2023-2024 Offseason Thread

[rmc523]

im not banking on the luck continuing, im just saying you dont lose 1 very important player and just decide to punt on an entire season when you still have plenty of talent. while it's not ideal, it's ok to be middle of the pack with the chance to be more if things turn out good again. This whole idea that we should punt the season entirely unless we make huge moves this offseason is just dumb. you can be decent this upcoming year with the opportunity to sneak in if we have some luck while also looking ahead to 2025 when we should be much better.

You dont punt an entire year after making the playoffs for the first time in 20 full seasons. you improve where you can and see what happens while still developing the young talent in the organization with an eye towards the future.

Yeah, improve with an eye toward '25 while not completely giving up on '24.

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Not sure how the options are black and white "sell everybody instead of 'middling' players like Rosario (who was mentioned a lot as an 80M guy IIRC....)"

[fish16]

i really like the option of Rhys hoskins on a 1 or 2 year deal as well. He cannot play D but it would be a pure soler replacement, and Hoskins is flatly a better hitter. Maybe you give him a player option for year 2 so he can build some value back off the ACL while still giving him the option of a 2nd year or testing the market again after re-establishing his value. Ideally he would be a better defender but whatever, him and Bell can take turns being bad at 1b and mashing.

WRC+ in every full season he has had- 128, 112, 139, 127, and 122. Just flat out hits.

[rmc523]

i really like the option of Rhys hoskins on a 1 or 2 year deal as well. He cannot play D but it would be a pure soler replacement, and Hoskins is flatly a better hitter. Maybe you give him a player option for year 2 so he can build some value back off the ACL while still giving him the option of a 2nd year or testing the market again after re-establishing his value. Ideally he would be a better defender but whatever, him and Bell can take turns being bad at 1b and mashing.

WRC+ in every full season he has had- 128, 112, 139, 127, and 122. Just flat out hits.

I'd be ok with that as well.

[fish16]

Obviously bendix has earned his spot as a head of an mlb franchise front office, but if you had AI come up with a picture of an analytics driven nerdy looking 30 something year old from the rays front office the AI would draw a picture of him exactly.

[Namaste]

We have the 16th pick in the draft.

The luck box Reds pick 2nd. Cleveland has the 1st pick for first time in franchise history

[lou]

im not banking on the luck continuing, im just saying you dont lose 1 very important player and just decide to punt on an entire season when you still have plenty of talent. while it's not ideal, it's ok to be middle of the pack with the chance to be more if things turn out good again. This whole idea that we should punt the season entirely unless we make huge moves this offseason is just dumb. you can be decent this upcoming year with the opportunity to sneak in if we have some luck while also looking ahead to 2025 when we should be much better.

You dont punt an entire year after making the playoffs for the first time in 20 full seasons. you improve where you can and see what happens while still developing the young talent in the organization with an eye towards the future.

Right - so let’s see them improve and not dick around. Or we’re just waiting for the deadline.

This team needs big radical moves to have a shot

[lou]

i really like the option of Rhys hoskins on a 1 or 2 year deal as well. He cannot play D but it would be a pure soler replacement, and Hoskins is flatly a better hitter. Maybe you give him a player option for year 2 so he can build some value back off the ACL while still giving him the option of a 2nd year or testing the market again after re-establishing his value. Ideally he would be a better defender but whatever, him and Bell can take turns being bad at 1b and mashing.

WRC+ in every full season he has had- 128, 112, 139, 127, and 122. Just flat out hits.

They have two guys who shouldn’t be in the field already with Bell and DLC, and that’s with a miscast 2B. Let’s not recreate the same defensive problems they’ve had. They need a C, every day SS, and a LF who can hit left handed pitching.

If Bruce moves payroll to $125m, then maybe Hoskins would make sense as a pure luxury.

[lou]

Obviously bendix has earned his spot as a head of an mlb franchise front office, but if you had AI come up with a picture of an analytics driven nerdy looking 30 something year old from the rays front office the AI would draw a picture of him exactly.

This is very good

[fish16]

They have two guys who shouldn’t be in the field already with Bell and DLC, and that’s with a miscast 2B. Let’s not recreate the same defensive problems they’ve had. They need a C, every day SS, and a LF who can hit left handed pitching.

If Bruce moves payroll to $125m, then maybe Hoskins would make sense as a pure luxury.

DLC should be gone. He’s fucking awful. There is not a single thing on a baseball field he does well. Deal him for a righty middle reliever that’s cheap and just stop the shit already. Hoskins can split 1b/dh with bell. He is a pure soler replacement and he’s better than soler.

this team does not necessarily need radical moves to compete. Baseball is weird and random. You said the exact same thing last year, Sandy was mediocre and jazz was injured and they still make the playoffs. You don’t punt the year. Face the facts, Bruce isn’t signing big free agents, and no one wants to sign here year in and year out. The way our payroll will go up over time is from internal extensions of team controlled players.

that doesn’t mean you don’t go sign a stop gap for a year to at least try to improve in the margins to see if they can be fortunate again and exploit the randomness of baseball again.

you can continue to bring up big name guys, but you’re just wasting your time and everyone else’s time as always with these absurd unrealistic 8 part plans to compete next year with big money being spent

[Namaste]

DLC was decent in 2021. Definitely time to move on from him, though. Bruce likes that DLC makes $736K for one more year so who knows if the right decision (launching him) is made.

