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JD-TWINS

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Everything posted by JD-TWINS

  1. JD-TWINS
    Can’t strengthen our team solely with a 33 or 35 year old rental trade ……..actually, due to the rental status, age doesn’t matter to other teams - may be a benefit. HIGH risk turning to Kuechel without a back-up…….w/o trading guys we have a back-up & potentially, he provides necessary rest for 4 guys. All we would get is for future benefit. IMO we don’t need to risk wins over the next couple months for future benefit.
  2. JD-TWINS
    He doesn’t need to displace somebody going forward - Option Ryan for 10 days……..he gets a nice break & re-sets………then do the same thing with Ober. If managed properly, they both miss 2 starts. Gotta try him v. St. Louis or preferably at home in the following series. Soon. This guy has experience and at his age he has “want”!! He doesn’t need $$$. Can implement the same strategy with Gray &, if needed with López…….he may keep spot starting if he’s effective or he’s released by August 20…….worth a shot! Maeda’s inning total will be fine with minimal number thrown and a rebuilt arm. He’s bringing essentially no value in trade until MLB proven again & it’s too late for that in ‘23.
  3. JD-TWINS
    We need to get 2 pitchers!! Winder - Sands - Moran can’t see the mound again in the big leagues in ‘24 without serious injury plaguing the rest of the Bullpen. We get Thielbar back in 2-3 days. Stewart seems to be a month away. No guarantees with either of them. We’ve got 3 guys at the top in the Pen & 3 guys at the bottom. We need two experienced arms in our pen by Wednesday morning!! Can’t just hope Stewart & Thielbar “work out for us”. Need action, & 2 new arms with that action for bullpen stability & depth. Thielbar - Jax - Duran……………….Pagan - Floro - Balazovic ………………need 2 guys to fill in the middle for us.
  4. JD-TWINS
    Grichuk would be wonderful - don’t see us pulling that off. Hand/Suter/Fulmer/Shreve/Raley ……..we only have to pay them for 1/3 of their salary (2 mos.)…….we can swing that. Any 2 of those guys and we’d be golden!!!
  5. JD-TWINS
    Further Off grid: I like Stuart Fairchild out of Reds AAA Louisville………. .743OPS in the Show this year after about 150 AB’s - no room for him on their roster with Benson - McClain - De La Cruz - Encarnacion-Strand all coming up & Votto off of IL. He was their starting CF but once Fraley had to play right every day & Benson is leading them in OPS batting 9th & playing LF …….,.he’s out & zero chance of coming back. Hitting .240 and fast - can play CF or any of the other OF spots - RH hitter. Again, .743 OPS this year for the Reds big club. Gotta be relatively cheap! Reds need arms. Moran for Fairchild straight up.
  6. JD-TWINS
    Cannot re-sign him. If he gets a hold in a playoff game, maybe. Anything short of that and we move on.
  7. JD-TWINS
    PITCHING is the key! In the last handful of games we’ve scored 7 runs, 5 runs, & a minimum of 6 runs tonight & we’ll lose all 3 games. Watching ballgame Saturday night - Royals are one of bottom 3-4 teams in the game. Watched Friday night and pretty similar outcome. Average to poor starting pitching - terrible relief pitching ……..10 runs on 17 hits for Royals tonight and it’s the 7th inning. Moran - Winder - Sands ……none of these guys can be near our roster after Tuesday. Balazovic - Floro - Pagan should be our 6th, 7th, & 8th guys in Pen. Duran - Jax - Thielbar are 1, 2, & 3 With Stewart up in the air we need to fill the 4 & 5 spots in our Pen. Don’t see the pressing need for RH corner OF relative to our obvious and desperate need to fill holes & add depth to our Pen. Kuehcel needs to be on roster by Tuesday as well, to start providing rest for our starters. Maeda should be good. Option guys (Ober/Ryan) for 10 days or IL guys for 10 days, whatever, come up with a way to skip some starts and get our starters re-set!!!
  8. JD-TWINS
    Why would Scherzer going to Texas or anywhere affect what the Sox do with Cease or what the Twins would do with their staff? Makes sense that Texas - after going all-in on their staff & de Grom being hurt, would go after Scherzer.
  9. JD-TWINS
    Can’t be too light for a rental - right? I don’t think we should do that - Hader……..I’m in favor of going after the #2 or #3 guy in San Diego’s Pen. They have a great team ERA so they have more than one good reliever ……don’t know any names but the FO should know who to go after! Headrick & Raya could be part of the solution here. I know San Diego’s best LH, after Soto, is hitting around .200. Maybe we offer Larnach & a young arm for one of their set-up arms?
