squally1313

We beat the Pirates 3-2 a whole 6 days ago. Detmers or Skubal/Boyd/Shota/Cabrera or other guy is a fine playoff rotation. Palencia, Webb, Brown, Steele, Rolison, Kittredge-esque acquisition, and the three best of Assad, Rea, Milner, Maton, Hollowell, Harvey, Peterson is an average bullpen. Being tied 2-2 with a .500 team up 2-1 in the series on the road while outscoring them 21-10 in aggregate is not some 'maybe we just aren't good enough' moment.

very excited for this to be justin steele's job in a month

Very bad hit sequencing today, on both sides

The K rate is consistent and the walk rate jumped up, but the quality of contact is much worse. Bat speed went from bad to very bad, ground ball rate up. Hopefully it's as easy as seeing some warm weather fly balls land in the basket to get back to the right launch angle.

citation needed

As you figured out in your prior post, you were confusing Alcantara and Cabrera. We'd have Steele, Cabrera, Rea, Assad, Wiggins, and, most importantly, about $100m in free salary. We'd also get to watch one of the best pitchers in baseball pitch for our team for 2-3 months instead of (gestures sadly at the back half of our rotation)

That was a really funny pickoff attempt. He clearly has no idea how to throw a baseball besides this weird 'point the ball at the ground behind you' start.

Thought it was the third out but feel like the infielder had more than enough time to reset his feet and not have that fly over his head

Big time play from Bregman

If not having Ben Brown is 'forfeiting the season' next year, we're in much worse shape than I thought. Anyways, it's good to see we have the 2026 version of 'the Marlins are asking for Caissie AND Wiggins?!?! no thank you, garbage pitcher instead it is'

Blocked prospects

Cool cool cool

You have the worst strikeout rate in the world, throw some horsefeathers strikes

This one might suck.

I want Trent Thornton off this roster

Lollllll

We don't have a scheduled starter for Friday. Civale hasn't pitching since Sunday and Assad hasn't pitched since Saturday, so I assume it will be one/both of them. But that seems very dumb because they are both bad at pitching. Trade for someone.

Yeah he's certainly not at the top of my list. But he's probably a Colin Rea upgrade that could be had for pocket change.

....should we get him?

He’s signed through next year but at $11m that’s seemingly value neutral, so I think a tad steep for 20ish innings this year. Upgrade one of the names and add in Freddy.

Give me two starters. The difference in cost isn't that bad, and it should be obvious I'm leaning on the side that thinks we should spend more prospect capital than less. When I look at Cabrera/Brown/Steele, I think there's an optimistic path of them being fully stretched out, a middle path of them being reliable bullpen options, and a pessimistic path of them not being available at all. I'm choosing the middle option and saying that the rehabbing guys (those three, plus Palencia/Harvey as a top tier, Maton/Milner/Roberts as a middle tier) is more than enough to overhaul the bullpen. On the starting side, Cabrera hasn't done enough for me to want him near a playoff start, and you also can't guarantee the health of Boyd and Shota in two months, whether it be actual injury or just plain fatigue. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results or whatever. I believe everyone listed below, barring setbacks, is expected to be mostly ready to go come sometime in September, if not before. It's pitching, so there will be setbacks, but this, paired with our offensive guys, I'd take against anyone. SP1 Boyd SP2 Detmers SP3 Shota SP4 Rental (Gausman, Peralta, would be fine with someone splitting the difference between that tier and Peterson/Assad) Bullpen: Steele, Brown, Cabrera, Palencia, Webb, Rolison, pick two from Maton/Milner/Roberts/Hollowell/Ferguson/Thielbar/Harvey When one of the starters inevitably goes down, your fourth playoff spot becomes some sort of piggyback start from the Steele/Brown/Cabrera group and Rea or Assad gets the call. Starters can always pitch in relief. Relievers can't become starters. If the difference is giving up Owen Ayers instead of Jonathan Long or whatever, don't care.

McGreevey would be on normal (four day) rest but looks like they've been trying to give him additional days off between starts. We're going to see him at some point, and the ERA is hiding some ugly metrics (you need to strike out more guys than that), so might as well hope to get him today.

Cubs now up to 6 guys with a wRC at 120 or above. Dodgers have 5. Maybe they'll be sellers?

Yeah that goes back to Bertz' idea. If your opening day position player list is: LF: CF: PCA RF: 3B: Bregman SS: Dansby 2B: Nico 1B: Busch 😄 Amaya DH: That leaves 6 spots. Backup catcher, Kelly is the ideal but whatever, is one. Filling the other 5 with Whoever is left of Ramirez and Shaw (good against LHP, can play most anywhere) Conforto or a Conforto esque player (LHB, corner outfield type) Jo Adell (LHP masher, can't really play the field) Brett Bateman or I guess Kevin Alcantara if he's somehow still here (can play CF) Ballesteros if he's here to be the default DH guy, otherwise some infield rover Cons: It is very much not Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki and the production would fall off. Probably an infielder short, though we've basically gone four months now without a first base backup, so not that worried. Pros: We'd probably be better against LHP, and it would be incredibly cost efficient, which is good, because we're looking at a rotation that would be average at best if everyone could throw 200 innings, which they likely won't be able to. Hello, Tarik Skubal.