We are in year 4 of the Shatkins era. How much time do you give them?

[Dick_Pole]

BTS is making far too much sense in this entire thread.

[jmomcc]

We're already cycling through a dozen replacement-level players. The idea that adding 3 good players in the offseason would have been bad because we'd have 3 fewer spots to devote to replacement level players doesn't make much sense to me. If Charlie Morton is here instead of Clay Buchholz and the team sees an intriguing arm on the waiver they want to look at, they just option Pannone. Or option Mayza. Or DFA Law. Intriguing OF hits the wire and Brantley is here instead of Brito? Option McKinney or Hernandez.

 

I would rather give Hernandez or McKinney those at bats. I see the point with Morton.

[jmomcc]

For those who are on the prospect bandwagon, which one of the team's non-prospects would have been blocked by good veteran players? That good players other than Guerrero aren't even up yet. This is just filler. This team has a distinct 1977 feel to it that could have been totally avoidable.

 

The argument about a free season to suck all you want is asinine. Every loss, every bad season, the franchise takes a credibility hit.

 

The astros won a World Series and are the team to go to find someone to run your front office. This is like 2/3 years after there were stories about free agents not wanting to go there. Credibility means nothing in other words.

 

The players that would be blocked by free agents are guys like Hernandez. His 5% chance of being an above average cost controlled regular is more important than a free agent who will be being paid more fairly and would decline more quickly.

[Dick_Pole]

JP Ricciardi being in charge of 25/40-man roster construction and somebody else being in charge of drafting, PR and pretty much everything else would go a long way to accelerating this team's competitive window. They should give a call to that big-nosed slob. I never thought I would give that man a compliment but man has roster construction been absolutely atrocious this year.

 

That being said, this regime has done an excellent job in contracts (and avoiding bad contracts) and pretty good with trades. This scorched earth philosophy seems so out of character for them compared to the safe and steady stocking of the farm they did up to this point while still having a presentable team. It's like they've gone full 2013 AA except in the opposite direction. Nothing they have done to destroy 2019 benefits the future except in the opinion of some of the Jimtards who think the slightly higher draft spot will be a game changer any time soon.

 

People have said bad s*** about Rogers forcing their hand to compete. I actually hope Rogers does force their hand a bit. Hopefully these guys have some aces up their sleeve come trade deadline day with some tradable assets and a ton of salary space to work with and all this will start to make some sense.

[BTS]

The astros won a World Series and are the team to go to find someone to run your front office. This is like 2/3 years after there were stories about free agents not wanting to go there. Credibility means nothing in other words.

 

The players that would be blocked by free agents are guys like Hernandez. His 5% chance of being an above average cost controlled regular is more important than a free agent who will be being paid more fairly and would decline more quickly.

 

Hernandez would not be blocked by Brantley. A fictional toolsy OF who is not currently in the org is who would be ‘blocked’ by Brantley.

 

You’re saying you’d rather have literally nothing than have Brantley, because that nothing is a roster spot that could be filled by a bad replacement level player who suddenly becomes good.

 

Let’s say Houston calls and offers Brantley for Brito on the condition that you roster Brantley all year. You say no because you don’t want the roster spot taken?

[Ray]

Assuming Vlad is mashing, I'll be annoyed if they're not 0.500 in 2020 and legit good in 2021. I'll also be annoyed if they end up selling Smoak, Stroman, and Giles at the deadline, because I think that pretty much means they're punting 2020. We're seeing this year what it looks like when you make no effort to roster decent vets, and it isn't pretty:

 

SRF - sucks

Pannone - looked good for awhile, but actually still really sucks

Luciano - expected to suck, and sucks

Drury - shows potential, but in the present still sucks

Hernandez - sucks

McKinney - sucks to the extent that he somehow has zero redeeming qualities

Gurriel - sucked, got demoted because he went full Russ Adams

Alford - didn't make the team, and really sucks so it's a good thing

 

Of the 10 or so kids who we wanted to see play, it's just been Tellez (who looks like a 1-win DH) and Thornton (looks like a legit mid-rotation SP) who have been enjoyable to watch.

 

I don't buy in to the idea that you need to go scorched earth on the MLB squad to rebuild. There will always be chances for talented kids in AAA to earn a spot on the MLB roster. Trading all of the good vets and entering 2020 with a $75M team of Vlad, Biggio, and 15 Billy McKinneys and Teoscar Hernandezs with the odd vet thrown in would be a disaster.

 

Drury, 26 years old

Teoscar Hernandez, 26 years old

Billy McKinney, 24 years old

Gurriel, 25 years old

Alford, 24 years old.

 

Our position player group is literally the 2nd youngest in the entire major leagues. Alot of players you listed are either going through the process of trying to figure out major league pitching, or trying to re adjust to the adjustments the league made from last season. Let's at least give them a whole season before making judgements.

