ChosenOne21

Why not start him in the majors and send him down if he struggles? If he does well, the team benefits from his performance and you have a shot at the extra pick. If he struggles, you get the extra year of control. I think you'd have to be around Shohei Otani levels of talent for your seventh season to have more surplus value than a draft pick + 3 extra weeks of play. If you think the guy has a good shot at RoY or runner-up, start the season with him.

You've said it's real and strategic but not quantifiable. That's practically word salad. Doesn't seem like I'm the one who needs a nap.

I don't see how chemistry is remotely quantifiable. I'm sure when the team is winning everyone's happy and gets along better and when they're losing players are unhappy. I think people have cause and effect exactly backwards when they say chemistry helps a team win. And even if chemistry leads to better on field performance how do you begin to tease that out? If a player hits 20 home runs one year, how many of those were because of "chemistry?" Maybe some of them were, but how do you ever figure that out?

All Elias has said is by the All-Star Break. My guess is late May/early June at best.

This seems to happen most years. My guess is the guys who are on the bubble of getting a roster spot play their hearts out to try to win a spot, while the guys who are guaranteed a spot are taking it a little bit easier, working on stuff, etc.

I'm not sure why so many people think this is a crappy bullpen. Sure, it probably won't be as good as last year, but that's a long way from crappy. Kimbrel is a die-roll, I'll give you that. Cano should be good. Coulombe should be good. Perez has a strong chance to be good. He walks too many, but he gives up weak contact. Tate, Baumann, and Akin all have question marks but have all looked good so far. I don't know what you guys want from Webb. He had a 3.27 ERA / 2.80 FIP in half a season for us last year. He walks a lot of guys, but he doesn't give up many hits. He didn't give up any home runs after he came over. His WHIP was 1.182, which is pretty good for a reliever. He doesn't exactly scream "closer" but he seems like a fine middle reliever. You could do worse for depth than Baker and Vespi

I would rather have Webb in the pen than Teheran

Assuming there are no issues with his performance and they send him down anyway, I hate it. It's different if he looks a little overmatched, or needs more time to learn 2B. We're trying to contend, so we need the best players out there. If that's Holliday, then that's Holliday. He's also got to be on the short list for ROY as things are. If he struggles, we can send him down and get the extra year of service time.

Defense?

I said Beckham. The one I missed is Surhoff. He's the one I should have known. Didn't know Baines went first overall.

Ben McDonald Adley Rutschman Tim Beckham Kris Benson? EDIT: Jackson Holliday is one of the spring training ones. Don't know who the other is. Double EDIT: I looked up the other three. One I should have known, one I didn't know was a #1 draft pick. Also had no idea the guy whose son has played for us was ever almost traded to us.

If Wong makes the team for any reason other than injury, I'm going to explode. We have too many young, good infielders who need playing time, handedness be damned.

In my opinion, Teheran has zero left in the tank. If it was just a standard minor league signing, who cares. But we gave him a 100K signing bonus and his MLB salary is $2M. It's not a disaster or anything, but there has to be someone out there for less money with more in the tank.

I know there's no such thing as a bad minor league deal, but this is close.

If PRP injections had a zero percent success rate, teams wouldn't bother and they'd just give the players Tommy John.

I think McKenna is likely gone based on all the minor-league signings of players with similar profiles. I think Baumann gets every chance to make the club given the state of our bullpen. If he struggles though, I doubt Elias is slow to DFA him.

I totally forgot Chone Figgins was a player. I think he's a pretty good comp for a successful Bradfield, though I think Bradfield is a better defender at a more premium position and will have a higher SB success rate.

Kyle is probably going to miss 4-6 weeks, but thinking he's going to miss the whole year or be ineffective when he gets back is just doom and gloom. Those things could happen, but it's far from a guarantee.

The high school TJ doesn't worry me. The forearm strain does a little. Doesn't seem he's much more likely than the average pitcher to need TJS in the next three years.

Should we never make a significant trade for a pitcher, or do you have reason to believe Luzardo is especially likely to tear his UCL?

Anderson's crime was not leaving a cushy job where he got to do what he loved. Dunning-Kreuger suggests he might not have even been aware he was bad at it.

I actually was not aware of that. Never mind! He just always struck me as a guy who was kind of done with baseball and done with the city of Baltimore, but maybe not.

Eddie surprises me. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing he'd do. But I love to see it.

I get that maybe that's the ethical thing to do, but you'd think teams would ride their impending free agents like rented mules more often.

It seems like the Marlins were insisting on Basallo, and the Orioles wouldn't part with him.