davell

My buddy has continually told me that Shark is way too cool of a nickname for someone that's not awesome.

I saw speculation the off days would allow for a 4 man to work, but with Shark imploding, who knows?

No, he's throwing off a mound on Saturday and at best, makes one start before the ASG.

I want Coleman to pitch the rest of the game, no matter what.

Last 4 starts: 18.1 IP, 26H, 25R, 25ER, 10BB, 14K.

Yeah, I'm back to wondering if he can even stick in the rotation longterm.

Damn, the Yanks will be desperate now and they don't have the pitching prospects to land Garza. And Greinke doesn't seem like a guy they'd even be interested in.

Houston just traded Dalembert and 14 to Milwaukee for 12 and Shaun Livingston, Jon Brockman, and Jon Leurer.

Pettitte just took a one hopper off his ankle, threw one more pitch and was taken out. They evidently don't like Dempster nearly as much as Garza, but would you take a hurt Banuelos for Dempster, if they got desperate? Elbow issue, clean MRI, but probably missing another month or so, from what reports I've read.

If Mike takes Barnes, it's because he actually thinks he's the BPA, because one thing I'm sure of, he at least has a pulse on UNC's fans. Barnes is not one of the "popular" Carolina guys, that people would come out to see, as Sean May, for instance, was. If they take him, it's not going to help with ticket sales and Mike knows that much anyway.

Banuelos is hurt, Betances sucks, and we'd almost certainly want pitching. Yanks aren't really a fit.

I wonder if this is to open up a 40 man slot for Soler?

If a team claims Marmol in August, do you let him go?

I asked Badler and he confirmed Puig is not a top 10 prospect in an average system.

Trust me, I see your point. In fact, the only possible valid reason that it MAY make sense for my side, is if there's a true generational talent out there, in the draft or IFA. The Drew Ward kid Raisin mentioned seems like it's possible he could be. We won't know as far as IFA's go for quite a while obviously, since that kid would be 14 right now.

Goldstein hust handicapped it Dodgers, Braves, us, with limited info.

My guess is the difference in picking top 3 and having an extra 2-3 mill in IFA money for 2014 means more than picking picking 15-20 and having that much less in IFA. That's possibly 3 bigtime players in IFA you won't have and probably an extra 3 mill or so in draft budget, plus another shot at getting a true gamechanger, instead of getting lucky as hell and finding one in the middle of the 1st round. That's a pretty solid infusion of talent that could keep your system going for a long time. Especially if you plan on trading away quite a few guys soon after, or if you already did in the 2013 offseason. Don't get me wrong, if the right player is out there, I'm sure they'll go ahead and try to acquire them. But that extra money could really help us acquire stars, instead of solid guys.

Dew, I don't think of Headley as elite either and think he's a TAD too old for us to target, since he's not. My main reasoning for getting the farm system in total beast mode, is because I fully suspect it's how we'll acquire the majority of our impact guys. FA is becoming big money to guys out of their prime at a very rapid rate. To me, if we have tons of talent to trade from(my point for having two seasons like this instead of one) it gives us much more of an advantage longterm. But, I'm also not thinking 2014 is a World Series or Bust year. Hopefully, we're well on our way though. But, i fully suspect we'll be looking at 2015 until the rest of Theo's reign as being serious players. But the farm has to produce at an extremely high level for us to add the impact players that help us get there.

Garza goes in a complicated 12 team deal that has Juan Apodaca winding up in STL and Mike Trout as a Cub. We send away Dempster in a 7 team deal that also sends Scott Maine to STL. We land Bryce Harper in this one. LaHair gets sent packing in a 30 team deal that also sends Alfredo Amezaga and Nate Robertson to STL. We net Matt Moore. Trading Soriano becomes the big mission and in a 5 team deal that sends Blake DeWitt and Blake Lalli to STL, we land Trevor Bauer, Felix Hernandez, and Matt Cain, with STL paying all of Soriano, Cain, and Felix's salaries.

I claim victory.

When we hired the Theo regime, I really didn't think we'd be relying purely on luck to build the organization. But it appears we are. Sitting around hoping prospects develop is something small market teams do because they have no other choice. It's not something one of the top 3 markets in baseball should be doing willingly. There simply is no excuse whatsoever to build from one front and one front alone. It was wrong when Hendry tried to do it all through FA and trades and it's wrong if the Theo regime tries to do it only through the minors. You promote from within, while at the same time finding quality players in their prime (Headley, Upton, etc) to bring in and complement those young players. If not for the new CBA, my guess is this IS the route Theo would have taken. But, it'd have been extremely hard to build up the minors picking in the middle to late middle area and not having much of an IFA budget. My guess is they looked at the FA crop, decided there wasn't a "have to get" guy and decided on this direction. When he said we had a talent deficit, he wasn't lying. We did and obviously still do. If this thing goes longer than 2 years of us not buying into trades or FA, count me as being pissed. But, I understand what they're doing right now and figure they're looking at trades as their main outlet to get impact guys, not FA, since most teams are locking players up through their prime years much moreso than ever before. the best way to compete this way is to have a gigantic system to pull from and with the new rules, the only way a major market team can get an advantage is to have high picks, since they can't get the lottery comp picks and whatnot. When season is over next year and we aren't making moves towards contending AND don't have one of the top 3-4 systems in the game, I'll be upset. until then, if they want to play the kids and see how many of them work longterm, I'm fine with it.

Do you ignore all of my posts in the minor league forum? :D Well no, I guess this is your way of converting me. :D That, and Kyle's recent Brett aversion, have me slightly scared of him. In the end, I think he'll be fine, but it's possible he won't be ready by the beginning of the year and I admit that our FO won't just hand him the job. Maybe go get a Cody Ross to begin the year in CF, then use him as a 4th OFer/platoon guy afterwards.

Am I the only one at this EXACT point, that feels Vitters may actually be a better gamble next year than Brett is? In my scenario, I had them both in the Opening Day lineup, but I could see us signing a stopgap CF to hold the fort down until Brett gets his K rate down to 25% or so. Vitters needs to take more pitches, but he makes really good contact and hasn't been swinging at many pitches out of the zone either, so this may just be a product of him finding something he likes.

He's not going to be paid even $20 mil in any season of his contract, even if you add the posting fee out over the 6 years. Oops, definitely wrong on that one. For some reason, I had it my mind he got 5/75. No clue where that came from. Changes things on him quite a bit for me. Although I still have concerns over how his stuff plays out in future seasons. But, at this price, it'd have been worth the gamble.

I remember not wanting Cespedes on a 4 year deal because he supposedly needed some time in AAA. Out of all the FA from last year, at this point, he's the guy I'm wishing we would have gotten. Darvish is iffy for me, because I just figure he'll get worse the more hitters see him, although I expect he'll be very solid, just not worth 25 mill a year.