jay87shot

Not that I know much or do a lot of scouting in advance of the draft here are a few guys that interest me based on mlb.com scouting reports and rankings. P Thomas White Big left-handed HS pitcher, mid 90's heater and lots of room to grow. SS Matt Shaw He is probably one of the safest picks as far as bats go, he may be iffy to stay at short but would be a great 2B if nothing else. Looks like Tyler Black with more power and speed. P Bryce Eldridge 1B/RHP A high school 6'7" kid who throws mid-90's, I like that he can play 1st and pitch. My guess is he has more value as a P and you would start him there and maybe bat occasionally the 1st few years. P Travis Sykora RHP Another big 6'6" 220 pound high schooler with big heat. It seems like our front office likes tall pitchers based on the past few drafts. C/SS/OF Cole Carigg Talk about utility star, managers wet dream. He has advanced hit, speed, and defense tools all around the field. Maybe like a Turang style player who can catch and more OF experience. I always like reaching on a guy like this and signing below slot and then finding the highest ceiling arm later with the saved money.

baseball reference had him at 5.1 WAR, oWAR 3.7, dWAR 2.2, and my guess would be -0.8 baserunning (couldn't find). I think fangraph just puts there offensive war on the stats page if that is what you looked at but I could be wrong. I agree with you that I would still just go with Turang and not spend the resources on a trade and have it backfire.

My guess is that panning out would mean being high quality starters. I think all have a relatively high floor because all can run and play good defense. If any of those guys don't pan out I would think they will be like a Tyrone Taylor type player and if they pan out they will be like Lo-Cain value pre 2020. They could all excel as well and be borderline superstars. My guess/hope is one ends up like Taylor, 2 Cain's, and 1 star. I like the idea of seeing if Mitchell can play some 1st base next offseason. Frelich, Chourio, Weimer are all prototypical LF/CF/RF if reports are correct and they continue to develop fully. Mitchell could be a great 1st baseman and 4th outfielder who could swipe a ton of bags and maybe eventually hit for power.

My guess would be something close but less to what the D-backs got for Varsho. Both were 5ish WAR players mostly from defense with decent but not great bats. Varsho is only a year younger and both have the same control time, however Kim is owed more money. My guess would be maybe a lower top 100 prospect and 1 or 2 other decent pieces, I am sure the Pads are trying to get a good mlb ready player in arby who will help bring the salary number down but help contribute.

Any ideas on combining some depth pieces for a high quality piece or prospect. The Gregory Soto deal to Philly is my blueprint a couple pieces that don't have high ceilings to a club that needs some depth for a higher end piece. My package from us would include some combination of Brosseau, Huira. Toro, Miller, Small, Houser, some RP, maybe Taylor if we get an OF back. Keston, Small, and JC Mejia to KC for Scott Barlow Keston and Houser to Baltimore for Coby Mayo Keston and Small for to Wash for Tanner Rainey Any other decent ideas

Agreed, I would say the Marlins are assured to trade a young starter for a outfielder in the near future. With our current pitching depth I would guess there is a smaller chance it would be with us but maybe. Maybe Arbold can work some 3 team magic and sneak in a steal. Any chance the Marlins could be in on Bryan Reynolds he would make a lot of sense for them if the Pirates are off the Soto sized trade demands.

Agreed, I would say the Marlins are assured to trade a young starter for a outfielder in the near future. With our current pitching depth I would guess there is a smaller chance it would be with us but maybe. Maybe Arbold can work some 3 team magic and sneak in a steal. Any chance the Marlins could be in on Bryan Reynolds he would make a lot of sense for them if the Pirates are off the Soto sized trade demands.

Cabrera has a upper 90s fb, 93 mph change and solid curve and slider. He may have some injury history but so does Mitchell. Again, I would love to to get Cabrera for Mitchell, I just feel like the going rate for a Cabrera type pitcher is 2 Mitchell type players.

I would be down with getting a starter, however my guess is that the Marlins want a lot more then Mitchell for Cabrera. Cabrera was a top 50 prospect and turned in a 3.01 ERA in 14 starts. Mitchell was good last year but my guess is that he barely sneaks into the top 100 on a few lists this offseason. The Marlins wanted a package with 3 solid pieces for Pablo Lopez and Cabrera is more valuable in my opinion. Trevor Rogers for Mitchell seems like more fair deal which I would waffle on and probably pass. I would have said Urias might have made sense however they signed Segura for 3rd. Rowdy to the Fish could make sense, if we signed Mancini or had a secondary trade (Yandy Diaz) If we were to get a Marlins starter I think trading Lauer would make worlds of sense. Say Mitchell, Toro, and Logan Henderson for Cabrera (still a massive steal) Then trade Lauer to Balt. and for Coby Mayo and Kyle Bradish (long man, stuff would play up in the pen) Sign a vet OF like Brian Anderson who can play the corners OF, 3B, and maybe even a little 1st or 2nd if need be. I think that wouldn't be to shabby. Still think Cabrera will take a 2nd bigger piece.

