2025 Game Thread

[Todd]

That is absolutely a core. Sandy, luzardo, eury, Scott, Garrett, arraez, jazz, burger, and Sanchez is absolutely a starting point that you can build off of that doesn’t need to be completely torn down to the studs. That is what a core looks like when you are in the bottom of the league in payroll. Literally all that needed to be done was spend like an actual major league organization to help the lineup. Instead, the focus was always on taking from one strength to address another weakness in a trade. Never was it even remotely considered a possibility that they could add 1 impact bat via free agency, let alone the 2-3 they needed. You can win with those pieces as a starting block, but you can’t win anything without spending the money necessary to do so. Whether that’s with that group of players or the future group of players in 3 years after we lose 100 games for the next few seasons

stripping it down for parts to save the owner money also doesn’t make the team better. It saves the owner from spending money. They have spent I think less than $10 million in free agency over the last two full offseason. They are blowing smoke uo every fans ass when they sit there with a straight face and tell you that they are better long term from all of those guys being gone.

I like that you threw some extra players on there besides the 3 you've been whining about.

Berger and Sanchez are both so similar. They hit it hard but rarely make contact, don't work counts, and K a lot. On a decent team they are a utility player and a 4th outfielder.

Most of Jazzs value comes from his defense. He has some pop but is a very poor hitter overall and is quite injury prone.

Yes Arraez is a good contact hitter but has no power at all, is one of the slowest players in baseball, and is awful defensively wherever you play him.

Luzardo had flashes but was inconsistent. He was either decent or flat out awful and there was no middle ground.

You act like Bendix just took whatever offer was thrown at him and you don't seem willing or able to even contemplaye that these guys(sans Sanchez who is still here) just aren't that good and he got what the league said they were worth.

[fish16]

I like that you threw some extra players on there besides the 3 you've been whining about.

Berger and Sanchez are both so similar. They hit it hard but rarely make contact, don't work counts, and K a lot. On a decent team they are a utility player and a 4th outfielder.

Most of Jazzs value comes from his defense. He has some pop but is a very poor hitter overall and is quite injury prone.

Yes Arraez is a good contact hitter but has no power at all, is one of the slowest players in baseball, and is awful defensively wherever you play him.

Luzardo had flashes but was inconsistent. He was either decent or flat out awful and there was no middle ground.

You act like Bendix just took whatever offer was thrown at him and you don't seem willing or able to even contemplaye that these guys(sans Sanchez who is still here) just aren't that good and he got what the league said they were worth.

Burger for his career is an 111 OPS+. If he's your DH he is a good DH. If you trade away all players other than 5 tool perfect players you will be left with no players. Every player in baseball k's a lot and rarely makes contact at this point. On a good team he is a top half of the league DH, making less than a million, and under control for several more years at the age of 28. And they got nothing of significance for him.

Jesus sanchez is just about a league average hitter for his career. 98 OPS+. He is a 113 OPS+ against righties for his career. If they used him in a pure platoon like they should have been for the last 3 years, he is a piece you can use productively.

Jazz is such a very poor hitter overall that he is an above average hitter for his career at 104 OPS+, all while being surrounded by shit in the lineup for the most part. The second he was surrounded by talent he put up an OPS+ of 130 for the yankees in meaningful games. He was a 4 WAR guy by fangraphs last year. The knock on him is that he played recklessly and couldnt stay healthy. But to say he is a very poor hitter overall is literally not substantiated by any actual measurement other than the player evaluation of a guy who said sandy is a bullpen arm.

Luzardo is a 26 year old lefty that throws 97 and can be your #2 or 3. Those are hard pieces to find. He has had health problems, but when healthy in 2023 he was a 3.8 WAR, 25 year old lefty starting pitcher under team control for several more years. That's hard to find. 18 year old shortstops in single A with potential are not.

I dont care what guys cant do, i care what they can do. If a team cant find a way to get production out of what arraez brings to the table, that's a team issue. This whole trying to make him into nothing but a singles hitter is also just dumb. He is a career ,790 OPS and 118 OPS+. He's not juan pierre. He's had 30 doubles in 3 straight years and hit 10 hr's when he was healthy in 2023. They also didnt get anything for him other than a 19 year old frontliner who immediately needed major hip surgery. Im not sure how you've been brainwashed to think just getting rid of productive players because they arent perfect, even if the return is nothing, somehow helps the organization. It doesnt, the only thing it helps is Sherman's wallet, which is the entire point of just about every one of these moves. He's got a career .418 slugging percentage. He's not barry bonds, but this whole he only hits singles thing is just dumb. He was playing with an injured thumb from june 1st through the end of last year. The 3 years prior bball reference had him as a 3.2, 4.1, and 4.6 WAR. Fangraphs was lower, but still 1.6, 2.7, and 3.3 WAR from 2021-2023. He is a productive player, and they got nothing for him. The organization is not in a better place because they got rid of Arraez and acquired Head, Marsee, and Martorella.

