The biggest news this week was the rise and fall of the hopes of Angels fans as news leaked we are apparently out on Trevor Bauer. So we can stop playing games with ourselves and move on to reality.
What, did you think the title was about something else?
A solid consolation prize for Mr. Bauer would have been Masahiro Tanaka of NY Yankee fame. He had an obvious fit in the rotation and on Arte’s beloved billboards. But he took his ball and went home.
So where does that leave Perry Minasian to look for pitching help? Brent outlined some potential targets. Meanwhile I’ve come up with this trade proposal in which we basically trade Marsh for Sonny Gray and a reliever on the mend from TJ (we have to have at least one of those around) which is getting positive feedback.
Personally, I really like Marsh and want to keep him around. I think having one higher floor guy in Marsh and one more unpredictable guy in Adell is a great combination.
Speaking of prospects, Keith Law dropped his Top 100 on the Athletic. Marsh checked in at #36 with Law saying “he could be a 5+ WAR player in center, or maybe something like peak Brett Gardner with more pop in a corner spot.”
A bit lower on the list is Reid Detmers at #65. Landing the near MLB ready pitcher in time for Trout’s prime was a perfect fit for the Angels and Law hopes to see him this summer.
Detmers is working on adding a fourth pitch to his arsenal. The goal is to have a slider that keeps hitters off his change up and curve. Personally, I love seeing a guy who can mix speeds and location do his thing. There’s an art to pitching.
From around the league, JT Realmuto got PAID and the Phil’s might not be done cutting checks. If I landed a contract like that, I know what I’d use as my walk up song.
Speaking of getting paid, Fangraphs and Rotoworld are hiring. Although I might not want to let Brent and Rahul know this. Please don’t leave us.
Back to those games. When will they start and who will pitch for the Angels?
The Cactus League says they’ll be ready for baseball, delay or no delay. I have friends in the area including some who have volunteered at Spring Training ballparks and I’m hearing 20-50% capacity, contactless payments, pod seating….and prayers the projections for a sharp reduction in Covid cases come true.
FWIW I’m leaning less and less towards going every day. Although I do pine for baseball and sunlight.
As far as who will pitch, I have no idea. Part of me says Paxton/Ohtani could team up for a combined 200 innings between injuries. Part of me says to get Odorizzi and stack the bullpen. None of me thinks there’s a genuine top of the rotation arm coming.
We missed out on Musgrove, but Pittsburgh looks to be selling low on Chad Kuhl. He’s a full year from TJ so he’ll fit right in here. I wouldn’t really want to depend on him as a starter, but do think a more Tampa Bay approach could work where some starters are limited to 2 trips through the lineup then a guy like Kuhl or Barria or Pena gets a couple of innings. Might keep guys like Heaney and Canning healthier over the course of a full year.
Last week I brought up the possibility that Minasian is really looking at 2022. That free agent class will be insanely deep at shortstop as Marcus Semien and Andrelton Simmons signed one year deals this week. They are on track to join Francisco Lindor, Trevor Story, Carlos Correa, and Javier Baez to form a super class. Of course this also means a lot of big market teams will need a shortstop.
Getting left out in the cold in this week’s shortstop frenzy was the Oakland A’s, who never offered Marcus a normal contract but did float a pretty unique idea his way. Oakland now needs a shortstop but probably won’t outbid Philly for Didi Gregorious. They’ve taken several hits to their roster this year but will somehow still win 90 games.
And while it isn’t the end of his game, Curt Schilling only has one shot at the Hall of Fame left. Curt took a shot at creating video games after his playing career, with disastrous results. There’s your longform read for the weekend and it is appropriately titled “End Game.”
As far as baseball and gaming is concerned, nothing will ever top this story for me.
Best baseball video game of all time? I remember begging for MLB Baseball for NES as a kid because I just had to have real Angels players on my team. It was horrible in so many ways yet I played it for hours on end, smashing double after double with Wally Joyner. What was your favorite?
