tmwiese55

Nitpick of course, but with Moose being out a bit and Thames doing pretty well might be better have to Moose lower so flip flop them in the line up while he gets back into the swing of things, pun intended.

I think they can be just as good over a short period of time. Over the course of half a season? No way. But over a few weeks? Sure. Right, it can happen. Just think when Yeli was out recently with the back issue and they won like 8/10 or whatever it was. No one with a right mind would say the team is better without him, it's just pointing out baseball is flukiest of all sports and one individual player has least effect on it than in any other team sport. Combine that with sometimes how something like this can motivate and unite a team and hey they're not dead and it could still happen. Especially since they're now only 1 out as opposed to like 4.

We certainly haven't agreed on much this season, but I'm with you on this. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that a team used an injured superstar as rally fuel. This team no longer has any expectations. They are going to be everyone's underdog, and are basically playing with house money at this point. Other players are going to have to step up, and Counsell is going to have to manage out of his mind. Can it happen? Maybe, maybe not. But I'm sure as heck going to enjoy the ride. Yup, remember the Ewing Theory. Teams get hot or do better after losing their star players. Knicks making Finals with Ewing hurt, TN winning the National Title the year after Manning leaves, things like that. If any sport is more susceptible to it it's baseball due to the reasons some just pointed out in regards to how little impact 1 baseball player has on a game compared to the other team sports. At this point I'd consider just making it a great success and be content with it. Happen to win the game vs WAS and anything after is just gravy. One thing I'd add is regarding Counsel. In spite of all the ripping he gets and nitpicking this or that decision. One thing I think that's been clear his whole tenure is the attitude, karma, or positive energy of the team. Really, this is probably the most important thing a manager can do and he seems to have the right personality for it. This should come into play big time now.

True, that game could've been a great excuse to give Braun another day. he definitely looks gimpier of late. But, MIA has a lefty in game 4. So logic might be to play today, off tomorrow, then play vs the lefty. Going tonight avoids the day/night back to back for Braun. Plus, with the huge OF in MIA probably want Cain out there for D I think I would have liked to see Grisham and his speed out there over Braun. Let the man get healthy, but maybe he's feeling a lot better today...who knows. I wonder how far we are from Hiura/Moose being available for PH duties as well. Right, another reason to push it. That said, you know they'll have their eyes on yanking Braun after a late AB in the 6-8th inning to reduce how much he'll be out there on D.

True, that game could've been a great excuse to give Braun another day. he definitely looks gimpier of late. But, MIA has a lefty in game 4. So logic might be to play today, off tomorrow, then play vs the lefty. Going tonight avoids the day/night back to back for Braun. Plus, with the huge OF in MIA probably want Cain out there for D

Personally I don't think they're toast. I'd still call them the favorite right now for sure. I do think they'll lose at last one to SD though and a good chance at 2. Get our 3/4 and we should be in good shape but no way I think they're toast. I'd expect them in it until the end and I'd pick them over anyone else if I had to pick. Sure their pen is trash but they still have good hitters even without Baez and veteran starters.

haha, I actually did laugh out loud reading that one.

You literally just said you didn't bash the owner. Guy points out just a few examples of you bashing the owner, which you've done tons of. So which words do you stand by as you seem to change views every time the wind blows.

Generally I'd say we're putting a bit too much stock into recruiting rankings and folks at WI getting a bit too giddy since it's rare for us to have a guy ranked that high. Go back and look at top 5-10 type QB lists and how often they flame out. It's the biggest crap shoot in recruiting. For example, the guy that transferred to NW this year was the #1 QB when he came out, never got to play at Clemson then goes to NW and started the year behind a former walk on. Generally speaking you should not have a system that high school ranking determines who plays. The better guy should play. I think it's also forgetting that Coan was very good recruit himself, in the top 10-15ish type rankings for QBs. This isn't at all like Horni and Stave being a nothing recruit and yet starting for 3-4 years. If Mertz improves so much that he's just clearly superior and takes it, obviously that's a good thing. Similar to what happened with Lawrence at Clemson. But you should not have an attitude that "this guy was hyped so we owe to him to play". It's also very early for Coan. Obviously as all have said, he sure has looked legit and all but we'll see for sure in the next 3 games. If he looks shaky and they lose 2/3, just personally plays badly, gets hurt, etc. Things can change really quickly and all of a sudden Mertz is playing. Plush is right that logically it wouldn't make sense for Mertz to leave as he'd just have to sit elsewhere instead of here. QBs of course have never been logical with all the transfers, but all accounts this kid and his parents have great attitudes and heads on their shoulders. This all might have been a bit different had Coan sat the bowl game to keep the extra year. Still, this is all a bit early to speculate as we still don't know for sure if either is legit good. Let's sit back and enjoy that for once it seems we don't have "but if only they had a QB" thing going on like normal. Good problem to have if these scenarios we're throwing around happen. Another example right in front of us was Bart Houston, legit high 4 star and our best QB recruit ever as well. Was never able to beat out Stave. After he did get to play I don't think anyone would say that was the wrong call. I would note that I thought he should have gotten a bit more leeway his senior year, but that's neither here nor there.

