2023 Game Thread

[fish16]

Greinke seems like a guy just weird enough to want to just stay in kc and end his career in obscurity and if he wants to do that, he’s done enough in kc where I think they let him choose to stay. He also hasn’t been great this year

[lou]

If Sal Perez is not available. Greinke/Barlow might be a relatively cheap get. Bruce would have to put down some dough, but it'd save the minor league system for the big bat acquisition.

Fulton/Amaya/Edwards/Vargas
Peguero/Gerardo/Sanoja
Soriano/Maldonado/Pushard/Reynolds
Outside top 50 super flyer prospect

Gets that done in 4-2 pretty quickly

Adds $7m this year and next year, but if we are just releasing Cueto (which we are now I imagine), it really isn't adding money in my mind from the internal budget they probably have. So effectively, they'd replace Cueto with Barlow or Floro and trade the other RP next year to lower payroll as they can't have that much tied up in RP.


I'm not sure a RP is needed though. I think they will have some conviction in Barnes, Brazoban, Hoeing, Soriano, maybe even Maldonado, and lean on the 4 lefties who are just lights the fuck out. I see Eury and Cabrera approaching innings limits and moving to 2 inning multi inning roles in September and running out Sandy, Luzardo, Rogers, Garrett, and Cueto or bullpen days if Cueto is just cut by then, highlighted with both Eury, Hoeing, and Cabrera eating up 6+ innings between the 3 of them for such bullpen day.

A RHP reliever would be nice, but that would only make sense if they say did this Greinke/Barlow trade..... and then Luzardo/Scott head to Baltimore for legitimately Westburg, Kjerstad, Basallo, and some other bat in an epic move. That opens up that space for another reliever obviously.


I'm game for this Royals/Orioles move also or replacing Westburg with Peraza and Peirera, etc. As stated, I'm not with Lee. They have the juice here to move mountains to improve the roster.

[lou]

Are the Pirates sick of Hayes? I'd bet on him too if they want out and blow them away for Hayes and Bednar.

[fish16]

luzardo should be traded under almost no circumstances. there are other avenues to getting better this year. trading him hurts us this year and in the future. deal from prospects. they have more than enough to make upgrades elsewhere without trading from an already fragile group of SP's between innings limits and injuries. We've already seen how a surplus of Sandy, Luzardo, Cabrera, Garrett, Rogers, Cueto, Eury, Meyer, Eder, Fulton, and Sixto already has us starting hoeing in key games. Dont get cute and try to improve the offense by touching any of Sandy, Luzardo, Cabrera, Garrett, or Eury.

[Namaste]

Greinke seems like a guy just weird enough to want to just stay in kc and end his career in obscurity and if he wants to do that, he’s done enough in kc where I think they let him choose to stay. He also hasn’t been great this year

It would not be weird at all for Greinke to want to finish his career in the city he started his career and pitched for 7 years. Dude put up a 8.7 WAR in 2009. Wild.

[fish16]

watching cueto come in with a dominican flag on his back and walking from the outfield to the pitchers mound and then peacocking on the pitchers mound to his introductory press conference only to pitch a single inning for us to the tune of 10.5 million is legitimately funny btw.

[fish16]

It would not be weird at all for Greinke to want to finish his career in the city he started his career and pitched for 7 years. Dude put up a 8.7 WAR in 2009. Wild.

weird in the sense that most guys at that point in their career who still have some level of ability generally end their career on teams trying to make playoff runs. i see him just being ok with being on a team that is on pace for 116 losses. he's always been a little bit of a strange guy.

[rmc523]

luzardo should be traded under almost no circumstances. there are other avenues to getting better this year. trading him hurts us this year and in the future. deal from prospects. they have more than enough to make upgrades elsewhere without trading from an already fragile group of SP's between innings limits and injuries. We've already seen how a surplus of Sandy, Luzardo, Cabrera, Garrett, Rogers, Cueto, Eury, Meyer, Eder, Fulton, and Sixto already has us starting hoeing in key games. Dont get cute and try to improve the offense by touching any of Sandy, Luzardo, Cabrera, Garrett, or Eury.

100% agree.

