LookinUp

I honestly think the O's probably see guys who throw 100 out of college as pretty high probability to need TJ surgery during their developmental years. Think Seth Johnson. It creates not just risk on the player, but future 40-man roster risk for arms that haven't had the development time that you don't want to give up on.

Honestly, Basallo hasn't been raking for much of the year. He did have a good June (.894 OPS), but no other month has been above .800 and he's been terrible in 11 games in July. Yes, I know. Age/level/small sample size. All true. I'm just saying that "the cold start ruined his numbers" line is being overtaken by the fact that he's just not killing that level. I'm hoping he really goes on a heater in August because he's not exactly forcing the O's hand at this point. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=basall000sam&type=bgl&year=2024

Yeah. I'm not predicting an under-500 record the rest of the way, but we were playing at a .650 pace and that's also not realistic.

The Red Sox are 4.5 games back, not 10. They essentially had one bad month. The Yankees are 1 game back. It's not like we're running away with this thing. They're both legitimately good teams. If we don't play well, or even very well, one or both could pass us. I'm not saying the odds are there, but I'm not ignoring the competition either.

Well, they can't get Mayo and we can give many more ABs to Kjerstad the rest of the way. That's two near-immediate upgrades. McDermott also fits well in the bullpen, IMO. All should be major 2nd half contributors. I would like to see a smaller trade for a RH CF-er. Not sure what the best options are there. Then there's pitching. Will Holliday be part of our lineup or part of the return for pitching?

I'm not sure how you can watch how we played the last two weeks and not worry about the Yankees and Red Sox. I do think a lot of that had to do with Gunnar and Westburg hitting slumps. That definitely exposed the rest of the lineup, so hopefully we get that fixed and find some pitching soon.

There are two types of orgs that might take it on. 1) Very rich orgs. NYY, LAD 2) Orgs on the cusp now with low payroll. O's, Sox? others?

The Tigers would be stupid not to try to get that price. Deadlines make deals. We have no idea what they'll actually settle for. No doubt that we're not getting a favorable deal likely at all, but certainly not significantly before the deadline.

It's interesting. They don't have much future payroll obligations at all, until you look at arb predictions. I'm not sure they would be motivated by such a deal. On the other hand, my guess is they would still want a top 3 headliner, but would likely not want much more if we took money back, and may even add a reliever to the deal.

It's interesting. They don't have much future payroll obligations at all, until you look at arb predictions. I'm not sure they would be motivated by such a deal. On the other hand, my guess is they would still want a top 3 headliner, but would likely not want much more if we took money back, and may even add a reliever to the deal.

It's interesting. They don't have much future payroll obligations at all, until you look at arb predictions. I'm not sure they would be motivated by such a deal. On the other hand, my guess is they would still want a top 3 headliner, but would likely not want much more if we took money back, and may even add a reliever to the deal.

I haven't read all 25 pages (just the last 5-6), but I'm a little surprised I don't see us taking Javier Baez and part of his contract back in these theoretical deals. This seems like a good opportunity to use money to get more favorable terms in a trade. Maybe we have an owner that would actually do that? I don't know.

Obviously this answer is no. The problem is that zero have contributed in the majors.

Exactly. That’s why I question our draft strategy at this point. I think we need a few high upside arms that actually know how to pitch when they get here.

Strike throwers with great stuff get picked really high. We don't pick pitchers really high, so we're left with strike throwers with less great stuff or guys with better stuff that we hope to teach how to pitch.