jay87shot

I had thought the Cubs were a mirage, but I have to say that offense is legit. Additionally they probably have money and the prospects to add some pitching. I am at least for now turning my attention to the NL Wild Card. At this point I am going to go on the assumption that the Cubs win the Central, the Dodgers win the West (when they get healthy I still think they are the NL favorite), and one of the Phillies/Mets win the East. I know there is still over 1/2 the year so that is in know way set in stone. Just a reminder 3 teams get the Wild Card so now it would be the Phillies, Giants, and Padres with us 1.5 back. The Contenders Mets (45-27)/Phillies (42-29)= Both are playing well and have been pretty solid. The Phillies need some bullpen help and the Mets will be getting some injured starting pitching back. Giants (41-31)= Acquire Devers for peanuts puts them in a good spot. There pitching is strong and at least on paper that offense should be solid. However with a loaded West they could easily catch a couple rough stretches. Padres (39-31)= They aren't afraid to make moves but have one of the worst farm systems especially if De Vries is untouchable. They have some real holes to fill but also how one of the most dangerous top of the orders if firing on all cylinders. Pitching has been good and the pen is top notch. Brewers (39-34)= When you look at the teams ahead of us from a talent point we are very behind them. However if we can improve SS/3B we can matchup well in the playoffs with most teams. Cards (37-35)= They have a solid 1-9 order with improved pitching. I still don't think they have enough but they are serious threats. Reds (37-35)= If they can get some consistent run production in the middle of the order they could be dangerous. The starting pitching could be enough to keep them dangerous. D-backs (36-35)= Pitching injuries are going to limit their upside especially with Gallen and ERod not pitching real well. The offense and defense/athleticism will keep them around but likely the 4th team in the West. Braves (31-39)= Obviously they haven't played well and have injury issues. However that offense has a chance to catch fire and has the ability to go like 30-10 at some point and get them back in it. They also could continue to struggle for a month and trade off a bunch of guys.

Ramon Urias would be a guy I would go after. It also depends on how Mitchell and Perkins look when they come back. If those two don't look great I would be opposed to Cedric Mullins or a gamble on Robert if the price was low and the other team ate most of the salary. I think the NL sellers maybe more interesting for us.

AAA, either one. I know 1B is extra loaded at Nahville but 3B could use some help. Burke is ready for AA. Probably some options like Tayden Hall to play Appleton 1B.

I've said this before, that Black probably projects as a guy who should hit .250 with .350 obp with 15 HR 25-30 sb (500 abs). If he can play 1st we'll enough I think he will have good value as a platoon 1B and 4th OF. Essentially a better version of Jake Bauers, with Mitchell's injuries and Hoskins being a free agent I wouldn't sell him off cheap. He can also provide emergency 3B/2B relief especially if you want to ph for Durbin/ortiz late, I'm sure Black can play an inning her or there for a late ph when necessarry. I don't see Black doing much this year unless Hoskins or Yeli gets hurt, especially with Perk and Mitchell on rehab.

1) I am starting to think it would be a good idea to put William on the DL for a couple weeks (assuming it is still a micro fractur and would heel in 2ish weeks) to let that thumb heel. Maybe it would be smartest to wait until the allstar break to minimize games missed and give Quero another month to get up to speed. We really need him to be a run producer and he has been that. 2) We do a great job using pitchers as taxi guys moving them up and down quickly. Why don't we do that with with lineup guys? It wouldn't hurt to bring up Seigler for like 3/4 games and give him a quick look at 3rd, possibly Zamora at SS, I know the OF in AAA don't really have options but the space between Cameron, Dalbac, Rosario, and the new Avans guy isn't much.

Or at least piggyback Civale with Patrick and let him start for 3/4 innings.

Civale would have pitched in relief if we wanted him to. No pitcher is going to refuse to go into a game, especially a 4/5 starter before free agency. This wasn't a nfl holdout or nba superstar refusing to play until traded. Civale would have pitched, we could have taken a few weeks if necessary to find a better deal. We traded a player with a slightly positive value for a player with an extremely negative value. Vaughn has been a -1.5 WAR player this year and is hitting like .211 in AAA. With EMJ, Dalbac, Clarke, and Black in AAA I don't even see much playing time in Nashville. Sure having him in the org. maybe gives us a leg up next year after he is nontendered. But then he is taking playing time from Adams, Burke, Boeve, Wilken, and the other 1B depth. I like the way some on else put it, Vaughn is like the Lamet end of the Hader deal.

I don't get this other than to save a few million. This is not a play for next year, Vaughn will never be tendered a contract. I get there is a little upside since he was the #3 pick and the White Sox haven't been developing players. However at 27 I doubt he is going to be better than Jake Bauers, EMJ, or even Bobby Dalbac. With only a couple months I don't see any playing time and again no way he is tendered a contract next year.

With all the pitching needs around the league it just makes to much sense to trade him for a SS/3B or a prospect. Civale has shown to be a reliable 3-5 starter and his last starts have been good enough to get something back. With Henderson, Myers, CarRod in AAA and Woody, Cortes, and Gasser back at some point it makes too much sense to trade Civale.