I guess one could possibly argue the value of the team was in a way hurt due to the stadium in that the team was now essentially locked into the smallest market rather than the possibility of getting moved somewhere more lucrative, wherever that might've been.

Say the Cubs don't make the playoffs, think they fire Madden? They've dumped tons into payroll, bought starters, have 3 MVP level hitters. Same question if they make it but lose to WAS in the WC game? I'd still guess they keep him no matter what, but as far as I can tell his contract is up this year. So, keeping would likely require a 3-4 year contract as opposed to the normal decision of just not firing and keeping current contract going.

UW has too many good QBs. who would've thought we'd ever say that haha. Obviously we're still only a few games in here for Coan and haven't seen Mertz play for real at all yet so it's still early to proclaim them both good but at least it's looking that way as of now. Plus all signs point to Wolf have a legit shot too. I'd guess they all stick it out but it wouldn't surprise me if Wolf leaves after the year. He could see the writing on the wall that he'll get skipped over to Mertz. He's used his RS though so maybe he's a good student and can graduate early so he doesn't have to sit out.

Think of this way, if he sold before the stadium the next owner would have benefited from the bump in value instead of him. Better him than Attanasio or whatever billionaire would've bought IMO. And that's assuming it even happens if the team was sold before the stadium was done. If he sells without stadium done the team could easily be gone, but let's just assume it was in the contract they couldn't move, similar to what happened with the Bucks, the next owner would have gotten the value bump. So, again better Bud than anyone else.

Well I didn't say playoffs. I was referring to specifically late last season as in the stage we're in now. It's drastically different than what we had last year. You had 3 lights out back end guys combined with two multi inning lights out guys. Plus Soria who would be our 2nd best guy this year. Also Guira had transitioned well to the pen at the end of last year. This just shows again your overreaction to small samples, JJ had a couple bad outings to end it so that means he didn't have like a 1.2 ERA on the year. Soria was the definition of average/fine/mediocre yet you're ripping him while trying to act like the guys this year who are best case in the same class as him, and many clearly worse are actually good. I honestly have no idea how anyone can think it's close. You of course ignore the real substance of the post in the first regarding the inconsistency of this years guys though and your massive overreactions game to game.

I think what should be obvious by how you move these people around on a day by day basis is that it lays out exactly what pretty much all of their problems is, consistency. All these guys you get a fascination with after one or two outings are all capable of doing well on any given day, it's not like they don't have 'stuff' so to speak. But they're also liable to get blown up way too often and you have no idea when it's gonna happen. Peralta for example a mere two days ago you had in the Good category and when called out on it you said something like "what everyone else calls reactionary, I call obvious". Two days later, Peralta shows his inconsistency like he has his whole career and now he's just a guy too. I think we'd all say this obviously reactionary. Due to the inconsistency of everyone. I'd toss out that maybe something CC could do is yank earlier when someone shows cracks. Take some of Albers bad games recently or Freddy last night, he probably could've pulled the plug sooner. Still, i know that's tough as you still have to cover so many innings every night because starters don't go deep. So sometime you just have to grit your teeth and hope for the best. Sorry, there is no chance of this pen coming close to last years. I appreciate the positivity these days as you've somehow flipped from the most negative person on here in ripping the owner, GM, Manager and calling for all their heads to acting like this team is a WS contender in the span of 3 weeks. But there is no way this comes anywhere close to having Hader, JJ, Knebel, Burnes, Wood, Soria last year. Not even close. There was 4 guys there where when they came in you didn't expect the ball to get touched. Then Woody came on big time right at the end too and was like that as well.

