2022-2023 Offseason Thread

[lou]

I completely disagree. Cooper has never stayed healthy. Hosmer is coop insurance. Coop has a magnet in his hand when batting. He is constantly injured. You cannot go into the year without a competent backup plan at 1b. you keep putting longoria as this backup 1b type- he's literally never played a single pitch of 1b in his major league career over 15 seasons. Not sure why you're just penciling him in as a backup 1b. Especially considering he's still pretty decent as a 3b defensively. Hosmer gets a bad wrap because of the contract he signed in SD, but he's still absolutely a competent player. When the alternatives are the constantly injured coop and a guy whose back the team doesnt feel confident in holding up, the team can absolutely carry all 3.

Justin Turner is going to play 1B and he's played there 238 innings and last one was in 2016. Longoria would be an asset there playing 60+ games and others at 3B/DH. They don't have room for two 1B only guys. They just do not. Please provide a 13 man position roster and I'll elaborate on the problems.

Also, Hosmer also sucks. He has a 1.7 WAR his last 1100 PA over 3 years, and during that same time Cooper has 2.5 WAR in 850 PA. I'll take Cooper and calling up LeBlanc when he's hurt and that trumps Hosmer for sure.

[fish16]

Justin Turner is going to play 1B and he's played there 238 innings and last one was in 2016. Longoria would be an asset there playing 60+ games and others at 3B/DH. They don't have room for two 1B only guys. They just do not. Please provide a 13 man position roster and I'll elaborate on the problems.

Also, Hosmer also sucks. He has a 1.7 WAR his last 1100 PA over 3 years, and during that same time Cooper has 2.5 WAR in 850 PA. I'll take Cooper and calling up LeBlanc when he's hurt and that trumps Hosmer for sure.

Hosmer is steady, veteran, reliable competence. He has been an above-average hitter each of the last 3 years despite "sucking." Of course, he's not great, no one is saying he is, but he is a competent backup 1b that you can put in there to sustain an injury and get decent production from. He will come cheap, and he is a guy you can rely on to give you at least league-average production for a year in the case of an inevitable injury. Or he's a nice bat to have off the bench. last 3 years, his WRC+ is 128, 103, and 104. He also had super low BABIPs the last 3 years of .296, .313, .304 compared to Leblanc's .374 in his first taste of the big leagues last year. Hosmer has a higher bb% and literally 1/2 the k% of Leblanc. Players like leblanc were part of the reason our offense was so fucking terrible and frustrating last year. Sure, they have the occasional big hit, but the number of strikeouts and inability to put the ball in play in big situations kill teams that dont have star players to hit bombs consistently.

Leblanc is due for a huge regression when the league figures him out and starts pitching him in different ways.


Here's a 13 man roster:

C- Fortes/Stallings
1b- Cooper/Hosmer
2b- Jazz
SS- Wendle (rojas traded)
3b- Segura
LF- DLC/Sanchez or Bleday
CF- Reynolds
RF_ Garcia
DH- Soler
Super utility- Berti
That's a competent bench of Stallings, Berti, Hosmer, and then whoever isnt starting out of DLC, Sanchez, or Bleday

If a middle infielder gets hurt, they have like 4 options (Groshans, Berti, Leblanc, . If coop gets hurt like always, who is the backup 1b that is actually competent? Jerar Encarnacion who we have no idea about? Not having competent backup plans, especially in cases of injury prone players, is how entire seasons get lost due to injuries. See the Stanton, Yelich, Ozuna years of this franchise.

[lou]

If the plan is Segura at 3B, that means Rojas is staying. Jazz 2B, Segura 3B, Wendle/Rojas at SS.

If one of the 4 leaves, I would guess the odd man out is Rojas but there’s a way to make it work with all 4.

I don’t really like Segura at 3B, but it’s probably better than what we had last year (not saying much).

Jazz at SS would be nice, but his defense at the position has to be concerning.

And that ignores Berti.

Fortes, Stallings
Cooper
Jazz
Rojas, Wendle
Segura, Berti
DLC, Bleday
Sanchez
Garcia
Soler

That's the team right now. No backup 1B, no CF, and ultra unnecessary redundancy SS/3B.

At minimum, they gotta kick Bleday to AAA and get an OF and ditch one of Berti/Rojas/Wendle for a 1B/3B type to help Cooper and provide some IF backup time. Optimistically, it's ditching two of those guys and plopping a longterm SS on top, and bonus points if you also ditch Sanchez to AAA and get *two* OF. Basically, Reynolds, M. Taylor, Rosario, and Longoria would be an enormous upgrade if they can do it and not lose too much longterm pitching which I think is possible.

