caulfield12

Need to get out of this inning with only 2 runs scored...desperately.

When’s the last game that Giolito actually threw 95-98 for the Nationals in the majors or minors?

Garcia took forever to get rid of that ball...

Or, they actually were better off passing on Aiken (look at his numbers with CLE org), drafted the player that won the World Series for them in Bregman, drafted a consensus Top LH hitting prospect in Kyle Tucker and were able to include Daz Cameron to the trade that brought back Verlander. Meanwhile, Kolek bombed and one of the best young pitchers of his generation tragically died in a boating accident, and it’s easy to see why the Astros and Marlins took two quite different forks in the road from similar positions (organizationally) 3 years ago.

Yeah, the Astros made a lot of mistakes. But they also drafted extremely well when you look at Correa, McCullers, Springer, Bregman, Fisher, Tucker, etc. Sure, it seems they were “lucky” with Marwin Gonzalez, Altuve, Morton, Keuchel, but that’s what strong organizations do consistently. Or that Verlander has been more effective than his 2006 version. Or that Cole looks like was supposed to look for the Pirates all along. You can’t control injuries...as much as Herm is a miracle worker. You do have to convert on most of your first rounders (especially top 10ish) and select the right free agents, and develop all that talent in the minors. Those are the two question marks hanging over this organization, especially with Avi backsliding into a non-tender at the rate he’s going. A list comprised of Hawkins, Rodon (assuming we have to trade him), Fulmer, Collins and Burger isn’t going to get it done. They have to be better, it’s that simple. So far, the minor league results (except for Collins and injuries) this season have been very encouraging, at least.

Realistically, a lot of those (FA) players were not going to sign 3 year deals, or two plus an option. We could have spent another $20-30 million to get the team into the 72-78 win region, but what would have been the point...attendance still would sink year after year, and then we’d be taking even bigger chances on finding the right mix of players in 2020 or 2021. This is the better route. Could we have gotten something for Avi? Who knows? But least we didn’t commit $50-75 million to him. We have to let this season play out with Fulmer, Davidson, Sanchez, Delmonico, Giolito, Lopez, etc. Even Leury can/should be useful, to someone. Nate Jones is going to attract interest if he can stay healthy and cut down the walks. I advocated signing Moustakas and/or Dyson. They’ve tried to paper over the Engel mistake with Thompson, and obviously they didn’t plan on Cordell getting hurt...but CF is arguably the area they could have best utilized a veteran placeholder on a one or two year deal, knowing their ultimate replacement was 1 1/2 to 2 years out in Luis Robert or one of the Winston-Salem guys like Booker/Basabe.

Unless Ozzie Guillen has another relative connected by marriage to the Arenado family...the odds of a trade and sign deal are pretty much zero.

The odds on Machado and Donaldson just went down even more...there’s no point on wasting the most productive year remaining in Donaldson’s career on the 2019 team. And Machado won’t sign unless the money is 10-15% better than the contending teams are willing to pay. Arenado becomes the likeliest target, unless they decide to pursue Moustakas again.

1. Cincinnati Reds 3-16 2. KC Royals 4-14 1.5 GB 3. Miami Marlins 5-14 2 GB 4. White Sox 4-12 2.5 GB Baltimore Orioles 6-14 6. TB Rays and Texas Rangers 3 GB 8. SD Padres 4 GB Source: fangraphs (but probably out of date since written up two months ago) https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mlb-draft-rankings-2018-2019-and-2020/ 1 Bobby Witt, Jr. SS Coleyville Heritage HS TX Oklahoma 2 Zack Thompson LHP Kentucky KY 3 Hunter Barco LHP Bolles HS FL Virginia 4 Shea Langeliers C Baylor TX 5 Drew Mendoza 3B Florida State FL 6 Matt Wallner RF Southern Mississippi MS 7 Adley Rutschman C Oregon State OR 8 C.J. Abrams SS Blessed Trinity HS GA Alabama 9 Bryson Stott 3B UNLV NV 10 Nick Lodolo LHP TCU TX 11 Tyler Dyson RHP Florida FL 12 Andre Nnebe RF Santa Clara CA 13 Ryan Kriedler SS UCLA CA 14 Greg Jones SS UNC Wilmington NC 15 Logan Davidson SS Clemson SC Brad Debo C North Carolina State NC

Adolfo with three k’s...would be nice to push Booker up and see what he can do. Anyone but Engel. ABE. Would also be nice for Jimenez to get that first hit under his belt.

