IndianaTwin

Salient points in my mind... They signed veterans to be starters and will give them every opportunity. There are only two off days in April, but they can be used judiciously. A 6-man rotation has merit, but whenever there is an off day, it gives a starter six days between starts, meaning two extra days. A 6-man rotation also shortens the bullpen by a body. Ober has only pitched more than 100 innings once, so he will be on some sort of innings limit. So here's what I would do. Start with a 5-man rotation of the veterans. With days off on March 31 and April 7, using a 5-man rotation actually gives every starter an extra day on the first two-plus times through the rotation, with just one exception. The starter on Sat., April 1, would come back on four days rest on Thurs., April 6. After that exception, the next time that a starter would be pitching on four days rest is on April 13, coming off the April 8 start. Thus, I'd option Ober to STP (or keep in extended spring training) and run with an eight-man bullpen, bringing Ober up for the April 13 start. At that point, run with a 6-man rotation. Keeping Ober down until April 13 keeps a couple extra innings off his arm and allows the "normal" eight-man bullpen to that point. The plus for extended spring training over STP is that his "game" days before April 13 can be micromanaged at an appropriate number of pitches/innings. The inability to be able to control/structure his innings and rest is why I wouldn't put him in the MLB bullpen. This assumes no injuries. If (when) one occurs, simply insert Ober into the rotation and roll with him and the remaining four vets. In the unlikely event of no injuries happening, April 18 starts a string of 13 straight games and 30 games in 32 days, when it could actually be a benefit to be using a 6-man rotation. The 30-in-32 days stretch goes through May 17, however, and the likelihood of being injury-free until then is virtually nil. Here's the way the first part of the season works in this scenario:

To clarify, we should ignore the 8 K/ 1 BB ratio because of the small sample size, but we should pay attention to the power in the same small sample size?

I haven’t seen all the box scores, but I’m wondering if Wizard meant they haven’t played their positions yet this spring. Do you know if that’s the case? If so, that does create a bit of unsettledness. It’s early, but still less than four weeks to Opening Day.

Ftfy.

Question of clarification -- with spring training injuries, does 60 days start from the time the player is put on the IL or on Opening Day? Edit to answer my own question... From the MLBTR article linked above: "Players are eligible to be moved to the 60-day IL now but the clock doesn’t start counting down until Opening Day, which is March 30." So, unless they are willing to commit to Celestino being unavailable until Memorial Day, which is well beyond the 6-8 weeks projected, that 40-man roster spot isn't yet available.

And dyslexics untie! (My wife was a special ed teacher for 15 years before taking early retirement. Her favorite Casual Friday t-shirt said, "Dyslexics are teople poo!")

I just changed my mind on the new look. If it means two world championships in five seasons, let's all get on board with this now and plan for new unis in 2027.

Starter. Assume the five veterans and Ober are options 1-6. Beyond that, Winder and Varland enter the preseason as the assumed Nos. 7 and 8, unless you want to consider Dobnak and his guaranteed contract ahead of them. Based on prior history, you WILL use Nos. 7 and 8 reasonably early in the year, very likely by late May/early June. With what he’s shown, give those two the opportunity to be that those options, on the chance that you very well be needing as many as a dozen starts. Otherwise you’re looking at the Cole Sands or the retreads on minor league contract to be that 7 or 8 Similarly, they already have 10+ reliever options to cycle through. Use those up first before going to Winder or Varland in the pen, knowing that you are going to need all those and more as well. The thing is, knowing that any new reliever is going to start at the bottom of the pecking order, it’s much easier to find an 11th bullpen option than it is to find a 7th or 8th starter. In my opinion, there are only two reasons to move him to the pen. One is if he gets a number of MLB starts and demonstrates that he isn’t going to make it as a starter, but he shows enough to think he’s got enough to give the pen a shot. Think Duffey and Jax as the examples. I don’t think Winder has disproven he can be a starter yet. The other is the Liriano approach, which the Cards and Braves have also done and which has been referenced. I don’t remember the specifics on Liriano, but I think the typical Cards/Braves use of this strategy has been in the case of someone knocking down the door in AAA, but is not needed as a starter at the MLB level. So, if the rotation is doing well AND Winder is blowing off people’s drawers in the minors, then sure, go there is a bullpen option is needed, sure. But the thing is, that scenario doesn’t play itself out until July/August, maybe even after the trade deadline. So, starter.

I liked the Farmer trade from the beginning. Whether or not he's better than Urshela, his positional flexibility is definitely a better fit for the roster. I've speculated that one of the reasons people haven't recognized his fit is that so many were in a Correa or Bust mindset.

Just think what kind of grief he'll get if someone speculates on some modest bilateral ankle weakness.