Yea I think Beane loves his current role where he's allowed the occasional bad years and can write it off as due to the market. Boston, you have no excuses you have to do it now. Basically he doesn't have to deal with any of the big market media BS. ETA: seems in all that I forgot he acquired kimbrel too. Got him in his prime on a good contract, then let him go instead of paying out the old age bad years. Again, good move. None of the prospects have done much for SD yet. Margot was in it and Logan Allen.

Yea his Tigers tenure is just brutal and I was surprised he got hired for this job back when it happened. And let's not forget that was a super old owner saying F it, spend whatever I want a title before I die. But he really hasn't done a bad job since he's been there if you look into it. I mean, what'd they win 117 games or something crazy last year and the WS. Yea, what an idiot dinosaur who doesn't get it. As I mentioned, those 3 big contracts drop this year and I think I saw something that says they should have 70ish mil under Tax to play with. I don't recall if that was counting JD as in or out though. Sooo, in a way he kind of did exactly what they wanted and still got fired. Managed to win while waiting for a few bad previous contracts to leave their books to get under the tax. Not only did they win or stay good but actually won the whole thing. And it seems they're actually set up to get under the tax if they're really determined next year assuming they're frugal this offseason. Unless that article was wrong somehow, I think it was CBS. Yet you're here ripping him like he's some moron. Jeez, just saw a Rusney Castillo contract he's having to sit on too handed out by previous management, 13 mil left for next year. I'd say the major glaring thing attributable to him on their books is Evaldi. If he knew management had this get under the Tax mantra, he should've accepted losing him and saved that 17 mil to keep JD/Mookie etc. Replaced him with a Miley type on a 1 year deal. That 17 mil could end up the difference between Tax and no Tax for them.

He blew past the budget and it won the WS, was he wrong to do it? I mean you just said he hurt the franchise in capital letters for winning the WS. If he didn't sign JD, get Sale and Price they don't win the WS. If he doesn't do it they lose 10 more games and he's fired for not making the playoffs. I agree with you they'll be smarter now to avoid the 7-8 year albatrosses though, I might've over spoke there. But they're still going to spend 20-30 mil per year on star players and have to give out 4-6 year type deals, and some will blow up. Unforgivable that he blew up the farm giving up Moncado for Sale, that's been a huge win for them so far and just won the WS with it? Cmon. Outside of that multiple homegrown players have come up and done great for them. He held firm on Devers when any past Boston GM would've moved him 3 years ago for the flavor of the deadline like crazy fans demand every year. While you're generally right about them wising up on the contracts, they're still going to spend big money because knee jerk fans like yourself will scream and whine if they don't. So push comes to shove, they sign the guys because they're going to get fired if they don't win now. These markets don't have the patience. Also, in specifically ripping him. He didn't give out the Sandoval/Ramirez contacts. He took on those burdens, got out of them and won the WS. He's actually been smart about this stuff and stuck with the young guys instead of trading for knee jerk win now trades posters like yourself would demand. He held firm on JD and got him way cheaper than anyone thought(in line exactly with what you're saying smart teams will do, he just did it and nailed it). Sale/Evaldi I'm a little skeptical on. Tough to blame for Sale as he's that good, but I think we could all see this arm trouble coming. But, as you said he was smart and only paid 5 years instead of the 7-8 years of contracts past. Evaldi though looks bad, not sure why he did that one. Seemed an overreaction to a late season hot streak, see how that can get you in trouble? Pedroia, Pablo and Porcelo clear like 60 mil off for them this year too. Look at their books and they're really only bad contract is Evaldi. Essentially he's been focused on doing things more efficiently and it won a WS. Yet he's fired and folks acting like he's a moron when really besides the questionable Evaldi he probably hasn't given out a truly bad contract. Price's isn't really that bad overall and it's now down to 3 years and Price was absolutely huge last year. It's also not totally fair to bash for bad drafts and farm when these teams draft at pick 25+ every year. This is why it's so ridiculous what LAD is doing, go look at their drafts and they still keep nailing mid to late 1st rd picks. Ridiculous what they're doing. Also, a new low budget GM isn't gonna come in and be allowed years of tanking to build the farm. They'll arrive, see a barren farm and realize their only way to win is to pay, otherwise they're going to get fired for not winning. Unless the owner specifically says "lose so I can make more money", but how happy would you be about that?

