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Major League Ready

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Everything posted by Major League Ready

  1. Major League Ready
    You were speaking of what they will have available in 2024. Lots of pitchers get injured. Are we going to assume all of them will never be the same? Paddack will be back this year so by 2024 the assumption should be he will manage a normal work load. Could he get hurt again? Sure. Sometimes the expectations here get a little out of hand. How many teams go into a season with 5 proven starters and additional depth? Canterino / Balazovic / Festa and perhaps even Dobnak could also be contributing in 2024. The sky is not falling just yet!
  2. Major League Ready
    You forgot about Paddack. Lopez / Ryan / Ober and Paddack have all proven they belong at this level. Proving they are 1s,2s, or 3s is a different story but they are all solid MLB pitchers. Having 4 cost-controlled SPs as well as a BP full of const controlled RPs puts them in a very good position to go out and sign a very good free agent SP. That would leave them with Winder / SWR and Varland and perhaps Balazovic or Canterino as depth. They are not going to be back in the position of signing someone like Happ, Archer or Bundy.
  3. Major League Ready
    In terms of importance, I would start with Ryan pitching well against good opponents. He obviously has to get over that hurdle to be of value in the post season. Next for me would be Alcala finding a way to be more effective against LH hitting. That would make him very valuable. Then, I would have to go with Miranda at 3B. If Kirilloff is healthy he is the 1B and that might be more important than the 5 players listed here. Miranda actually looked better to me at 3B than he did at 1B. It would be great to see a more fit Miranda play at least average defense at 3B. We don't want Polanco to replace the OBP of Arraez. we need Polanco to play a good 2B and produce an OPS of 826 like he did in 2021 or 846 like he did in 2019. That would be more valuable than reproducing Arraez OBP with an OPS 60+ points lower that Polanco. I would love to see Gordon take it up another notch. That would make him a valuable asset. Having him and Martin in super utility roles would be ideal. They could cover every position except catcher and 1B. It would also likely mean that Larnach and or Wallner have delivered.
  4. Major League Ready
    I don't remember another year with so many young players we knew could make an impact but were yet to prove it. Kirilloff and Miranda are guys we can have some confidence in but I still feel like there is a wide gap between ceiling and floor. Will Lewis be healthy and look like he did in his debut. Larnach and Wallner have much to prove. Will Julien or martin get a shot and will they look like the players we saw in the AFL. On the pitching side, How will Alcala and Maeda return from injury and we really need Varland and SWR to get established this year with Gray / Maeda and Mahle reaching free agency. Can Moran muster enough command to be the dominant guy we know he can be. I saw a clip of Jax throwing 100 in a workout. Can they get more out of him. Of course, can Buxton stay healthy. Do we get 1st half Lopez or the guy that was mediocre with us. That's a lot of uncertainty but the good news is there is upside in that uncertainty. It would be particularly gratifying if a good portion of this came together this year.
  5. Major League Ready
    I am not all that excited about Gallo but he has consistently produced around 3 WAR with the exception of last year. He had a wRC+ of 122 while batting 199 in 2021 and produced 4 WAR. The 199 average is not ideal but I will take it over a guy who hits 260 and produces 2 WAR?
  6. Major League Ready
    True but people keep saying this without actually looking at how the Rays acquired their high performing players. Take a look at the 2019 and 2021 Rays players that produced over 1.5 WAR. 50% of the 2019 WAR and 46% of the WAR in 2021 was produced by players acquired by trading established players for prospects. Prospects defined as players that had never previously produced 1.5 WAR in a season. Only 25% was produced by drafted players in 2019 and only 21% in 2021. They actually got 29% from free agents in 2019. The difference in the Rays is that they do a great job trading established players in a similar fashion to what the twins did with Berrios and Arraez. It's easier to identify good prospects when they have 2 or 3 years of professional baseball under their belt. We shall see if those trades provide similar value for the twins. Cleveland is a similar story.
  7. Major League Ready
    I agree they have not been good but I also feel they are in pretty decent shape today. They don't have a legit ace but they are very deep in quality pitching. The inherited a lack of pitching and a team in the bottom half of revenue has to get extremely lucky to fix that in free agency. I don't blame them for what they inherited. I don't blame them for Maeda's injury. It was a good trade. I also don't think you a being fair on Odorizzi. They got 6.8 bWAR in 2018-19. They gave him a qualifying offer for the Covid year (2020) and he pitched 13 innings which of course amassed no WAR. They paid about 1/3 of that qualifying offer so they got 6.8 WAR for roughly $22M not $33.5M. A little over $3M per WAR is a bargain. Plus, they must have gotten a comp round pick, right?
  8. Major League Ready
    They have shown they can't acquire pitching? Ryan / Duran / Alcala / Maeda / Gray / Mahle / Odorizzi and Lopez. IDK if they can draft pitching but they can definitely acquire it. Why would you attempt to define their value in the contracts they received? We have the actual results which clearly show they were not good enough. Sano and Rosario regressed badly. Garver has a career WAR of 6.6 and 3.9 came in 2019. Gibson was never better than a 4 when he was here and IDK why you would even mention Baddoo. May has had 1 season where he reached 1 WAR and that was 2015. How is this a core that we should have built a contender around?
  9. Major League Ready
    Where we differ is that I don't believe the group they inherited was good enough to be "augmented" into a serious contender. That group had one year where they performed and the FO did a great job of augmenting that team. They were a good team but not a serious contender. They never had nearly enough pitching. The only way that group could have been augmented into serious contention would have been to gut the farm system.
