soft and was never going to be much "the manager ruined him" is fan speak for "I will not accept that my mancrush is a bust"

I was on color commentator for my friend Brians backyard trampoline wrestling league.

Yes, agreed. My brain extrapolates The Oz to The Ozzman Was Ozzie SMith ever referred to as "the oz" do you think they ever met? If I was on color commentary for an MLB game in the late 80s, I would def be making the jokes "Oz on third, we'll see if mama hes coming home" Rips a fastball in a non-fastball count: "What a rip! How did he know he was gonna get a fastball there. Must have been a shot in the dark" Barreling around second heading for three: "Ozzie is coming off the wheels on a crazy train"

Ill allow it, but when I hear "The Oz" my brain jumps to "The Ozzman" and thereby ozzy osbourne. Ive heard Ozzie Osbourne referred to as "the Ozzman", I think one of the times was when he saves the world in the silly but fun movie "Little Nicky" They were both great, but I prefer the rocker personally. I like Mister Crowley, No more Tears, Flyin High Again, Crazy Train, the one with Lita Ford, Shot in the dark.... The rocker is just a bigger part of my life. Also - Ozzie Smith never played for hte red sox

(its boomer talk)

They like to have versatile organizational depth, not an earmarked player penciled in to each position for the next 7 years.

When we moved on from TON, me and my buddy agreed that we'd miss the weight room leaders, but were glad to still have Duran. I was adamant against trading Duran at the deadline last year, a big part was this reason (of the three weight room leaders you mentioned, hes the only one still here) I was more open to moving him after he dropped that ball , but it was kind of short lived and Im back to being glad he is still here. I would assume offseason programs are developed for each player, with resources available for the player, but I doubt they are dropping in to monitor. Thats sounds a little too big brother. I think some guys report early for this reason (work closely with strength and conditioning professionals and the advanced machines I hope the team has). I think if the team really wanted to ensure program compliance, they would more pressure the player to report early rather than visiting the player at wherever they may be (cough , marcelo mayer, cough)

Fair enough

Sure - I dont actually think DHam will DH but my point is that there may come a time and probably will where we will be looking for offense, and Masa may be the provider of it at that point. We got like 7 hits last postseason, and I think he had like 2 of em.

If you pulled the projections off a reputable site, Im sure they didnt include Houck. The pitching is excellent by any reasonable metric, and it was even before Ranger, Maybe best rotation in baseball. Or top 4 at least, I would think. Not that I hate the Ranger move, I like the guy. Didnt see it coming, but I like the person. His name isnt even pronounced Ranger, but hes so easy going, he'll let you Americanize it (its Ranh-yer) He'll even embrace you calling him The Red Power Ranger (a nickname he likes)

Also, are you sure its an "Atom" ball? I always thought they were "Atem" balls ,as in you hit it hard but unfortunately right at 'em (or at them) Kind of like "Up and atem" (which for the longest time I thought was up and adam and i was like biblical adam?)

Hes not The Oz , hes The Wizard The Oz is Ozzie Osbourne

Yoshida was our cleanup hitter in last years playoffs, and while I think we were bit by the injury bug in an above-average way, I dont think it was crazy. People love to talk about how we used 9 pitchers last year, and therefore we need 9 starters (we have 12), but people dont consider as much the injuries to the other side. Yoshida turned from near after-thought mid-season to clean up hitter in the playoffs It can happen again. Two of Story, Duran, Abreu, Contreras get hurt, and we're prob looking for offense wherever we can find it. Im not interested in moving Yoshida just to svae a couple mil or to make it cleaner regarding who will play where (e.g. opening up DH spot for Duran). Im more interested in parking him on the bench (but he has to learn first base), giving him some at-bats when hes not in the everyday lineup to keep him fresh, and Im sure injuries will eventually give him a role. Get rid of him , and you can wind up with David Hamilton as your DH. Im not implying that I think hes a must keep or going to have a massive bounceback. Im more so thinking that we dont have a ton of hitting as is, and if we lose a couple bats to injury, I can very much see Yoshida becoming a significant part of our offense.

This last deadlne, someone (maybe Merloni) said that most baseball people tend to focus on what they received vs what they gave. Im like this personally. A good example for me was the Robert Williams (and more) trade for Jrue. A lot of my friends were like "nooooo. not my rwill. I wubbbb him". BUt I was so jazzed for Jrue. I think generally, they dont start with circling guys they can deal but rather start by identifying guys they want. But there are exceptions. A frequent exception would prob be a deadline seller making calls to get value for thier upcoming free agents. That would be a frequent and notable exception. But a team like us in the offseason. I doubt they were ever really looking to deal an OF. I think they would have and still would if a team aggressively went after one and they liked the deal. But I dont think that having 4 OFers we need to trade one was a priority.