Brownie19

If that happens, I think the majority of the blame falls on Rogers. It seems they want butts in seats in 2025 and have kept lame duck Pres/GM on-board to execute that direction. A lot of positives with Rogers, but they're going to run this like a business, not a keeper fantasy team. Good bantering with you Rusty.

If he's spoken to all the typical playoff teams and nobody is currently interested (or able) to add him, then I could see him taking this route. Playoff teams may come looking for him at some point if/when injuries strike.

I'd actually be quite surprised if that were the case. It would be pretty pathetic to play Straw over Loperfido and Clase - even Berroa. He's going to just have to come clean, explain why they wanted that international money, or what the angle was, and live with the backlash. I don't see anyway he can spin this to suggest they really like Straw and wanted him as depth for the Varsho injury. Like even if they also announced that Varsho will be out of the season (or it was a career ending injury) - it still makes no sense given all the other in-house options we have.

That or they decided if they failed to get Roki, they'd be rebuilding anyway and it won't matter. Perhaps they were trying to block LA from being able to acquire the international pool money they needed and expected that Philly wouldn't help LA out like they did? It's extremely hard to find logical explanations LOL.

I tend to agree. I came to that conclusion early in the offseason. I don't like Vlad and Bo doesn't want to be here. It's over. Pull the pin, get new leadership, re-stock and start over. Washington had to do this recently and now they're on the way back "up". Takes 3-4 years.

That was primarily evident last offseason, otherwise, free agency has actually been one of his strong suits (I also wonder if there are GM's who consistently read the market correctly or not). No matter how much hate there is, there is still "a chance" he's reading this offseason perfectly right now...we won't know until it's over. Getting Hoffman for 3/$33M already looks genius. If the market collapses like it did last year (Chapman, Snell, Belly) he might be able to swoop in and make us a wild card team (not that I think that's the best decision for the franchise). But yes, I'd suggest there's a very small chance that happens and I do not want him as our GM. He's probably still in the fetal position, crying like a baby because he didn't know he could wait and trade for Straw AFTER Sakaki confirmed where he was signing. Or maybe he knew he could wait to trade for Straw and there's some angle we just can't see or understand right now (if I had to guess, it was to block the Dodgers in some way). Maybe he knows that landing Sakaki was really the only way to change the short term fate of the franchise and doing absolutely everything possible to land him was in fact the right and only move and without him, it doesn't matter if we have Straw or not because we're f*cked either way. Who knows.

Yes - we're all aware of that. Adding 2 power bats could also make things worse. There are a lot of different variables right now and I appreciate that fans are restless - especially in the wake of a Sakaki/Straw situation.

1/2 the population being stupid shouldn't be a surprise.

Literally everyone agrees with this. You can believe it's time for a new GM, while also appreciating there's a lot of information we aren't privy to that may change your perspective/opinion.

That's actually a great question. You don't hear Buck say "and there's Edward Rogers in attendance today" with a camera scanning to him in a booth very often (ever?). I wonder how Owners/groups who aren't really "baseball guys" evaluate and decide who they hire to run the organization. Given how much we considered Kenny Williams - there should perhaps be concerns with the process.

100%

LOL. I guess if you look at who's leading Canada and the US - it's fair to question if there's any job a 7th grader couldn't do better.

Go Bills! Incredible game.

That is an insane rumor. Makes zero sense, but I don't hate it. Guy is a HOFer.

There are pretty well documented changes he made to improve his command the past 2 season. His stuff is filthy.

You agree?

There's no possibility that running a MLB franchise is more difficult than it looks eh?

Agreed. It was also early in our contention window - whereas 2015 was at the end of AA's window. Different strategies would be expected and that's what we saw. 2015 was so awesome because we hadn't had any playoff baseball in decades. But they ultimately came up short too.

Certainly not doom and gloom, but it wasn't all roses and rainbows either. It was frustrating as f*ck. Lots of worries we were pissing away a good team. AA just had to sell the farm to create the magic. I'm super happy it worked.

It's super hard to see or admit that given the current state, but if you did the same summary for 2020-2024, it's much better than 2009-2014. It's not even close. 2015 was magical though....but as I tried to point out, it was only magical from like August onward. Before that it was frustrating as f*ck. 2016 was a really awesome year. It just ended prematurely, like 2021 and 2022 also did.

That Hoffman contract looks really good now. I'd almost say it look "too good?". Did we get him so cheap because the physical concerns are real?

That Washington/Detroit game was insane. Incredibly entertaining.

I could see Alonso, but not Bregman happening. Profar would be fine positionally, but I agree it's not ideal. Him and Santander would split time between LF and DH. I guess it blocks Wagner a bit, but so would Alonso.

How big is that second bat? Is Profar the line?