As a Red Sox fan, I had a little sticker shock at first with Adley. But I like the deal even more when I think about next season, with (hopefully) fullish seasons from Anthony and Crochet, and a lot of core guys returning. Just shore up the MI and they might be a juggernaut.
As an ATL fan, I was very frustrated with the deadline deals.
The existing starting pitching is Chris Sale and Smoke & Mirrors after that. They have some excellent talent on the IL but that won't likely to riding into battle this Fall. (And Spencer Strider seems to be exhibit #2130 in Pitchers Get Hurt; take the money up front and don't bet on your health.) Tyler Mahle, a 31-year-old who is oft-injured with a career ERA+ of 104, feels like fiddling around the edges at best.
The lineup has several black holes with sub 100 OPS+ from LF, 3B, SS and DH. Swapping out Eli White for Lane Thomas is a marginal offensive improvement, but as the short half of a platoon with Yaz's Grandson, the difference over the remaining two months is a fractional WAR. The other moves were just activating Murphy and Kim from the IL and hoping that somehow they can hit.
I did like the addition of Brent Suter even if it makes me cringe about the amount of money "we" paid Bruce Sutter all those years ago. That said, adding a second LHP to the bullpen is not going to move the needle much.
That, on top of the draft where they took AJ Gracia waaaaaay above where they prospect folks thought he'd be drafted and then immediately losing him to the surgery folks projected and I feel that AA is protecting the floor, not aiming for the ceiling.
TL;dr -- I really wish "we" had been in on the Skubal trade, even if it costs Caminitti or Ritchie, the only ATL prospects who showed up on most of the Top 100 lists.
- Loved the Rutschman trade for the reasons Joe mentioned. The Sox are swimming in young potential. Was great to see them convert some of that to a solid player at a position of need.
- "Liam from Lexington"? You can do better, Joe! Sully from Somerville, Tony from Tewksbury, Mattie from Mattapan etc...
I find it weird to claim the Brewers are not in contending mode when they have won three straight division titles and could well win a fourth.
This while repeatedly turning over the roster Brewers management takes more risks than anyone (every year trading or letting guys go that everyone says will doom the team if they leave) relying on their intelligence, process and some luck to keep the team highly competitive.
And fwiw run prevention is not a challenge. Multiple guys have not hit now for over a month. Yelich. Contreras. Chourio (who finally hit a homer last night). And power is more critical in the postseason when sequence based offenses don’t work. And the Crew is dead last in homers. Milwaukee may have botched the trade deadline but not acquiring Skubal isn’t the reason
I call it the Bagwell principle. We only remember when the prospect traded away for a rental becomes a superstar. We forget the other 90% plus where the prospect does nothing.
My POV is anchored by a similar deal: John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander a couple of years earlier. The Tigers got a pitcher who was *excellent* down the stretch and a large reason they made the playoffs (and who was blasted in the playoffs) for a guy who now has a road named for him in suburban Atlanta.
The Bagwell for Andersen trade teaches two lessons. First, while deadline deals to make your club stronger are important, trading for a setup reliever isn't where to push your chips in. Second, if your player evaluation department values Scott Cooper over Jeff Bagwell, you may wish to invest in better evaluators.
I’m not usually a conspiracy guy, but if the rumors are true (and Pat Murphy almost couldn’t help himself) the Brewers offered Detroit a package that was demonstrably better than the Dodgers’ but Detroit took the Dodgers one. Could that be because the owners wanted the Dodgers to get Skuball to add to their idiotic campaign for a salary cap? I really wouldn’t put it past them. And I also believe that the Tigers were insisting on the Brewers including Henderson which would have been shockingly idiotic for the Brewers to do; I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have Henderson for the. Rest of this year over Skuball, let alone giving up 6 more years of control. I understand the blank page analogy but it doesn’t apply to someone like Henderson who has actually proven that he has a bit of Fitzgerald in him.
I'm not a conspiracy guy either, but I also wonder how many owners limited what their front offices could offer for Skubal. Given that the playoffs are a crapshoot, it's not like getting Skubal was going to improve any single contending team's chances of winning the World Series by more than a few percentage points. Given that math, I wouldn't be surprised if most owners of contending teams would rather have the Dodgers as the villain to demonstrate the need for a salary cap.
I don't think it's fair to say the Orioles are "starting over". They signed Pete Alonso. They extended Kyle Bradish and Shane Baz this year. There's talk of them extending Trever Rogers. They extended Samuel Basallo, who is the reason Rutschman was even on the market at all.
