biggentleben

Yikes. Took three attempts to log on. Color scheme is nuts on my eyes, as in quite literally hurting my eyes, even with my computer glasses on. Then a tutorial just to use the site to have conversation. I've been chatting with many on this forum for more than 20 years. Suppose all good things must come to an end.

He'll shove someone in the back along the way and the other guy will get suspended. Good for him.

I read about this yesterday. Incredible. I can't remember such a game at any level of baseball, and I've watched some very dominant pitchers. That's an amazing feat.

Patino was a top 20 prospect pre-2020. He was barely beyond rookie qualifications or he would be a top 20-30 prospect still. He'd be in the same ranking level as a Lewis/Kirilloff.

Sadly, the return for Story would be bad even for a well-run org just because he's an impending FA going into a CBA year, so teams will see him as just a two- or three-month rental.

Just wait until you see the value Trevor Story brings in July. Rockies fans are going to cry and wish for an Arenado return.

You're also talking about an organization in San Diego with a potentially historically deep farm system. You say that they traded away "low-valued" players. Multiple players traded away were top 100-150 prospects in various lists this offseason by Fangraphs, PIpeline, Baseball America, etc. The Twins right now are not a great comparison because their top 100 guys are all fairly close to the major leagues, but if the team chose to move Balazovic, Jeffers, and Lewis (pre-injury) to acquire pieces, I'm pretty sure the fanbase on here would not be so forgiving, yet a few of those guys ranked similarly across lists. I will be the first to tell you that I was a huge fan of both Akil Baddoo and Tyler Wells. When I covered the Twins for Pucketts Pond, both ranked very highly in my org top 100 list, but I left Pucketts Pond after the 2018 season, and I've missed a combined 29 appearances in-game between the two of them, all by Baddoo in 2019. I've watched any video I could of either since, but there hasn't been anything to show that either made the type of strides that would have you anointing one of them as the next coming. It's akin to the David Ortiz thing all over again. He went to Boston, where a hitting coach significantly changed his swing. He wasn't even signed to be their starting DH in Boston that season. No one thought Ortiz would become what he did. Player growth is never linear, and a team cannot protect everyone. For all you and I know, the FO had a deal lined up that was "crossing t's" away from being done that fell apart just ahead of the Rule 5 that would have filled up the 40-man. We won't know, and standing here and shouting about it after literally a week of play does no one good. Enjoy the success of both young men and cheer them on. It hurt for years to watch Jermaine Dye on another team, knowing he could have been next to Andruw Jones in the outfield for the Braves, but that's part of baseball. I ended up working with a guy who hated the same trade initially because he was a fan of Michael Tucker and hated seeing him go. He learned to enjoy watching Dye with the Royals instead.

Facility questions, the ability to scale up that quickly, and, frankly, the elephant in the room all came into play. Howard Bryant was the first of many who has pointed out that this was a purely business move for MLB, but that to avoid making multiple stops, finding a spot where sponsors and advertisers would be pleased was paramount. Denver fit that bill.

Quite a few did.

The organizational cover-up regarding Mickey Callaway is sickening. This same thing happened last year. Rumors have swirled in circles for years about Cleveland trainers doing "something extra" for their pitchers, and three notable pitchers break down upon leaving the organization, which is not pure evidence, but it's also not pure coincidence, either. There's a culture within the organization of keeping the things that they do that are outside the bounds of the rules inside their org, and that can be a very dangerous environmental structure to have.

Perhaps there's something awry in the Cleveland culture. Francona's time has perhaps passed by.

Also, Simmons was one of my favorite players to cover as a Brave. Not just is he easily the best shortstop defender I've seen play the game (and that's not hyperbole), he has more fun playing the game and more passion for the game than 90% or better of players that play the game for a living. If he could be in Florida playing, he would be.

Braves trained in Florida all the years he was a Brave.

I wrote a piece about a baseball and pheasant hunting festival that was held yearly here in the 1940s and referenced the fact that Aaron used to own land in South Dakota for the purpose of pheasant hunting each year. He would hunt and then spend time at the Redfield development center that housed adults and youth with developmental disabilities, often having to be "kicked out" by staff so residents could go to bed after spending hours with the residents playing ball, reading to residents, and simply spending time with them. He was a genuinely great human being that happened to be a tremendous baseball player.

He requested this two different times, so it wouldn't surprise if the change was made from that point simply because Aaron made it known that he was willing to defer.