nrockway

https://www.mlb.com/milb/news/rule-5-candidates-in-arizona-fall-league-2025?t=arizona-fall-league-coverage https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/one-difficult-40-man-roster-decision-for-every-mlb-team/ Two relevant articles. I need to bite the bullet and start paying for baseball america already. https://thelibertyline.com/2025/10/16/phillies-rule-5-draft-2025/ from a Phillies blog. I actually really like Griff McGarry. Big stuff and MLB ready-ish.

It’s genuinely a really easy comparison to make. Two of the longest tenured managers in baseball history with a roughly equal winning percentage. Multi- time managers of the year, World Series winners. Both came out of retirement to manage again (though Tito’s retirement was considerably shorter). Terry will have to win one more WS and manager of the year to catch La Russa though. I’m unsure what point you’re trying to make.

I could see some cheaper, Josh Rojas price range type guys being effective options. Winker, Conforto, Austin Hayes; maybe Mullins, Bader or O'Hearn at slightly more money. One of O'Hearn or Bader and Mullins on 1 year deals would be a nice offseason to me. Mullins isn't great, but can hold down CF well enough if Robert is traded/never plays due to injury. But I bet O'Hearn and Bader sign for multiple years somewhere. Mullins on a 'prove it' deal seems possible though. Although I could see the Mets bringing him back or heading to a different team where he could be the opening day starter at CF. Bellinger or Tucker would be obvious choices who would help the team for years to come, but simply impractical. Even if the finances were right, I'd think they'd want to go to a contender.

this is the way to beat LA Dodgers. Toronto has been doing this all season. I think the Mariners don't stand a chance if they end up winning this series. Guess LAD hasn't gotten there yet either but it feels inevitable.

Francona wasn't a realistic option for most teams. He was retired and the Reds seemingly convinced him to come out of retirement. I'd rather have a guy like Venable who is 25 years younger and just beginning his career. I think it makes a lot more sense for the Sox to get a guy like that. The talk at the time was that Venable was the most sought after manager compared to guys like Skip Schumaker, Phil Nevin, David Ross. It's interesting that Venable chose not to interview with the Mets or Guardians the year prior and also decided not to take over for Bochy in Texas. Shouldn't the Mets gig have been a perfect opportunity for him? I can totally imagine what this board would've said if Francona was hired and the Sox performed exactly the same as they did this season. TLR part 2 sans drunkenness. Would've been called an over-the-hill flop for sure. I was a little underwhelmed by some of the choices Venable made this year, but he was so much better than Grifol in their respective rookie seasons. I think the sky is the limit for Venable especially now that he can bring in his own staff. I wish he got angrier at umpires, but his cool demeanor seems to work for the players.

Thought Fletcher was fine for a fourth outfielder, maybe even get a chance to start in right over Tauchman and keep the spot warm for Braden. He played OK in Charlotte and in limited time for Chicago last season. Adequate defender. Not exactly a worldbeater, but probly should've gotten a lot more play than MAT. Hopefully they change some players' positions and get a real free agent. Need real guys behind Robert and Tauchman who you almost expect to be injured.

I don't mean Prior specifically, I mean a guy like him who felt it was important to finish college in addition to playing baseball. Craig Breslow is another example of a solid pitcher turned executive (director of pitching for the Cubs/Chaim Bloom's replacement in Boston) who apparently graduated with a double major from Yale and deferred medical school so he could play baseball. I think this sort of background is less important for hitting, but you might like a guy who could look at the large amount of pitching data, biomechanical or traditional, and be able to implement some programs based off it at the game level. One thinks Katz wasn't so good at this.

if I had to wager a guess about the pitching coach, it'll be Zaleski. Or Bannister has some guy in mind from outside the org. I like the idea of someone with Tom House kinds of credentials, even Mark Prior, solid MLB pitchers who maintained an interest in academics during/post playing career. Someone who actually knows how to teach.

I thought for sure Treinen was gonna blow game 1 😅

Right, I think the idea is that the Jays can simply pop off 10+ runs at a moment's notice in a 7 game series. Low probability, but that's the MLB playoffs. The Dodgers have also gotten very little from the top part of the lineup and I don't think you can expect that to stay the same. Ohtani has been dreadful the last two series and he's too good to stay that way. I just don't see any team beating them unless something wild happens.

