I will preface this by saying I think we made the right move to rebuild last fall, and I'd still make the same decision today.

 

That being said, what if we decided not to rebuild and kept the team together this year? What would our record be today, and would we be in the running for a wild card? Im going to guess they'd be in Minnesota's spot (2nd Wildcard), but not nearly strong enough to win in the playoffs.

About as good of a chance as they had the last 3 years of failing at the same goal.

Hmm.

 

So let's think about what the roster would look like. I'm going to say had we still been competing, we'd be seeing

C - Same, we'd have gone in with Navarro and ended up with Smith/Narvaez. Maybe Castro is a white sox.

1b - Abreu

2b - Lawrie / Yolmer

3b - Frazier

RF - Melky

CF - Vet retread that almost certainly is worse than Leury.

LF - Avi

DH - I wanna say someone like Chris Carter would have been signed.

 

Starters - Sale/Q/Rodon/SHields/MiGo. I'm going to go out and saiy Holland was on our radar, and the other option I'd give you is them signing Jason Hammel

 

RP - Benefit of doubt: Robertson/Jones/Kahnle/Swarzak/Jennings

 

So here's my thing.

 

Let's say injuries stay the same. Here are my assumptions:

Lawrie gets reinjured

Rodon has his injury

Jones has his injury

Burdi has injury

 

What does that do? How are we different from last year?

 

Pluses:

-Our bullpen is better and we likely saw some of BUrdi pre-injury

- RF is better than last year

- Positional depth includes players like L Garcia/Y Sanches to provide much better production than last year, while Delmonico would eventually replace Carter

- Sale/Q

 

Minuses:

- When Rodon comes in injured, we see the issues we already had last year. Fulmer would be up pitching and even though he was good to start year, I think that was AAA smoke and mirrors

- Behind Fulmer is ... Holmberg? DO we have a different Rule 5 pick? What's behind that?

 

So what is the pace for 2nd wild card...84 wins?

 

I still don't see, even with Avi's year and Jose's, how our lack of SP depth doesn't take this team down. We'd have very bad MiGo stretches, very abd fulmer stretches and I guess a slightly better offense?

 

Maybe the superb bullpen gets us in, I don't know.

Hmm.

 

So let's think about what the roster would look like. I'm going to say had we still been competing, we'd be seeing

C - Same, we'd have gone in with Navarro and ended up with Smith/Narvaez. Maybe Castro is a white sox.

1b - Abreu

2b - Lawrie / Yolmer

3b - Frazier

RF - Melky

CF - Vet retread that almost certainly is worse than Leury.

LF - Avi

DH - I wanna say someone like Chris Carter would have been signed.

 

Starters - Sale/Q/Rodon/SHields/MiGo. I'm going to go out and saiy Holland was on our radar, and the other option I'd give you is them signing Jason Hammel

 

RP - Benefit of doubt: Robertson/Jones/Kahnle/Swarzak/Jennings

 

So here's my thing.

 

Let's say injuries stay the same. Here are my assumptions:

Lawrie gets reinjured

Rodon has his injury

Jones has his injury

Burdi has injury

 

What does that do? How are we different from last year?

 

Pluses:

-Our bullpen is better and we likely saw some of BUrdi pre-injury

- RF is better than last year

- Positional depth includes players like L Garcia/Y Sanches to provide much better production than last year, while Delmonico would eventually replace Carter

- Sale/Q

 

Minuses:

- When Rodon comes in injured, we see the issues we already had last year. Fulmer would be up pitching and even though he was good to start year, I think that was AAA smoke and mirrors

- Behind Fulmer is ... Holmberg? DO we have a different Rule 5 pick? What's behind that?

 

So what is the pace for 2nd wild card...84 wins?

 

I still don't see, even with Avi's year and Jose's, how our lack of SP depth doesn't take this team down. We'd have very bad MiGo stretches, very abd fulmer stretches and I guess a slightly better offense?

 

Maybe the superb bullpen gets us in, I don't know.

 

I think this is a good assessment. Yeah, Minnesota is 5 games over .500 in the second WC place and the Angels 3 games. We'd be banking on a strong bullpen and career years from Sale, Avi, Abreu, Kanhle, etc.

 

Wow I totally forgot about Eaton.

 

I guess the question is whether we'd bank Eaton's injury.

 

I don't know, We may very well have made playoffs with that bullpen. But yeah, basically we'd need hansen/Collins the next year to try and bolster the roster.

 

 

I figure if they were in go-for it mode, they likely dump Garcia and he doesn't end up breaking out with us.

I figure if they were in go-for it mode, they likely dump Garcia and he doesn't end up breaking out with us.

