adambr2

This is a great deal for us just to shed over 3% of our payroll this year. Good move.

I'm surprised anyone would label Parra untouchable when he is in fact one of the most appealing trade chips on the team for us as a potential free agent having a career year. Number one, Parra is not an especially good centerfielder anyway. He's more suited for the corners. Center doesn't play to his strengths. Number two, if we trade Gomez we're obviously taking a step back and rebuilding and having a good veteran replacement available isn't a high priority.

Segura is 15th out of 23 qualified SS in baseball in both WAR and OPS. The most generous definition for him is a league average SS, and defining him as a slightly below average league SS is probably more accurate. I would not expect Segura on his own to return a top 50 prospect. Maybe a top 100.

I just can't even recall an instance where a top farm prospect was traded for another without established MLB players being involved. I'm not saying it has never happened, just saying hat I can't recall an instance of it and the rarity of it is so extreme that I can't see Arcia going anywhere.

We're still a bottom 5 team and probably in need of a rebuild. It's important to consider that we're playing in the toughest division in baseball where the arrow is still pointing up on the top 3 teams. We're more than a tinker or retool away from passing the Cardinals, Pirates or Cubs in the next couple years. Arcia is a guy we should build around for the future. He is potentially the next face of the franchise. I'm kind of mind blown that we would even be considering trading him if we indeed are. Prospects the level of Arcia are rarely traded except by contenders in need of acquiring a high level established MLB player to help them in the short term in the playoffs. We definitely don't fit that bill.

Just because teams are interested in Arcia doesn't make him MLB ready. He might be ready in the sense that he could come up and play now, but probably not at the level that they eventually expect without a period or growing pains first. Of course every team is interested in a top 10 prospect at a premium position. I hope they wouldn't rush him up to the big leagues and start his clock at 20 regardless of what they plan to do with Segura. Sardinas I would think is much more likely to be our opening day SS next year than Arcia. We have every reason to take our time with Arcia right now and not rush him. Sometime next summer after he passes the point where he could be a Super 2 would be reasonable.

This is a strange hypothetical to me. How often do we ever see a huge prospect for huge prospect trade involving no MLB-ready players? I don't believe in "untradeable", but Arcia is the closest we have for sure. I don't like the idea at all of trading him, because I'm scared to death that they are toying with the idea of trading for a great, but lower upside prospect who is MLB ready in the interest of "re-tooling" for next year. That's completely the opposite direction that I believe we should be going in. I'm not even really keen on trading Arcia for a top pitching prospect, if that option is even available to us. Pitching prospects are usually more volatile, and we don't have the best track record in recent years of developing pitching at the minor league levels. An everyday, elite SS prospect is extremely valuable, and neither of Segura or Sardinas is good enough to "block" Arcia. I'd have some tremendous hesitation about trading Arcia for another team's asset, no matter how good.

Molina was booed also. It's not a big deal.

How does Counsell not at least look at that? Its the 8th, what does he have to lose? I replayed it several times and still couldn't tell if Gomez was out.

Yep. By the letter of the law that's a strike. Just not one called often and poorly framed. In real time I thought it was the worst strike call I'd ever seen but after seeing the replay it was correct.

What were you looking for Ryan?

Just terrible baserunning by Peterson that inning. First stands in the box on his blooper and thus fails to get to 2nd. If he does he scores easily on Parra's hit. But he didn't so he ends up trying to make it from first and is easily out.

The sad thing is it's actually borderline miraculous that he's only given up 4.

I think the QO is higher now, isn't it? I believe it was $15.3m last year. Anyway, no way should they even consider a QO offer to Parra.