It's like going 14-6 combined with them going 6-14. Ballpark approximations here of course. Combine the odds on both of those happening and you're at shockingly low percent, probably in the 1-3 type area. But just think of like this, they're already at 81 wins. We're trying to contrive a way to get to 87, while they're already sitting at 81. Plus, along with it you need the Cubs to do poorly, which as you said since Cubs/Cards play each other so much one of them is getting a W each time. But yea, get your 3/4 vs Miami and a sweep this weekend and all of a sudden you've gone from next to impossible up to "hey this wouldn't be that crazy to happen"

The Twins hold a $12M team option ($300k buyout) on Cruz for 2020. I would be shocked if the Twins did not pick up the option.... Ah, didn't know that, just thought it was one year. What would low budget GMs do with the cap space? Same things all other guys who've moved to big markets, spend it on big time FA contracts and then later get ripped on when the backends of those deals look bad. That said, I don't know why they won't just pay Betts. Only 26 years old, this contract shouldn't kill them. This is the biggest advantage mega markets have, when they have a homegrown star they can keep them.

Yes I'm sure their farm is trash but really the Sox are a good team. Just sign Mookie and run it back, the same team just won the WS last year and Devers took a huge step up this year. The Sale injury could be huge though. Still, what choice do they have? There's only what 7 good teams in the AL and 5 get to make the playoffs, keep doing what you're doing but let the farm build up a bit. They were smart to hold homegrown guys like Mookie, Deavers, JBJ, Xander, etc now just let it play out. Smart not to sign Kimbrell for dumb money. They were smart not to 'go for it' at the deadline this year. Try to find some Wade Miley type cheap signings to fill out and go for it. Sorry spoiled Boston fans, you're not going to win every year. They're down to only 3 years left on Price's deal too and it's not like Price is a bad pitcher, just overpaid. JD Martinez situation will be interesting though with having an opt out in his deal every year from here out. That's obviously important to figure out, lost that bat and who knows how they fill it. First thing I'd do if I was them is Nelson Cruz on a 1 year deal though if JD opts out.

Happy to be alive another week. Get 3/4 from MIA and they really shouldn't be in too bad of shape at that point. Easier said than done of course. For the division, while I agree with your premise overall of Cards due for a downturn a bit. We need to make up 7 games with only 20 to go. This is almost impossible. You'd need a historic collapse from them. Sure, if you sweep them that would at least put it in play, but still this is almost impossible.

I'd slightly disagree in that he's fairly athletic/fast so it would kind of suck to not find someplace he can adequately play other than 1B/DH. I'm not saying he's like Javy Baez athletic or something, just saying he's not a bigger guy who's a stiff that you normally put at DH/1B. If the arm is that bad with strength, then it seems 2B or bust. To me the issues have been accuracy on throws. Reduce the absolutely brutally inaccurate throws by half and it moves him towards respectability really quickly.

I guess would adjust to say since Claudio has been deployed properly as a lefty specialist I'd generally consider him trustworthy. Full innings and a bunch of righties, no thanks. But they have adjusted his usage appropriately, even if it took 3-4 weeks longer than we all wanted. After Hader, I have no confidence in anyone. Sure, they're all capable of doing their job but they get blown up way too often and that's why their ERAs are all brutal. And yes, we saw the games play out last night and it wasn't pretty.

So in your opinion, we go from bad vs LHP to "crush them" by swapping Cain for Castellanos and Grandals' 850+ OPS vs lefties to a career AAA guy? You just don't understand how outlandish that is? Moreover, you're trying to spin from a GM perspective to not have traded for Castellanos who had a .328 OBP at time of trade. Somehow Stearns should have known that he'd hit like 50% better than he's done before for the next couple months. Plus, even if he did do it it probably wouldn't have been enough to win the division, let alone any serious playoff run. It's all hindsight BS, find the guy who got hottest after the trade, scream we should've got him. I guess that's also ignoring he probably picked up the best producing SP since the deadline and he got him for nothing whereas the Cubs overpaid for 2 months of Castellanos.