I would love to take a high quality arm early but like the way we have done it recently. Draft a upside HS arm or 2 early. Get college arms day 2 and plenty of HS arms day 3. However this year it feels like we could use more bats. I think we only drafted like 4 bats last year and if you look at the lower levels there are plenty of sub. .200 hitters that we should get some bats to challenge. I would go after a couple college OF and look for some HS bats on day 3 as well. I would still get 10 or more pitchers but I would be more like 12-14 pitchers an 7-9 bats. But really draft the best talent and just figure it out as they develop.

Sweet, I would guess it is only for a start or two but now I have to contain the excitement in for 2 more days. If we could find a way to piggyback Henderson and Misi that would be sweet.

Yoho has had 1 bad outing, that is in no way is that a definitive on what he is going to be. He will need to adjust to the bigs as better hitters learn to lay off of pitches better. I think his command has been good enough that he just needs to learn what counts and what type of hitters he needs to throw more strikes to early and who will chase his elite movement. We saw that a lot with Devin that that guys who could lay off the changeup gave him issues.

We get IKF, the Dodgers get Civale, and the Pirates get a prospect or 2 from the Dodgers. We upgrade SS and 3B and relieve some overcrowding at SP, the Dodgers get a healthy vet pitcher to help with all their injuries. The Pirates save some money and get a prospect or two.

Agreed, Pretty sure we would have to start with Misi or Henderson and then add a couple of the guys originally listed. I like Westburg but that doesn't seem wise since he is hitting under .220 at the moment. Urias is the easy O to go after for now.

I like the Turang at SS and Siegler and probably Collins some at 2nd. For a couple weeks I don't see it hurting and it would be nice for next year just to see exactly what Turang looks like at SS just for the future.

Because it might be the best way to get a SS/3B or maybe some would feel like he is at peek value and will never be better. He has been good and again I wouldn't give him away but for an overpay it should be considered. A reliever, especially a closer is always like 3 bad outings away from imploding there trade value. I still love Yoho, I am not saying he is a take over the closer role tomorrow guy but he has an ERA under 1 in AAA. The stuff movement is top notch, I think if Megill did get traded he would come up and could be a guy later in the year to take big innings be it the 7th or 8th and be in the conversation to close next year. As for Rob Z and McGee, that is always how our team operates trying to add arms for free-ish (Rob Z.) or steal a couple innings for an option to reduce the overworked pen (McGee).

I could make a case for any of Wilken, Boeve, or Adams to get a promotion. Then Burke to AA, it would be nice to be able to move or another good bat to Appleton but with Josh A. would have been the guy but injuries, Bitonti isn't quite ready. Garcia to AA and Pena to A+ would work well also. Murray could go to AAA if space in AA needed.

I would be OK with trading MeGill if the value is right. Last year the Padres gave up a top 100 prospect and 2 other solid prospects for Jason Adam, I would probably say that is about right as an overpay for Megill. It would be great if we could make that a SS or 3B return. With Uribe, Ashby, Yoho, and others (Mears, Koenig) we can survive losing Megill. If the price isn't right I would trade home before Freddy or one of the top 6-7 prospects.

The problem is that Mone isn't a better option. That ab in the 8th against Adam from Mone is about as bad as it gets. If we could even add a washed up vet for a couple weeks I would be on board.

Mlb pipeline just doesn't upgrade there rankings ever. Last week I read an article that they "updated" the rankings but in reality they just add Josh A. to 16 when Collins lost prospect status. They only rerank players like in August after the draft and in the offseason.

Yophery is hitting g .173/.314/.282 and Holobetz 3.98 era in 20.1 innings 6 bb 16 k's. With Priester coming around this is looking better than early in the year. If he can develop a strike-out pitch he could have some upside to be a higher end starter sinker baller like Logan Webb.

I voted Rhys but regret that on 2nd thought. The NL has Harper, Alonso, Freeman, and Olsen. My 2nd thought was Sal but the NL OF is loaded as well. Turang probably has the best path, ai like Uribe as well but think the lack of save will hold him back. I seeiously think Yeli is going to hit .300+ with like 10 more HR in by mid July. That likely puts him around .275-.280 with 23 HR and 15+ sb.

I love the idea of an 8 man piggyback rotation on a 4 day run for next year. If we trade Freddy this offseason I could see it making a lot of sense. Each pitcher goes around 60-70 pitches for an average of 4 innings each. That leaves a 5 man bullpen to soak up 1-2 innings a night and you could make a bullpen game easy if we have a couple taxi AAA starters. You could also switch to a tradional 5/6 man rotation easily if/when injuries happen. 1)Misi/Gasser 2)Patrick/Ashby 3)Hall/Priester 4)Henderson/Myers That would leave our deep underrated AA staff, CarRod, and any other prospect (from Freddy deal) or other cheap veteran additions as depth.

Agreed, Mitchell has so much upside that trading him doesn't make much sense. We probably just need to on planning on having 4 quality OF with a couple of utility guys like Bauers and Collins who can play OF. I doubt we would get anything of value for Mitchell who still has 20-20+ potential with gold glove defense. At this point it is unlikely he ever play 140+ games in a year but here is to hoping. Maybe by mid-late 2026 Lara will force him to the 4th OF role and it will be easier to trade him.

Jared Spencer is a senior reliever at Texas (via Indiana St)., as like a 5-10th round pick to save money I think there is some great upside. A 6'3" lefty sits 93-95 up to 97 with a 3 pitch mix. Younger for a senior (22 in July), his delivery and pitch mix looks a lot like Hader.