I would be down with getting a starter, however my guess is that the Marlins want a lot more then Mitchell for Cabrera. Cabrera was a top 50 prospect and turned in a 3.01 ERA in 14 starts. Mitchell was good last year but my guess is that he barely sneaks into the top 100 on a few lists this offseason. The Marlins wanted a package with 3 solid pieces for Pablo Lopez and Cabrera is more valuable in my opinion. Trevor Rogers for Mitchell seems like more fair deal which I would waffle on and probably pass. I would have said Urias might have made sense however they signed Segura for 3rd. Rowdy to the Fish could make sense, if we signed Mancini or had a secondary trade (Yandy Diaz) If we were to get a Marlins starter I think trading Lauer would make worlds of sense. Say Mitchell, Toro, and Logan Henderson for Cabrera (still a massive steal) Then trade Lauer to Balt. and for Coby Mayo and Kyle Bradish (long man, stuff would play up in the pen) Sign a vet OF like Brian Anderson who can play the corners OF, 3B, and maybe even a little 1st or 2nd if need be. I think that wouldn't be to shabby. Still think Cabrera will take a 2nd bigger piece.

I like the idea of trading Lauer now that we have Miley. He has had 2 very solid years and his FIP suggested he is due for some regression. I doubt we could package him with Urias for a solid 3rd baseman (or with Winker/Rowdy for a 1st baseman). Lauer to Arizona for Deyvison de Los Santos would be sweet. Maybe more likely for AJ Vuckovic and Ryne Nelson

I think trading Keston for a decent reliever with 1 year left could work well. Jake Diekman, Amir Garrett, Jardin Garcia could be solid lefty options and I am sure there would be a handful of righty options. I am worried about our lefty pen situation, Milner was decent but is far from a sure thing to be reliable all year. After that we have nothing.

I did the math earlier this offseason and if Yeli is a 2 WAR player thru the end of the contract he would be around a -50-60 value. A rough estimate of Tatis (324+112/8) has Tatis at a 55-ish WAR though his contract that is a 4-5 WAR avg. My guess would be that is a bit high, even if the roids weren't a big factor in his success. Making a value on a 12 year contract of a guy who didn't play for a year and is coming of roids in some capacity is impossible.

What would a Tatis trade look like? The only thing that the Padres need is maybe another stater or some outfield help. Also Grisham and Kim are likely on the block. Tatis (future cash like 40 million/ 10 per each last 4 years) for Ashby, Mitchell, Black, Carlos Rodriguez (P), Hedbert Perez (I get this isn't close to fair value) I don't have a clue where Tatis would even play maybe 3rd. This could be a chance at a Nolan Arenado style steal of a trade. Tatis has grown out of favor in SD and I could see him fitting in perfectly with our young guys and looking for a low key new home. SD owes a ton to Machado, Bogearts, Tatis, and likely Soto eventually (not to mention Musgrove or other impending FA's Darvish, Snell, Hader) Trading Tatis now to extend Soto and others makes sense and we could help by giving them a couple solid pieces for the big league team and rebuild there farm system.

We really haven't put a ton of resources/draft position into catcher. It seems like we draft a ton of catchers in the 4th-10th range. The success rates in those rounds aren't great add in a more difficult position and I expect less. I think we did fail miserably with Jacob Nottingham, he seemed to have a lot of upward momentum and was trash when we got him. We seemed to be doing well with Mario but the lost 2020 season wrecked his momentum.

All these predictions really pussyfoot around and play the safe ground. Just look at the sb totals. Yeli and Mitchell should both be around 30+ with the new rules, hitting leadoff all year, and a full year (mitchell). I do like looking these over but they predict to much (triples really) and don't take risks. A few notes 1)no way Huira gets 250 pa 2) I don't think there enough OF starts unless Huira starts are LF. 3)Winker is not going to play enough defense to be worth -12 runs 4) Yeli isn't going to lead the team in rbi, leadoff all the way. 5) Our leading hitter will hit over .250, with no shift, young guys, and additions we should improve our team ba more than this. 6) Contreras will be better than there projections, I can see some regression in a category or 2 but not in every aspect of the game. 7)Frelich, Weimer, and Miller will have more than 300 combined pa's. I expect Miller to be the Peterson role over Toro, and at least one our young OF option will get a much longer look than 150 abs.