  10. JD-TWINS
    Preaching to the choir!! I don’t understand how pitching in relief for two months sets a starter back in his career going forward the following year?? Seems there is fall ball - winter ball - spring training to get back in track. Balazovic is working to become a key piece in the middle of our bullpen - a key piece - a professional baseball pitcher, not some soft guy that will derail his career by throwing relief and focusing on it for 60-75 days! We gotta have another 2 guys to do this with - right? Why should Headrick stay stretched out v. helping the big club as he did in May? I understand FO/organization wants depth for our starters in case of catastrophe………not having proper relief pitchers is just as bad as not having enough starter depth!!!! Can’t cross our fingers and assume Thielbar & Stewart will both hold up and be effective! Need 2 more guys to rely upon. Am assuming we cannot get it done internally……get out into the market and get a couple guys with experience and guts to help us down the stretch.
  11. JD-TWINS
    Who’s going to get outs in our bullpen Mike? Floro? Moran?…….Ortega is in AAA I forgot about Balazovic earlier - he’s reasonable. Winder & Sands can’t because Rocco won’t put them in the game. Stewart is a BIG maybe. We going to use Castro there too? Can’t just hope some rookie appears and is lights out.
  12. JD-TWINS
    Can Lewis get his head around playing OF again without it being a big mental distraction? With Lee coming in ‘24, that option with Lewis could be very valuable.
  13. JD-TWINS
    Wish thinking on Buxton. He’s not capable of playing CF. If he was he’d be playing there. Not sure how much more evidence we need. - it’s the end of July. The manager has publicly stated he can’t play OF! It’s not happening. BEST solution isn’t realistic either, which would be Buxton to the IL……can try him out with roster expansion in September if desired. Hanging on to Gallo to hedge against others getting hurt…….may option a young guy to carry Gallo through August & bring whoever back in September & let Gallo go Oct. 1. October guys: Lewis - CC - Polanco - Kirilloff - Farmer - Solano Jeffers - Vazquez Julien Taylor - Castro - Wallner - Kepler Who plays 3B - 2B - DH is all semantics at this point, we’ll have to see. BEST 13 guys here though. Possible, that if Buxton comes around he could take Taylor’s spot but doubtful if he can’t play any defense…….need a back-up CF on roster. Most likely, we only carry 12 pitchers…..4 starters, into the playoffs. This leaves a spot for Buxton at DH - pinch hitter as needed.
  14. JD-TWINS
    So, no surprise, after watching Floro last night there’s no high leverage spots for him in the future. Need 2 guys in the Pen. If we don’t get at least one we are in real trouble. Now we see Stewart as a maybe, and leaning toward, “probably can’t rely on him even if he comes back!” Thielbar sounds like he’s ready. Pagan - Thielbar - Jax - Duran - Floro - Winder - Moran - Stewart……..that’s our best look for August at this point. The last 3 guys are all questionable for one reason or another. If Seattle is willing to take guys that aren’t on our big club, we should deal for control through next year. Again from me, Suter/Hand from Rockies or Fulmer (Cubs may not sell?) or any other reasonable guy WITH experience is what we need. If Moran & Winder & Duran we’re all 2-3 years deeper into their careers with same stuff, I’d be confident. They all get anxious in tight spots and don’t know how to deal with it yet……..IMO. Spells unreliable!
  15. JD-TWINS
    Renfroe isn’t any better than taking a risk with our AAA RH hitting corner OF Kyle Garlick!! No real difference & much easier to execute. Nobody is taking Joey Gallo in a trade for anyone/anything. Kepler for Renfroe is nuts since we face 70% RH pitching at a minimum.
  16. JD-TWINS
    Our guys (starting 5) need rest! There’s a drop-off between Kuechel and Ryan or Gray or other 3. When they’re at their best, granted, that’s correct. I think Maeda is fine with his repaired arm and his limited innings to date in ‘23. The drop-off between Ryan of July v. Ryan of first 3 months is big. The difference between Gray of April/May v. last 2 months is vast. They need to freshen up……….I don’t care if it’s Kuechel, or Winder as a 3 inning starter or whatever……….we need a plan in August to give guys a break. My contention is that potentially a guy with Kuechel’s experience and new found confidence (0.69 ERA in St Paul) could have a handful of starts on the par or better than Gray & Ryan have been lately. Can he throw 5 plus innings and give up 4 or less runs. That’s the realistic bar needed to be met to get these guys rest. Seems worthwhile to run him out there a couple times, at least, to see what happens. Worst case we still get to skip a start or two by 2 of the other guys.
  17. JD-TWINS
    Agreed on Gray, that’s why I said we should hang on to him. I just commented on a post stating we should shop Gray to the AL East and the other AL Playoff teams……the specificity to AL is what I didn’t understand. I do think they have given Kuechel a runway in St. Paul to prove he can get guys out. Seems to be positive. Our starting 5, particularly Ober & Ryan need some rest if at all possible. A possible solution is optioning those two because they are young enough, or place them on IL with minor ailment. Kuechel is the path for this. Better running him out for 4 or 5 starts and see what we have v. burning up one or two guys that have been effective to date. Ryan & Gray are fading. Ober is near his historical high in innings. This gets Ober - Ryan - Gray - Lopez a skipped start or maybe 2 starts in a couple cases. Could help re-set them.