 

Yeah I think this is right. Fits with the 2014-16 theme of "in trying to improve, we ended up worse"

Eh, FanGraphs has us projected to finish 64-98, which sounds reasonable. You'd have to add 20 wins to that to get us over .500.

 

Even assuming Sale would have had the same season and assuming we wouldn't have tried to replace Avi, I can't get us 20 wins with him, Quintana, and another half season of our bullpen and Todd Frazier. It looks like we'd probably have another 75 win season, which is like the worst possible outcome for a team not sure where to go.

Eh, FanGraphs has us projected to finish 64-98, which sounds reasonable. You'd have to add 20 wins to that to get us over .500.

 

Even assuming Sale would have had the same season and assuming we wouldn't have tried to replace Avi, I can't get us 20 wins with him, Quintana, and another half season of our bullpen and Todd Frazier. It looks like we'd probably have another 75 win season, which is like the worst possible outcome for a team not sure where to go.

 

I don't know. Depends on if you assume Eaton is injured. Basically 15 WAR between the big 3. So 5 for the rest.

 

If Eaton is injured and you had released Garcia...then you have another 3 that I doubt is replaced correctly. Probably a negative WAR guy.

It would have been. All bad.

 

At least now it's been bad with rays of good on the horizon.

Hard to say who they would have brought in to play center field....maybe Granderson? We'd probably be contending for a WC spot...that's about it IMO. I will say this...I THANK GOD they decided to do it when they did or you wouldn't have guys you do now and your returns would look a ton different if you would have waited til this off-season.

I thought this from time to time.

 

If everyone had career years I think they go 85-77 make a wild card, lose to the Yankees or Indians/Houston/Boston but never really threaten to be better than this over time.

 

 

About as good of a chance as they had the last 3 years of failing at the same goal.

We'd have had a chance with Robin out of the way. However, with Cleveland on this kind of a roll they'd still have won the division and we wouldn't have made the wild card. But with Robin replaced by somebody competent, we may never have rebuilt in the first place. Robin was pretty darn bad.

Edited September 11, 20178 yr by greg775

We'd have had a chance with Robin out of the way. However, with Cleveland on this kind of a roll they'd still have won the division and we wouldn't have made the wild card. But with Robin replaced by somebody competent, we may never have rebuilt in the first place. Robin was pretty darn bad.

 

So going from Robin to Rick added 8+ games to the win column? Interesting

So going from Robin to Rick added 8+ games to the win column? Interesting

I'm not saying it had to be Rick. When we got Robin wasn't Francona available? Remember I was talking about begging Leyland or LaRussa to save us?

I'm not saying it had to be Rick. When we got Robin wasn't Francona available? Remember I was talking about begging Leyland or LaRussa to save us?

 

So again, Francona or Leyland or LaRussa were worth 8+ wins alone?

How about a slightly different what if scenario? Say we never went for it in 2015 and continued to rebuild. Would we have been competitive this year?

How about a slightly different what if scenario? Say we never went for it in 2015 and continued to rebuild. Would we have been competitive this year?

 

Returns for Sale, Q, & Eaton wouldn't have been as high

So again, Francona or Leyland or LaRussa were worth 8+ wins alone?

During a season in the Robin era? Yes. We're talking from Day One preparation in spring training through the regular season. Of course they'd be 8 or more wins better than Robin. Robin was that bad. Inexperienced and pretty much a managing buffoon. Great player? Of course. Manager? Horrific.

Edited September 12, 20178 yr by greg775

That sums it up.

During a season in the Robin era? Yes. We're taking from Day One preparation in spring training through the regular season. Of course they'd be 8 or more wins better than Robin. Robin was that bad. Inexperienced and pretty much a managing buffoon. Great player? Of course. Manager? Horrific.

 

lol

 

I keep thinking I'll catch a non-insane post from you, but nope you don't break.

lol

 

I keep thinking I'll catch a non-insane post from you, but nope you don't break.

Jenksy u make no sense.

OK let's look at it quickly ... Robin: Worst manager in baseball; maybe second worse in Sox history behind Bevington.

LaRussa, Leyland, Francona (who we coulda got) ... three of the best in baseball history. Eight games??? Hell yes. Do u realize how bad nice-guy Robin was and how good these three are???

Returns for Sale, Q, & Eaton wouldn't have been as high

I'd argue that the return for Sale would've been much higher

I'd argue that the return for Sale would've been much higher

 

Offset by much lower returns for Q/Eaton. And really, getting the #1 hitting and pitching prospects in baseball in the same trade is a pretty solid return.

But if we hadn't gone for it in 2015 I don't think we trade those three, we still would probably be looking to build around them.