In the discussion above of how a civil society handles disagreement, I’d suggest that a civil society also doesn’t speculate on things when it doesn’t have the information it needs to make clear judgments. I’m with those who believe that the odds of getting your jaw busted are greater when you’re doing stupid things and/or being in stupid places than if you aren’t, but I’m not sure how it benefits us to do much more than report what is known.

Or at the least, we hope he'll be swinging a big Styx.

If Mr. Sabato does well, we can certainly say, "Domo Arigato," thank you very much.

I'm glad to say it's going to be a long season. Well into October...

Agreed -- this doesn't seem overly complicated. There are 17 position players on the 40-man. Take out the injured Lewis, and you're at 16. Julien hasn't had a single at bat at AAA, so you're probably at 15. Celestino ought to have more time in St. Paul, so you're probably at 14. And a 13-man MLB roster. Two are catchers. So, can you can promise that none from among Miranda, Kirilloff, Polanco, Correa, Farmer, Buxton, Taylor, Larnach, Gordon, Gallo, Kepler will start the season on the IL? Because if one of them does go on the IL, your only remaining option is Wallner and his 57 MLB at bats. He's also a lefty-hitting corner outfielder. Somewhere, I'm thinking I heard somebody mention (maybe even on TD a time or two!) that we've got plenty of those. So unless you want to call up another lefty-hitting corner outfielder (including if it's to replace an infielder!), you need another option on the 40-man roster. Adding someone to the 40-man is easy right now, since Lewis can go to the 60-day IL. So you look for a reasonable option to add to the mix. I don't know much about Solano, but he seems about as good as anything else that's out there, at what is probably a pretty cheap cost. And if you get lucky enough that no one is injured, then you can still either send Larnach down to St. Paul or do a cheap DFA of Solano, but the odds of any group of 11 not having an injury are pretty slim.

Exactly. I see this as a team with a great floor and with a bunch of guys who "can pitch like a top-notch starter* for a period of time." With more potential in the wings.** *Note that, as a way of trying to keep this thread from getting highjacked, I didn't use the A_e word. **"Wings" used as a way of trying to avoid using the P_p_l_n_ word.

I went with Lopez, mainly to see what others said, but my preferred answer is "All of the above." I'm pretty excited about the rotation as well.

Wait? We added Votto too? You mean Gallo, I presume? 😀

Maybe let's wait until we know a little more before we start speculating/projecting? It seems like a pretty minor deal/insurance clause to get our shorts bunched up about when we don't know... Nature of contract, including how little they'd "waste" with a DFA down the road (i.e. when Lewis is healthy). Injury status of a bunch of guys. What we do (mostly) know is that with Lewis likely available to go on the 60-day IL, it probably doesn't cost us a body to add Solano. But guess what? We'll probably hear that news in a day or two. Yawn. I'll go back to work. Let me know when something significant happens.

True. Though one might argue that full-time DHing would have led to better recovery and/or fewer days off. Plus, that would have given us the bonus of providing one more reason for TD readers to rip on Rocco and the Front Office, and heaven knows we need more of those, right? (sarcasm alert) Hopefully it's a moot point this year. 😄

Just don't call it the Single-Hits-Into-The-Shift Squad. It would too frequently be shortened with an acronym that would wouldn't work well.

Since this is a cumulative stat, it's noteworthy to me that Moran has a pitch listed despite only pitching 48.2 innings. And that Duran has two pitches, though only pitching 67.2. Of course, that doesn't take into account that relievers are often throwing fewer different pitches. If 60 percent of Fulmer's pitches over 63 innings, that's not much difference in total than Gray's 28 percent fastballs over 123 innings.

Interesting. I've seen some models projecting how teams might address not being able to shift against lefties by putting one of the outfielders in the short right field where the "shifted" infielder used to play. The SS would play pretty close to that magical line up the middle. The CF and RF would play reasonably close to their normal positions, shading as appropriate for fly balls. That does leave LF considerably more open than in the past, but I could see it happening with certain hitters, particularly those with less power, since in that situation the CF could actually shade toward left. BUT..., think of how that would NOT work with Buxton. If you mirrored that on the right side, that double in RF is likely a triple, and the quartet of singles in CF likely turn into doubles. And no infielder is going to be able to throw him out from short left. Interesting indeed. But as RickOS notes, Byron also has another pretty effective way of beating the shift.

Yeah, let’s have Lewis learn 1b. Even Billy Beane knows it ain’t that hard!

Don't worry, Rocco won't let him go past five... ...pitches. (I actually generally have little problem with Rocco's pitcher usage. It just seemed like a comment that was setting on a tee for me.)