3 team trade (Arnold's new thing) We get Yandy Diaz, Red Sox get Eric Lauer, Ray's get Blaze Jordan, Shane Drohan, Logan Henderson Trade Rowdy and Russ Smith to Marlins for Dax Fulton Sign Danny Duffy 1/6 with incentive to 12 Sign Aroldis Chapman 1/12 incentive to 15 Frelich/Weimer and Turang come up around May to save year of control send down Perkins and Toro/Brosseau/Miller 1)LF Yeli 2)1B Diaz 3)DH Winker 4)C Contreras 5)SS Adames 6)CF Mitchell 7) 3B Urias 8)RF Taylor 9)2B Miller/Toro/Brosseau Rotation= Burnes, Woody, Peralta, Duffy, Houser, Ashby Pen=Williams, Chapman, Bush, Cousins, Payames, Milner, Strez/Guerra/Varland/Junk/Perguaro/etc. You could trade Winker instead of Rowdy but I would guess we would get very little in return. Fulton would be a good get and could be a good option layer in the year. Duffy and Ashby piggy back to start the year and then go 6 man rotation after a few times through the rotation. C: William Contreras ($0.70M) 1B: Yandy Diaz ($5.30M) 2B: Abraham Toro ($1.40M) 3B: Luis Urias ($4.30M) SS: Willy Adames ($9.20M) LF: Christian Yelich ($26.00M) CF: Garrett Mitchell ($0.70M) DH: Jesse Winker ($8.25M) Bench OF: Blake Perkins ($0.70M) Utility: Owen Miller ($.7M) Utility: Mike Brosseau ($1M) Backup C: Victor Caratini ($2.80M) RP: Joel Payamas ($.7M) 2B: Kolten Wong (trade to Seattle) ($1.75M) RF: Taylor ($0.70M) SP1: Corbin Burnes ($11.40M) SP2: Brandon Woodruff ($11.00M) SP3: Freddy Peralta ($3.50M) SP4: Danny Duffy ($6M) SP5: Adrian Hauser ($3.60M) CL: Devin Williams ($3.20M) RP: Aroldis Chapman ($12M) RP: Matt Bush ($2.00M) RP: Jake Cousins ($.7M) RP: Hoby Milner ($1.10M) RP: Aaron Ashby ($1.00M) RP: Guerra/Strez/Varland ($.7M) Payroll is 7.38% under budget

Some random thoughts/questions/ideas 1)With Dansby to the Cubs do you think the Willy calls might heat up? I know Arnold said they aren't trading the big 3, however it wouldn't be surprising to see the Braves, Dodgers, Red Sox, Angels, or Twins get desperate and make us an offer we couldn't refuse. Maybe the same thing for Burnes since all the good starters are signed. 2) Would any teams take a couple of our 40 man roster guys that seem blocked/redundant for a prospect. I live in Michigan and think there are a bunch of guys the Tigers should try and get from us (Keston, Brosseau, pen depth, Hauser, Small). I would think they A's, Royals, Red Sox, Rockies, Dbacks, Pirates, Marlins, Reds, etc could vulture a guy that wouldn't hurt us and we would gain a roster spot. 3) Why not just cut a guy like Trevor Kelley, Jason Alexander, Jon Singleton, or Tyson Miller. I can't see them making the od roster. Is it just for injury reasons. 4) Alot has been made about improving 3rd however improving 1st might seem more meaningful. Rowdy had a -1.4 defensive WAR last year. By trading Winker or Rowdy we could save some money and then improve the roster. Basically I am falling for a Yandy Diaz trade and think he would fit our team as a 1B perfectly. 5) With the relief market being crazy right now, we are smart to wait it out. However I think adding a vet late inning arm (preferably a lefty) is our biggest need. Matt Moore, Michael Fulmer, Andrew Chafin, Chapman, Kimbrel Brad Hand, Corey Knebel, Zach Britton, Ken Giles, Alex Reyes, Chad Green, and Mychal Givens could all be possible depending on your opinion on them (and price/years). Maybe a starter to convert to relief like Archer, Duffy, Fujinama would work as well.

I was thinking similar recently with Turang in AAA and Frelich as well. I could see us going Miller, Toro, and Brosseau at 2B (or 3B and Urias 2B). The more is think about it, it makes sense to get an extra year out of them. If we keep Frelich in AAA FOR a month+ until we get that extra year we can go Taylor in RF, Mitchell CF, Perkins 4th OF and still have Winker as a 5th OF when needed (and not in game DH).