  10. Major League Ready
    I would describe the results to this point as pretty good but not great. Compare what was supported here. People are still complaining about Rosario and he has literally been one of the worst OFers in MLB. People went nuts over Berrios and as of this moment that looks like a very good trade. We can argue if they should have ever signed Donaldson but they did a great job moving on when many here were critical and said they could afford to keep him. Ryan and Duran for rentals were great trades. They got burned on pitchers who were hurt right after coming here but that's not exactly an unusual occurrence in MLB. They blew a couple first rounders. Sabato and Cavaco were horrible picks. They have done a good job of constructing a staff that bridges the gap to their prospect pipeline. We still don't know how that's going to turn out. That competitive window will be heavily impacted by their success or lack thereof. The position players look like they will provide their part to a competitive window to me. Correa / Buxton / Miranda / Kirilloff / Lewis / Lee / Julien / Rodriquez / Larnach and Wallner should provide a good core.
  11. Major League Ready
    I am not so sure they will add anyone. They added Lopez and will have Alcala back. They may also move Ober to the BP.
  12. Major League Ready
    The pitching changes from the beginning of last year stand out to me. They added Tyler Mahle, Pablo Lopez, Jorge Lopez, Chris Paddack and Jovanni Moran. Maeda and Alcala will be back from injury. Plus, Varland and SWR appear to be ready. That's a lot of good pitching added from one year to the next.
  13. Major League Ready
    This bankruptcy will hopefully provide the league / teams with an opportunity to develop better options. TV coverage has hurt the league enough that you would have to believe they will take this opportunity to position the long-term interests of the league and fans.
  14. Major League Ready
    The article linked below has more details. This will be a mess short-term but this bankruptcy may also facilitate a much better long-term solution. You have to believe the league will seek more control and this may provide an opportunity to do so. TV revenue might be less in the long run but the teams will adapt quickly and cut player salaries commensurate with the decrease in revenue. However, fans might actually be better served. Sinclair Bankruptcy Article
  15. Major League Ready
    Great to hear that Miranda is willing to put some work into physical conditioning. Sano's lack of discipline and effort was disappointing. I find it hard to accept that a professional athlete with 10s or even 100s of millions of dollars on the line is not willing to work at physical fitness.
  16. Major League Ready
    If you are going to dream, you may as well dream big. They do have quite a few guys with upside and we all dream of that playing out this year and years to come.
  17. Major League Ready
    Varland and SWR in particular need to get a look given Gray / Mahle and Maeda are free agents. The dream is one or both of them are pitching so great that they force their way onto the team even if it means one of the pending free agents gets moved at the deadline. There is room for Lewis / Wallner and Larnach. Let's hope for a similar situation with them. Let's hope Larnach and Wallner are good enough that they obvious play becomes trading Gallo at the deadline. Dare to dream, right. The IF spot opened via the Arraez departure leaves room for one of Julien / Martin or Lewis. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. They can always trade Farmer if they are so fortunate as to have guys beating down the door. I would be really happy if our problem was too many prospects making a great case to be at the ML level.
  18. Major League Ready
    It's going to be pretty tough for any of these guys that have not debuted to get playing time this year. There are just too many guys ahead of them in the process.
  19. Major League Ready
    If we define prospects as players with less than 1/2 year service time, I don't see any of these as the most likely candidates with the exception of Martin. Among position players, I would expect Larnach / Wallner / Martin and Julien. Among pitchers I would expect Moran / Winder / Sands / Henriguez / Varland and SWR in roughly that order.
  20. Major League Ready
    I cheated too. Wallner's statcast numbers certainly are not in alignment with scouting reports or the eye test. How do we explain this difference. Prospects Live Could the statcast data be an error? I would like to believe he is just faster than he looks because there would be some defensive upside with that arm if this data is accurate.
  21. Major League Ready
    The Yankees have six 50 FV pitching prospects and two 45 FV pitching prospects. That is their point of depth. I would much rather get back someone that has the potential to be a long-term solution instead of hoping Montas will be healthy enough to contribute for two-thirds of a season where we already have a ton of question marks. Yankees Prospects
  22. Major League Ready
    Woodruff was an 11th round pick. The only an established top of the rotation SP acquired via trade by a team in the bottom half of revenue. I can come up with is Greinke to the Brewers. Of course, the Royals got two prospects that ended up being crucial pieces to the WS run plus Jake Odorizzi. I can come up with quite a few that were traded for prospects. The reason is the extraordinary future capital required to acquire that type of pitcher.
  23. Major League Ready
    His production can easily be replaced between Larnach / Gallo / Wallner and Gordon or at least very close to replaced. By replaced I mean considering both offensive and defensive value and I would not be surprised if a couple of those options were considerably better offensively this year. If they can get significant future value and spend the amount saved by trading Kepler on a BP piece, it's a no brainer for me.
  24. Major League Ready
    Just to emphasize your point Mike, The runner-up AL batting Champ had an OPS that was 250 point higher than Arraez and his wRC+ was 76 points higher and he is a plus defender. His WAR was over 3X that of Arraez. I would also add that adding Lopez is a gain over Ober and Ober will be a gain over whoever he replaces in the BP if they utilize him in that capacity.
  25. Major League Ready
    or they could keep the top tier prospects it would require and use the payroll savings those players provide to acquire a top of the rotation arm in free agency. The net of that strategy would be to have all of the players that would have been traded away and a top of the rotation arm. This strategy obviously has much more upside and the benefits last for 5-6 years. Not to mention that betting on one guy as often as pitchers get hurt there is real potential to give away a ton and get very little in return. A contending team would never trade away an "ace" for a collection of average players that are established so trading Polanco, Kepler, and Gallo for an ace is never going to happen. The only way an ace is delt is if it's for multiple great prospects that have a huge impact on the future of a franchise.
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