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I'll take your lack of answer to the very basic question I asked as you simply being unable to answer. I'll help you out, Hoffman struggles on days when he isn't commanding his pitches and he doesn't always bring his best stuff into games as well. It's really that easy. The inning he's pitching is is almost completely immaterial compared to whether he's effectively placing his pitches where he needs to with sufficient stuff to miss barrels and bats. When you point at the inning nearly in entirety as the reason to why Hoffman is failing or succeeding you are displaying a lack of basic understanding of why he actually tends to struggle at times. The reason for the recent struggles are easily verified with the Stuff+ location metric. In the 4 outings prior to last night's dominant performance Hoffman produced an average location + of only 81 to go along with an overall stuff rating of only 100. These outings saw him not bringing his best stuff into the game and compounding things further was the inability to command the subpar stuff on top of that. These outings all came before the 9th inning, and the inning he was pitching in had literally nothing to do with his struggles, much as the inning he's pitching in has nothing to do with his success. When Hoffman brings his good stuff and command into games he's fully capable of dominating in any inning of the game, and when you use this reductive declaration of him being dominant because he's not closing it's missing the forest for the trees. On top of that your reading comprehension could use some work. My original statement that triggered this conversation was that last night's version of Hoffman would be dominant in any inning of the game. He brought an absolutely filthy slider into the game and dominated the middle of the order of MLB's best offense. I'm not saying Hoffman should be closing in place of Varland as it's impossible to argue against the perfect results Varland has produced in the spot, but I'm simply pushing back against this overly simplified narrative of Hoffman's dominance being due to him pitching in a non closer's role while largely ignoring the drastic change of his pitch usage.

Why don't you go ahead and explain why Hoffman largely struggled in his recent outings? He had a 4 game stretch from July 12-24 where he pitched to a 4.91 ERA/8.74 xERA. You can't blame the 9th inning as he hasn't pitched there for an extended period of time. You constantly harp on about how Hoffman primarily enjoys success because he's not pitching in the closer position so I'm dying to hear your explanation towards why he would struggle in non closing situations. Here' a bit of a hint: he struggled for exactly the same reasons why he struggled at times in the closer position.

Probably not for long though. I don't know how the team plans to fill the rotation innings if all of Gausman, Bieber and potentially Scherzer are moved out at the deadline.

Kasevich is all of 25 years old and was a college draftee who essentially missed a season due to injury.

Some people are so incapable of looking beneath the surface that they cling to simplified narratives instead of digging deeper.

I don't think any of the expiring assets have this kind of trade value.

I believe Bloss recently suffered from a shoulder injury and is potentially done for the rest of the season.

Pretending that Hoffman throwing his best pitch like 80% of the time and shelving his worst pitch is a non factor is incredibly simplistic. It's low hanging fruit to point at the inning and ignore the drastic change in pitch usage. I just pointed out that Hoffman had a recent stretch of poor outings where he had poor stuff and command despite not pitching in the 9th inning. The inning he's pitching in hasn't been the issue behind his struggles and that's not something I'm going to budge on as it's nothing more than a narrative.

That version of Hoffman would have success in any inning of the game. Don't give me this nonsense about him pitching well because of the inning as he's coming off of a stretch of several shaky outings in recent games despite not throwing a single pitch in the 9th.

I think if you are going to directly compare players offensive profiles Okamoto is closer to the 2025 version of Varsho as a high K/low average power bat. Both players are extremely streaky in nature and were massive difference makers when locked in with the bat. I can agree there was no direct replacement on the market for Bo as even Bo himself is mired in an awful season, but the main point being made was the team brought in another potent bat to add to a lineup that was losing Bichette and not looking to clone what Bo was able to bring.

Yeah I think that starting is likely out of the cards but Miles has been a perfect example of a guy who has completely missed most of his professional career and very well may be starting as soon as next season.

Oh I missed that he actually made it into a couple of games earlier in the season. He pitched for Dunedin today.

I agree that there isn't any one person or group I'd blame for this team's offensive failures. The team just doesn't appear as well prepared to face the opposition starter this season so something appears to have gone awry in the game planning department. A lot of it is bad injury luck with Santander and Barger essentially missing the entire season due to injury and Kirk missing several months with the broken thumb. Add in a miserable season from Vlad, a really slow start from Springer and Varsho taking a bit of a step back at the plate and that largely explains the struggling offense. I do think there's a ton of potential internal improvement available to this group much as was the case from 2024 leading into 2025 if the likes of Barger, Kirk, Vlad and Santander are able to improve their offensive contributions. The team will need to add more bats in the offseason and there will be plenty of openings that need to be filled so hopefully the front office has another solid off season.

It was reported that Barger has been dealing with elbow issues dating back several calendar years at this point. I think even if he loses a few ticks on this throws the outfield arm will still be a major weapon and I'm looking forward to seeing what he can accomplish with two fully healthy elbows.

If I recall correctly Gausman has been mulling over retirement so I don't think 3 years would be in the cards for him.