Loup was actually having the best year of his career by far, in terms of skill. His ERA luck was just horrendous, on all fronts (BABIP, HR/FB%, LOB%).
Loup is a stud lefty and teams like Tampa are probably already targeting him in offseason trades.
So assuming a healthy Stroman and a 4 man playoff rotation, who gets bumped?
Price
Stroman
Buehrle
Dickey
Estrada
Hutch
Do you just keep the veterans in there and send Hutch/Estrada both to the pen? Most likely, but Estrada and Hutchison have arguably both been better than Dickey this year, and Buehrle might be running out of gas.
Francis makes sense because the current bullpen doesn't have a looooong man that can emergency start or chew up 4-5 innings.
Tepera makes sense if they think he's > Delabar, which is a fair opinion.
I wonder if the relationship with Delabar is just completely shattered. A lot of his public comments recently have him coming off as quite jaded, ambivalent about the organization in general, and generally unhappy.
To quote David Price, #ifyoudontlikeitPITCHbetter
Good idea.
I'll probably be in the market for single tickets or a pair of tickets to specific games, if anybody buys a full playoff strip and wants to make some $$ back by selling tickets to a couple of the games. Can PM me maybe.
Yes, probably, although if you squint you can sort of see some appreciation for modern value (WAR), value vs. contract analysis, modern defensive stats, team win curve position, etc.
Actually, he made some good SABER moves early on in his reign. League for Morrow, Sea Bass for Yunel, junk for Rasmus, Marcum for Lawrie, all of that awesome draft pick gaming - these things were widely and appropriately applauded.
And then he got antsy and impatient and made the Marlins and Mets trades...
Not much, but it's still significant. I would expect Seager to be a hair better in every slashline category. The separation comes from playing time outlook. Seager is 100% guaranteed to play every day, forever. Dietrich could struggle a bit and end up platooning, or whatever.
Yes - Shoemaker for Dillon Tate. Kind of a weird one for BTS to make, he doesn't usually trade projectable MLB assets for low minors lottery ticket guys without a lot of data.