ashbury

Best photo of [insert name of least favorite politician] we've ever had posted at this site!

No DSan? I thought we wanted to win this game.

No Santana in history has ever deserved this kind of punishment.

Yeah, I turned my attention away from the video and just heard the radio announcer, and wondered what it was.

If Suzuki is in pain on a swinging strikeout, isn't that catcher interference?

Wow, Kepler's throw home was closer to getting the runner than I thought it had any right to be. Figured the cutoff man blocks it for sure.

And what is your secret sauce for convincing Joe to waive his no-trade and go play at Tropican?

I would like to have a word with you about the fuel injectors on that supposed creampuff driven by the little old man I bought last week. (The car, not the little old man.)

I think you've uncovered an important flaw in Buxton's approach, that should be communicated to Bruno at once! Maybe if he moves up in the batter's box, he won't be so vulnerable to breaking pitches in the dirt.

Maybe you've been dreaming your participation on TD this whole time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUAuhiRgMgU

Maybe it will help us old-timers to change it to HHH: Hurricane Hazle Hazard.

The pitching staff did their job and held Cleveland to single digits. The offense just choked.

A couple of other contracts also come off the books. We don't know who the next general manager will be. This 9M is additional flexibility, and need not be used by itself on a similar player, but can for example be combined. It also could make a trade for a more expensive player palatable.

That's funny, because no batters ever seemed to.

Kuo Hua Lo and Brian Gilbert being released is a little surprising to me. Any reason to think they asked for their release? There are a couple of guys at Ft Myers with worse results and higher age than Gilbert. And Lo has a very strange stat line at Cedar Rapids this year, giving up 24 runs of which only 13 are earned - so a 23-year-old pitcher with a 2.60 ERA got his release. Maybe they think the way those unearned runs came in reflect badly on him anyway. Neither guy looks like a strong prospect, but still...

The flexibility aspect has been covered sufficiently by now, so let me introduce another angle. I use chess as an analogy now and then, even though I barely remember from game to game how the horsey is supposed to move. But as I understand it, chess at high levels is a game of small incremental advantages (barring outright mate-in-three blunders), built up until the advantage is overwhelming. The analogy isn't completely apt since a baseball GM is not playing against a single opponent but 4 or 14 or even 29. Still, I am content with a series of roster moves that follow a plan and that succeed two times out of three without any outright blunders. From such patience, championships can be built. I'm not going to go to the mat defending this one trade, but I am cautiously optimistic we are seeing the beginning of a self-consistent blueprint for 2017 and beyond. If your analysis is we came out 1 win or $9M ahead of where we were on one deal, that's OK by me.

The moves are consistent with a larger strategy to both add young talent and improve roster flexibility. No single move will accomplish it all, so in that sense you're right, and the real proof will be what they do in the off-season with this (and any additional) new-found flexibility. But I am a lot more positive toward the possibility of RA having "Interim" removed from his title, and I never thought I'd say that after his first go-round. It seems decisions are finally being made about who fits into the team's long-term plans and who does not - e.g. Alex Meyer. I am somewhere between Decent and Accolades at the moment.

FA, I am skeptical too. Via trade, though? Possibilities should abound, shouldn't they? Dozier and his affordable salary plus a prospect or two for someone's good $20M pitcher under control a few years? If some GM needs salary relief, maybe that could be constructed....

Don't you just llove autocorrect?

Or, going farther, combine such savings with other funds such as Plouffe being no longer with the team, and aim for a difference maker bearing a higher salary via FA or trade, rather than the usual "million here, million there" strategy.

Vielma at age 22 and hitting .292 in AA certainly hasn't ruled himself out with the bat. His floor remains below the fabled Pedro Florimon however. Hopefully the batting coaches can help him learn the additional skills necessary to keep major league pitchers from abusing him. If successful, he could arrive in 2018 or sometime after. If unsuccessful, well, we can always get Florimon back.

I don't think that's the right way to look at Santiago. He wasn't acquired IMO particularly for his talent, which I think we all agree is so-so. He was acquired (or at least that's what I would have done) because you can get out from under his contract if you want to. If we keep him in 2017, then yes, the salary relief versus Nolasco is negligible; but if either we trade him in the coming off-season for a minor prospect, or else simply non-tender him, we have the approximately $9M he would get in arbitration to reapply to other purposes. That is not a choice the team had, with Nolasco. We're paying Nolasco's salary the rest of this year, and $4M of it next year, so it's not as much salary relief as a straight swap would have given. But it's something. Obtaining this flexibility is what costs us Meyer. Busenitz is a throw-in to disguise what's going on for the average fan who follows trades - nobody enjoys trades that are motivated mainly by money. You don't fix a sclerotic roster in a single trade. But with a series of moves that carry out a consistent vision, it can be accomplished over time, probably half a year. By spring training next year we'll have a better idea whether this trade was part of a strategy or just another random move. I'm not a clairvoyant so I don't know if that's what Antony has in mind. OTOH, it might not matter what Antony intends. If we get a new GM, this trade has improved the flexibility for whoever sits in the big chair, and that person might want to thank Antony.

http://funny.trendolizer.com/assets_c/2015/09/1753511-thumb-288xauto-1521947.jpg “How can you think and hit at the same time?”

It's not? That's all Terry Ryan had been selling us these past four years or so.

Royals game alert: Jennings got a double in the 8th. Hope it doesn't jinx the no-no to say that.