adambr2

Once again, just because Garza's price tag may be approximately 'market' for a middle of the rotation starting pitcher does NOT mean that teams are willing to take on free agent market value in a trade. I'm not saying that Garza is untradeable, but how much of his salary we are willing to eat will absolutely be a part of the conversation, and if the answer is nothing, the other GM is hanging up. Real world example - when we traded Gallardo to the Rangers in the winter, we had to send them 4 million, almost a third of his 2015 salary, to get it done. This is despite several advantages we had in the Gallardo trade over Garza right now: 1) He had a much better year last year than Garza is having this year, 2) he didn't come with a very long term commitment, which does scare teams off, 3) he was traded in the offseason when teams are better able to fit trades into their team budget. And yet, we still couldn't trade Yo despite all that. How anyone believes that someone is just going to take $40M in future commitments off our books and send a prospect our way for Garza, just because there are worse contracts out there, is beyond me.

[sarcasm]No one would pay 3/$39M for that.[/sarcasm] If you can find a GM foolish enough to pay $40M for a guy based on 4 starts, by all means get him on the horn with Melvin. Even this year aside, Matt Garza is nothing special. His 3.92 career ERA would make him a slightly below average starting pitcher in today's game. Given his age and recent trends, most GMs assume that they'll get worse than the career numbers moving forward, even if not as bad as this year. Many fans IMO tend to drastically overestimate the kind of money that other teams are willing to throw away on our guys. No one gave Garza $13M on the FA market, when all 30 teams had the opportunity to bid for his services, and yet 2 years later and following a mediocre stretch some fans assume that they'll be willing to now. The chance that another team would claim Garza's contract outright are extremely unlikely. Much better players than Garza clear waivers in August based on salary alone, and teams frequently have to eat salary when parting with much better players than Garza.

I don't think (could be wrong, haven't read too deep) that anyone is suggesting just dumping Garza and eating the rest of his contract. That would be a really bad move at this point in his deal -- completely different situation and point in his career and contract than Lohse. The debate the way I understand it is whether or not we would let Garza walk for nothing (I would) in the event that someone claimed him off waivers in August and thus was willing to take on the rest of his contract like Rios in 2009 (unlikely).

Nah. He's worth more to us right now than he's worth in a trade. Right now he's a cheap serviceable corner outfield option for a rebuilding club. If he starts breaking out in a year or two when he's in his arbitration years and Phillips and Santana are ready to be every day players, by all means revisit this.

That's pretty much exactly what happened. They got a few million in salary relief. I didn't think he should be released, but the guy they got for A-Ram is more or less just a flyer. We were fortunate that he played well enough the last month of his time here to get us that.

If it's next July and he still hasn't straightened his game out, it's too late to dump him for salary relief. I'd dump Garza just to dump him if someone claimed him, which I don't think anyone will. Whether we NEED the relief now or not, we have no need for a middling middle to back end starter over the next few years at $40M during a rebuilding phase. Saving money for a liability you don't need is always good, even if it's money you have. Being worse than a AAA replacement level pitcher and having the 2nd worst ERA in the big leagues (Kendricks is 1st, and he pitches in Colorado) probably has a lot to do with it.

Small problem - both of those guys are relievers. Cothem was an awful starter - worse numbers at AAA last year than Garza's abnormal 2015 - and hasn't started a game this year. Goody has started all of four games in his minor league career. Seriously, this is way more ridiculous than anything I suggested. First of all, you know who else was an awful starter at AAA this year? Taylor Jungmann. Second of all, you're missing the point entirely. It doesn't have to be Cothem or Goody. The point is, they have internal options that they can use to cover the remaining 2 months of the season. Guys can still come up here and have success in limited time. Even if they don't, we know Garza isn't have success this year and there's no reason to think that moving to the more hitter-friendly league will result in better numbers for him. You asked us to name guys, I offered a couple names. If you don't like those names, fine. It's kind of hard to give you names when we don't know who is going to be placed on waivers, but there are going to be better options than Garza. If not, trust me, suggesting the Yankees will go with an internal option is a lot less ridiculous than the idea that even the Yankees are going to take on a bad $40M contract just for 10 starts this year from a guy who hasn't been good this year anyway. And it's way, way less ridiculous than the idea that offering up our junk to the Yankees and involving Jack Z is going to get us off the hook on the remainder of the Lohse contract. Also, the idea that the Yankees don't care about money just isn't true. Just because they have more to spend than anyone doesn't mean that they just have unlimited payroll and don't care about money. If they did, they would blow any other offer for any FA out of the water if they really wanted a guy, and they would have kept Cano in the first place like someone else already pointed out. They still can and will put their franchise in the gutter if they don't do proper risk/reward analysis on their contracts and they're not going to pay $40M for a short-term marginal upgrade for a 5+ ERA starter.

