Moose Milligan

Yeah, well, they should get off my lawn. What's your point?

Haven't missed him at all. Arnold isn't great, but at least Arnold isn't trying to crown the "new King Felix" or trying to inject pop culture references at every given opportunity.

I didn't think he'd have good players ahead of him to drive in.

I'm sorry, I was picturing the backlash if no deal had been made. I'm glad you wouldn't have made a deal just to avoid it, though. That takes some balls. Further apologies for not being clear, I should have said that I FELT that Rom and Prieto SHOULD have been enough. Obviously, they weren't.

I wasn't yelling at my TV because I wasn't aware of the lineup. I didn't know Mateo was up next. I suppose that the hope was that Mateo would make some sort of contact and get the run home.

Today was tough with the ****ing Marlins. Missed two.

Moronic decisions but I was pleased with them. Walking Hays was hilarious.

Depending on the rental, yeah, I'm open to it. I mean, we're the best team in the league and we're putting some space between us and Toronto, Boston and New York. Tampa is hanging around. But it's the first week of August and we're in first place. No one expected to be here at this point this year. And so I'm not pushing all my chips to the middle of the table, but I'd push the Cowser chip to the middle of the table. You mentioned it yesterday, with the way this franchise drafts college outfield bats, would he have been missed? Hard to say, but there's a chance he wouldn't be. So if you get a guy like E-Rod or Cease or a better pitcher than Flaherty that, like you said, that isn't known to have been on the market...you've got two months to make, hopefully a deep playoff run or a World Series run. And then try to retain that rental in free agency. Does a deep playoff run increase your chances in retaining? I'd like to think so. This is probably a different conversation if Kjerstad isn't having the year he's having, btw.

**** if I know, making up trades and patting yourself on the back for your genius is your game, not mine. But yesterday, we had that back and forth, you threw out 4 names of prospects, IIRC it was Cowser, Kjerstad, Basallo and, I believe, Mayo. Who would you depart with? I told you Cowser and I told you my reasons why. Cause I like Kjerstad's power better, Mayo's power better and Basallo might be the guy to move Adley off catcher. And I like Cowser, I think he's been unjustly crucified on here for getting off to a slow start, but he's the guy I'd have been willing to part with before he showed up in Baltimore and started hitting like Tom Shopay. So you tell me, who do you think we could get if we tacked Cowser onto the front of the package we gave up yesterday for Flaherty?

I’m aware. Yesterday, I was fully prepared to give away better prospects for a better pitcher.

I'm saying I'd be happy to part with a guy like Showalter if we went after a bigger fish than Flaherty.

So you're saying you'd have made a deal just to have made it to avoid backlash? That sounds like a winning strategy. No, I don't think Elias volunteered to throw in Showalter, I'm assuming he gave the Cardinals a list of prospects he'd have been willing to part with and told them to pick one. I've said all along, I wanted legit bullpen help. A Robertson, a Chapman, someone like that. Fuji is a good start, but I think we needed more. People are acting like being able to shuffle in Wells and Hall into the bullpen is a big win for us; I'm not so sure. I'm glad you're excited about Flaherty. I personally don't see how he moves the needle for us all that much but I'd love to be wrong (a very real possibility considering how scrap heap pickups like O'Hearn have performed under Elias).

Because if you hit on a "developmental HS pitcher" the rewards can be really nice. I don't think anyone here is saying you shouldn't have to give up quality to get quality, which seems to be the argument you're trying to make. I would have preferred going after E-Rod or Cease if we had to get a starter. And I'm aware that it would have cost more to get one of those guys, but I also believe that either one of those guys would have given us a better performance over someone who's been below average for 3 out of the last 4 seasons. But yeah, throw in a guy like Showalter for a guy like E-Rod or Cease. Hell, take another of his Delmarva teammates, too, they can ride together.

Oh well.

I know that he had the possibility of being a two-way player. Extremely athletic. So if it didn't work out for him as a pitcher, maybe he could have been a position player somewhere. At Delmarva he was doing well, averaging more than a K per inning. He played CF in high school. It's not a slam on Tony when I say this, but quite frankly I don't care that he wasn't in Tony's Top 30. For a system that's highly touted but is relatively starved for pitching, I didn't like giving him up for what might be a rental. I also don't care if there are other prospects at Delmarva that could be viewed as better. That's not the point. The point is that I think trading Prieto and Rom was enough for a guy who's sporting a 1.55 WHIP and a 97 ERA+ this year. Flaherty was once looked at as a great pitching prospect and he was elite in 2019. He no longer is and I'm assuming that Elias and Sig are banking on that they'll be able to tease a better performance out of him once he arrives. I'm not quite sure if the Flaherty acquisition moves the needle for us much at all, but it allows us to put some guys in the bullpen which is awesome, I guess. Like I said, I thought Prieto and Rom was enough.

Lol at Fuji's ability to throw strikes but thinking that Hall has a chance.

Giving it a B-/B. I like the Fuji pickup, we didn’t have to give up much of anything at all. And while he’s the bullpen darling du jour, the fastball doesn’t have a lot of movement on it, so I’m not sure if we should expect smooth sailing from him moving forward. That said, it’s an elite arm, no question about that. I don’t like that we gave away Showalter in the Flaherty deal. I do like that this appears to be a pickup where Elias is gambling on being able to get more out of a pitcher with the analytics and pitch mixing. Flaherty has been good lately but overall I don’t think he moves the needle enough. Good news is that he’s still pretty young. I don’t like that we didn’t get an additional bullpen arm. I’m not a DL Hall believer, I’m not sure how Wells will fare after he comes back from his rest. I’d have preferred to get a legit bullpen option instead of shuffling some guys around.

Good luck to him. Hope he catches on somewhere and gets one more day in the sun.

That’s absolutely right.

Llllllloooooooooollllllll

Leave it to Mateo to ruin the fun.

That’s right.

Should pinch hit Cowser at some point so hopefully some of the juju can rub off on him.

Kikuchi tomorrow. That guy is a maaaajor ***sy.