Reid-Foley aside, I don't think many people here see those guys as more than what they are: potential back of rotation starters who could maybe spend a few years eating some innings for the minimum without embarrassing themselves. It's objectively a good thing to have a bunch of potentially useful young arms in the AA and AAA rotations. We haven't had that for awhile.
It's still nice to have the young depth. You never really know when one of these guys will just keep getting outs in the majors and give you Fister/Quintana kind of production for a few years.
Starting to assemble a lot of pitching depth in the upper minors for the first time in awhile: Borucki, SRF, Pannone, Harris, Zeuch, and Murphy could all start games in the majors next year.
I think Dinger will only really regret it if Belt gets traded. He's a very good hitter, but his park is awful and he doesn't get quite as many PA's as you'd like, so he's not that sexy a fantasy option.
I don't find the latter part surprising. I watch almost no NBA, but I'll tune in to a Warriors playoff game. I hope they win another title next year. Casual fans tend to be drawn to a good narrative, and superteams are an easily-digestible narrative.
I think there would be interest in Oh and Tepera - both of these guys are good enough to be used in important spots in the playoffs as a 6th-inning guy or something. And both would be around next season too. I could see Loup maybe returning some team's 40th best prospect or something if the right team needs a lefty.
It's hard to see anyone wanting Clippard, and almost certainly nobody will want Axford. Maybe I'm biased because Clippard doesn't ever really look good out there even though his results have been alright, but I really can't see acquiring him with the intention of using him in the playoffs.
I had no idea he was down at replacement level until I checked a minute ago. At this point if we could unload him for another Santiago Espinal type I'd probably do that. It's not a given that it makes sense to pick up that 5.5M option.
Thought it might be useful to have a thread dedicated to what I hope resembles a firesale in the next two weeks.
Sold
Steve Pearce -> Santiago Espinal
Seung Hwan Oh -> Chad Spanberger + Forrest Wall + PTBNL
J.A. Happ -> Brandon Drury + Billy McKinney
Roberto Osuna -> Ken Giles + David Paulino + Hector Perez
Aaron Loup -> Jacob Waguespack
John Axford -> Corey Copping
Pending Free Agents
Josh Donaldson
Marco Estrada
Curtis Granderson
Tyler Clippard
Other Trade Chips
Ryan Tepera (three arbs seasons remaining)
Justin Smoak (6M team option in 2019)
Yangervis Solarte (5.5M team option in 2019, 8M team option in 2020)