[fish16]

for some fucking reason we have interst in IKF from the yankees. He's awful, just a truly awful hitter. Might be worse than wendle, which would be honestly impressive to replace him with a worse player.

[lou]

DLC should be gone. He’s fucking awful. There is not a single thing on a baseball field he does well. Deal him for a righty middle reliever that’s cheap and just stop the shit already. Hoskins can split 1b/dh with bell. He is a pure soler replacement and he’s better than soler.

this team does not necessarily need radical moves to compete. Baseball is weird and random. You said the exact same thing last year, Sandy was mediocre and jazz was injured and they still make the playoffs. You don’t punt the year. Face the facts, Bruce isn’t signing big free agents, and no one wants to sign here year in and year out. The way our payroll will go up over time is from internal extensions of team controlled players.

that doesn’t mean you don’t go sign a stop gap for a year to at least try to improve in the margins to see if they can be fortunate again and exploit the randomness of baseball again.

you can continue to bring up big name guys, but you’re just wasting your time and everyone else’s time as always with these absurd unrealistic 8 part plans to compete next year with big money being spent

Something like Montas/Mahle and Lorenzen and then trading your secondary pitching in arbitration (Scott, Rogers, Okert, Chargois, prospects) is not big money just so you know. That probably adds $15m in payroll right now. It would be about where payroll landed in 23 ($100m) and it might give them a chance as they’ll have covered the innings being sent out at cheap FA prices and maybe they would strike gold with bat moves. Sorry that this is a sports message board and this is an idea within their budget?

The team had a -57 run differential with a 74 win projection last year and sneaked into the playoffs with 84 wins which is kind of a historical low. This team needs radical upgrades (as whatever you want to say is gained from a healthy Jazz and full seasons of Burger, Bell, Rogers, and I guess Weathers and Edwards might be good, plus some extra innings from Eury and Cabrera, only offsets Sandy who was still pretty alright and Soler who was great. They had a collective 4.8 WAR last year which is a lot). They need a lot right now to get to .500 let alone contend. The 1 run luck won’t happen again. They were one of the best 1 run teams of the last 50 years.

I didn’t realize this would be controversial, but I don’t think saying this team needs a lot of work and I hope they don’t half ass the offseason per usual and kick the can to 2025 is out of bounds. I am hopeful Bruce got a taste and does the right thing finally. But we’ll see.

[lou]

DLC was decent in 2021. Definitely time to move on from him, though. Bruce likes that DLC makes $736K for one more year so who knows if the right decision (launching him) is made.

All budget dependent. What’s he going to authorize? He’d be great to option to AAA if they’d sign someone for a year, like Duvall, Pham, Grichuk, Taylor, etc.

[fish16]

The residuals on the Caleb Smith and Garrett Cooper for Michael King deal at the way beginning of the rebuild continue to sprout new legs. We turned Caleb Smith with Lee Stone's darling Humberto Mejia, who pitches into Japan now, into Starling Marte, who we turned into Jesus Luzardo. Cooper got us Ryan Weathers. The yankees got Michael King, who looks like he is about to be traded in a package for Juan Soto.

Great lower minors scouting is so critical. The rays do it phenomenally all the time. Those deals where you deal guys like Xavier edwards and others because there is no space on the 40 man can really pay dividends in the long run if you have a great scouting department and player development system. That's what Caleb Smith and Garrett Cooper were to the yankees that year, just guys they needed to clear for 40 man roster purposes

[rmc523]

Something like Montas/Mahle and Lorenzen and then trading your secondary pitching in arbitration (Scott, Rogers, Okert, Chargois, prospects) is not big money just so you know. That probably adds $15m in payroll right now. It would be about where payroll landed in 23 ($100m) and it might give them a chance as they’ll have covered the innings being sent out at cheap FA prices and maybe they would strike gold with bat moves. Sorry that this is a sports message board and this is an idea within their budget?

The team had a -57 run differential with a 74 win projection last year and sneaked into the playoffs with 84 wins which is kind of a historical low. This team needs radical upgrades (as whatever you want to say is gained from a healthy Jazz and full seasons of Burger, Bell, Rogers, and I guess Weathers and Edwards might be good, plus some extra innings from Eury and Cabrera, only offsets Sandy who was still pretty alright and Soler who was great. They had a collective 4.8 WAR last year which is a lot). They need a lot right now to get to .500 let alone contend. The 1 run luck won’t happen again. They were one of the best 1 run teams of the last 50 years.

I didn’t realize this would be controversial, but I don’t think saying this team needs a lot of work and I hope they don’t half ass the offseason per usual and kick the can to 2025 is out of bounds. I am hopeful Bruce got a taste and does the right thing finally. But we’ll see.

There are certainly plenty of holes left - ones that Kim left unaddressed for years. I also don't think it's unrealistic to think they won't be able to address all the issues in a single offseason, especially considering '25 fits with Sandy being back and just about all innings limits being gone.

That said, I don't want a punt year because of those things, either.