Okay – another question for the thread prompted by Rric in Portland’s opinion about not being out on Bauer.
If the Angels sign Bauer are they a probable playoff team? Meaning does Bauer put them over the hump?
It certainly would help. We were not far out of the playoffs last year (though they were expanded), we have an improved bullpen, replaced our only FA, and have signed another SP. Landing Bauer pushes everyone down, and provides us a pretty decent rotation of Bauer, Bundy, Heaney, Canning, and Quitana, not even needing to rely on a return from Ohtani or a step up from any of our prospects (Barria, Sandoval, Suarez) all of whom have MLB experience should we need a spot start or two.
That combined with two of the best bats in the game, we have a decent chance. Pitching has been our Achilles heel, and signing a top starter helps that immensely.
If they can expand the playoff format to 24 teams, I really like our chances
Lol
Pre-1993 expansion, the NHL had 16 playoff spots for 21 teams.
Agreed. And I don’t think Bauer is an ace.
But Bauer, Bundy, and Quintana is a solid trio and Iglesias solves a huge problem. The Angels led the league in blown saves last year.
I also think. Odorizzi plus a Melamcon or Rosenthal puts us in the same spot.
Based upon last season, I think you’d have to call Bauer an ace.
If you are looking at career numbers and averages you could argue he’s not. Since we are talking about acquiring him now and where he fits in, I think it makes most sense to look at his recent performance.
Of course, pitching performance can vary greatly from year to year so if that is your justification then I guess it is fair.
But I would also ask “what is your definition of ace?”
To me it is the guy you would want to hand the ball to to stop a losing streak, and further, he is someone you would feel confident with starting Game 1 of a playoff series going up against the other teams best pitcher.
With an ace you’d have full confidence you can win that game. If you are not confident then he’s not an ace.
If the playoffs were extended we would make the playoffs just by replacing Teheran with Quintana. Adding our closer and we’d be definitely in. Without extended playoffs Bauer would help as any addition would.
Over the Hump? If he pitches on Wednesdays!
Bauer is overrated. He’s not Cole, he’s not Scherzer at his peak.
Additionally, Arte is not going to take payroll anywhere close to what it would take to sign Bauer. As such the question is irrelevant.
my new theory: we’re not out on Bauer. Because if we were we would have signed a tier 2 starter. I think we haven’t signed that tier 2 guy (Odorizzi, for example) because we’re protecting whatever money we have in case we can still get Bauer.
Yes, that’s it. That’s my theory.
And the Mets know this too so why not try to Nuke what remaining minute strands of civility that the Angels pitching coach ( and former Mets manager) may have had with your targeted FA prize? This theory makes the most sense due to the timing of the bombshell rumors . Who else would care about your failed manager who hasn’t been with the organization for over 1-1/2 years. It’s a little late to attempt to distract from the fallout from the Beltran & Porter hirings.
I believe the fact that Odorizzi and Paxton are still unsigned is due to their agents wanting Bauer to set the market. Once Bauer signs, the price for these two (and maybe a few others) will go up.
That’s another real possibility. Thanks.
The problem those pitchers have is that they aren’t Bauer and they aren’t that different. Paxton, Oderizzi and Walker are pretty much on the same level when it comes to semi-desirability. If an agent declares that his guy is worth XXX because Bauer got XXXX it can be laughed off pretty fast. What matters is what the first one of the three signs for, and what JA Happ got a little too.
I’d agree with that. My comments were more about the sense that this is last chance to grab the top 2-3 FA arms left. Bauer is just a big distraction for some teams. Bauer may have more pursuers than we are aware. The best offers for these 2-tier guys may have yet to materialize.
The more I think, Mets won’t sign Bauer after the Porter failure. Dodgers only want to issue. 1-year, will they go more? Who else….Blue Jays? Giants? Our buddy Preller? Bauer and Callaway have dinner at Nobu? Plot thickens.
I guess some Mets site has a “bombshell” on Mickey Callaway. So let’s see how that goes.
