Major League Ready

Wins isn't a measure of a team's success? This is a ridiculous argument. This is the kind of argument you make up when unwilling to concede cold hard fact.

Ignore what?

The Guardians have not been a revolving door. They have done a great job of getting something back for guys they don’t feel they can resign. Would you have preferred one more year of Clevinger instead of 5 years of Naylor and 6 years of Cantrill? Clevinger was worth .4 WAR to SanDiego. Would you have preferred one more year of Kluber of 6 years of Clause? Kluber contributed one IP for Texas. One year of Cliff Lee or 6 years of Carlos Corrasco. One year of Lindor or 6 years of Gimenez and Rosario. Gimenez produced 6.1 WAR his 1st full season. Lindor produced 4.1 WAR the season they traded away. Now they are getting additional assets for Rosario. One year of Tony Sipp or 5 years of Bryan Shaw. There are other examples but this will do. Sign me up for this “revolving door” please.

How would you propose we compare success if not by wins? Do you want to factor in division? Cleveland has had far more 90 win seasons than any other team in the Al central.

You have a concept in your mind because you don't like the thought of trading away established players. I am talking about assessing the relative merit of their strategy based on results / winning seasons. (I use 90 wins as a standard). You are assuming your preferred approach is a better strategy than the team that has outperformed every other team in the bottom half of revenue for the last couple of decades. Their history is quite clear if you bother to take an objective look at how they have built teams.

And how did they get Josh Naylor? They got him by trading away an established player (Clevinger) and he produced nothing for the Padres. Of course, they got own Miller, Cal Quantrill and Austin Hedges as well. You are criticizing the strategy / practice that allowed them to acquire the good player you are referencing. How does that make any sense? The fact is that Cleveland has had more 90 win seasons than any other team in the bottom 1/2 of revenue over the last 20 years as a result of the practices you are criticizing.

The young guys have been better than the established guys but you ignore it as if the facts are not clear. What's really wild is you advocating buying and not giving the young guys a chance in the same post where you declare "they have been terrible for two years. I would like to see them add a RH bat but expending any significant lipstick on this pig is just leveraging the future for lipstick.

I am not sure where you are coming from. Trading Gray or Maeda or Solano / MAT / Gallo has no impact on next year. How could trading them push anything back? Kepler has an option but let's not forget he has been mediocre since 2019. Their top 5 offensive players are "young guys" and #6 is someone who was brought in on a one year deal so he won't be here next year. The established guys that were supposed to carry us have underperformed and have been outperformed badly by the young guys. The only established guys that have performed are role / bench players like Farmer and Solano. Continuing to favor mediocre veterans is more likely to hold us back than making room for youth. Edouard Julien 156 Matt Wallner 155 Ryan Jeffers 135 Royce Lewis 131 Alex Kirilloff 124 Donovan Solano 117 Joey Gallo 103 Max Kepler 103 Kyle Farmer 101 Byron Buxton 99 Jorge Polanco 98 Willi Castro 98 Trevor Larnach 98 Carlos Correa 94 Michael A. Taylor 86 Kyle Garlick 78 Christian Vazquez 69 Jose Miranda 58 Nick Gordon 30

Isn't that what Baltimore has done?

A lot of people were adamant they resign Buxton. (I wanted him too) The posts basically demanded it of the FO and ownership. Remember the posts chastising the FO because they posters felt it was an insult that the original offers did not start with a $150M guarantee plus incentives? Same basic thing with Correa, posters were almost universally in favor of singing Correa even when the market was 10+ years and $300M+. So, to posts what the hell were they thinking is rather convenient.

He scorched another ball that was about 3 inches from going over the CFer's head.

