Danchat

Feels like Gray's wheels fall off too often whenever Rocco gives him the chance to go deeper into a game. He's just not good against facing the lineup a third time through. Really disappointing to see Balazovic flop again. We simply haven't seen any results from moving our young starting prospects to the bullpen, which is surprising given how often that works.

The rotation looks like it could stack up to most any other... but the bullpen and lineup are sorely lacking. This is a .500 team that is lucky they are in the division they're in, not a team built for October.

So Zeke gets $3M from the Patriots with $3M in hard-to-reach incentives, while Cook gets $7M from the Jets with $1.6M in difficult incentives. The Jets also protect themselves with bonuses that dictate that Cook must play in every game to get that $7M, taking in account for a potential suspension (not going to happen until 2024 most likely) and injury. Heck, I think a 7th is all you'd need to offer. I don't think he makes the team, and he was one of the worst RBs when it came to efficiency in the run and pass game last year so that's why I think he'll be cheap. I liked him as a prospect and it wouldn't be a bad idea to stash him behind Mattison and Chandler, but I wouldn't get my hopes too high for him.

Oof. Too many missed opportunities and bad pitching to pull the upset.

Dang, we have a game here!

Keep it up, and we should never lose a game again! Oh wait... oops.

Brooks LeeEmmanuel RodriguezWalker JenkinsCharlee SotoMarco RayaDavid FestaYasser MercedesTanner SchobelLuke KeaschallConnor PrielippBrandon WinokurKala'i RosarioAustin MartinYunior SeverinoSimeon Woods RichardsonJose SalasBrent HeadrickJordan BalazovicJose RodriguezMatt Canterino

Plenty of great relievers were once demoted starters... just not the likes of Kuechel. Maeda was great in the pen for the Dodgers in the playoffs. I could see Varland be effective with a couple more MPH on his pitches in the pen.

I'd give the ball to whomever has pitched better in the past two weeks or so - essentially I'd go with the hot hand.

If Jax can't defend a two run lead against a good offense and he's our second best reliever, how the heck is this bullpen going to make it through a playoff series? Not to mention that he gave up a hit to Jake Cave of all people.

All of them had considerable success in the minors and Wallner and Julien should have been called up much sooner. Second pro season... you mean AA in Wichita at age 23 where he hit .683 OPS on the year? Kyle Sloter dominated in preseason games which you could consider to be a substitute for minor league games, but Martin hasn't done that outside of small stretches like the Fall League and these past two weeks at AAA. His credentials as a prospect mean nothing if he can't hit.

I'm usually in favor of giving the young players a chance, but I'm firmly on Willi Castro's side of things. Austin Martin has been a poor defender in the infield in his minor league career, and Castro can handle himself at several positions, and lately has looked good enough at 3B. Martin isn't all that great of a hitter in the first place, he has a career .255 batting average in the minors with no power. Any random AAAA player can have a two week long hot streak in AAA, and even with that he's got a paltry .733 OPS in St. Paul. He'll take a lot of walks and probably get on base more than Castro, but we have enough negative value defenders on this team already. I need to see a lengthy stretch of time where he hits well at AAA to justify a call-up. This lineup needs hitters who can generate runs, and I don't think Martin will help accomplish that goal.

First career HR for Rojas!

And he's posted really strong numbers so far... gotta say, I forgot he existed.

I agree, but someone here was suggesting that we would be winning this game if we had a better manager, which I disagree. I've been of the opinion that the whole front office and coaching staff needs to be reset for over a year now.

No, but he nor any manager is going to be the difference in a 3-0 loss like this. For this game, the issue is the hitters and Floro is a mediocre reliever. If such a manager existed, their team would be winning 110+ games every year.

The bullpen chart said he hadn't pitched the past 5 days, possibly more. I don't think it's a horrible move.

Polanco is hitting .182 since returning from the IL...

Weird, I'm used to the whole month of September being AL Central matchups. We're already done facing the Tigers and Royals, huh? Still 6 more against Cleveland...