Realistically, the return for a dominant/healthy Nate Jones might be better. A lot of those hitters like Morrison, Alonso and Chris Taylor who had breakouts ast yeaar are really scuffling. Finally, send Engel down in the next week if his offensive and defensive struggles continue.

14,211

We have to have the least productive outfield in all of MLB, right? which one could possibly be worse?

Is anyone else worried about the catching situation in 2020? That’s one more cost we weren’t counting on in the free agent market. If nothing else, the start of this season is pushing the idea of actually contending from 2019 to 2020...the other reason is because late 2019/20 will be when that impact wave of outfielders arrives. No point in worrying about the pen until at least midseason next year.

Ventura-esque fundamentals...did that 2012 season even happen? Seems more like a decade ago.

Well, in all fairness, fans were right to expect SOMETHING out of Hawkins, Fulmer, Collins, even Shields, etc. And we will certainly see Fulmer enough times this year as a starter, whether we like it or not. Hey, maybe he’s the next Dallas Keuchel, haha? Or not...

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/19/trumpism-without-trump-218013 an article that all Dems need to read

Walk...two K’s, stolen base, then hung a breaking pitch that got spanked for an rbi single, infield popup. Announcer said Kopech has averaged 98 mph his last two starts. Stadium gun not working tonight. Five k’s in first two innings. Will be 22 in a week or so.

At least we got rid of Asche finally...

https://www.milb.com/milb/news/blake-rutherford-racks-up-career-night-at-plate-for-winston-salem-dash/c-272997656 Really detailed article on Rutherford’s success so far in the early season with video

https://www.milb.com/milb/news/san-diego-padres-fernando-tatis-jr-standing-tall-with-san-antonio-missions/c-272907860 video of double (4/21) http://www.milb.com/multimedia/vpp.jsp?content_id=1962896683&sid=milb .524 ops, 20 strikeouts, 1 bb, 1 hr, 7 rbi http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/sd-sp-fernando-tatis-jr-we-talk-in-september-20180422-story,amp.html Response to internet critics, “We talk in September.”

They're going to take a LOT of heat if they do draft another catcher that high...it's basically admitting they flubbed the Collins pick. Who's the last "true/pure" catcher to go in the Top 5 of a draft? Zunino?

Equally important to drafting/development (jury's still out on Getz, everything from Hostetler has been solid so far) is signing the RIGHT free agents the next couple of years. We simply can't afford to have another repeat of that cycle of Dunn...eventually leading to Robertson, Cabrera, LaRoche, Beckham, Bonifacio, etc. And when we do bring in guys like Austin Jackson or Avila, they always seem to do better once they leave.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Apr 18, 2018 -> 09:15 PM) Very little, if any, is the correct call in most places. Politics is local. Except for the Jones race, yes. Ossoff might even have won had they kept the race against Handel from becoming the liberal cause du jour. Lamb did a great job of keeping the national influence at arm's length, with the exception of Biden, one of the few DEMS who can speak effectively to constituents in that particular district. https://www.yahoo.com/news/need-stronger-ca...-090041374.html We need stronger candidates, not stronger political parties

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Apr 18, 2018 -> 10:06 PM) good summary caulfield of the long view. I got upset for a few minutes (because I woke up at 330 a.m. and followed the game all the way from home to work, and then knew it was over when Shields came in)....also, pissed over the first DET game when we seemed to have some positive momentum going to start the season as well. It would have been nice to be "in the race" until the beginning of June, but there's just no way we can hang with the Indians or Twins this year, so better to dispel that notion ASAP I guess. Then I reflected back to how pissed I was for 2-3 days after that stupid Carlos Gomez game in late 2008 and it just hit me that it's probably better to stop hoping for this team to be even "relatively" competitive, meaning 72-76 wins. We have a lot to look forward to, especially Kopech and Jimenez. Moncada was impacting the game in so many different ways, you see that light at the end of the tunnel when he cuts his K rate down to the low 30's (hopefully). The minor league injuries have been disappointing, but what can you possibly do when you've had one of the best injury/DL histories of any organization in baseball over the last 30 or 40 years? Even if we won the first Detroit game and this last one against the A's, we're still at 6-9, so it's not like that would encourage thousands more fans to show up at the ballpark, especially before school lets out. It didn't REALLY effect attendance that much two years ago when we started off 23-10 and were in 1st place.