Planted by Trevor Bauer?
Who knows for sure but it apparently involves troubling news about him, nothing has actually been released yet when I checked the website, I follow halosnetwork on Instagram and their newest story shows the Twitter post, so who knows what it’ll be.
has that twitter post been deleted?
Okay so I guess it was but this is basically what it was https://mobile.twitter.com/angelsreddit/status/1355971558288842757
That one’s gone too.
Ah Reddit. The GME crowd….
Looks like it. What did it say?
as far as I can tell it was just a tease with no actual info.
“I know what you did last Summer”
So here is a question for the group.
Does the hiring of Perry hit the reset button? Does a new 5 year plan start now?
Or is it reasonable to expect Perry is continuing on Eppler’s 5 years given Trout’s window?
If the former, I’m not terribly disappointed with this offseason. In fact, as a year one GM in his own vacuum, he’s picked up a top closer (huge need filled) and a serviceable starting pitcher and a catcher. Solid B+ if this is starting a new 5 year plan.
If the latter, and we accept the urgency of a going-on-30 Trout, thus far I am very disappointed as I don’t see this team being Championship quality for the same reasons as under Eppler – ie pitching. I would want a much more aggressive approach if this is year 6.
I am interested to hear your thoughts and perspectives on this.
It’s now Perry’s plan regardless if he keeps some of Eppler’s strategies or not. Perry owns it all – Arte’s meddling, the lack of prospects, the stupid contracts. He knew the situation before he accepted the job.
As for Trout’s window: it is what it is. Eppler screwed the pooch on getting Trout to the World Series before his age 32 season (before Father Time begins to take a toll). Arte is not going to take the payroll to $210M, and Perry can’t create top prospects out of thin air.
Last point: no one values our prospects more than us fans. The sad reality is that we just don’t have enough currently to get a #1 SP.
Nor is there really any true #1s on the open market right now.
Agree
Bauer is a # 1 but as we have determined we are not getting him. For a variety of reasons.
Like a personality of a #2
See photo below.
I would like to know what “aggressive” looks like. What do you do if there are only one or two free agent pitchers per year that fall under “aggressive”? What do you do if it’s proven out that these FAs indeed do NOT always sign with the highest bidder but tend to sign with the highest bidder amongst teams they have other reasons to want to play for? What do you do if you can’t force other teams to trade you their ace? Do you gamble on each season’s Ryu and Keuchel? What happens when half those contracts go full pumpkin?
Does anyone have any ideas other than “You man up and show the size of your championic bulge by blowing past the tax threshold because the only thing that should matter more than winning is winning more and Trout deserves it. If you don’t display that bulge you don’t like Trout or the fans!”?
Honestly, I think that, three or four years ago, the idea was that Richards, Heaney, Skaggs and Shoemaker (plus maybe a new FA) were going to be our solid rotation core…. as that ship sank the dog paddling began. I don’t see an easy out, just lots of pitchers drafted and time.
Like instead of the likes of Taylor Ward and Matt Thaiss? Will Wilson then just discarding him? What the hell were those moves. It’s like they didn’t know developing in house cost controlled pitching was desired.
Soooo…. aggressively build a time machine, go back, and redo some drafts (though you’d have to trade some prospect to jettison the aggressively signed yet injury riddled Zack Cozart to the Giants either way). Then aggressively wait for the 3 or 4 draft picks we have re-done to possibly blossom into maybe 1 MLB caliber starter.
Sadly, this is one of the best ideas I have heard.
Though I would, in all seriousness, AGGRESSIVELY invest millions in raiding the scouting and development departments of the teams whose systems I envy. The Braves, the Doyers, the Indians, the Rays, The A’ss. Soup to nuts, scouts to coaches and trainers and special instructors for pitching. Everyone gets a 100% raise if they come work for the Angels. It would cost me about as much as a 4th outfielder or spare pen arm and save me millions on wasted FA pitching that sucks. We’d have a very different MiLB pipeline in less than 3 years.