[Dick_Pole]

The astros won a World Series and are the team to go to find someone to run your front office. This is like 2/3 years after there were stories about free agents not wanting to go there. Credibility means nothing in other words.

 

The players that would be blocked by free agents are guys like Hernandez. His 5% chance of being an above average cost controlled regular is more important than a free agent who will be being paid more fairly and would decline more quickly.

 

No it is absolutely not. I hope tercet trolls you now saying what a s*** ballplayer he is just for suggesting this. Oh and also signing some competent player doesn't necessarily mean Hernandez rides the bench. Have you seen some of the guys getting playing time recently?

 

And for every Astros story in sports, there are like 10 Pirates stories. Or Sacramento Kings or Blue Jackets (until just now) or Oilers or Expos. It's not a path you want to go down if you can avoid it.

[jmomcc]

Hernandez would not be blocked by Brantley. A fictional toolsy OF who is not currently in the org is who would be ‘blocked’ by Brantley.

 

You’re saying you’d rather have literally nothing than have Brantley, because that nothing is a roster spot that could be filled by a bad replacement level player who suddenly becomes good.

 

Let’s say Houston calls and offers Brantley for Brito on the condition that you roster Brantley all year. You say no because you don’t want the roster spot taken?

 

Brantley would surely take some time from Hernandez, or McKinney or Drury/gurriel if/when they play outfield.

 

I’d take Brantley as long as I could trade him to a team at the deadline. I would guess he wouldn’t have signed with us because he knew that’s what we would do.

[Brownie19]

I thought they would have hit on more major league acquisitions. We had some talent to trade and haven't come up with much in those deals. The minor league side has been fine.

 

Free agency hasn't been great either. Even a brain dead team like the Reds managed to scoop up Dietrich and Iglesias.

 

Their general philosophy is still pretty optimal though. Extreme risk aversion and hoarding assets. We'll eventually be good but it might take longer than we thought.

 

How could we have 'hit' any better than we have with Sogard? Galvis is back to being Galvis, but those 2 vets have been great signings so far. Shoemaker also appeared to be a huge 'hit' before his unfortunately injury.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Brownie19

[jmomcc]

No it is absolutely not. I hope tercet trolls you now saying what a s*** ballplayer he is just for suggesting this. Oh and also signing some competent player doesn't necessarily mean Hernandez rides the bench. Have you seen some of the guys getting playing time recently?

 

And for every Astros story in sports, there are like 10 Pirates stories. Or Sacramento Kings or Blue Jackets (until just now) or Oilers or Expos. It's not a path you want to go down if you can avoid it.

 

There’s nothing going to convince me less than someone telling me with certainty that someone is never going to be good. You don’t know.

 

I don’t know if it is a 5% chance or a 1% chance or an 8% chance but the front office obviously thinks there is a chance. If that is so, that is worth investing in when we aren’t trying to win.

[Carlos Danger]

I realize I'm ranting at this point, but I really hate everyone who whines in March that vets are making the team because 'they just want to watch the kids play'. You know who, by and large, have made this team completely unwatchable? The kids. Some of the most entertaining players to watch? Giles, Stro, Shoemaker, Smoak, Galvis, and Sogard. There is absolutely nothing entertaining about watching a team of bad young players get overmatched at the MLB level as the losses pile up.

 

That is some revisionist history though.. The vets we were talking about were NOT Shoemaker, Sogard, Galvis, Stroman and Giles.. It was Morales, Martin, Pillar to name 3.

 

Do I miss any three of them. HELL NO! Would I rather have what we have now with at least the hope for future potential and upside, YES. Would I be even more bored and lack enthusiasm watching Morales, Martin and Pillar.. YES, I would probably rather watch darts or paint dry.

 

Did I enjoy the heck out of Pannone's immaculate inning much more than I would have seeing Axford and Danny Barnes pitch, Hell yea!

[Terminator]

I don't think that's true, but even if it was - I don't see the point of acquiring multiple vets to try to get a better chance of .500. This season developing our own prospects is more important IMO. If none (or hardly any of them) develop then I don't see the problem with trying the same strategy again next year with the addition of whatever prospects we get from trading Giles / Smoak.

 

We are not a good team, and until some of the prospects become good players then signing a handful of vets isn't going to make us into contenders.

 

Brito, Hanson and a whole bunch of other zeros are going to combine for hundreds of ABs. There's no reason, other than saving a giant corporation like Rogers a few bucks.

 

I'll give them this year, we kind of have to at this point. But there's no reason to suck so bad again next year. Especially if the market is so garbage again.

[Brownie19]

I just disagree with the premise that anything is sacrificed by adding a few decent vets. If the team had signed, say, Brantley and Morton and kept Pillar, what's the downside? We'd have seen niether of Brito and Hanson, and probably not signed Buchholz.