Name them. If they just need Garza's production, they can just promote Caleb Cothem or Nick Goody from their AAA team and get that for basically no cost. GMs make baffling moves at times, but none would likely be so foolish as to take on $40M in salary from an underperforming and marginal vet just to fill a few starts in September.

I'm not sure why you doubt Garza would make it to New York on waivers. It's far more likely that he would go unclaimed. If any team were to claim Garza on waivers in August, I would not pull him back. I would let him go free and clear and walk away from the remainder of his contract. Marginal players with bloated contracts don't get claimed in August. Sometimes good players with bloated contracts don't get claimed. No GM wants to be stuck with what is looking like will be a bad contract.

I shouldn't be proud of this, but I still have a memory as a child of my parents taking me to Milwaukee for a whole series and before the series we went to the Milwaukee zoo. A nice, young married couple, decked out in Cubs gear, asked me, 'Hey, were there any bears over there?' Without a pause, I replied, 'Yes, they're right around the corner in the first display, but their cubs are dead.' I'd like to think somewhere, they still remember this interaction.

Should've just sent Jungmann with Johnny DP coming up.

I'm 100% on the Astros World Series bandwagon this year. If nothing else, I'll have a reason to watch the playoffs now. Game 7, 9th inning walkoff grandslam by Gomez vs St Louis. Into the short porch, so they can cry about that forever.

Nelson very quietly now sporting a nice looking 3.76 ERA.

Well, at least him scoring the winning run in the NLDS is the pinnacle of our success the last 32 years.

I like the trade, but seeing Gomez cry makes you appreciate the human side of these deals. Best of luck this year in Houston Gomez and Fiers I hope you take home a championship .

Gomez was really emotional. Really going to miss him.

Assume Gomez is a scratch now?

It's not too late for Melvin to get in front of a mike and say, 'We believe Wheeler will never pitch again. And we are concerned with Flores' state of mind following his mental breakdown last night. '

Because you're buying very high. That extension you want to give him is also going to cost a big asset package in the form of big dollars at a time that we're presumably rebuilding. Do you want to spend that kind of money on a guy whose career numbers profile him more as a borderline 3rd/excellent 4th OFer rather than the high end corner outfielder he looks like right now? Which do you think is more likely - that something just clicked with Parra in his 7th season and he's now an entirely different player than he has been since 2009, or he's just one of the countless players who have had a career year and then come back down closer to their norms in future seasons? Even if it ends up being the former, I don't see it being worth the risk to find out for where we are at right now.

Our team is not better than the Giants, with or without an ace. I feel like the FO has the same opinion; that we are much closer than we really are and I feel like that's a big problem here. If we are cherry picking our worst months and taking them out to celebrate. 500ish ball in the other months, we do not have a good franchise model. I am certainly starting to believe that our FO is more concerned with the short-term business model (how can we keep fans coming in and interested and keep revenue up) vs a franchise model (how can we build a World Series team)?

Lohse is a sunk cost. I don't why anyone has a hard time believing that. We were not able to trade Wolf late in 2012 when the same thing happened with him, and Lohse is older than Wolf was and having a much worse year. Some people seem to want to just attribute this to a down year. It doesn't work like that when you're almost 37, especially for a pitcher. Lohse is most likely done. If he gets an offer next year, it'll be for a minor league deal.

Even when Lohse doesn't give up runs, it's still one adventure of an inning.

Ugh. No thanks. Not interested in going down that road again. Not unless we're full out rebuilding and just need a stop gap for a couple years in the meantime.

The Cardinals had legitimate aspirations of contention the last 2 years of Pujols contract. We do not. Also, what Pujols was as a face and brand name for the Cardinals isn't comparable to what Lucroy is for us. We also let Prince walk for nothing. That doesn't make it a good idea to do it every time especially when you're not contending anyway.

Lucroy is not the face of the franchise and he never was, not even last year. He is a great player with a lot of value, but Prince and Braun were faces. Lucroy in that regard doesn't compare, and frankly, reading between the lines, Lucroy may himself be ready to move on. Lucroy would be missed but most fans would understand and Lucroy's absence would have a very minimal effect on attendance. A face to me is more of a guy that you have a hard time imagining the franchise without, which is how many felt when Prince left. It's also not Lucroy's job to manage a young pitching staff. We have a coaching staff that is responsible for that.