  18. JD-TWINS
    Padres need LH hitting this year, if they are deluded, & going forward in ‘24 …….they have nobody on left side, except Soto, hitting over .200. They have a solid Staff! Forget about Hader and get a controllable piece that may be their 3rd or 4th guy in Pen……we need solid depth! Larnach & Polanco & should be a slam dunk. Polanco has basically not been on the team this year - Larnach is still undeveloped potential. If either works out San Diego is happy. Opens a roster spot going forward. Btw, Gallo has no trade value. We are trying to move people around so we can get to “roster expansion” and carry everyone through September. They don’t want to DFA Gallo and then need him 10 days later……….with some option/IL creativity through August we can bring him to end of September and then drop him from roster. Right now Kirilloff can’t play with a finger up shoulder. Gallo is a stellar 1B! Great guy to have around until we have zero room for him.
  19. JD-TWINS
    Why would we trade him in “the AL?”…,,,NL teams need pitching and have relief assets…..,& we don’t have to play them in the playoffs. Every 5th day we could toss Kuechel out there or Varland or both in same day with a piggyback approach for 8 weeks. Contrasting styles - turn a line-up around with LH/RH approach. What can we get if Gray is only a rental? May be more advantageous to just hang on and get what we can from him every 5th day.
  20. JD-TWINS
    Need the “for sure defense” & the appearance of a resurgence at the plate. He sees good pitches hitting in front of Wallner. That will continue when Lewis gets back & drops in behind him as well. He’s above average hitter for last month & it feels like he gets to 22 HR for the year if he stays in the line-up. I’d keep him because hoping Larnach can hit “as well” and know his defense would be inferior is not a good move! Larnach strikes out more - not as good of a defender - very little HR pop. He can just be traded this winter if we think we should move on from Max.
  21. JD-TWINS
    So I don’t think S.D. is trading Hader nor Snell……they have 4th-5th best Staff ERA in NL. The guys (at least a couple) around Hader have to be decent. According to MLB network this afternoon, they need LH hitting. Trade Polanco & Larnach for S.D.’s 2nd best reliever OR best reliever with at least a couple more years control. Realistically, we’re trading unproven potential with Larnach…….another guy who is a proven effective pro, who has only been able to play 30 games in ‘23 due to health. If either guy works out, it’s a win for San Diego & we get a decent relief arm in the near-term & going forward. They get a couple bats immediate & losing one guy in the Pen shouldn’t derail any chances they have this year! We open a roster spot by bringing the RP in and displacing a guy who is on the current staff. That’s one deal - need a 2nd deal for another reliever & we’re good!!
  22. JD-TWINS
    San Diego has a good staff ERA. There must be a controllable arm in their Pen, a guy other than just Hader. Watching MlB network and they (Padres) need left handed hitting……seems a veteran with pop and a controllable OF would be worthwhile picking up now while available. That said: Larnach & Polanco to S.D. for a controllable reliever ……..set-up type guy ……..the guy prior to Hader, & a prospect.
  23. JD-TWINS
    The answer is to acquire 2 pitchers that are worthy of pitching when needed & carrying 13 pitchers……..at least until October. Need 2 guys between now & Tuesday. Let’s go FO!!! Winder & Sands on a new path but not on our 26 man.
  24. JD-TWINS
    Polanco & Larnach & an A ball SS prospect together for a reliever with some control. They go to a team that’s trying to build with real players & as soon as next year. 2 middle of the order bats at 2 different points in their careers. Frees up needed 26 man roster spots! A team like Colorado works with a 2-3 different relief options.
  25. JD-TWINS
    S.D. isn’t moving anyone off their staff - they still think they are in the Wild Card. I see both sides of this. If somebody really wants him they’ll let us know. Trading him for rental is tough but necessary to do to compete at times. We need Pen help!! See last 2 ball games. However we make that happen, that’s what we need to do. Next year dumping Kepler is fine - right now he’s our best defensive & offensive OF (sad) - cannot trade nor DFA!!! Gallo is gone for sure next year - maybe in a few days? Keeping Larnach to try next year for a 3 month experiment everyday is an acceptable plan - make a decision next July. Wallner everyday in the other corner. Gordon/Castro/some RH bat from within our system as 5th OF. Spend $$ on pitching in ‘24!! Extend a couple young guys. Taylor - Gallo - Polanco - Kepler - Mahle - Maeda - Gray - Solano all add up to $70M…….we can maybe re-sign Maeda for $11M & Solano for $4M………that leaves us $55M to help us forget/fix it if we make a mistake with Trevor Larnach at the deadline in ‘23!
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