ptatc

Woah, woah, woah.

But it's better than their current pitching prospects. Better to bring up the greater weakness. Their pitching will have no one competent after Cease is dealt if they don't get pitching.

True but for much of the time and most of the other parks this isn't the case. We've seen what happens when they try to tailor a team to the park for that time of year. It doesn't work.

Agreed in a perfect world they get both. But in their situation with Robert on the mlb team and Montgomery and Ramos coming soon. I would lean pitching. I don't think they have anyone comparable to any of that talent on the pitching side. However, they need to take the best package but pitching if possible.

So pitching wins in a close contest.

This would be the best scenario.

Look at the number of runs teams gave up instead of an average. The top 10 teams in runs given up all missed the playoffs. Pitching and defense.

It's more about preventing them. Pitching wins more than hitting. Average OBP is usually around 320. So pitchers win 68% of the time. The really good ones even more.

Agreed. Plus I just don't see fields as the guy either. He's pretty good but not the one the the team that drafted him give the mega deal to.

Pitching is the most important part of the game. While they have Montgomery and Ramos who look really good for position players, I'm not sure they have that with pitchers. Of course this is coming from the person who ruined the team in 2022 by insisting they had enough offense.

Correct

Much of it is that if they haven't changed their mechanics or pitch selection after the first they just cause too much damage. The other is the the reconstruction necessitates drilling and boring out of bone and it's really tough to get a good anchor for the second. With the newer augmentation devices the second one should have better results but we haven't done them enough to get a good sample size.

If he gets back to his prior level of function. Definitely not guaranteed.

We can get them back 85% of the time after the first one. Less than 40% after the second.

That is reasonable. Discectomies are tricky for pitchers so much of it will depend on how much and how long the nerve was compressed. The tissues due to the surgery will heal in 4 weeks, the disc itself doesn't have significant nerve fibers in the outer rings. After tissue healing it's just stretching the involved tissues. The nerve healing is the wildcard. It can take months or a year in severe cases. But in his scenario, a couple of months is reasonable.

Long rehab time must be a significant herniation and they need to do an open procedure versus a microdiscectomy.

The question is how much prospect capital a team is willing to use vs. money. This cost the dodgers both but most teams aren't going to do that. Baltimore is interesting that they have such a low budget that they need to keep prospects to be competitive in the future. But don't have quite enough to put them over the top yet.

Since this is Getz first year in the job there is no historical evidence either way. Until we have a body of evidence of his work, I'm not going to assume that he is competent or not. I'll base my view on evidence not assumptions that may be biased. It's the researcher in me. I'm just pointing out that someone on his staff probably has some inside knowledge of a pitcher he has know for a decade and it may have influenced the decision. So far he has said one of his goals was to improve team defense. He has definitely done that. We'll see where he goes from here.

OK. From your comments it sounded like they were criticizing the Sox for the ridiculous asking price.

You don't think Katz has some inside info on him, with the way he pitched the last if years? Obviously you should always assume. The new GM is wrong.

Two Cubs fans criticizing what the Sox are doing? I don't believe it.

Or does Katz know something that kept the team away from him?

That will be fun. Great idea.

I agree. A salary cap along with a floor would really help the game. Unfortunately the union will never go for it.

That would help then. Let's hope it's true.