It would be interesting to see a an updated organization chart and see how this differs from last year, department wise. Perry seems to have brought a folks with a background in scouting and player evaluation. Angels just hired today one of Perry’s colleagues from Toronto, who was a manager in scouting and baseball operations. I feel like things are going in the direction and certain areas are being enhanced.. But maybe we are only shuffling the deck chairs.
I think this is a reset. I dont think I remember any other regime change that saw as much shuffling in such quick succession as at the beginning of the Minasian regime. This makes me think that he plans to build a team for longer haul than ’21 or even ’22. The short term trades and the reluctance to deal prospects shown so far suggests the same. I suspect that the new brain trust wants to take the next year taking stock rather than ship out prospects for splashy deals. This likely means an appearance that the Eppler strategy, of dumpster diving and holding on to prospects, continuing and that can very well be the case at least over next year.
I doubt we’ll be able to see how well the new regime does for another couple of years, though. If the farm improves meaningfully over that time, I’ll call it a success, for the time being.
The next draft should give us a hint as to the direction Perry is going.
As well as the next trading deadline.
It’s both. The direction of the franchise doesn’t change over night. Perry now takes over with a prime Trout and Rendon but gets about a one season grace period to figure out how to build around them.
He’s taking control under the most bizarre circumstances possible as none of his prospects played games last year. He needs his staff to take inventory of what is actually on the farm and how they value them.
For now he seems to really be emphasizing the bullpen and roster flexibility after next year. I’d be surprised if he’s done for this year but also surprised if any notable prospects are moved until at least July.
Also, building on this, the FA market is better than it was during either the Dipoto 4 or the Cahill/Harvey signings (at least in my opinion). We are 2-3 weeks (fingers crossed) from pitchers reporting, and there are still several pitchers on the market considered in the 2nd Tier at the beginning of the cycle, as well as the near consensus top pitcher. There are still moves to be had.
Additionally, the future looks easier for Perry, as Pujols isn’t a 5-6 year projection at 1B but only one more year – so one can plan for more salary flexibility from 2022, even if our core doesn’t take a step forward. With the hope of a cheaper, cost-controlled OF coming, that leaves a lot of possibilities. We are getting out of some of the hamstringing of past Big Splash signings – so I am quite hoping we don’t get saddled with another one anytime soon.
Yes, you can’t build a contender overnight with Free Agency, but we are big market and should be able to supplement some of our deficiencies with signings. A lot of our capital has been tied up in OF for a while now. As you said, that’s where we will gain from our current development of what we have on the farm. Instead of Upton, insert Adall/Marsh/somebody, and we can have two middling inning eating starters via FA 3 year deals. That’s not too much to ask. Perry can do this. I wouldn’t hammer him with pressure on the Trout window. It’s unfortunate about the first 8-9-10 years of his career (yuck to say that), but with good prospect mgt today by PM and Co, he can still very well have a perennial postseason run from age 32 on. One can hope. And hell, maybe get lucky these next 2 years. Here’s to a new run!
I wonder if we could get Jon Gray on the cheap? I imagine Colorado has got to be tempted to move him especially after losing the franchise player and 1 year left on Gray’s contract. I feel his stuff would play well in Anaheim
Jon Gray = bum shoulder.
Ken Griffey Jr on N64 best baseball game of all time.
Good for STL and their fans. Goldy and Arenado in the same line up Wow. Thought for sure Arenado was headed for the Dodgers. Didi headed back to Phillies, no surprise there.
Junior Guerra boo hoo
CHP?
Low risk, can’t imagine any reward. Thank goodness he’s not wasting a 40 man roster spot.
Not really any different than my Kuhl idea above. Just on a minors deal.
I like it. We need several multi inning relievers and he’s a depth piece in that area.
Meh….Just as long as he’s better than Junior Felix I don’t really care.
Arenado to St. Louis along with $50m
Yeah. Trading the face of the franchise and sending cash with him. Not good.
