BlueRocky

Hey look Davis got another hit

I think if he hits the way he's projected to, we would all take a modest 40 on Vladdy's fielding, and he might be better than that. There's a chance he'll stick at third for the first couple years. We've already seen his plus arm and he's not so slow for a chunky dude.

Timestamps: 2:14 - Everything Vladdy Jr 11:40 - Chris Sale's ridiculous 17 K /0 BB game 15:59 - Aaron Sanchez discussion 19:11 - f***, Marry, Kill: Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, and Ken Giles 24:22 - Raptors series against the Sixers and Kawhi Leonard (& lots of basketball talk) 40:45 - Predictions Raptors vs Bucks series 43:54 - Talk about J.P. Arencibia and Ricky Romero comments This was a good episode, had lots of laughs. I think Kawhi would be a stud corner infielder with those large mitts, not sure you want a 6-8 guy running ham at center or catching. Also on point with all those DeRozan comments. FMK discussion was hilarious, interesting stuff from JPA as well. We back on a weekly schedule now?

the weather report was... good effort?

Looks like the first pod since Vladdy's callup. Nice, nice. Will be consuming this wonderful content the next time I hit the gym, most likely Monday morning.

I still very much prefer a high upside bat. This draft seems solid in position player talent. If a team ahead of us picks a pitcher, that's just an extra bat we can choose from. Guys like Vaughn and Bishop may fall a couple spots, which will mix up the order a lot. And if Texas really goes under-slot at #8 even more possibilities open up for our pick at 11. I don't think position matters as much as getting the best guy available. If a guy completely rakes in the minors, they will always find a spot for him to play, or he can also become a very valuable trade chip. For example if we got Nolan Gorman last year, and he's been absolutely raking. And two years down the road we realize he's getting blocked by Vlad and we can't find playing time for him, we can package him up for a front rotation starter, like what Red Sox did for Chris Sale or Astros did for Verlander. You wanna get as many blue chippers as possible regardless where they're playing in college/HS.

Brock Lundquist heated up as well First 12 games: .111/.184/.111, OPS .295 next 21 games: .364/.481/.576, OPS 1.057 Some guys just need time, double-A is a huge jump. It's basically like taking all your most talented pitchers in A/A+ and putting them in one level. From what was said before, it might be a mechanical issue with Smith and he just needs time to adjust.

Are you serious?

Is he ever sober?

That could’ve been much worst. We might win this guys

Thank you White Sox, we needed this.

Military appreciation weekend

Here’s my observation with Sean. When all things are clicking, he looks fine as a starter. He throws a lot of pitches to get guys out. Innings can run up to 20-25 pitches on the regular. Similar to Sanchez, he goes for strikeouts but often walks guys instead. His FB sits 93-95, his slider has good bite, his 12-6 curve is maybe average, and he does use it to steal strikes. Command is a clear issue. Sometimes innings look effortless, and other times it’s a real struggle. He pitches better from the windup than out of the stretch, but he’s always in the stretch because of the walks. He loses command of his fastball when under pressure. In the stretch, the action is more compact but it doesn’t look natural for him. His stuff works better when working down in the zone, but the FB can miss way too low. Breaking stuff will catch way too much plate or miss by a mile. His slider has swing and miss potential, but inconsistency with command between both his pitches allow batters to just sit on 3-2 counts and they end up with free walks more than not. Most importantly when the defense behind him derps, his bad inning can snowball really hard and the game is unrecoverable. His mechanics start falling apart in these scenarios. I mean it’s human nature but starting pitching is a tough job. And composure is a real thing when it comes to pitching, 80% of the game is between the ears.

I know it’s small sample size, but screw that let’s get excited. It’s been a depressing season. C Alejandro Kirk Finished Lansing (A) with .299/.427/.519, OPS .947 in 21 games. wRC+ 172 Since promotion to Dunedin (A+): .417/.500/.625, OPS 1.125 in 7 games. wRC+ 232 10 hits, 5 doubles, 4 BB/4K His production has continued similar to his monstrous start in Lansing. Someone pm Ben Badler and get this man on the midseason top 100.

J4L already posted two of these but ok.

The FA market has been really down, just looking at this past off-season the trend isn’t getting any better if you’re 30. Pitchers that would’ve got nine figure offers in the past are looking at short term and team friendly extensions. Slight positive WAR vets can be had for literally peanuts. It’s a bit shocking considering the draft pick comp now is only a late second rounder (for most teams) and orgs still don’t want to pony up for a pitcher like Kimbrel or Keuchel. Contracts use to be much more lucrative and 1st rounders were given up for much lesser veterans. My point is, when the market looks like Eovaldi getting $68/4 at 29, Happ at $34/2 at 36, Charlie Morton $30/2 at 35, Lance Lynn $30/3 at 32, Sabathia at $8/1 at 38 It’s probably not too difficult to sign some short term stop gaps, and not that expensive to do so. We also have like no payroll committments moving forward weighing down on the ledger. But to find a front of the rotation starter to come here is a tall order, that guy is probably already locked up, extended, or going to NY/BOS before even picking up our phone calls

Sup Ray, here you go I was also looking at some arms in the back half, guys like Kirby and Priester maybe as an underslot option. Not likely to happen though, just curious.

