Cris E

You need a middle infielder that can play a lot. Lewis won't be around for the first half, and Polanco is hardly guaranteed to stay healthy anymore. Gordon should be playing CF 2-3 days a week to cover for Buxton, so he won't he available full time either.

Toronto has three catchers that need to play next year, so they're in a spot where there's pressure to trade someone. It's likely be Jansen, and they'd probably want at least a *big* young arm back since they are a solid 92 win team and he's both young and still improving.

I don't think they expected to contend in 2022. They were going to roll into the year with a very young rotation, Buxton, Kepler and some kids in LF, a 25 year old catcher, a lot of youth in the pen, that young SS from TEX or Lewis at SS, etc. Dumping Donaldson got them Sanchez and Urshela, but they only picked up Grey, Pagan, Paddock, after Correa landed in their laps. I think on January 1 they still thought this was a year to get the kids broken in and 2023 was the target season. EDIT: Just for the record I do NOT expect them to be in on Judge, but he would be a fun add in Kepler's role.

Some points: Part of the lack of fundamentals is due to having a gaggle of youngsters running around that should have been in the minors this year. If we didn't suffer that incredible number of injuries, many of these kids would have spent the summer in St Paul or even further down. Now if you want to complain about why no one is St Paul or Cedar Rapids is watching their Tom Emanski tapes I'll be right there with you, but complaining about Gilberto Celestino or Ronny Henriquez not being ready is disregarding their real timelines. Rule changes next year are going to make infielders play their own positions without a lot of buddies running over to help them. (Probably - you never know if we'll try to line up our middle infielders at the center line and have them dash over to a shift at the last second. Let's hope not.) That means guys with poor mobility, like say Polanco if he's still got the bum wheel, might be at a disadvantage. I don't think this will matter much since it'll only be a return to the way the game was played 5-10 years ago. But you never know. Also we should expect more base stealing, at least from other teams even if we don't increase our own running. But we should increase our attempts since they were laughably low and there are a couple fast guys on this roster who might be good at it, and we really never put that pressure on other teams to even consider defending against it. The 40 man roster construction is kind of muddled right now. There are good looking players at most positions, but several key ones are broken (Buxton, Polanco) or not ready yet (Miranda, Wallner) or both (Lewis). I kind of don't think they expected to be very good this year, what with committing to such a young staff in addition to apparently planning on going with Lewis at SS. But Correa showing up forced them to take a swing at things while he was around, so they picked up a bunch of controlable parts that would still be useful in 2023. I think next year is when they expected all those first and second year guys like Jeffers and Arraez and Ryan to be done learning and start winning. Leading the Central for three months was gravy. So what do they have? Correa not staying is a big hole, not a big surprise. I think Lewis can probably handle the job, but he's been hurt a lot so even if he was expected to be ready in March I'd still want a 80 game SS on hand. Buxton will always need a caddy, but I like that job for Gordon. It'll give him something to do for 30-40 games (or more) as a base for the rest of his utility appearances. I like his speed and attitude so I want him out there 100 games as long as his bat doesn't regress too much. We need a defensive catcher to pair with Jeffers. He hasn't thrown anyone out since high school and the league rules are going to encourage more running next year. If Polanco can come back healthy I like him, but if he can't we should trade him and park Arraez at 2B. Urshela at 3b and Miranda at 1B should be locks. The outfield is going to depend on who is healthy. They should dump a couple lefty hitters to fill needs and get one right handed bat, but other than that there are a lot of parts to sort. They have a lot of good #2-#4 pitchers, but they do need an ace. Sonny Grey has always had a rep as a guy who misses starts, so it's not him. If they can't find one now it's the sort of thing that can be done at the trade deadline. The pen could use a guy like Fulmer and one or two more anonymous flame throwers. Maeda still thinks he's a starter but he doesn't have the health for the role and would be great in Duran's setup role, where he can go multiple innings. Duran gets the fancy closer hat. Pagan might be worth salvaging or he might be trade bait. Relievers are volatile and someone might think they can fix his 96 with movement (and it could even be the Twins.) They could be good next year, or they could be injured again. They might walk away with the Central again or other teams could play the whole season and not concede everything before Father's Day. A new good front of rotation starter, some luck with the missing wounded (Mahle, Paddock, Maeda and Alcala just for openers) and some health up and down the lineup and they could be pretty good. The only thing I will say is that Falvey and Co do like to mix things up, so I expect some unexpected new faces in camp next spring.

You know what the difference is? An injury or two,

It appears LSU was charging hard. In the Tweets up above it's reported his salary went from $350k to $750k, so that maaaaay have factored into his decision.

Brayan Medina come on down!

Bundy was just a flyer on guy in a value trough. He could bounce back to be useful or tradeable. This trade is about being a functional team in a winnable division with increased playoff spots available. They had to get someone decent to front a team that wants to forget 2021 even happened and try to roll straight through from 2020 to 2022.

A couple weeks back Rocco was talking about having him play a little deeper and use his speed to come in rather than go back. It would trade a few singles for getting to the wall with time to check up, which I think everyone would take.