I wonder who they are getting back. They sent money so it may be a nice pile. MLBTR is saying Gomber, which makes sense, but the prospects listed are their like #9, 13 and 23…. all of em sort of meh, and Jake Woodford, who is also meh. Not bad prospects, just not what I though Nolan would land. So I guess salary relief is a big value for the Rocs… maybe they will want to move Freeland and Marquez cause damn, if they lose Storey that team’s gonna be thin well into the fatter periods of paying those two.
Does thus mean their pitchers are now available?
Let’s hope. I doubt we have enough to land Marquez, though.
We still don’t have the prospect depth to obtain a #1 or #2 SP
We can get Gray. Maybe McKenzie from Cleveland.
But we’d lose Adell or Marsh or Adams plus. Perry might just be biding his time to see for himself which one he thinks is actually expendable.
I’d trade Adell or Marsh for Marquez. Four years of control over a guy that looks like he could be an ACTUAL #1 for a total cost of less than 50M total? Adell or Marsh, Paris, Rengifo, Barria, Chris Rodriguez…. take em away. Take some more if you give us Freeland.
Extend Bundy now. Sure, you burn down the farm and probably have to play Barreto some now, but You ensure you have a rotation of Marquez, Freeland, Bundy and Canning through 2024 for a cost that is likely less than 60M a year. That’s what farm burning is for baby!
Good thing we kept Barreto
Extend Bundy needs to be a priority. We can contribute to the reason there a rent ever any good Free Agent pitchers available.
I hope we do this mid-season, if his relatively new ace-like performance sticks. We should also, by May/June, have a better sense of where we are, where are our prospects are, and the future budget.
I don’t see us doing this before the season unless we make no more signings (which I would rather do), or unless we can lock him up long(er) term at about what he is being paid now (8M and change), which seems hardly likely.
Honestly, in the scenario even we wouldn’t be stuck playing Barretto. With the savings, we could be shopping in the SS market next year and keep Fletch at 2B.
It is bold, but I agree probably worth it (if they other team would pull the trigger, and I suggest they likely wouldn’t).
Days it’s been since we lost out on someone the club could use: zero
Breakfast of Champions?
We didn’t lose out on Arenado at least since he can’t pitch.
He probably pitches well enough to be our #3 or #4 starter
Be nice to having added Kershaw to the staff for a couple of years starting next season along with Scherzer and which them win 15-18 a piece.
I’ll bet you a root beer that Kershaw retires an LAD.
I think you’re right.
When the Dodgers overpaid on the last deal I knew he’d be staying.
Kershaw is one of those guys that will play for one team his whole career.
Like Trout and Posey. The West Coast rules.
Joc Pederson now a Cubbie, at least for a year anyway.
Get ready for 2015 Arrieta.
Halos supposedly asking the Sux about Vasquez.
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2021/01/christian-vazquez-trade-rumors-angels-interested-in-red-sox-catcher-but-there-are-doubts-whether-boston-will-entertain-an-offer-report.html
The article also says the Angels are interested in Willson Contreras. We signed Suzuki. It’s over.
We don’t really have a long term solution behind the plate. We’re probably done there but be nice.
Nothing directed at omahalofan (no offense ok?), commenting on the article. Suzuki and Stassi (eventually) will do fine; they have complementary skill sets, and for once we have a FA who really wants to play for the team.
Do you really think the team should be trading for a long(er)-term solution at C instead of using their limited chips for a P? I would suggest Perry hold his chips if no P trade possible and wait until the trading deadline. Who knows, our farmhands may improve their stock and the price of a better C may decrease a bit. Or Stassi may be the One.
Does anyone know what the pitching market looks like next year because it appears that we will be doing this again next year
A lot of this years, 1-year contract, guys will be available…sigh. Throw in some old-timers; Verlander, Kerhsaw, Scherzer, Greinke, and Cueto. C-Mart, Jon Gray and Thor will be available. Pick your poison, nothing here peaks my interest on a multi-year deal. Maybe a John Gray.