Losing Adley is gutting, and could well hurt the team the rest of the season. But they didn't sell off the whole team for lottery tickets, and unless something changes with their strategy as an organization by October (or whenever the lockout ends, I guess) I don't see any evidence of them turning toward a full rebuild.
Love the analogy of the blank page for the prospect. Ordinarily, and I think this is still true in the AL, just getting into the playoffs and hoping things go your way is a viable strategy for an organization. However, the Dodgers are so loaded that Dave Roberts can manage the entire season with the postseason in mind which makes them so good that an opponent needs to be better than usual or really lucky. As Khazad pointed out this week, it doesn't mean a small or mid-market team can't pull it off, but to do it, they will likely have to maximize their talent when the wave is cresting by extending some key players, signing a free agent or two, and/or pulling off a significant trade deadline deal. This would them a top 10 payroll or close to it for a short time, which may be uncomfortable for ownership, but is probably going to be necessary for a realistic chance of beating high payroll teams in the playoffs and winning a championship.
On the flip side, would be the argument just made the other day by Joe in response to the Brewers' fan despair...the Brewers are providing their fans with entertaining baseball and championship hope year after year. It could be argued that it isn't worth disrupting that by going all-in, have it fizzle, and then go through a painful rebuild back to where you started. I personally agree with Joe's take today.
The "blank page conundrum." Thanks for that! It perfectly describes exactly how I look at these trades. And with numbers to back it up--the majority of prospects don't turn into every day big leaguers--it's makes perfect, logical, practical sense. I've lost all patience with talking heads who think they can grade these trades as of they know what will happen over the next few weeks, months, and years.
You're right about the Guardians. They made some moves that may pay off. We'll see. Went to last night's game. Guards loaded the bases with no outs in the first. They scored 0 runs that inning and lost 6-2.
Adell hit rockets for a single and a double his first two at-bats - so that was encouraging.
As a Red Sox fan, I had a little sticker shock at first with Adley. But I like the deal even more when I think about next season, with (hopefully) fullish seasons from Anthony and Crochet, and a lot of core guys returning. Just shore up the MI and they might be a juggernaut.
As an ATL fan, I was very frustrated with the deadline deals.
The existing starting pitching is Chris Sale and Smoke & Mirrors after that. They have some excellent talent on the IL but that won't likely to riding into battle this Fall. (And Spencer Strider seems to be exhibit #2130 in Pitchers Get Hurt; take the money up front and don't bet on your health.) Tyler Mahle, a 31-year-old who is oft-injured with a career ERA+ of 104, feels like fiddling around the edges at best.
The lineup has several black holes with sub 100 OPS+ from LF, 3B, SS and DH. Swapping out Eli White for Lane Thomas is a marginal offensive improvement, but as the short half of a platoon with Yaz's Grandson, the difference over the remaining two months is a fractional WAR. The other moves were just activating Murphy and Kim from the IL and hoping that somehow they can hit.
I did like the addition of Brent Suter even if it makes me cringe about the amount of money "we" paid Bruce Sutter all those years ago. That said, adding a second LHP to the bullpen is not going to move the needle much.
That, on top of the draft where they took AJ Gracia waaaaaay above where they prospect folks thought he'd be drafted and then immediately losing him to the surgery folks projected and I feel that AA is protecting the floor, not aiming for the ceiling.
TL;dr -- I really wish "we" had been in on the Skubal trade, even if it costs Caminitti or Ritchie, the only ATL prospects who showed up on most of the Top 100 lists.
2 things as a Bostonian:
- Loved the Rutschman trade for the reasons Joe mentioned. The Sox are swimming in young potential. Was great to see them convert some of that to a solid player at a position of need.
- "Liam from Lexington"? You can do better, Joe! Sully from Somerville, Tony from Tewksbury, Mattie from Mattapan etc...
I find it weird to claim the Brewers are not in contending mode when they have won three straight division titles and could well win a fourth.
This while repeatedly turning over the roster Brewers management takes more risks than anyone (every year trading or letting guys go that everyone says will doom the team if they leave) relying on their intelligence, process and some luck to keep the team highly competitive.
