Moose Milligan

I'd trade the #2 overall prospect at a position of need, a position where he'll get banged up and probably not finish his career and who hasn't been challenged against high level pitching for a younger 5'10 Dominican outfielder who's a specimen. Let it ride.

Either because they don't like our young arms as much as they say they do...or they feel like they're not ready yet. Anyone can sit here and tell me why Keegan Akin should be a piece for our future and while I agree that he should be given every opportunity to prove that he is...c'mon. There's no other reason to sign guys like Felix and Harvey. If Elias and Co. thought that we had some great young arms to bring north this spring, they wouldn't be here. At the very least they're contingency plans if whatever youngsters that go north are pitching terribly.

https://theathletic.com/news/nick-markakis-retires-after-15-mlb-seasons-with-orioles-braves/q23Gxg6weY7h Nick is retiring. The hit counter stops at 2388. A great career. I hope Nick has a happy retirement!

I'm helping Adley pack his bags and driving him to the airport.

Bro, it's the middle of March, it's spring training, Covid, ST games aren't being televised and I'm bored. There's not much to talk about right now. So if I am going to submit a hot take, it's going to be as hot as if it was shot out of a rocket towards the sun. Kjerstad is going to bust. I'd like to be wrong but he's off to a pretty goofy start here, not the type of start you'd like to see from a 1st round pick that some people think was a bit of a reach. Farting around on here each day, talking **** is what we do. So what if I think Kjerstad is a bust? I'd love to be wrong.

I'm optimistic that I'm correct. (Really though, even if he was healthy the odds are stacked against him)

Bust.

Gunnar Henderson. While he's regarded pretty well around here, I'd like to see him have a monster season and make a name for himself.

RIP Rheal Cormier.

Watched it when it came out a few years ago. Yeah, it's fantastic.

Hey are you gonna do that little sunshine ray of light thing you did a couple years ago or is that dead in the water?

Before my time.

I remember back in the day, HTS thought they were great cause you could watch 90 O's games a year or so.

I'd be more inclined to agree with defense being important if strikeouts weren't so emphasized today. Pitchers are striking out more batters than ever...I'm not saying defense isn't important because it certainly is...but I'm assuming that the overall amount of defensive chances have gone down as baseball has become a three outcome game (strikeout, walk, homer) with less emphasis on putting the ball in play and putting pressure on the defense. I don't think we have good defenders on the corners, however I think we should be decent up the middle. A lot of that rests on Galvis, as SG noted...he could be Iglesias level or he could fall off a cliff...it remains to be seen. Sanchez at 2nd base is a Gold Glove winner.

Galvis is at that age where he could fall off defensively. We'll see. I agree, with your overall assessment though, wtf does he expect? It's also the 2nd week of games, they're still going to be a bit rusty. I expect the defense to be average, overall.

It remains to be seen what happens with Stallings and Jean but I'm thinking we'll probably regret trading Iglesias. Even though he wasn't going to be a part of the next winning team here, he (when healthy) shored up the infield defense at a position of need. I think the notion of "OMG WE NEED A STRONG DEFENSE WITH A YOUNG DEVELOPING STAFF" is a bit overrated but I'd have liked a DP combo of Iglesias and Sanchez this year. It would have helped.

If that's all you judge BP on, that's understandable. But BP is more about showing off power.

I don't remember this dude. But that's some bad BP.

I'd imagine everyone looks good in BP, outside of Eddie Murray.

I guess we have differing opinions on what halfway decent is.

Bust.

I said halfway decent. Like Milone, we'd probably end up with organizational filler for Maikel Franco. And that's fine, but I don't get why people would be excited about it or at the very least, find it interesting. Anyway, unless I'm not looking at something correctly here, MLB.com straight up has the wrong stats for Franco: https://www.mlb.com/player/maikel-franco-596748?stats=career-s-hitting-mlb&year=202

I'm assuming the bullpen will be blown out by late June.

Eh, sure. I think you'd get a quad A bullpen arm, more likely.

Ahhh, right. "The ball is coming out of his hand nicely" is to @Frobby as "we can sign this guy in spring training and trade him at the deadline" is to Moose Milligan. The idea that we could trade a guy who's readily available to anyone right now and get something halfway decent is laughable.