[Namaste]

Too bad we don’t have a catcher like Realmuto

[Nick]

Am I the only one starting to believe what Bryan Hoeing is doing is not a complete anomaly? He's got a tough task ahead of him in his next start, but I look at him, and the dude has good stuff. Guy was never a top prospect, had a rough introduction to the bigs, wasn't ready when first called up, but if I didn't know anything about him prior and you told me he was one of our good pitching prospects coming up, I think I'd believe you.

[lou]

Am I the only one starting to believe what Bryan Hoeing is doing is not a complete anomaly? He's got a tough task ahead of him in his next start, but I look at him, and the dude has good stuff. Guy was never a top prospect, had a rough introduction to the bigs, wasn't ready when first called up, but if I didn't know anything about him prior and you told me he was one of our good pitching prospects coming up, I think I'd believe you.

I believe his 4.45 xFIP, and that is awesome for him compared to that 4.69 K/9 in AAA last year.

I think FG nailed this write up. Massive velocity spike and they are moving him around. This is some Marlins pitching magic right here. They are very good at this - Each of his offerings has experienced at least a three-tick velo boost as he’s shifted to relief, and his breaking ball has added nearly five. In addition to his added velocity, Hoeing has begun altering his position on the rubber depending on the handedness of the hitter. He works with heavy sink and tail, and has the repertoire depth to provide multi-inning length out of the bullpen.

I really don't think they need arms unless they trade a major one which shouldn't be off the table as they need bats that badly.

[fish16]

I believe his 4.45 xFIP, and that is awesome for him compared to that 4.69 K/9 in AAA last year.

I think FG nailed this write up. Massive velocity spike and they are moving him around. This is some Marlins pitching magic right here. They are very good at this - Each of his offerings has experienced at least a three-tick velo boost as he’s shifted to relief, and his breaking ball has added nearly five. In addition to his added velocity, Hoeing has begun altering his position on the rubber depending on the handedness of the hitter. He works with heavy sink and tail, and has the repertoire depth to provide multi-inning length out of the bullpen.

I really don't think they need arms unless they trade a major one which shouldn't be off the table as they need bats that badly.

any of sandy, luzardo, eury, garrett or cabrera should absolutely be off the table. that is way overthinking their need for a bat. they dont have nearly enough mlb ready starting pitching for the rest of the year without any of those guys. we're not the 29th ranked offense in the league. they dont need 3 plus plus bats to be able to get into the playoffs and compete this year with their pitching. We're 15th in the league in OPS and jazz has barely played and hasnt played well and Segura is due for some sort of regression. They need lineup depth, not to deplete their current strength of the team for some hitting. that would be idiotic.

You work from prospects to improve this team the rest of the year. They have enough to get any deal done. Trading any of those 5 guys is just complete mismanagement.

[fish16]

sanchez out of the lineup again today and so is segura. Gurriel at first, cooper at DH, Soler in LF, and Berti at 3b. the way it looks now is that they will be going after someone to take Sanchez's OF spot at the deadline or at least a platoon guy with him. he's had 2 mediocre/bad months and 1 great month. cant have a lot of faith in that down the stretch.

[lou]

Contenders offensive ranks NL:

Braves 1(3rd overall)
Dodgers 2 (4)
DBacks 3 (5)
Reds 4 (7)
Giants 5 (9)
Cubs 7 (14)
Phillies 10 (19)
Padres 11 (21)
Miami 13 (24)
Brewers 15 (26)

This is not good and needs more than supplementary depth parts. Radical improvements are needed to be a real contender and not banking on 19-5 one run and 4-1 extras luck, which is the only reason the team isn't 3-5 back of the wild card right now and we're thinking this is fun but Soler and Scott should get something shiny in a few weeks.

Kudos for them for situational navigating this so they are still relevant heading to July, but everything always regresses to the mean. And this, is a regression waiting to happen. This is just the truth. And that ignores the August schedule which is a Winter Is Coming moment. This is the complacency mentioned earlier today. Only a bad GM, a cheap owner, and/or ignoramus fans think the current team will work with minor tweaks. This is the part of Major league where the groundskeepers say "they are still shitty" despite some success. They are still kind of shitty with great SP despite a lot of good news and we are kidding ourselves if major improvements are not needed to actually win multiple playoff series let alone one. Focusing on how other guys will do better like Segura, and ignoring Arraez won't keep up that .410 BABIP (career .349) and Wendle .368 (career .322) are all going to chip away at all of this. Soler and DLC are streaky. Sanchez has really slowed down with a 100 point quick OPS drop. Cooper and Wendle are saving their ass right now.