Prato continues to impress. He has the highest OPS of anyone to play in a Saints uniform this year. GAMES PA AVE OBP SLG OPS AnthonyPrato 37 116 0.345 0.487 0.664 1.151 MichaelHelman 12 45 0.333 0.434 0.711 1.145 RoyceLewis 8 33 0.333 0.371 0.727 1.098 KyleFarmer 4 13 0.308 0.4 0.692 1.092 AlexKirilloff 10 38 0.316 0.435 0.605 1.04 ErnieYake 10 31 0.29 0.371 0.581 0.952 EdouardJulien 38 133 0.293 0.435 0.496 0.931 MattWallner 67 254 0.291 0.403 0.524 0.927 AndrewStevenson 85 332 0.325 0.399 0.521 0.92 ChrisWilliams 69 232 0.25 0.367 0.53 0.897

Why would it make sense to play what you know when you know what you have been playing absolutely does not make a contending team. Sounds like the definition of insanity to me.

His first AAA game was 6/10. He has had 147 PA. Not enough to be overly confident in what we are seeing but enough to be pretty excited about his potential. I love it when these guys make a leap of this nature. Ideally, they move Royce to the OF but I would not mind them giving Prato a shot after the deadline.

Severino and Prato have been impressive in July. Severino ... .347 / .434 / .778 / 1.212 Prato ... .328 / .474 / .707 / 1.181 Perhaps they should be giving Severino time in the OF.

Castillo's xFIP is 3.63. Ryan's 3.69. They both have produced 2.2 fWAR. Ryan will be here for 4 more years. Castillo would have been a free agent not to mention the salary that could be allocated elsewhere. Trading the type of assets it would have taken to get Castillo for the difference between Castillo and Ryan is really ill-conceived.

Is Canterino expected to pitch competitively at all this late summer/early fall?

That would have resulted in them giving away even more of the future and they still would not have won the division in 2023 so how would they be better off? What they should have done was basically stand pat on the ML club with the exception of a couple rental RPs. They should have kept CES and dealt Steer or Steer plus a pitching prospect for an RH outfield or catching prospect that was near major league ready. We would have CES to fill the role of the RH bat we need now and we would still have Cano plus a good RH hitting OF prospect.

Solano has a 116 wRC+ for July and 131 since June 1st. I have no problem with them trading him to reshape the roster but he has not been terrible. Have to agree on Larnach but I would still trade him if the return is right. I don't think they are in love with Kepler. The problem is neither is any other team so he has not been traded. I am really hope this recent run of good play facilitates a trade. Gallo will not (better not) be here after the deadline even if it's a DFA.

I did not realize the draft and follow rule has a $225K maximum?

The $1.5M signing bonus for Winokur was $640K over slot so they apparently thought highly of him. Hopefully, this early statement is a good indication they are right. I am wondering if they will go over their draft allocation to get their 19th or 20th round picks. Parker is another huge power guy. Larson is a higher profile prospect. Have they ever gone over? They could spend up to $850 without losing picks. They obviously set themselves up with these two picks at the end they knew would require more than the $150K limit.

Your right. I should have said short-term assets instead of rentals which of course is more accurate in Mahle's case. It also does not change the overall premise that this is not a team worthy of investing significant assets for a playoff run, especially assets that would likely be on the ML team next year. I would add that neither one of them added ANY value beyond what a rental would have.

My take is that there is a good chance he is an average MLB player or better. Trading away players with 4 or more years of control for a rental, especially given this team's mediocre profile is a good way to remain mediocre. Apparently, last year's debacle has not made this clear. Before anyone says they should have traded for other players, part of the point is these veterans are not the guarantee many make them out to be. Perhaps more importantly, it would not have made a difference if Mahle and Lopez had performed to expectations. Investing significant assets in rentals is simply desperate unless the team is a true contender. A trade something like LA Vikes Fan lays out is a different story. If they can trade for young talent that fits our roster better, great.

We all know the young guys have done well but illustrating as you have here really drives the point home. The less experienced guys have carried the load while the veterans have mostly underperformed. I am a big supporter because there is absolutely no doubt that sustained success for teams in the bottom two-thirds of revenue is driven by developing talent.