Balta1701

If you're going to sign him to a 10 year, $150 million extension right now, that's fine. Giving up a year of free agency to sign an 8 year deal that only guarantees him an extra $30 million, that's not worth talking about for a player like him.

Assuming they're too cheap and unprofessional to make an actual offer to Cole (not unfair statements based on their performance last offseason), I think you do both. You go for someone like Keuchel or Bumgarner who is likely to cover a good amount of innings and you add in someone like Wheeler or Wacha who can hopefully help at some points during the season. Then you get Rodon back mid-season maybe and you now have 6 or so starters who are slated to fill in some time during the year as the original plan. If they're unexpectedly healthy one of them spends some time in the bullpen.

1. This team is better than last year. They were a low 60s win team last year, talent wise they are a low-70s win team this year. 2. This losing skid is a low-70s win team putting itself on a path to the low 70s in wins. 3. Injuries are part of the game. Part of the problem right now is that we are still working to develop the depth it takes to overcome them. 4. Once other guys come up, some of the weak starters we have right now become decent bench options. This strengthens the whole roster. 5. We did get absolutely screwed by the pitching injuries. The Kopech injury and similar guys are the reason why our pitching staff looks so terrible right now. IMO that was the equivalent of a year long setback. 6. Our pitching staff will look very different next year with Kopech back and Cease in year 2. We do need to figure out how to get Lopez back to decent and because of the Rodon injury we absolutely need a top flight starter somewhere. 7. We need bullpen help a lot. Rick Hahn's bullpen plan has failed. 8. Outfielders need to be coached to yell "I got it" or something like that. 9. We have 4-5 major pieces about to arrive from the IL and from the minors. 10. Regardless of this losing skid, they made the progress they needed this year. Next step is the minor league reinforcements and a bit of free agency.

You know how many times I disagreed with you the last 2 offseasons and said "don't mess this up by wasting our resources too early"? I fully agree with you. We can be creative if the opportunity presents, but now is the time to put a roster on the field that looks strong on paper.

The bolded just isn't true, that's why it doesn't work with Robert. The risk with Eloy is that he comes up as a rookie and has a severe injury in his first year or two - that leaves him walking out of baseball with $1-2 million career earnings if he doesn't extend, and now he has a guaranteed $30 million thanks to the extension. He has "At least I'm set for life" money due to the extension. Robert already signed for $25 million. He has "At least I'm set for life" money already. For Robert, if he gets hurt, he doesn't have to find a new livelihood, at least not immediately. For Robert or Moncada, their next level is "bragging money" or whatever you wanna call it. They have no reason to sign an extension until they're good enough that the extension is going to pay them like $200 million. And with both of those guys, they're still drawing a paycheck of $600k a year once they're up for the first 2 years, and then they can look forward to another $10 million payday in year 1 of arbitration, so they won't be hurting for cash unless they have a serious problem.

2 part series run by ESPN last week https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27148543/under-knife-exposing-america-youth-basketball-crisis A dramatic increase in youth ACL surgeries seems like it's something that is actually measureable and reportable, as is an increase in injury games lost amongst NBA players.

Did you see the articles on ESPN last week about how the AAU basketball kids have been so focused on playing basketball they haven't developed their bodies well and the injury rates among young players in the NBA is skyrocketing as a consequence?

Just so someone keeps saying this... Both of Eloy's injuries are the kind of thing that should be limited by effective coaches working with these outfielders.

A contract extension?

Just in general, after the experience of Avi nearly hurting himself doing something stupid, the coaches doing nothing, then 2 weeks later Avi hurting himself, I do wonder how much the coaches work on things like that. That said, the Avi thing was a different and completely checked out head coach.

Go for someone like Wacha who might be a little more expensive, has some upside, but we won't feel that bad if he's put into the bullpen for that role.

Colome is an awful expensive player for them to take on this year and next. They're already taxpayers this year and their payroll could easily go up next year, that means Colome might cost us $9 million next year but he'll cost the Cubs $12 million. You could convince me they'd take a gamble on a guy like Bummer but I don't know that their system has the kind of talent that it would take to trade for a reliever with that much control.

Yeah, but it's rare for teams to give up top flight talent for young relievers with 4-5 years of control because relievers are so inconsistent. You have to pay a premium price, the price you'd pay for a guy who can dominate for 5 years, but he may only be good 1 or 2 of those years. You need a situation where the team needs relief help but is trying to stay below the luxury tax so they don't want to pay for the premium guy. Boston and Washington are about the only teams like that right now, and Boston is probably a poor fit because they really can't take on a salary like Colome with their tax situation.

Exactly. I'm not ready to give up on Lopez yet and I want him starting the year in the rotation, but I also know that Kopech may not be coming out guns blazing to start the year, so I want a guy who can start the year in the rotation and then move to the bullpen a few times if I need him to or take Lopez's spot for a short stint if I have to drop Lopez to the bullpen for a bit, especially once Rodon returns mid-year. I don't want 2 top flight starters because I believe there's a lot of value in turning the guys we have into something useful; we might be a wild card team next year with a rookie CF, 1b, 2b, 2 second year starters, a second year LF, and a second year platoon catcher. We were very, very correct in making moves so that we did not block the important guys, next year we are ready to make our first move, but we should follow that same rule so that we keep ourselves looking forward as well.

You are correct, I would like one starter to be a "Swingman" type though.

While he also has things to learn with the bat at AAA, he also has things that for his position are perhaps more important - working with a big league rotation. As i said, I would like him DHing more often and getting some more plate appearances, but he already looks defensively better than Castillo so we may as well give him time to work at that.

Andrew Cashner heads to the Red Sox from the O's.

There are relievers who look like toast one year and then look better the next year. Holland got off to an awful start with St. louis last year and has turned around to be the reliever we should have signed this year instead of Herrera. See how he is next May and then we'll talk.

I would like to see him at DH more often, if we're willing to bat Reed cleanup then what's the harm of losing the DH one day, but if he's catching 1 or 2 times a week and working with McCann and the pitching staff for the next few months, I might be ok with that.

How many catchers are anything other than platoon catchers? This one happens to hit left handed, the LH side of a platoon behind the plate is the hard one to find.

But he is a controllable asset! Seriously, counting him and Vaughn as being up next year, this team's salary commitments are so low that free agency should be options 1, 2, and 3 to fill the last remaining holes. I don't know that we've ever seen a team in a position like this where they absolutely have to find something to spend money on.

I don't believe that's an official violation of site rules, but I would like to say that you have now told everyone exactly what kind of person you are.

This is a joke that should not have been told.