[lou]

Hosmer is steady, veteran, reliable competence. He has been an above-average hitter each of the last 3 years despite "sucking." Of course, he's not great, no one is saying he is, but he is a competent backup 1b that you can put in there to sustain an injury and get decent production from. He will come cheap, and he is a guy you can rely on to give you at least league-average production for a year in the case of an inevitable injury. Or he's a nice bat to have off the bench. last 3 years, his WRC+ is 128, 103, and 104. He also had super low BABIPs the last 3 years of .296, .313, .304 compared to Leblanc's .374 in his first taste of the big leagues last year. Hosmer has a higher bb% and literally 1/2 the k% of Leblanc. Players like leblanc were part of the reason our offense was so fucking terrible and frustrating last year. Sure, they have the occasional big hit, but the number of strikeouts and inability to put the ball in play in big situations kill teams that dont have star players to hit bombs consistently.

Leblanc is due for a huge regression when the league figures him out and starts pitching him in different ways.


Here's a 13 man roster:

C- Fortes/Stallings
1b- Cooper/Hosmer
2b- Jazz
SS- Wendle (rojas traded)
3b- Segura
LF- DLC/Sanchez or Bleday
CF- Reynolds
RF_ Garcia
DH- Soler
Super utility- Berti
That's a competent bench of Stallings, Berti, Hosmer, and then whoever isnt starting out of DLC, Sanchez, or Bleday

If a middle infielder gets hurt, they have like 6 options. If coop gets hurt like always, who is the backup 1b that is actually competent?

There are only 4 2B/SS/3B on the active roster and that is extremely problematic even if you can call up AAA options the next game, so yea this doesn't work.

Swap Longo (1.1 WAR projection) for Hosmer (.5 WAR projection) and the other 12 guys work enough.

[fish16]

There are only 4 2B/SS/3B on the active roster and that is extremely problematic even if you can call up AAA options the next game, so yea this doesn't work.

Swap Longo (1.1 WAR projection) for Hosmer (.5 WAR projection) and the other 12 guys work enough.

I guess we have differing views of extremely problematic. That's enough to survive an injury in a game and make it work if there are 2 injuries. Who cares? Leblanc cant be counted on to play any kind of role next year. He's going to come down to earth once the BABIP normalizes. If longoria is wiling to play 1b sure, but why would he come to a bad team AND play out of position?

If cooper gets hurt, you have longoria playing 1b and you're right back to 4 2b/ss/3b options so what exactly are you complaining about? Again, i'm all for longoria, but he's not coming here.

[Erick]

I’d like to keep Wendle.

Other than Jazz, he’s the only left-handed bat. That’s not irrelevant.

The redundant guy would be Rojas even though I wouldn’t mind keeping Rojas despite how much the fans hate him now. Also, not that he’s a fit at all as a backup 1B offensively…but if you trust Cooper to stay mostly healthy (which I guess they’re doing?), Rojas is actually the perfect late inning replacement at 1B defensively. He’s better than Cooper defensively at 1B or any of the other options being discussed.

[rmc523]

Hosmer is steady, veteran, reliable competence. He has been an above-average hitter each of the last 3 years despite "sucking." Of course, he's not great, no one is saying he is, but he is a competent backup 1b that you can put in there to sustain an injury and get decent production from. He will come cheap, and he is a guy you can rely on to give you at least league-average production for a year in the case of an inevitable injury. Or he's a nice bat to have off the bench. last 3 years, his WRC+ is 128, 103, and 104. He also had super low BABIPs the last 3 years of .296, .313, .304 compared to Leblanc's .374 in his first taste of the big leagues last year. Hosmer has a higher bb% and literally 1/2 the k% of Leblanc. Players like leblanc were part of the reason our offense was so fucking terrible and frustrating last year. Sure, they have the occasional big hit, but the number of strikeouts and inability to put the ball in play in big situations kill teams that dont have star players to hit bombs consistently.

Leblanc is due for a huge regression when the league figures him out and starts pitching him in different ways.


Here's a 13 man roster:

C- Fortes/Stallings
1b- Cooper/Hosmer
2b- Jazz
SS- Wendle (rojas traded)
3b- Segura
LF- DLC/Sanchez or Bleday
CF- Reynolds
RF_ Garcia
DH- Soler
Super utility- Berti
That's a competent bench of Stallings, Berti, Hosmer, and then whoever isnt starting out of DLC, Sanchez, or Bleday

If a middle infielder gets hurt, they have like 4 options (Groshans, Berti, Leblanc, . If coop gets hurt like always, who is the backup 1b that is actually competent? Jerar Encarnacion who we have no idea about? Not having competent backup plans, especially in cases of injury prone players, is how entire seasons get lost due to injuries. See the Stanton, Yelich, Ozuna years of this franchise.