And that's the bottom line. The team wasnt a contender, but they were also not given a chance to compete at a realistic level with the other teams. They had one of the lowest payrolls in baseball and still had a talented core that could be improved upon. The answer was not to blow that up yet again in this market and continue not to spend and act as if anything will change just because the names on the back of the jerseys are different. the answer is to actually spend money or sell the fucking team. Anything bendix says to the contrary is bullshit gaslighting. The moves made over the last year have not put the organization in a better spot than they were previously. Losing 100 games with a mediocre farm is not an improvement.

They also traded almost every single one of those guys at their lowest value. Bendix is a clown being used as a puppet by sherman to avoid spending money.

[rmc523]

Weathers out 4-6 weeks.

Of the 258 front office people hired can we get one of them to figure out why our pitchers can't stay healthy?

Don’t worry, they’ll wait until the end of the season and then he’ll get TJ surgery.

[Namaste]

Norby getting a MRI on his left oblique today. They’re one more injury away from not winning 60 games.

[Namaste]

Here are the players that will miss Opening Day:

Eury Perez
Weathers
Garrett
Cabrera
Nardi
Jesus Sanchez
Connor Norby

[rmc523]

Crazy to say this, but it feels like the lowest point for the franchise. For a franchise that's had low after low too. I have almost 0 excitement for the season. Sandy vs. Skenes will be awesome, but beyond that I feel like I'll be struggling to muster excitement. I guess we know this is not the lowest low, that will come when Sandy is dealt.

I just don’t understand why they can’t look across town at the 2-3 other successful local franchises and understand that spending money and winning results in people coming out….
the Panthers have completely turned things around by actually spending money and winning. Our ownership group are morons that don’t understand the market at all.”

[rmc523]

That is absolutely a core. Sandy, luzardo, eury, Scott, Garrett, arraez, jazz, burger, and Sanchez is absolutely a starting point that you can build off of that doesn’t need to be completely torn down to the studs. That is what a core looks like when you are in the bottom of the league in payroll. Literally all that needed to be done was spend like an actual major league organization to help the lineup. Instead, the focus was always on taking from one strength to address another weakness in a trade. Never was it even remotely considered a possibility that they could add 1 impact bat via free agency, let alone the 2-3 they needed. You can win with those pieces as a starting block, but you can’t win anything without spending the money necessary to do so. Whether that’s with that group of players or the future group of players in 3 years after we lose 100 games for the next few seasons

stripping it down for parts to save the owner money also doesn’t make the team better. It saves the owner from spending money. They have spent I think less than $10 million in free agency over the last two full offseason. They are blowing smoke uo every fans ass when they sit there with a straight face and tell you that they are better long term from all of those guys being gone.

A team/owner with actual vision would’ve been adding a piece every year over the last few years so that the team would improve yearly, and have staggered contracts…. instead they took the opposite approach of spend nothing/add nothing and hope every single thing goes right and then are shocked when it hasn’t gone right. So here we are starting yet again from an even lower starting point. Race to the bottom to save Bruce a buck.

[fish16]

I just don’t understand why they can’t look across town at the 2-3 other successful local franchises and understand that spending money and winning results in people coming out….
the Panthers have completely turned things around by actually spending money and winning. Our ownership group are morons that don’t understand the market at all.”

said it for years now, it all goes back to the wrong owner buying the team. they needed a guy with deep pockets and the ability to understand the market, spend early and often and sustain the losses, in the hopes that you can gradually build a fanbase that consistently comes out because they trust and believe in the ownership group, and then annual revenues increase and you can sustain the higher payroll annually.

Instead they got a guy with no money and we are stuck in a circle of shit. He spends no money because no fans come out. No fans come out because he doesnt spend money. Nobody benefits. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

[fish16]

A team/owner with actual vision would’ve been adding a piece every year over the last few years so that the team would improve yearly, and have staggered contracts…. instead they took the opposite approach of spend nothing/add nothing and hope every single thing goes right and then are shocked when it hasn’t gone right. So here we are starting yet again from an even lower starting point. Race to the bottom to save Bruce a buck.

that's my entire point. Was the team a contender? No, but that doesnt mean you tear it down to nothing and start over. This team is not in a better position now than they were a year ago. It's unarguable. They got off to a bad start last year and burnt the team down without taking into consideration they were without 2 elite SP's in Sandy and Eury, Luzardo was hurt, Garrett was hurt, they sent Meyer down 2 weeks into the year for really no reason. They intentionally tanked while also being destroyed by injuries on the strength of their team while also making no effort to get better last offseason by spending money, and then used it as an excuse to say they werent good enough and blew it all up. It's fucking offensive. to act as if that was some abysmal team that got lucky without acknowledging they got extremely unlucky with injuries last year is just absurd. the bottom line is they made no effort to improve a playoff team, encountered a bunch of injuries (many of them they knew about well prior to spring last year), and then used a bad start to immediately justify a complete dismantling of any and all talent on the team.