 

Why the f*** would Brantley have signed in TO? I mean if we could attract a good FA - if we would have gone that route, we could now be stuck with Marwin Gonzalez....a lot of people were on board with signing him because he looked like such a bargain. Let's be fair - the only players willing to sign here were the ones who needed full time starting positions to rebuild their value (Shoemaker, Galvis, etc.) - and we got some of those guys, and they have been great.

 

Morton - yes, sure. I think every team in baseball should be kicking themselves for not offering Morton a better contract than the Rays did, Toronto included. I mean we did get Buchholz, who was coming off a pretty awesome year too. Just turns out he's probably washed up.

[jmomcc]

This thread is focusing too much on hitters. The obvious mistake was signing 35 year old s*** bag innings eaters like Richard and Buchholz instead of 28-30 year old ones like Lyles, Martin Perez, Pomeranz and Moore. At least there's a modicum of talent there and you can roll the dice that way.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Bucholz was a waste of time especially.

[BTS]

This thread is focusing too much on hitters. The obvious mistake was signing 35 year old s*** bag innings eaters like Richard and Buchholz instead of 28-30 year old ones like Lyles, Martin Perez, Pomeranz and Moore. At least there's a modicum of talent there and you can roll the dice that way.

 

I thought they did alright with the bargain deals. Shoemaker was a great signing, and Buchholz showed enough last year to make him interesting at the price they paid.

[Brownie19]

This thread is focusing too much on hitters. The obvious mistake was signing 35 year old s*** bag innings eaters like Richard and Buchholz instead of 28-30 year old ones like Lyles, Martin Perez, Pomeranz and Moore. At least there's a modicum of talent there and you can roll the dice that way.

 

Dude - we signed Shoemaker for this very reason. We did sign the 28-30 year old who still has team control. I guess we could have piled them on (if they wanted to play here)...but you can't exactly s*** on the FO when they picked up someone from that group already. Matt Moore and Martin Perez were f***ing awful last year.

[Brownie19]

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Bucholz was a waste of time especially.

 

That's utter nonsense. He was worth 1.7 WAR last year in less than 100 innings. He was worth 3.4 WAR in 2015. He was worth nothing in 2016 and 2017. He comes with an extremely volatile array of outcomes - but if you 'hit', you hit really well and may have a valuable asset. We probably 'missed' on him - but that doesn't mean that risk wasn't worth it.

[Deadpool]

I chose the last option, with the implied understanding that there is marked improvement every year. I want to see Stroman and Giles (and probably Smoak) extended rather than traded, but I also want to see Alford the f*** up here (even though he's sucking mightily in AAA right now, he sure as s*** wouldn't be worse than Brito or Hanson) and I want to see Hernandez, McKinney & Guriel getting at bats this year.

 

Teo is still s*** in the field, but the eye test suggests he's getting better - still making some boneheaded plays, but improvement is improvement - and his walk rate is now 5th best on the team (2nd best if you cut out guys who have played fewer than half as many games as him), and you know his power is there, just needs to show up in games.

 

McKinney has been hot garbage, but I don't have an issue having a long look at him before completely writing him off, and Guriel has been a friggin' beast in AAA since the demotion, so if he can get over the yips (and/or get some positional versatility) there might actually be a "there" there (and his BABIP is high, but not absurdly out of line with his career numbers)

 

This wasn't going to be a contending year, so I'm super cool with jettisoning the guys who weren't going to contribute 2020 and beyond (Morales, Pillar, Martin) to see what we have, but I still think guys like the above who I wanted to extend have value to this team going forward, even if they're not 24 or whatever.

[jmomcc]

That's utter nonsense. He was worth 1.7 WAR last year in less than 100 innings. He was worth 3.4 WAR in 2015. He was worth nothing in 2016 and 2017. He comes with an extremely volatile array of outcomes - but if you 'hit', you hit really well and may have a valuable asset. We probably 'missed' on him - but that doesn't mean that risk wasn't worth it.

 

He was also a 34 year old coming off an elbow injury and a season where his return to form was precipitated by a slight jump in velocity (2mph i think?), which seemed unlikely to repeat given said injury. I'll be honest though, I thought it was more than 3 million.

[Ray]

Shoemaker's almost 33. Although that was still a fine signing. But even then, we gave two spots to Richard/Buchholz just to eat innings. They have no trade value and no long-term future with the team. There's no reclamation, no upside, nothing. They're bodies.

 

I'm just saying I thought Shatkins was going to be the type of FO to find the 28 year old guy who has like a 10% chance of being good, and make them good.

 

For example, Falvey in Minnesota. Hires Wes Johnson to overhaul all the pitching, a long-time college coach. Could have signed a s*** bag to eat innings as a #5. Instead they look at 28 year old Perez. Johnson thinks he can add velo with an adjustment to the delivery. And he does. And he adds a cutter. And now he's a good pitcher.