This is effectively still the .500ish team we all expected preseason with just a half dozen 1 run luck games. Playoffs? Maybe with this games lead and NL West going to beat each other up with the Mets and Cardinals MIA. Winning? Multiple impact players away. They should go for it and stop circling next year, because that is what Eder, Meyer, Fulton, and larger innings capacity for Cabrera or Eury suggest. Make some moves to help this team and try to win for the first time since Jose Reyes was a Marlin. They have most of the team, they need the 2-4 final pieces (and one needs to be a very large bat) to have an honest shot against the Braves and Dodgers in a series. Don't need to overthink this. Being cute is what gets you killed. Complacency kills.

[fish16]

Contenders offensive ranks NL:

Braves 1(3rd overall)
Dodgers 2 (4)
DBacks 3 (5)
Reds 4 (7)
Giants 5 (9)
Cubs 7 (14)
Phillies 10 (19)
Padres 11 (21)
Miami 13 (24)
Brewers 15 (26)

This is not good and needs more than supplementary depth parts. Radical improvements are needed to be a real contender and not banking on 19-5 one run and 4-1 extras luck, which is the only reason the team isn't 3-5 back of the wild card right now and we're thinking this is fun but Soler and Scott should get something shiny in a few weeks.

Kudos for them for situational navigating this so they are still relevant heading to July, but everything always regresses to the mean. And this, is a regression waiting to happen. This is just the truth. And that ignores the August schedule which is a Winter Is Coming moment. This is the complacency mentioned earlier today. Only a bad GM, a cheap owner, and/or ignoramus fans think the current team will work with minor tweaks. This is the part of Major league where the groundskeepers say "they are still shitty" despite some success. They are still kind of shitty with great SP despite a lot of good news and we are kidding ourselves if major improvements are not needed to actually win multiple playoff series let alone one. Focusing on how other guys will do better like Segura, and ignoring Arraez won't keep up that .410 BABIP (career .349) and Wendle .368 (career .322) are all going to chip away at all of this. Soler and DLC are streaky. Sanchez has really slowed down with a 100 point quick OPS drop. Cooper and Wendle are saving their ass right now.

This is effectively still the .500ish team we all expected preseason with just a half dozen 1 run luck games. Playoffs? Maybe with this games lead and NL West going to beat each other up with the Mets and Cardinals MIA. Winning? Multiple impact players away. They should go for it and stop circling next year, because that is what Eder, Meyer, Fulton, and larger innings capacity for Cabrera or Eury suggest. Make some moves to help this team and try to win for the first time since Jose Reyes was a Marlin. They have most of the team, they need the 2-4 final pieces (and one needs to be a very large bat) to have an honest shot against the Braves and Dodgers in a series. Don't need to overthink this. Being cute is what gets you killed. Complacency kills.

They are 46-28 against every team but the braves who are just a juggernaut. You dont luck your way into that over a 3 month sample. They are good in close games because they have great pitching and solid situational hitting. This team has an elite rotation, a really good bullpen, and good offensive pieces that need some more help. No one is saying the offense is fine as is, but you can improve the roster without subtracting from the best part of the team. that is all im saying. Trading luzardo as part of a deal for a bat is idiotic. You can improve the offense with eder, fulton, meyer, and the rest of the prospects. Trading any of Luzardo, Sandy, Cabrera, Garrett, or Eury is a step backwards.

Just as quickly as you can say some people are due for negative regression, you could also say jazz hasnt played and when he played he struggled, Cooper has played below his career norms, Fortes has played below his potential, Segura is due for a positive regression, and we have given close to 600 at bats to the likes of Hampson, Segura, Davis, Burdick, Stallings, and Garcia. Improving on those places and improving the depth of your lineup without giving up the best part of the team, the part that has allowed them to win these close games, is what you do to improve this team without subtracting from another aspect of it at the same time. You dont subtract from the current rotation and get better. You trade prospects for a major piece, or you improve in the margins and give those 600 ab's to the likes of Candelario, Thomas, Yan Gomes, etc. None of those would cost current mlb players..

Our rotation is 7th in ER allowed, 6th in WHIP, 6th in ERA, 4th in K's, 2nd in BAA. and least amount of homers in all of baseball given up by the rotation. you dont touch the rotation if you're trying to make the playoffs. They are the strength of this team.