And fwiw run prevention is not a challenge. Multiple guys have not hit now for over a month. Yelich. Contreras. Chourio (who finally hit a homer last night). And power is more critical in the postseason when sequence based offenses don’t work. And the Crew is dead last in homers. Milwaukee may have botched the trade deadline but not acquiring Skubal isn’t the reason
I call it the Bagwell principle. We only remember when the prospect traded away for a rental becomes a superstar. We forget the other 90% plus where the prospect does nothing.
My POV is anchored by a similar deal: John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander a couple of years earlier. The Tigers got a pitcher who was *excellent* down the stretch and a large reason they made the playoffs (and who was blasted in the playoffs) for a guy who now has a road named for him in suburban Atlanta.
The Bagwell for Andersen trade teaches two lessons. First, while deadline deals to make your club stronger are important, trading for a setup reliever isn't where to push your chips in. Second, if your player evaluation department values Scott Cooper over Jeff Bagwell, you may wish to invest in better evaluators.
I remember in Boston there were people upset that we traded prospect Carl Pavano for Pedro.
Probably the same folks who also complained about getting rid of the great Heathcliff Slocumb and only getting Derek Lowe and Jason Veritek in return.
I’m not usually a conspiracy guy, but if the rumors are true (and Pat Murphy almost couldn’t help himself) the Brewers offered Detroit a package that was demonstrably better than the Dodgers’ but Detroit took the Dodgers one. Could that be because the owners wanted the Dodgers to get Skuball to add to their idiotic campaign for a salary cap? I really wouldn’t put it past them. And I also believe that the Tigers were insisting on the Brewers including Henderson which would have been shockingly idiotic for the Brewers to do; I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have Henderson for the. Rest of this year over Skuball, let alone giving up 6 more years of control. I understand the blank page analogy but it doesn’t apply to someone like Henderson who has actually proven that he has a bit of Fitzgerald in him.
I'm not a conspiracy guy either, but I also wonder how many owners limited what their front offices could offer for Skubal. Given that the playoffs are a crapshoot, it's not like getting Skubal was going to improve any single contending team's chances of winning the World Series by more than a few percentage points. Given that math, I wouldn't be surprised if most owners of contending teams would rather have the Dodgers as the villain to demonstrate the need for a salary cap.
I'm still waiting for Joe to give us his thoughts about this ad campaign: https://www.mlb.com/level-the-playing-field
I don't think it's fair to say the Orioles are "starting over". They signed Pete Alonso. They extended Kyle Bradish and Shane Baz this year. There's talk of them extending Trever Rogers. They extended Samuel Basallo, who is the reason Rutschman was even on the market at all.
Losing Adley is gutting, and could well hurt the team the rest of the season. But they didn't sell off the whole team for lottery tickets, and unless something changes with their strategy as an organization by October (or whenever the lockout ends, I guess) I don't see any evidence of them turning toward a full rebuild.
Love the analogy of the blank page for the prospect. Ordinarily, and I think this is still true in the AL, just getting into the playoffs and hoping things go your way is a viable strategy for an organization. However, the Dodgers are so loaded that Dave Roberts can manage the entire season with the postseason in mind which makes them so good that an opponent needs to be better than usual or really lucky. As Khazad pointed out this week, it doesn't mean a small or mid-market team can't pull it off, but to do it, they will likely have to maximize their talent when the wave is cresting by extending some key players, signing a free agent or two, and/or pulling off a significant trade deadline deal. This would them a top 10 payroll or close to it for a short time, which may be uncomfortable for ownership, but is probably going to be necessary for a realistic chance of beating high payroll teams in the playoffs and winning a championship.
On the flip side, would be the argument just made the other day by Joe in response to the Brewers' fan despair...the Brewers are providing their fans with entertaining baseball and championship hope year after year. It could be argued that it isn't worth disrupting that by going all-in, have it fizzle, and then go through a painful rebuild back to where you started. I personally agree with Joe's take today.
The "blank page conundrum." Thanks for that! It perfectly describes exactly how I look at these trades. And with numbers to back it up--the majority of prospects don't turn into every day big leaguers--it's makes perfect, logical, practical sense. I've lost all patience with talking heads who think they can grade these trades as of they know what will happen over the next few weeks, months, and years.
You're right about the Guardians. They made some moves that may pay off. We'll see. Went to last night's game. Guards loaded the bases with no outs in the first. They scored 0 runs that inning and lost 6-2.
Adell hit rockets for a single and a double his first two at-bats - so that was encouraging.
But they bdly need Jose to be his old self.
"A boat's just a boat, Lois. But this mystery box could be anything! It could even be a boat!"
-Peter Griffin