So nothing exciting
I linked the entire class up above.
Pitching highlights: Thor, Stroman, Bundy, Kershaw, Gausman, Scherzer.
Sorry I thought that was only SS’s
No worries.
Thor, if he’s good, will be the one big time pitcher on the market. He will sign elsewhere. Stroman will be a maybe and get overpaid. Then you have a pile of old or questionable guys. This is why I hope we just extend Bundy.
Future FA markets are pretty much always going to suck when it comes to pitching. It’s why we fans need to stop blubbering about FA pitchers, Trout windows and how long we will have to wait for the farm while Arte & Co need to start developing pitching on their own. There likely isn’t ever going to be an FA market where a team drastically upgrades their pitching staff via signings again. The market will be where everyone gets their back end starters for too much money with the exception of one or two pitchers per year…. who aren’t going to sign with a California team unless it’s obvious the shot at a ring is worth the California hassles. That or a team gets lucky and a guy performs better than expected. But the days of signings pitchers and then feeling really good in March because of it are pretty much over for most teams.
The good news is I also don’t think it will take 5 years to develop enough pitching to be fairly good unless we have another rash of failed/injured pitchers. Then we’d be in a spot to trade for one guy, or sign a guy like super old Scherzer but not have to bank on him.
On the Bauer issue, it just seems odd that the Angels are out of the running for Bauer just because Maria Torres of the LA Times decides to write a story citing info that everyone knew about when the off-season started. Also there was nothing in the story quoting the Angels that they were not pursuing Bauer or any comment from Bauer that he would not sign because of Callaway. I personally would prefer alternatives than paying him his asking price
Just saying
Not in Bauer’s interest to eliminate any speculative bidders publicly. He was pumping the fanbase himself; doing his marketing due diligence. Those who pay attention to the Angels stated payroll intent and pitching deficit knew there wasn’t a fit, and the Callaway history makes a convenient excuse, though true.
Agree, Torres article was nothing new. Cuz, not many players and coaches personally like Bauer, he takes great pride in that per his Sports Illustrated article. His relationship with Gerrit Cole was interesting. Yankees…hard pass. Nobody liked him growing up. Some deep personality flaws within but hey, he can dial it up to 100 mph! It’s not about the money, it is that the Angels won’t go where they went with Cole. And who can blame them with this guy. If he does not want to get involved with Callaway, then he won’t come. My gut feeling, no coach would keep him away so long as he gets his price.
I think the point I was trying to make is that her story had nothing new but MSM just took it as gospel and ran with it
I agreed with you. As the field has thinned out, Torres just dropped a couple of sentences that was not new and it rippled through the sports wires with enthusiasm. Made louder news than it should.
Thinking back to an interview I did with Noe Ramirez a couple of off seasons ago, the Angels had guys going to a facility with all the spin trackers and super slow motion cameras.
If they want Bauer and Bauer wants to pretty much do his own thing, I’m sure they’d let him go to the same facility. Or maybe even build something similar at the Big A.
His ego leading him to not taking advice from Callaway could suck but he doesn’t seem to care about being liked and I think we’ve all worked with somebody we write off as “that’s just ___”.
Money is the key. He wants to be paid like an ace. So far it doesn’t seem like anybody wants to meet that price. And unless he comes down, it won’t be Arte.
I just have the feeling, Halo’s are still in the thick of it and the 3-teams left are trying to get away with the least amount of years. Arte will bust a move if he needs to. If it does not happen, I’m ok with it.
No Jeff. The Angels explicitly don’t allow modern pitching tools, or analytics. Ramirez was lying to you, obviously. Please stick to the theme that the Angels only allow pitchers to throw rocks at a wall and then hold a shake weight for 20 minutes for training. Absolutely no computers allowed. All in game pitching decisions are based on how much the manager likes a pitcher.
Anything else is fake news.