Exactly. Parra is exactly the kind of player we should be looking to unload. I'd be modestly upset about a 8 figure per year extension for a player like him with the current state of the franchise. I guess we disagree about the current state of the franchise with the emphasis on current. It's apparently not nearly as bad as it looked back in May. 2015 was sabotaged by a terrible start, lack of hitting and poor pitching by the veteran well paid starters, and by injuries, but the core of the team is fine. A very good case could be made that this team is an ace away from being a top contender. Not this year certainly but in 2016, even if they do decide to deal Gomez, provided they get something back that's useful in 2016 as part of the deal. I'm not opposed per se in dealing Parra, but his price has gone up and if all teams are offering is one B level prospect, I'd at least be thinking twice rather than blindly sticking with the mantra that he must be dealt regardless of return. Parra is a FA and the more he hits, the higher his value in the FA market. Does that get to the point where you'd consider risking a QO on him in the offseason in hopes of landing a draft pick that might have more value than what he'd get you in a trade? Worst case scenario, you overpay him for 2016 and get that B level prospect next year in a deal. We're currently the 4th worst team in baseball by record. (1/2 game away from being the 2nd worst), despite the 8 game winning streak. I don't think we're an ace away from being a top contender, more or less than any other team besides the Phillies are. By the way, the injury effects for this team are mostly a myth. We've actually been about the least affected team by injuries in 2015. http://www.mangameslost.com/mlb-disabled-list-games-missed-and-tmitt-metrics-july-4-2015/ A B level prospect for Parra is fine. We're certainly not getting a top 50 for him. I think we can all agree we're not winning this year, so taking a B level prospect for Parra and gaining salary relief aside is much better than hanging onto him and losing him for nothing. If you really like him, you can go after him in free agency anyway even after trading him like we did with K-Rod. There's no way he's worth a qualifying offer even if he keeps his current pace up. That's going to be roughly a 1 year/$16M offer. I can't imagine they would risk a crazy offer like that for a decent 28 year old outfielder whose defense has become questionable more recently.

Exactly. Parra is exactly the kind of player we should be looking to unload. I'd be modestly upset about a 8 figure per year extension for a player like him with the current state of the franchise.

Here's something crazy...the A's have the worst record in the AL...and the 3rd BEST run differential.

Keep in mind that Gallardo and Estrada are doing this against AL competition, which in part because of the DH rule normally results in higher pitcher ERAs.

Not so fun fact -- we are the only team in MLB that has not recorded a sweep all season. At least at this very moment.

Gallardo has a 2.72 ERA in the AL and Estrada has a 3.58 ERA and has flirted with no-hitters on a couple different occasions. Both have very low WHIP's of 1.15. With that in mind and horrible years by basically our entire rotation, it's tough to imagine Kranitz sticking around after this season.

Lohse's ERA is starting to settle in around 6.

My problem with Tom's opinion (and I e-mailed him about it) is that it doesn't make any sense on a logical level. Lucroy is under contract through 2017 with the option. Even the most optimistic of fans will likely admit that turning this around by 2017 is highly unlikely. So barring an extension (given his age and position, not the ideal option IMO), he will be gone by the time we are competitive again. So in direct contradiction to Tom H, there's actually no upside in NOT trading him. My hope is that he meant there's no upside in trading him right NOW, as that makes more sense given his limited production this year. But that's not how it came off. I'm willing, even eager to give up any of Lucroy, Gomez, Braun, and Segura, but under Melvin this organization has shown extreme hesitation to trade established players that are playing well and have considerable club control left. The only exception I can think of is Hardy, and even he was traded after a career worst year at a time when his value was the lowest, although that trade still ended up working out well for us. The lack of a "sell high" mentality is one of my biggest criticisms of Mark and Doug. Gallardo was a step in the right direction, but his value was pretty diminished by that point. At least we got something for him. But we've had too many players in this era who were at one time worth a tremendous return of prospects walk away for nothing because we didn't recognize when it was the right time to sell. I get that it's harder to do and harder to justify when you're winning, but we're not anymore. There's no reason for us to hesitate on guys like Segura and Gomez.

This right here. You play to win the game. Anyone who has a problem with what he did should go back and make sure the second base was touched every time the Nats turned a double play. Once again, this all falls on the umpire. He's the one that didn't enforce the rule. The game was not in doubt, it was 6-0 and there was no realistic possibility that the Pirates were going to rally for 6 runs with 2 already out in the 9th against Scherzer, regardless of what Tabata did. We're not talking about a 2-0 game where Tabata is doing everything he can to try to bring the tying run on. I'm ok with bunting to break up a perfect game in the 9th, as bad as it looks, if the score is 1-0 or 2-0 and still a competitive game. That's different than doing something to deliberately cheat the rules, however.

The rule not only prohibits leaning into the strike zone, but also mandates that the batter must make an attempt to get out of the way of the pitch to be awarded first base. The umpire could have easily simply called a ball without awarding first and been justified in doing so.

Scherzer in his last 18 innings has allowed 2 baserunners - a sketchy HBP and a flukey bloop single. That's got to be one of the most dominant 18 inning stretches ever.