I’m also a bit curious about this question. Above average is subjective, but.. - We basically got Sam Gaviglio from the Royals for free. - We signed Oh, then flipped him for Wall and Spanberger. - Does Steve Pearce count? Not sure. He was hurt a lot, but was above average when he played. - Curtis Granderson? - Galvis has been half decent, certainly better than having no shortstop like last year. - Was Gurriel jr an Atkins move or before? - Joe Smith for Taylor and Pannone It’s mostly been stop gaps and guys flipped for B prospects, but when the regime joined and settled in we were already passed the buying phase. AA did most of the heavy lifting. Not sure how we are supposed to evaluate Atkins while ignoring the farm system and only looking at major league talent when we’re clearly steering towards rebuild since 2017

6-7, 270 lbs might be generous Which ones? There’s like twenty pages of these things. This is pretty much true. There’s no exact science to projecting these arms, as to why I’m not thrilled when we take pitchers with our highest selection. Looking back at some previously draft years, the better pitchers were actually taken in the back half of the first round or later, and the can’t miss guys often end up missing. A lot of these scouting reports become a moot point. But general consensus is this year’s draft is pretty weak in terms of top tier pitching talent. I hear next year could be a stronger draft class with a deeper pool of arms, and we’re likely in the mix for a top 10 pick again

Yeah Jim Callis has us mocked with Stott and says we’re interested in college pitching. Previously he mocked us with Jackson Rutledge. Jonathan Mayo had us taking Manoah last week. The draft order is all over the place, I wouldn’t put too much stock into it after top 5. Some guys always fall. If we’re really after pitching, it’s most likely one of these guys: College: Nick Lodolo, Alek Manoah, Zach Thompson, George Kirby Juco: Jackson Rutledge Prep: Brennan Malone, Matthew Allan, Quinn Priester, Jack Leiter There’s health issues with Thompson and signability issues with Leiter. Lodolo is most likely top 10 and out of our pick range. You’re most likely getting a guy with a ceiling as a no. 3 / 4 starter. Not saying it’s not valuable, but generally guys never reach their ceilings and underachieve. Rutledge is somewhat intriguing with both size and stuff, I hear one report he could scratch the ceiling of a no. 2 guy. Front rotation guys missing their ceilings can still make the backend of your rotation. Mid/backend rotation guys missing their ceilings pretty much are AAAA and Bisons depth (e.g. TJ Zeuch, Jon Harris, SRF) Regarding Alek Manoah, It’s generally been a very short list of SP that could pitch with that size and succeed like CC Sabathia. His college results have been solid though. George Kirby has been a strikeout machine but does it with lower velocity and good command. 6-4 righty that throws your traditional breaking stuff and offspeed that flashes plus. Zach Thompson also had good college results, but health issues and lower velo, but throws from the left side. I can upload their new BA scouting reports if anyone is interested. J4L posted some of them previously

The rotation issue is not an easy problem to solve. Much of this rebuild and Shapiro & Atkins tenure will ride on how they build this rotation and develop pitching depth during the Vlad jr timeline. Developing internally, they possibly have one front of the rotation guy, a bunch of backend/AAAA guys, a slew of questionable bullpen arms, and two kids in Kloffenstein and Pardinho. This is not good if the ultimate goal is to compete in the AL East within 3-5 years. They need to pray that Pearson is a stud and another surprise arm comes into play that is solidly at least a mid-rotation starter. Hopefully more than one. Aside from Kloff and Pardinho, there has to be another guy that doesn’t require 5 years of development time and factoring in TJs risks. The only other arms I could think of right now are Patrick Murphy (a long shot, and long list of injury history), and possibly Merryweather or Sopko. But realistically if any of them become even a 4th starter we would be celebrating with backflips. There’s too much volatility there, injury history, and question marks to be banking your rebuild on. That aside, front office needs to acquire the talent missing from outside the org, but their only trade chips worth anything is Giles, Stroman, and Sanchez. That or pony up significant money and persuade top tier free agents in their early 30s to sign a lucative deal here and hope no limbs require significant surgery while Shatkins is still in office. It’s understandable why significant risks like this are usually avoided (e.g. David Price extension). You can occasionally hit on guys like Marco Estrada and Matt Shoemaker, and they’d probably have to get lucky like that one way or another. But you can’t really predict or plan for those types of outcomes. But it’s also easy to say draft all bats now and buy arms later when we’re ready to compete. It’s a lot easier in theory and difficult to execute in practice. I’m not sure how they plan to rebuild this rotation from the ground up if we don’t hit on the returns from those three assets or they don’t get extended. Poorly handled, this could be another Happ, Donaldson, Martin, and Tulo situation where we don’t walk away with much, which prolongs the rebuild even further. It’s quite a tricky situation tbh.

It does make sense to trade an asset like Giles when his value is high just due to reliever volatility, but if you can't get anything good for him (A type prospects) then I would encourage a team friendly extension. It's understandable why teams don't want to spend money on elite closers during a rebuilding year but there's an argument Giles is still relatively young, and you might fetch even more for him down the road with greater team control. Extension talks would have to be agreeable for both sides though.

Define dead

3 months of JA Happ vs 1.5 years of Ken Giles are different commodities. So last year the Twins got RHP Jorge Alcala and CF Gilberto Celestino for 1.5 years of Ryan Pressly. Orioles got RHP Cody Caroll, RHP Dillon Tate, LHP Josh Rogers for Zach Britton coming off an injury. Padres got C Francisco Mejia for Brad Hand, Adam Cimber. White Sox got LHP Kodi Medeiros, RHP Wilber Perez for Joakim Soria Not exactly a king’s randsom but Giles has been elite this year. You’re not getting an Andrew Miller type package of Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield, Ben Heller, and J.P. Feyereisen but there’s examples of closers dealt for nice hauls in the past.