Major League Ready

Of course, it was not entirely based on trading for prospects. That's just ridiculous and I did not even remotely suggest that was the case. I am not suggesting other acquisitions not be used, just the relative historical influence. I gave you the relative impact of trading for prospects as compared to trading for established players which is the real issue here. Apparently, you just chose to ignore it.

I did answer. Apparently, you didn't understand the answer. WAR does not measure team wins. It measure the wins above replacement added by a given player. Why are you arguing if you don't understand something this fundamental. IDK how more I can be more clear. I measured the wins above replacement by acquisition method. BTW .... The reason I went through the trouble of gathering all this data because it's so common for people to just assume they understand the most effective way to build a winning a team without ever testing their theory. I wanted to test these theories with actual test cases.

Strawman my ass. I have collected the data from the last 20 years tracking all the 90 win teams in the bottom half of revenue and how any players with over 1.5 WAR were acquired. I know exactly what percentage was contributed to everyone of those teams so you are relatively unarmed in this debate. Trades for prospects have contributed literally 5X the WAR as trading prospects for established talent. In other words, I do know and the facts are easily established. I have even posted several examples here in the past.

We are basically on the same page. I see the Rosario / Sano / Polanco / Kepler core window closing and the Julien / Lewis / Kirilloff / Wallner / Lee core emerging. Only time will tell but I am pretty bullish on the long-term outlook of that group. The previous group did not have any hold over (extended players). This group has Buxton and Correa. Theoretically, that should be a big advantage over the previous group. Of course, this group has a far better core of pitchers with Lopez / Ryan / Ober / Duran and Jax. Stewart might just be a core player too. All of this is an optimistic view but that's a lot to build around. Like any team entering a new window, the relative advancement of these young guys will determine if they are pretenders or contenders. It would really help if a couple of prospects that are relatively surprising this year turn out to be real. Guys like Prato and Severino might be nothing but could be quite good. A happy surprise or two would be real nice. Perhaps I just prefer to see a window opening vs one closing but it's more fun to be an optimist.

Why is our window closing? The position players making the biggest difference right now are Julien / Kirilloff and Jeffers. Lewis looks to be a big contributor and Wallner has flashed signs of brilliance. That's 5 core position players that are just getting started with Lee waiting in the wings. Do we think Correa and Buxton are cooked. We have multiple years of control left with Lopez / Ryan / Ober / Paddack / Duran / Jax and Stewart. All that young talent will give us about 50M to spend on free agents. Why is our window closing. I say it might be ready to open.

I really like the Polanco / Wallner for Seattle's young pitching. Polanco at 3B is not a solution and I totally agree something could have been done to reshape the team. That said, there are only two positions that make sense to shake up. The first is 3B and Lewis will reshape that position. The other is the OF. DFAing Gallo and giving the young guys a shot accomplishes would help. IDK if they are willing to DFA Gallo or not. The Kirilloff injury justifies keeping him around for the moment. The available OF bats did not move the bar for me.

Investing any significant assets in a flawed team is desperate and detrimental long-term. It's hardly astonishing they stood pat. The team one game back of them in the division sold off their starting 1B and a good starting pitcher. Would you prefer the lack of activity have been resolved by selling?

I agree completely in concept but how would that look. I would have been good with Polanco being traded but was there a market for him right now? The rest of the IF Correa / Julien and Kirilloff are not going anywhere. Cron at 1B and Kirilloff to the OF seems like the most viable move they could have made. None of the OFers that were moved are difference makers IMO. The best thing they could do there is DFA Gallo but that's not ideal right now with Kirilloff out. They could have moved one of Gray or Maeda but that would have to be characterized as selling. What would selling without selling have looked like?

Do nothing last year would have been far better than giving up a bunch of assets for nothing. If they had blocked players they should have traded Steer and CES and/or a couple pitching prospects for catchers or RH outfield prospects that were near ready. I would like to have CES for 1B right now and going forward.

Could it be he has a job because Kirilloff is on the IL. Do we want Solano as our only guy on the roster with significant experience at 1B. AM I missing someone with 1B experience?

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.