Stewart has had a lot of injury distractions over the years, and I wonder if that's made it easier to avoid hard questions about his approach, work ethic, etc. If the past year or two is when he was finally healthy for extended periods but still didn't get the results, maybe that's what pushed him to finally listen more and study his craft a little differently.

Starting pitchers don't fall off a cliff at 32 like 2B. The risk with them isn't age so much as the nearly inevitable injuries.

Perhaps he's the missing veteran for the bullpen. If he hasn't pitched since he was 12 he'll need some time to get the arm in shape.

3) Kids get better and injured guys return. It's what Ryan is counting on, and in some cases it's very real. In the case of the 2016 bullpen TR might be counting on May and Meyer. He could be dreaming of Tonkin finally becoming something. He could have a spot in reserve for the injured guys riding into Spring Training on white stallions to save the day. He might still be waiting to make a move in April once he sees what he has and who ended up without a job at the end of camp. But there are enough open spots in the pen that he really should have locked one down with someone new, and I don't think anyone is defending the complete lack of action. The only thing I'll say about bullpen FA is they are incredibly erratic from year to year, they get hurt, you can usually go find a Jepson when you need one in the middle of a season, and he's had some pretty good luck fashioning a pen out of junk over the years. Here's hoping he cuts bait on more than just Duensing and some of the young herd (Pressely and Tonkin and Graham and on and on) step up and grab the innings. But I understand a lot of his other idleness. He kept Plouffe because Sano is still an unknown. He couldn't stay healthy last year as a DH, so TR wants to see him play 150 games before he dumps Trevor and Molitor finds himself playing a SS out of position for four months. He didn't go find an OF because he has a handful to sort through. He did pick up a catcher on the cheap, and while he still has Suzuki around for a year he can find out if Murphy is the guy or he still needs to shop. I have no answer for signing a DH this winter. That was weird. But he did offer Torri another year, so who knows what he's thinking about the outfield. Maybe Sano was slated to go to 3B until Hunter retired.

Well now you want it both ways: not signing FAs is bad strategy, but signing them is not strategy either. So if the bullpen is in the shape you say it is (similar to the rotation a few years ago) then signing FAs would once again be desperation instead of strategy. I'm not confident you'll be happy with anything TR does. Ryan has two things to invest/spend/allocate: dollars and playing time. When you have holes you focus on investing dollars to get guys, but when you have young players you focus on allocating playing time. There's usually a lot of grey in these cases, but when you have a Sano or a Rosario or even a Duffy you want to give them a chance to take a job before dredging up a Bourne or Stauffer to fill the spot, regardless of money. Mazeville is talking about broad philosophy, not specific players, and he's right.

I think they'll keep Rosario in LF, Arcia at DH and Vargas in AAA until either Buxton or Vargas forces their hand. Then we'll send Rosario down and bring up the one that can't be denied. The improved defense is a huge part of the recent improvement in pitching, which is a huge part of the improvement in record. I think Molitor knows that and is trying to find a polite way of getting it without knocking Arcia's glovework directly.

Hicks didn't get the nod in CF because position players are held to a different standard, he got it because they traded away all their better options and didn't leave themselves much choice. They want to be in a position to pick the kid when he's ready, not out of necessity. Mays and Meyer should earn a job just as Hicks would have if Revere were still around.

They have the middle and back of the rotation covered in depth, so the only space is in front. They need a #1 to put in front of Hughes Nolasco Gibson May and anyone else looking for innings. None of those names mentioned above make any sense in front of Hughes or between Gibson and the approaching talent like Mayer and Berrios. We've got 2-4-4-4-youth so we need someone in front or just spend on OF defense and wait for the kids.

The bias isn't in the voting for starting lineups. There are only nine or ten names there out of dozens. The serious bias is in the selection of pitching and backups. The best teams with the most wins get the most all-stars, but the causality might not be players bringing wins as much as wins making all-stars. There are two forces that multiply each other to concentrate the player selections on the best teams: the manager comes from the team that won the World Series, and the manager gets to select his guys for many secondary roles. If every team got to provide the manager at some point (similar to site selection or One Player Per Team) then this might start to even out. But team selection stays in the hands of the winning teams and they'll keep appointing their own guys as much as possible. It turns out all-stars are usually not flash in the pan meteors, so having a bunch of them is also predictive in how many games you might win next year. But the the non-stats factor in how they're selected that makes a straight wins formula hard. Second place is waayyy behind first place. TRDR version: Look through the over-acheivers and count how many WS wins there are versus the other lists.

I think if they move any bullpen guys they'll keep Swarzak (homegrown) and move Burton or Fien, probably Burton since he's got a better track record so he'd bring a better return. If Willingham is toast it'll be obvious by May and he'll be sitting in MN on August 1. At that point there's little reason to play him or trade him until Sept, when his playing time will be more valuable in the hands of the kids. My guess is that is if he bombs we'll see more Kubel, and if he bombs too by the end of June we'll see the end of the Eddie Rosario 2B Experience and the dawn of Rosario: LF. When his 50 games wrap up they'll tune up his bat and have him go stand in LF, defense or no.

I think they pick up a new SS before they sign a third pitcher, and I also think he won't be much better than the dreck we're sorting through already.