As someone who was super high on Larnach as a prospect, I concur. He's been given several lengthy stretches of MLB playing time that have either been cut short by injuries or dismal play. He's incredibly streaky, and in all 3 stints he's gotten hot and been one of the team's best hitters for a few weeks, then cools off and becomes unplayable. He's almost 27, the clock is ticking and it's probably best for both parties if he is moved to get a chance elsewhere.

If I used just Simmons' statline with the Twins, then it begins to paint the picture that the front office is not very good at finding capable hitters at SS rather the subject of the post being Correa. Let's try this, then: Correa .228/.301 .696 OPS Player A: .260/3.72 .882 OPS Player B: .245/.317 .772 OPS Player C: .243/.296 .679 OPS Player D: .256/.334 .796 OPS Player E: .284/.414 1.050 OPS Player F: .286/.418 .915 OPS All statlines are from the first year of $30M+ per year deals. The players are Bryce Harper, Corey Seager, Manny Machado, Trea Turner, Aaron Judge, and Anthony Rendon.

The point is that 2023 Correa is playing like Adrianza / Simmons in those spans, chosen in a way that shows that we're basically paying $33M a year to a defense-first and below average hitting shortstop so far. If I took Simmons' stat line with the Twins it'd be apparent how horrific he was at the plate, but he was known over his career for being more mediocre rather than horrific. That's a good point, Turner is also having a dismal year and Bogaerts is doing marginally better than the two. Gotta hope for a Corey Seager-like turnaround (.915 OPS in last year with the Dodgers, .772 in first year in Texas, 1.070 in second year in Texas).

I wanted to do one of those "guess who" statlines, guess who each player is! Player A: .249/.315 .691 OPS, plus defender at short Player B: .228/.301 .696 OPS, plus defender at short Player C: .263/.312 .678 OPS, plus defender at short Player A is Ehire Adrianza's career line as a Twin, Player B is Carlos Correa 2023, and Player C is Andrelton Simmon's career line. 🤢

From what I've read it sounds like Pace will likely be used in some special passing down formations where he'll blitz or probably play a bit in coverage, but Hicks and Asamoah are the starters. Hicks is the one with the green dot (calling plays to the other players) and appears to be locked into an every-down role, which is curious given how he was a massive liability in coverage last season and even Donatell started reducing his snap count in favor of Asamoah last year. Maybe Flores knows what he is doing, but they could have saved $5M by axing Hicks and signing one of many decent to good LBs on the market (they instead got Hicks to take a $1.5M pay cut).

No, he's a 3-4 ILB and has been practicing there - he's even been taking some 1st team snaps from Asamoah. Flores is known for using blitzing ILBs, and when we signed Pace I saw someone comment about how Pace was a logical fit for this role. Hicks has also been an effective blitzer through his career, too. They're putting a ton of faith in a late 3rd (Blackmon) and an early 4th (Evans)... I'm getting 2020 vibes when Vikings media tried to convince us that going with Mike Hughes and Holton Hill as our top starters was a good idea. Maybe this regime can actually develop CBs, I did really like Evans as a prospect but the 3 concussions last year scares me. Williams is probably just a backup (4 mediocre or injured years with Belichick coaching him) but he's having a good camp. Booth Jr is already veering towards total bust, he's reportedly been getting torched repeatedly in camp and keeps getting injured. I think he knew what he was getting into, Donatell wasn't 100% of the reason why the 2022 defense sucked at the end of the year, personnel was a big part of it. And now without Tomlinson and Z Smith, too. I don't think that will daunt Flores, he inherited a bone-dry Dolphins roster in 2019, who were tanking so hard they traded away their 2018 1st round stud Minkah Fitzpatrick for a future 1st, and got that unit to be competent in 2020. Of course, his 2019 defense was the worst in most categories, but that's hardly his fault. I have similar expectations for him, I expect small improvements in 2023 and bigger ones in 2024, assuming we use our future cap space to sign a bunch of defensive free agents.