[Nick]

that's my entire point. Was the team a contender? No, but that doesnt mean you tear it down to nothing and start over. This team is not in a better position now than they were a year ago. It's unarguable. They got off to a bad start last year and burnt the team down without taking into consideration they were without 2 elite SP's in Sandy and Eury, Luzardo was hurt, Garrett was hurt, they sent Meyer down 2 weeks into the year for really no reason. They intentionally tanked while also being destroyed by injuries on the strength of their team while also making no effort to get better last offseason by spending money, and then used it as an excuse to say they werent good enough and blew it all up. It's fucking offensive. to act as if that was some abysmal team that got lucky without acknowledging they got extremely unlucky with injuries last year is just absurd. the bottom line is they made no effort to improve a playoff team, encountered a bunch of injuries (many of them they knew about well prior to spring last year), and then used a bad start to immediately justify a complete dismantling of any and all talent on the team.

Even if you want to say the recent teardown was justified. It was justified by what happened under Bruce Sherman's watch. Loria's long gone at this point. They spent money on Avisail Garcia, it was a disaster and I feel like they're using that as an excuse to never spend again. On Day 1 of his ownership, Sherman was looking to get rid of payroll. There has been no vision to this franchise since he took over beyond keeping the payroll low.

Loria had a vision. Thievery and subterfuge was the vision, but right now it's looking like at least that's something.

[Nick]

I mean these mother fuckers kept Michael Hill on as the GM for what 3 years, just because they didn't want to pay his buyout.

THEY KEPT THE PREVIOUS GM IN PLACE INSTEAD OF IMMEDIATELY GETTING THEIR OWN GUY IN BECAUSE THEY DIDNT WANT TO PAY THE BUYOUT.

They brought in a new GM, and let her go after by far the most successful season under Sherman. No vision. Brought in the youngest and probably cheapest GM they could possibly get, and while he may end up being good or bad, the jury's still out. He's definitely unprepared to handle what little media coverage we have, and from what I see from him and the moves he's made, looks like a pure yes man for the owner, just like Michael Hill was before him for Loria.

[fish16]

this opening day lineup is going to be unbelievably pathetic. would be even without injuries but norby and sanchez gone make it look just pathetic.

[rmc523]

said it for years now, it all goes back to the wrong owner buying the team. they needed a guy with deep pockets and the ability to understand the market, spend early and often and sustain the losses, in the hopes that you can gradually build a fanbase that consistently comes out because they trust and believe in the ownership group, and then annual revenues increase and you can sustain the higher payroll annually.

Instead they got a guy with no money and we are stuck in a circle of shit. He spends no money because no fans come out. No fans come out because he doesnt spend money. Nobody benefits. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yup we absolutely got screwed with this ownership group - as you said, we needed someone with deep pockets willing to spend to right the ship and get everyone to overlook the sour taste in everyone’s mouth of the last 20+ years

[rmc523]

Even if you want to say the recent teardown was justified. It was justified by what happened under Bruce Sherman's watch. Loria's long gone at this point. They spent money on Avisail Garcia, it was a disaster and I feel like they're using that as an excuse to never spend again. On Day 1 of his ownership, Sherman was looking to get rid of payroll. There has been no vision to this franchise since he took over beyond keeping the payroll low.

Loria had a vision. Thievery and subterfuge was the vision, but right now it's looking like at least that's something.

I didn’t like it, but I could at least understand the teardown after they bought the team (same argument applied there of need to spend and add to the team if we had a rich owner, but water under the bridge now). Now we’re restarting at square one again after that attempt failed on worse footing.
spending on a terrible free agent that everyone knew was a bad deal at the time as a reason to never spend again is atrocious…this group has yet to prove any sort of forward thinking vision except maybe lining Bruce’s pockets. On the field I don’t see anything….at least loria went nuts and spent every so often….Bruce doesn’t even think about that.

[Namaste]

Everyone knew Sherman was the wrong choice. One look at his net worth when he purchased the team and everyone knew. MLB couldn’t help themselves from fellating Jeter and now Marlins fans are stuck holding the bag.