 

I was hoping for some of this.

 

They've already had success with this to some extent. Justin Smoak has had career years recently and looks like a completely different player than he did in 2016.

 

Also, this is literally what they were/are trying to do with Socrates Brito and Alen Hanson. And they got s*** on for it.

[BTS]

They've already had success with this to some extent. Justin Smoak has had career years recently and looks like a completely different player than he did in 2016.

 

Also, this is literally what they were/are trying to do with Socrates Brito and Alen Hanson. And they got s*** on for it.

 

The only people who have really complained about taking a flier on Brito are the casuals. Hanson, on the other hand, was a f***ing embarrassment.

[glory]

At some point if Shatkins is to be trusted from a player development side, they'll need to turn some of these guesses into hits. Smoak definitely helps, but that's it in 3+ years. If you asked to name all the players the Rays fixed over that same span, the list would be a lot longer. Hell, the Yankees list would be a lot longer. That's who were are competing with.

[Bobthe4th]

The only people who have really complained about taking a flier on Brito are the casuals. Hanson, on the other hand, was a f***ing embarrassment.

 

That's simply not true.

[Bobthe4th]

Eh, Smoak was already here. A better example would be Galvis. Someone under 30 who they think they can improve, that might be able to give us something for 2-4 years.

 

I know it's not an easy thing to do, but I thought we'd have one or two by now. Another example would be Solarte, who turned out to be s***.

 

For example, the Orioles are giving ABs to Villar and DSJ. Under 30 guys who might be viable in the future.

 

Nah the perfect example is Grichuk. Galvis is a solid player, and has been pretty much as expected. Grichuk has been given a contract that reflects a player like you're describing even though arguably he hasn't actually performed like it.

[BTS]

That's simply not true.

 

Who else?

[Bobthe4th]

Who else?

 

The Brito acquisition has been condemned by the majority of the board and rightly so. Trading Pillar only to replace him with Brito made no sense. You either trade Pillar to give a prospect a chance, keep him, or upgrade him. Not acquire a perennial DFA candidate who is out of options.

[Ray]

Eh, Smoak was already here. A better example would be Galvis. Someone under 30 who they think they can improve, that might be able to give us something for 2-4 years.

 

I know it's not an easy thing to do, but I thought we'd have one or two by now. Another example would be Solarte, who turned out to be s***.

 

For example, the Orioles are giving ABs to Villar and DSJ. Under 30 guys who might be viable in the future. We had some ABs available for the past few years, we could have just churned through s*** and found someone. Like this hilarious stuff Zaidi is doing with the Giants. Just giving 50 ABs to 26 year old minor leaguer after 26 year old minor leaguer, until he hits. DFA'ing a guy once a week.

 

Smoak was here, but was hardly the player he is now. The guy directly contributes his 2017 season to a meeting he had with Atkins who pointed out his struggles were all mental, and he got pointed towards a sports psychologist. I'd consider that a big success. We're gonna parlay that Smoak extension into maybe something useful this trade deadline because of it.

 

You point out that you want the team to invest in "under 30 guys who might be viable in the future" without realizing that Drury, Hernandez, McKinney, Brito are all well under 30 years old. Giving them AB's is exactly what they're doing.

[Terminator]

I'm tired of creating cool threads and never getting any likes. Meanwhile, people who merely comment in my threads are getting loads of likes. This poll is the best thread we've had this year and I get 0 likes. It's ******** and it makes me think you all are xenophobes.

[BTS]

The Brito acquisition has been condemned by the majority of the board and rightly so. Trading Pillar only to replace him with Brito made no sense. You either trade Pillar to give a prospect a chance, keep him, or upgrade him. Not acquire a perennial DFA candidate who is out of options.

 

https://www.bluejaysmessageboard.com/threads/8950-Blue-Jays-acquire-OF-Sócrates-Brito-from-the-Padres/page4?highlight=Brito

 

This is the Brito acquisition thread. It’s interesting because a) it’s almost entirely good posters, and there are almost no complaints about his acquisition. And there shouldn’t have been. He was free, and a toolsy guy with success at AAA.

[Ray]

Ya but you had to trade Happ for Drury/McKinney. I'm talking about all the free spots we're handing out to guys who are clearly s*** like Hanson or really old. Sogard's on a major heater but he's 33 years old. It would have been better to give that minor league invite or whatever to Iglesias/Dietrich who are 4 years younger. I just don't get the rationale there.

 

Dietrich or Iglesias also would've been 1 year fill ins who we likely would've flipped at the deadline if they were performing well, not a long term solution. They're not really that different from a guy like Sogard or Galvis.

 

Guys like Hanson and Brito were acquired because they were former top prospects who had intriguing enough minor league numbers and maxed out their development at AAA. They could be long term pieces if they perform well enough. The only way to see if they would stick is by playing them.