BTS

Anyone else not realize that William Contreras is having a 5-win season? Oakland hilariously flipped him and elite setup and Joel Payamps for Esteury Ruiz. The Sean Murphy trade would have actually been alright if they didn't trade the man piece to Milwaukee for a 4th OF.

Seemed to want to come back, but also seemed unsure if he'd be able to. I don't think he'll play anywhere else. You'd have to think they'd be interested in having him as a pinch-hitter and 2-3 times a week starter at 1B/DH. The Pujols role last year in St. Louis.

I think if I'm voting I'd go Strider. His ERA is lagging some of the others by a bit, but likely leads the NL in wins and Ks, and his xFIP and xERA are both the best of all candidates.

Waino in line for #200 tonight

I think there's a cost to the way those teams do business as well. Winning matters more than anything, but fans get attached to individual players as well, and orgs that treat players like numbers on a spreadsheet don't seem to draw very well. Imagine the Dodgers trading Kershaw before the last year of his old long-term deal to maximize the value of their asset. Chaim Bloom tried that TB s*** in Boston with a 1st ballot HoFer and was run out of town 3 years later.

Soto has a 150 wRC+ and is going to put up a 5-win season, but it's still kind of felt like a disappointing year for some reason. I guess the slow start and general Padres stink.

I feel like we all knew that already

Up until like two days ago Rendon was getting roasted by everyone for faking his injury. For some reason the Angels still decided not to reveal his broken tibia, forcing him to do it himself. The team is an absolute gong show, and I don't know how they can keep employing Perry Minasian.

We don't, and the account has been deleted.

Then trying to salvage the Marlins mistake by doubling down and trading Reyes for a chronically-injured Tulo, extending the financial burden by 2 years or something like that.

He's still good at the same things he was good at here, but he now also values financial flexibility. It's unfathomable to think of current AA trading for 30+ year olds on long-term FA contracts.

Bloom was an absolute failure in Boston. Terrible tenure. Good on them for cutting bait after only 4 years.

His approach now doesn't even remotely resemble his approach here.

Jim posted on Fantrax chat that he's in

You're clearly not one of the owners with poor engagement.

I think the problem is that we have 2-3 owners who don’t actually care, beyond stopping in for a week or two every once in awhile to make a few moves. Rule changes like cutdowns isn’t going to increase their interest in the league. They might stop in at the deadline to make a couple more moves, but the end result will still be that they have mostly neglected teams with no shot at winning.

We're not out of touch enough to have AVG and hits in the same league

Calendar week

In DDL the vote was 11-1 in favour of change

My offense had possibly its best day of the season yesterday. Thanks guys!

I personally think we should keep the same scoring cats, and add two P slots. Gives teams the flexibility to roster 7 RPs if they want to, and really chase both S and H.

Yup. The product right now is the best it’s been since I started watching baseball.

Acuna just hit 100 HR+SB for the season

I'll be starting a league poll shortly after our playoffs end, but hoping people share their thoughts in advance.

One thing I want to address early in the offseason, so teams can plan accordingly, is the pitching configuration we use. Copying from Laika's DDL poll below: Should we change our pitching active roster positions? We currently have 5 SP slots and 4 RP slots and one P slot. BTS has raised the issue of Closers being devalued by this construction. The theory is that if people try to win Saves they need to use 2 or 3 slots on Closers, meaning they basically punt Holds to anybody who just chases setup men. So, aside from the fact that some Closers have elite ratios, it might not make sense to covet them since collecting Holds relievers is generally easier and lower cost. One idea is to change our pitching active slots so people can start more relievers and have more flexibility to try to chase both Holds and Saves. The proposal would turn one SP slot into an RP slot and add a second P slot. So, the new positions would be SP (4), RP (5), and P (2). This means people could start say 2 closers and 5 holds guys, if they wanted... This would devalue the unicorn SP eligible relievers, FWIW. This change would take effect in 2024. As an alternative, let us know if you would support combining Saves and Holds into SV+H. This would be instead of the active roster changes. This change would let you chase Saves without punting a different category. Closers would be more valuable than setup guys because they tend to collect more Saves than setup men collect Holds. It's possible that a new P category would be added... maybe a ratio like HR/9 or maybe quality starts? You can pick multiple options on the poll, if you would support this alternative. The results of this poll are not binding. Just using it to measure sentiment.