Not to mention Hosmer will cost the league minimum.

[fish16]

More on no backup for Coop- worrying about a 5th 2b/ss/3b option on the roster at all times over a competent backup 1b plan is super short sighted in my opinion, and it's ok to have differing viewpoints. Since coop has been here starting in 2018, we've had a total of 708 regular season games (4 162 game seasons a 1 60 game season). He's played in 345 of them. He's literally been available for less than half of the total games this team has played. He has earned 0 benefit of the doubt to not go into the regular season with a good backup plan. If that's longoria and longoria is willing to not only sign here but play a position that he's never played before, so be it, but they need a competent backup option there.

[Erick]

More on no backup for Coop- worrying about a 5th 2b/ss/3b option on the roster at all times over a competent backup 1b plan is super short sighted in my opinion, and it's ok to have differing viewpoints. Since coop has been here starting in 2018, we've had a total of 708 regular season games (4 162 game seasons a 1 60 game season). He's played in 345 of them. He's literally been available for less than half of the total games this team has played. He has earned 0 benefit of the doubt to not go into the regular season with a good backup plan. If that's longoria and longoria is willing to not only sign here but play a position that he's never played before, so be it, but they need a competent backup option there.

What about a guy like Brandon Belt?

[Erick]

I’m not sure why Cooper is our primary option at 1B to begin with. I was hoping we would’ve traded him last year to the Dodgers when he was having an “All-Star” caliber season.

[fish16]

Not to mention Hosmer will cost the league minimum.

Exactly, it's a super minimal investment in having a competent backup to survive injuries. Plus a lefty option off the bench. They need to do 2 things before the offseason is over to have a realistic chance of competing- add an impact CF like Reynolds, and make sure we have competent backup plans at every position to survive injuries. How many different years have we watched this team go to shit in the July/August/September months due to injuries? While every team has injuries, the best teams in this league dont completely fall to shit because of them and have entire seasons ruined. Look at the padres last year- granted they acquired Soto mid season, but they were still competing without tatis in the first half of the year. They are on a different payroll stratosphere, but you can spend small amounts of money in the offseason for depth that pays enormous dividends come the time where a key player inevitably gets injured.

[lou]

I guess we have differing views of extremely problematic. That's enough to survive an injury in a game and make it work if there are 2 injuries. Who cares? Leblanc cant be counted on to play any kind of role next year. He's going to come down to earth once the BABIP normalizes. If longoria is wiling to play 1b sure, but why would he come to a bad team AND play out of position?

If cooper gets hurt, you have longoria playing 1b and you're right back to 4 2b/ss/3b options so what exactly are you complaining about? Again, i'm all for longoria, but he's not coming here.

Because he's 37 and 1B is not out of position. He'd split 3B/1B/DH. He's probably a 400-450 PA player tops at this point of his career. If Segura gets 550 PA at 3B, we're talking 425 PA for Cooper at 1B and 425 for Longo split at the two positions/DH. This is a good set up and reflective of solid rest for all these "old guys."

Plus trade for Reynolds/Bednar *today*, trade out Wendle/Rojas to Boston and use prospects for M. Taylor, and sign Cueto/Wacha, and that eliminates pretty quickly coming to play for a bad team. The Marlins would be a fringe contender needing 1 big more move on top of Longoria to be Philly/Brewers level (cough Rosario).

And if Cooper gets hurt, Longoria would have to carry the load and you're calling up an infielder - Groshans/LeBlanc and they can play all over so they can figure out whose the next best 1B is. TBH it's likely winging it with Groshans. Playing 1B is not rocket science.


Eric Hosmer sucks. He had a .3 WAR last year in 419 PA and is projected for a .5 this year. LeBlanc with a -60- point BABIP regression (as yes, we all agree that is happening) is projected for a .3 WAR in 210 PA. Hosmer is horrible and a worse fit. He brings nothing but frustration here. Similar to Aguilar/Cooper/Soler.

[fish16]

What about a guy like Brandon Belt?

another decent option, though he has had injury issues the last 2 years and was pretty bad last year, though he was terrific outside of injuries in 2021. Coming from another great pitchers park is a bonus in the sense that it's not like his career numbers are artificial. I dont care who the option is to an extent, just give me someone competent as a plan B to cooper

[lou]

Not to mention Hosmer will cost the league minimum.

Who cares? No positional fit.

[rmc523]

What about a guy like Brandon Belt?

If so, I'd offer a low base salary with a variety of incentives based on plate appearances, given his year last year was cut short due to injuries.