caulfield12

They would be insane not to take as many minor league pitching prospects at the High A and AA levels as possible.

The Cincinnati Reds...

https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance Which team is now leading the White Sox in attendance as of Friday night? We have so many excuses for Rick Hahn. Their GM didn't throw his hands up in the air and quit...he only became more determined to prove his owner how wrong he was. He learned it from weather the exact same storm in Oakland in early 2000s. Nick Krall literally lived Moneyball. Not just read about it in the Michael Lewis book or watched Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill debate with Grady Fuson.

Then this year before the season started he did this: "Castellini made a presentation in front of a booster group called the Rosie Reds—a group founded in 1964 and whose acronym is Rooters Organized to Stimulate Interest and Enthusiasm—that seemed to be Castellini complaining about owning and running a baseball team in the 2020s. He once again brought up the current economic system in baseball, and it seemed his goal was to make Reds fans side with him and agree that it must be challenging to run a small market Major League Baseball franchise in 2023. Things took a turn when that presentation had a slide titled, ‘Teams out of contention by Opening Day,’ which was a chart showing how many teams since 2019 started the season with no chance of making the playoffs. Guess which team Phil is talking about? You guessed it. His own Cincinnati Reds. That kind of statement from a team’s President and COO will not stimulate interest and enthusiasm. In fact, it did the exact opposite. Locked On Reds podcast co-hosts Jeff Carr and Steven Offenbaker were flabbergasted on their podcast's latest episode while discussing Castellini’s weekend antics, with Carr saying, “What the heck was the endgame with this?” Offenbaker added, “What he’s saying is, there’s no point in watching the Reds! We haven’t even had the first pitch of spring training, and we’re out of contention.” https://www.wkyc.com/article/sports/locked-on/lo-cincinnati/reds-show/cincinnati-reds-president-phil-castellini-under-fire-again-for-comments-about-team/535-a1230c88-14ef-459e-ae3b-6073a1d79d95

He said, “Well, where you gonna go? Let's start there. I mean, sell the team to who? I mean, that's the other thing, I mean, you wanna have this debate? If you wanna look at what would you have this team do to have it be more profitable, make more money, compete more in the current economic system that this game exists, it would be to pick it up and move it somewhere else. And, so, be careful what you ask for. I think we're doing the best we can do with the resources that we have. " Someone whose owner said this just 15 short months ago now has the hottest team in baseball selling out that home park just last night.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sprint_speed_leaderboard https://www.mlb.com/news/elly-de-la-cruz-hits-for-cycle

The next day, the Reds moved to sign De La Cruz. Because they went way over the international bonus allotment the previous signing period to land Jose Barrero ($5 million), Alfredo Rodriguez ($7 million) and Vladimir Gutierrez ($4.75 million), they were penalized and could have no signings of players for over $300,000. Good thing no one else was really after De La Cruz. Cartagena and Jimenez signed him for only $65,000 on July 2, 2018. “Right now, everyone thinks it’s a steal," Cartagena said. https://www.mlb.com/news/how-the-reds-scouted-top-prospect-elly-de-la-cruz Very similar story to Tatis...minus the famous father and baseball pedigree. Raw/skinny athlete who wasn't noticed due to lack of power matures late physically... sprouts up almost overnight and becomes a star.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/mlb/reds/2018/05/19/new-cincinnati-reds-gm-nick-krall-lived-moneyball/625992002/

This is yet another reason Getz or Haber shouldn't get the Sox job... not nearly enough multifaceted experiences. Nick Krall joined the Reds in 2003 "After that internship with Oakland, Krall brought his talents to Cincinnati before the 2003 Reds season. Krall was hired to oversee the team's advance scouting preparation and worked his way through to the top of the front office. He was the team's assistant director of baseball operations from 2008-13, promoted to director of baseball operations in 2013 and named assistant GM in November, 2015."

Cincy GM Nick Krall worked for the 'Moneyball' 2001 Oakland A's The Cincinnati Enquirer profiled Krall in May 2018. The story detailed Krall's path to the Reds' GM job that started when he was an intern for Oakland. Of course the A's, about as cash-strapped as the Reds are these days, used Krall as a grounds crew member, bat boy and GM Billy Beane's secretary. "He’s like a lot of people in baseball. He got his foot in the door and was willing to do pretty much any job. Just look at the 2001 season: Krall was 24. He had interned the year before for the now-defunct New Jersey Cardinals of the New York-Penn. The A’s job was a chance to work in the big leagues. “Let me start at the beginning,” Krall said. “I worked on the grounds crew during spring training. When the season started, I was the baseball ops intern all season. I was also the bat boy. One of the people got sick, so I was Billy’s secretary for a couple of months." https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/2022/03/15/nick-krall-cincinnati-reds-gm-here-5-things-know/7049238001/

That's how they ended up screwing up the 2016 season... and those guys at least started out 23-10. Falsely believing you are competitive when you are clearly not.

17 strikeouts for Boston Hasn't stopped them.

They're going to give the old excuse that Grifol is more confident with veterans like Sheets and Andrus than an Oscar Colas with his job on the line.

Acuna Riley Olson homered to pull within one in the 8th... Braves fan caught last ball one handed reaching out over the bullpen railing. Diaz 21/21 in saves. Cycle for De la Cruz and now has 2/4 fastest times from home to third in last four seasons now (10.7 range, Sox typical time to second).

Well at least it wasn't on the ground?

What, Reynaldo not in high leverage?

Don't forget Anderson...

His arm and some defensive lapses in concentration haven't helped. He's the definition of a complementary player at this point in his career... unfortunately.

Feels like a Red Sox home game lol... Anderson 30 today. 3rd worst OPS in MLB.

White Sox bats consistently getting sawed off... lots of balls in on the hands by Bello. Hawkism: show me a pitcher that's afraid to pitch inside and...

Any rumors have showcasing Anderson for a trade by demonstrating his flexibility? What happened to Remillard?

Burger Time/Tron

That was only five years ago, too. Of course the Dodgers' roster is also an embarrassment of riches. Will Smith today is one of the best catchers...they dealt the blocked Keibert Ruiz and still have Cartaya.

Probably because JR KW and Grifol threads are getting boring. Hahn-washing continues to the point where full apathy sets in or you're stuck arguing about the journeymen of all journeymen. We already kicked Leury and Alberto out and still have approximately half the roster left to go.

And you can surely afford to do that when you have the Astros' line up from 2014-2022. Not going to argue about White Sox collecting more DHs who can't put up 800 or even 700 OPS numbers... we have Sheets there now too.