What a performance from Yamamoto. This is what $325,000,000 gets you. $182mil from the last guy. $137mil from the next guy, $700mil from the game 4 starter.

Any rumors as to who the Sox might hire? The Mets cleaned house in a similar way and announced some hires today. I'm thinking it'll be internal guys but that would be pretty boring.

Dodgers are a titan. Their starting pitching is healthy and simply too good. This Brewers offense is none too good to boot. I think the only way the Dodgers don't win the World Series is if the Blue Jays pull it out and their bats catch on fire. It could happen. Seattle and Milwaukee's pedestrian bats aren't getting the job done. I don't think the Jays are a better team that Seattle or the Dodgers, but they can get hot in an instant.

Great game. Swift was incredible. Although I think a big part of it was a lot of clutch blocking, good play design. Next 4 are against the Saints, Ravens, Bengals, Giants. In my mind, the Bears are the favorite in all of those games and could go up to 7-2. I'm cautiously optimistic about this team.

he was arguably a better manager during the amphetamines era. are we calling it that?

my prediction was wrong! i thought bryce miller was going to get rekt. gave up a solo shot immediately and i was thinking 'see, i told ya' but that was the only damage.

EZ win for the Jays tonight, right? Seattle is out of pitching. Jays offense is on fire. Seattle’s bats are cold but maybe bound to warm up?

Good lineup of games today. Bucs I think are under the radar legit. Mayfield might be on his way to an mvp.

I think, to my eye, his 'sweeper' (just call it a slider, stats people) is absolutely nasty and his fastball is simply OK. Statcast tells me that his fastball is more successful than his sweeper, both are pretty successful, but his changeup gets smashed...an insane 1.450 OPS against with a pretty large sample size. I thought instituting a new changeup was a Bannister point of emphasis which might reflect on Katz's coaching ability. Maybe more relevant in that other thread, but there had to be some butting of heads between Katz and Bannister and the new guy won out. Fair enough to me.

Steven Wilson being pretty good at baseball is the hill I'm going to die on lol

that's way down there! now i'm thinking of wisconsin's lettered highways.

He's pretty much 'some guy' and I think we'll have a crowded bullpen of useful righties next season, but $1.5mil is nothing based on the comps. If he performs like he did this past season over the first half, he is an easy trade candidate. I really liked the Tanner Banks trade (Bergolla will be an MLB player) and Wilson is simply better at baseball than he is, sans left-handedness. That being said, I think we could really use a guy like Banks next season.

I figured this thread might be about the marathon lol. I can hear the festivities out my window, I live along the route about where it turns around and heads back north; I'm inspired to try and run it next year. I met up with some friends last night and we had a similar discussion. I'm not even that big a hater, I was apologetic for their loss although excited for what our friends up north might do vs the Goliath Dodgers, yet my remarks were received with "why do you hate Chicago, @nrockway why don't you just move to Wisconsin already?". Which I might. But I also asked why they never go to streets in Chicago with numbers in the name. The Sox/Cubs don't actually compete against each other, but the rivalry is very fun and analogous to a real world, omnipresent North/South Side divide. I was rooting for the Tigers, an actual rival, but could never in a million years support the Cubs. As a kid, we listened to more Cubs games on the radio to simply root for whoever they were facing.

hmmm Happy for Vaughnie and the Brew Crew. He seems like a nice guy all things considered and I’m glad to see him contributing in a big way to a winning team. Same as Kopech last year. Too bad those guys didn’t work out here like we might have expected. I don’t know that we “won” the trade though considering Civale was a net negative here and Vaughn turned into Frank Thomas upon moving north of the border. But I’m glad we moved on from him in whatever fashion. It was time for him to go. It was an interesting swap but I’m not sure it was a W. Civale actually pitched 4.1 scoreless vs the Brewers after Boyd got rekt in 0.2 and our old friend Soroka did too. Honestly funny for the cubs that they gave Soroka meaningful innings in a postseason game. That org is even cheaper than ours with worse (virulently racist, interferes with elections to boot) ownership. They’re actually competitive right now and spent the same on their roster as we did with our recent 81-81 team. Did nothing at the deadline or last offseason. They’re going to completely blow their competitive window.

That's awesome!