But all jokes aside, I actually think Callaway may be more valuable than Bauer. We have some serious contempt of familiarity, as all fans do, but Callaway is exactly the kind of pitching coach that takes cheap pitchers with a flaw and fixes them so you have a 15M value pitcher. He did it really well in Cleveland and since there aren’t many natural aces lining up to sign here I’d say we can use him.
I’ve said several times I think the improvements we saw in Heaney and Canning last September were likely Callaway starting to work his magic. He didn’t have a typical spring training. He observed for a while and made some tweaks.
I thought the same thing. If it comes down to it, if you had to choose between Bauer or Callaway, I’d choose Callaway.
If we’re out on Bauer, especially if we’ve known we’re out for awhile, with the pitching pool shrinking then I guess Perry has something happening that we’ll hear about shortly.
I keep thinking the same thing. And I’ve spent way too much time on the simulator trying to find it ha ha.
Gray still stand out as being both a big boost to the rotation and attainable. I doubt Cleveland wants to move Plesac, even for Adell.
Freeland from Colorado would be another 3/4 type arm with some upside.
I could see us being involved in the Rockies/Cards potential Arenado swap. Take on CMart’s salary maybe
That’s interesting.
Considering Bundy, Heaney and Quintana are free agents after this year I really think getting somebody with a few years of control would be nice. Just looked up CMart’s contract and after 2021 there are two years left, each with a $500k team buyout.
Not bad at all.
Logs too few innings, shoulder concerns.
How is he not already an Angel? Ha ha.
Anyway, his trade value is crazy negative on the simulator. I’m pretty decent at math but between the negative value of Nolan and the negative value of CMart is is tough and anything we give up for CMart is considered an overpay.
I keep coming back to Kyle Freeland. Not an ace but solid, 119 career ERA+, 3 years of control, on a team looking to retool. Cost controlled. He’d be perfect.
LOL, yeah. I would happily pickup CMart at John Wayne, don’t get me wrong. He just has not thrown over 120 innings for 3-years, part of that due to jockeying between starter and relief. His shoulder should have gotten plenty of rest. He can be filthy.
Freeland out of Coors might be nice. Wonder what his splits are, I’ll go look. Even John Gray if he is in his last year. Couple of low, low ranked prospects and a six-pack of Yoohoo might get it done.
I’d gamble on Gray but I think he’s a TJS guy right now. I’d totally roll the dice on Freeland, just not for 4 prospects of any large value. C Mart…. dudes like a 15+ million a year pitcher with shoulder issues. I’d almost rather trade for some guys like Austin Gomber/Daniel Ponce De Leon and Tyler Webb and then take on Andrew Millers or Dexter Fowler’s crap contract to help St. Louis pay Nolan.
I can’t believe Detmers is that high when I read he has a low 90s fastball, he relies on mixing it up and there is he concern he won’t miss a lot of bats at the major league level.
You have to take this year’s rankings with a huge grain of salt. Law even says so in the piece.
That said, I’m a big fan of soft contact. It leads to quick outs and pitch efficiency. It is a personal bias, but I think the emphasis on velo and spin rates leads to guys getting overlooked. Would Dan Haren or Mark Buhrle even be rated as prospects nowadays?
You know that’s my fantasy. Callaway molding a half dozen pitchers who were eighth round picks because their fastballs are under 95MPH into Lance Lynn/Cory Kluber. An outs an out baby as long as you get lots of them without giving up runs….. like Bundy.
And What about WTY with his 89 MPH heater during his peak years
Made a pretty decent career even though every friggin year we’d hear, “His loss of velocity is a concern,”
He’s just going to need to set hitters up, mix up his pitches. Slow slinging lefties see to work better that slow-slinging righties. Having said this, I am all for moving this guy in a deal to get a No.1
This was one of my concerns when we drafted him. Thanks to our little winning streak at the end of 2020 we missed out on the hard throwers who went earlier in the draft.
Super RBI Baseball (SNES) had real rosters
Of course Ken Griffey’s game was probably my generation’s go to
Hit with Griffey and pitch with Bolt Lightening
RBI Baseball was my jam.