Brownie19

ummmm - utility player doesn't equal DH Juan Soto being nominated is hilarious and shows you just how stupid the GG award is. He's statistically one of the worst defensive OFers in baseball. Chapman Merrifield JBJ Vlad Berrios Lots of Jays nominated for what unfortunately is a pretty stupid award.

I can buy most of this. Good rebuttal.

You missed the point. The point made by JH was trading an elite hitter for an equal player who's primary value is derived from speed and defense is a bad idea. Some suggested that Varsho's bat is solid and with some tweeks there's room to get better. I'm pointing out that Varsho's statcast suggests there isn't a lot more in his bat and thus we're relying primarily on his speed/defense, which historically is a bad idea (especially since D/speed typically aren't worth as much as an elite bat). There is better value out there than Varsho for Kirk IMO.

I just saw this. This is a bad take. The SS goes after the ball until he's called off by the CFer. If Springer truly could get to that ball, then theoretically, he should have called it, which would be Bo's trigger to peal off. Of course that sounds great, except Springer had to give absolutely everything he could to try and get there and thus it's near impossible to call it. He also can't call it until he knows he can get there and I'm not sure that's something he would have known until the last second. If the stats showed that Bo was the only one would could have gotten to that ball - but he 'let up' assuming Springer had a better chance (even though he never called it) then people would have ripped Bo - including me, as that's not how you play the position. The reality was it was in no-mans land and because it was so important, neither player wanted to give up on the ball and that resulted in a collision. It was very unfortunate, but nobody did anything wrong IMO. If anything, one might argue that Springer ought to have pulled up, played the ball in front of him and held the tying run at 3rd base - preserving a 1 run lead (while avoiding injury). It's interesting that almost nobody ever suggests that - most just blame Bo on a play where he didn't do anything wrong, presumably either because they don't like Bo, or because they don't understand how these 2 positions should be played.

There's absolutely no contest here. You'd be taking Varsho almost exclusively for his defense and speed and like JH said - that's historically not a great idea. Despite the 'solid' results this year, there simply isn't a lot in his bat to get excited about.

So like Gurriel, Tapia actually can't cover all 3 OF positions... Gurriel's really never plays RF, but I'd have a hard time believing he'd be any worse than he is in LF. He has the big arm to cover the throws to 3rd.

Schwarber hit 46 hrs and just hit a 488 foot home run. He's an exciting player. Nothing wrong with Hoskins. Bohm and Stott are interesting for Philly too (although not yet good players). Padres have Soto, Manny, Cronenworth, Darvish, Snell and Musgrove...not much difference. And Machado is a huge douche bag. Go Phillies.

Then so is Tapia. At least Gurriel can hit (better). I think this team currently has enough versatility between Springer, Merrifield, Teo, Gurriel, Biggio, etc. Merrifield can be the backup CFer when Springer needs the day off - and of course, if we want to carry a 5th OFer like Zimmer or JBJ - that gives us what we need to allow Gurriel to be the primary 4th OFer (ie, getting the 450 PA's that Tapia did this year) if we add another OF and move Gurriel to the 4th OFer position.

The Phillies OF was so s***** this year that Bradley Zimmer, in all of 9 games and 16 PA's was actually one of their most productive backup outfielders (52 wRC+ and 0.2 WAR). They just started Castellanos (-0.7 WAR) and Matt Vierling (0.0 WAR) last night in the ALCS.

I agree with this. No thank you to Kirk for Varsho.

Big W against a very good team. Nice start to the season.

I hear you Term. It's all good man. This truly is a realistic trade for both teams. I just don't love it at first glance. Perhaps Urquidy has more upside than I realize.

Abreu is great, but I'd like to see us get something more than a stud bullpen arm (because bullpen arms are so volatile) and a #5 starter for one of our stud catchers. Urquidy doesn't move the needle and Meyers isn't much better than Zimmer to be honest (yes that sounds crazy). Just sign Jake Marisnick instead of trading for Meyers. If that's all that Jansen is worth, then I'd rather see what we could get for Kirk or Moreno.

I would think so, but the East is a deep division, so who knows. And yes, Embiid is a POS.

I'm really happy the Phillies pen shut down SD last night. If they come back to win that, the massive rage over pulling Wheeler would be unbearable.

Obviously we're going to need to re-sign Stripling or add another starter or 2, but it seems unlikely we're going to target a top of the rotation arm with Gausman, Manoah and Berrios manning the Top 3 spots. Mitch White isn't as a bad as the results indicate. He's going to be kept as starting depth for this team and it will be interesting to see what they do with Kikuchi. It appears there will be a couple of options on their way through the farm system also that will certainly help with our depth issue.

And keep in mind those players were the starters. Philly's 4th OFer, Matt Vierling also gave them 0 WAR in 357 PA's.

That can't be true! I'm told that only teams with great bullpens win in the playoffs. I mean look at the Yankees and their lockdown pen!

Wow - I never realized that Gurriel and Castellanos fell off a cliff this year. Gurriel is old, so not surprising, but Castellanos just signed that massive deal. Barf.

Season starts tonight, with the Raps first game tomorrow night. It's a pretty amazing time of the year of sports fans. Can't wait to watch the Raps develop this year.

That's all fair. Is there an argument that by moving him to RF (and letting him DH more) that we could actually get more production out of him? Would that move give him a high probability of staying healthier and thus in the lineup more? Will his defense continue to decline to the point he's a liability in CF? Perhaps it's not a dire need in 2023 and perhaps that should be the only focus because of the impending FA's after that - but I have a hard time not looking past that as I want a sustainable winner. We don't really have any obvious candidates in the minors who we can rely on, nor a plethora of top prospect depth we can use to trade for a CFer. The catcher position seemingly gives us our best chance to fill a hole on this team. I don't think you want to use one of our catchers to add a back end starter, reliever or a lefty bat (who isn't an impact starter). IMO, we're moving a catcher to add an impact core player to this team and for me - CF seems like a great target for that player (with a young, top of the rotation type starter being the other).

I hope that Jansen and Moreno both hit enough that we want them both to use up a decent % of the DH role. If not, then we should probably trade them instead.

I would disagree with that. We need a long term CFer. If Kirk is worth more and he is able to land you a young stud CFer (but Jansen won't) then that's something you'd have to consider.

They are also really close to being a very solid team. They are loaded with great young prospects. Not sure why they would trade their 27 year old ace who's under control for 3 more years.

I care. Omar is making some pretty interesting claims about the team culture. It's appears those claims aren't based on facts (if mphenhef is correct). I don't understand how fans believe they have anywhere near enough information to comment on something like the team culture. Fans barely have access to the tip of the iceberg.