Quin

We have Hawk to thank for that.

I mean, this is pretty much what people were saying about Vaughn and then he was immediately flying up the prospect boards as a 1B because of his hit tool.

Cobbler

Clint Frazier, Lastings Milledge, Deivi Garcia, Wilson Betemit (did Kenny do this trade?), Kyle Crick

Soroka was a ROY runner up and Cy Young vote getter in 2019, which was his only healthy season. So like, he has talent, it's just all vaporized.

Not A Rebuild™

Fixed this a bit. I once thought the same, then realized the truth.

Somehow I just realized there is the nightmare scenario of them falling out of the top six both this and next year, regardless of their record.

Soroka Quantrill Toussaint Kopech Scholtens Shuster NEW ADDITION god help us

oof, one of the few places that is worse for him to go than here

me speculating cause, especially after Soroka, he SCREAMS White Sox acquisition If you add in Deivi Garcia and Luis Patino that rotation is basically made of former top prospects who flamed out

so is this our opening day rotation: Soroka Quantrill Toussaint Kopech Scholtens

But instead of "this guy's a Bummer!" people now get to say "he sure does suck-roka!" Think of the creativity! (I'm probably just foolishly grateful to have any warm body because my soul is battered and bruised by Jerry)

Well... People despise Bummer, who will probably be amazing with a good defense behind him. The Sox set him up to fail. Sox painfully need a starter so even though Soroka's last good, fully healthy season was Moncada's last good, fully healthy season, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ After that, yeah, it's just stuff. Shuster feels more like a "throw a starter against a wall and see if he sticks" pitcher. Lopez is purely a meme acquisition. I guess Shewmake has a glove and people will get excited when a glove-first lefty hits in Charlotte only for it to be fool's gold.

Soroka's a good gamble. But also lmao Nicky Lopez.

Pragmatically, I know this. You know this. I'm just being petty because I want to see them try and justify everything right after MLB puts anti-tank measures in place.

Flipside of this is you have guys doing things that bodies were just not designed to do. White Sox and Herm, who at this point I'm convinced traversed the astral planes to keep people healthy, kept Sale mostly healthy by not maxing him out. Then he has his best season ever in 2017 after the Red Sox crank his fastball and slider up another mile per hour on average, and increase the slider usage. He was still good in 2018 but that's when injuries began popping up and it's been downhill since. Another example is Adam Engel. Dude is built, but is glass.

Add Angelos.

Grifol isn't a tank commander. He's a tank chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

John Fisher to A's Fans: "It's Been Worse For Me Than For You"

My tiebreaker is that I don't want them to have an argument to present to fans for tanking. I'd love to see JR and Getz spin putting out a bad team and be like "we wanted to get the #10 draft pick!"

I'd be shocked if it's not the Dodgers, Giants or a massive fucking bag of money from the Mets.

Whit Merrifield, 2-way player

To prove how not-serious the A's took stadium negotiations, this snippet from Nightengale's piece.

I mean, I've stanned my fair share of flops. Unfortunately I think my sole "Am I the only person who thinks this person will have an MLB career?" pick is Leury Garcia. Which was a fine pick until TLR.