Owen Miller is a decent get, he does seem a bit redundant with Toro, Hiura, and Brosseau. It is nice that he (and Toro I believe) have options. Someone brought up that he improves on the utility spot because he can play short but I would guess that he won't play much short because if Willy is out, Turang would go to SS. My only complaint is that he hasn't played OF, it would be nice if one of the 4 semi utility/bench options could play OF as a 5th guy. However if Mitchell and Frelich both make the team I guess Winker would be the 5th OF and have your utility guy play OF not needed. I do think that we are undervaluing Huira a bit, I know we are just sick of seeing the potential and just frustrated he can't lay off bad pitches. Altough Huira and Brosseau are basically the same player for our team, sub par defenders who can platoon at 1st/2nd and be decent bats/ pinch hitter vs. lefties (Brosseau can play 3rd but really wouldn't unless Urias is hut). Without watching them Miller and Toro seem to have the same value as well platoon option at 2nd maybe some time at 3rd or 1st and a bench bat. My guess is that we trade Keston if we can and then Toro and Miller compete for the last bench spot and maybe 2nd base reps if Turang doesn't look great in camp (which I doubt).

I would be OK with starting Taylor in right and getting the prospects feet wet and after 3-4 weeks handing things over. However I agree that Taylor is plus 4th OF and below average starter (at least for a playoff team). I have really felt like a team like the Tigers, A's, or Royals should be all over Taylor as a starter and we could net a decent relief arm for him but apparently not. The D-backs are looking to sell high on Varsho, he was a 5 WAR player last year and they know that is a bit of an overstep for a guy with a low ba/obp. With the 4 young OF they have he is the only tradable one (not trading Carroll) who will bring back high end pieces. My guess is that they want a package that rivals Murphy (without the 3rd team).

I would DH Contrares against lefties if we had a reasonable emergency catcher, I doubt we would keep 3 catchers so he could DH some. That way his leg can stay fresher and we can keep his bat in the lineup more. A guy like Willians Astudillo would be interesting as a 3rd catcher who can play elsewhere, his bat obviously hasn't been good enough to make the roster but someone who could spell Caratini and play other spots. Daulton Varsho and Austin Barnes are the only other guys who can catch and play other positions that I can come up with off the top of my head.

Turner would be nice but I am starting to think a team is going to give him around 15 million. His bat would fit in perfect but he only started 59 games at 3rd last year. He is still a decent defender but with Winker at DH, I worry about him holding up for 130 or so games at 3rd. Cueto or Ross Stripling would be nice adds to the rotation but again with the strong years they had last year my guess is they can get a multi year deal over 10 milly. Manaea got 2/25 and both of those guys were light years better. Lugo is a hot name because teams want him to start, with the money some second tier relievers have gotten I'd say Lugo gets 2/16 minimum. I still really hope we could pry Yandy Diaz from Tampa and move him to 1st, then I guess we would move Rowdy or Winker. Possible add a young 3rd baseman who is mlb ready and blocked, I am getting more and more interested in Rafi Devers just for the year or maybe hang with Urias and trade for Devers at the deadline. Boston has done nothing and looks like a broken team. Trade Tyler Black, Carlos Rodriguez (P), and Russ Smith for Yandy Diaz (I am feeling so good I'd check on Glasnow) Trade Urias, Lauer, Payames, and a lotto prospect say Daniel Guillarte for Devers Trade Winker for a prospect Sign Stripling 2/24 and Aroldis Chapman 1/12 Yeli, Diaz, Devers, Contreras, Rowdy, Willy, Mitchell, Turang, Frelich Bench)Caratini, Toro, Taylor, Brosseau Burnes, Woody, Peralta, Stripling, Hauser, Ashby Williams, Chapman, Bush, Cousins, Guerra, Milner, Strez/Peguro/Junk/Topa/Varland

Turner is the only one that is an upgrade IMO. My guess is that there could be a good trade out there. After the Contreras deal I expect. Tyler Black and Ethan Small for Rafi Devers. In reality, maybe Yandy Diaz, his defense is poor and he fit ls better at 1st probably. There are a bunch of 3B mlb ready prospects who could be upgrades. He is an idea in which Chaim Bloom might get mutanied (that makes a little sense). We get Sale and Devers for Yeli, Urias, Lauer, and a reliever/Tyler Black. We get out of Yeli for only 2 of Sale, get a year of Devers without giving up a big prospect. The Yeli savings allows us to re-sign Woody and Adames. The Red Sox would get 4 impact players and could really improve there team for 1 year of Devers who it doesn't appear will resign and some long term money to Yeli.

Great point, A' could have swapped him to half a dozen teams for twice what we gave up prospect value wise (and no extra piece for us). Ruiz for Jansen would have been possible to me. We got a younger, cheaper, more controllable player who should fit into our Adames lead core really well. Also if our catching team works their defensive magic he could easily be a 5+ WAR player. I can't find the Quero quote of what to do with him. That is easy, if he does well this year and next bring him up around halfway through 2024 or so. Contreras should be able to DH A bunch (he did last year). Then in 2025 you have a decision to make if Quero shows out.