StottyByNature

Extensions should really be reserved for premium position players. Pitchers are just much more volatile and prone to injury. Means is the only one I'd consider and it wouldn't be for more than a year or two on what would likely be a team-friendly contract. All extension money should be reserved for the guys coming up like Henderson, Holliday, etc. We should be following the mold of buying out a couple of years of free agency. I probably wouldn't do it with Adley given he is a catcher. We can't make the same mistake that we did with Chris Davis (his money should have been used on Machado.). To be honest, though, I'm not sure the guys that write the checks are as forward-thinking as our front office. My main concern is that Elias feels handcuffed and moves on to a team with looser purse strings.

Wow we had no business winning that one. Credit Irvin for setting a great tone on the mound and Bautista continuing to be brilliant. His K rate is such an advantage in extra innings.

Grading like this is silly. It’s easy to say that the Orioles had the capital to get a higher end starter, but short-sighted to simply state that it should have happened. No one knows what the Orioles offered for Cease but it certainly seems that the Sox were asking for a kings ransom. Sometimes winning a trade is by not making it. Given how much teams gave up for starters, I am pleased Elias went the direction he did. I do wish he had gone for one of the relievers.

I like both trades and do not begrudge missing out on a top end starter. We don’t know what demands the Sox or Tigers were making. The going rate for relievers was absolutely doable and I think that is the only glaring error of this deadline. Fuji is a good idea but we needed a steadier guy to replace Perez.

His FIP last year was 3.10. This year it's 3.57. I agree that we shouldn't pay for him like he's a 2.20 ERA guy like last year, but I also wouldn't treat him like he's just some guy. He's still striking out 10.8 per 9 and we'd have him for his age 27, 28, and 29 seasons.

I have always thought Cease makes the most sense. My guess is that they swapped ideas on Verlander and when they realized the Mets' ask they figured they might as well spend those prospects on someone younger/cheaper.

Thanks. I'd love to get him and it will be interesting how much the Mets are willing to pay. The Scherzer deal freaks me out though. You'd have to think if that's the precedent then it would have to be Mayo or Kjerstad going. I'd be comfortable doing Norby+ but I think the Mets want quality and not quantity. I'd almost prefer if he were just a rental given that he is 40 and the cost would be lower (maybe?). Still, I'd love him for this year...

Isn't Verlander on the books for next year, too? And potentially one more if he pitches 140 innings in 2024? Is there an opt out?

In a word: yes.

The answer to this question is definitively yes, I would give up the prospects for a guaranteed World Series title. Of course, there is no way in reality that such a guarantee would be made so if the question is would you trade the top 5 prospects to make a go-for-broke run at it this year my answer is no. We are at the beginning of our window, not the end.

This is correct. We are at the very beginning of our window, there is no sense in mortgaging what could be an excellent 5 - 7 year run for a 2 month rental. This is the type of move you make at the end of a competitive window. That doesn't mean I think we should stand pat, but the move(s) we will see should have more than just this year in mind. I think it will be a reliever that will be here another year or two.

If the Angels trade Ohtani it means they are giving up on the season. It makes no sense for them to take Gibson - they would much rather have more prospects.

I would not go crazy on an Ohtani trade just to keep him out of the AL East. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of this is simply posturing by the Rays to try to drive the price up. I'd be shocked if they gave up a bunch of prospects for a guy that won't be there long-term. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. I think Ohtani will fetch somewhere between the Machado package and the Soto package. As for the Orioles, if it's closer to a Machado-like package (I'm thinking one top-100 guy and a couple of guys in the 8-15 range of our farm system) then I'd consider it. But I wouldn't do more than that and I'm guessing that won't be enough. You have to see this as a rental only and frankly I wouldn't want the O's to give out a mega-contract to someone entering his age-30 season. I think we are likely to see us make a move for a reliever or two and probably guys who will have a year or two more of control. I'd love to get Dylan Cease but I would guess it would be hard to settle on a fair price since the Sox view him as a bonafide ace while his results this year have not been that.

The playoffs are always a crapshoot and a lot depends on who the hot team(s) is/are. However, I'd feel a lot better about our chances if we had an ace. I also think we need another dependable bullpen arm. Right now you'd really only trust Bautista, Cano, and Coulombe in a playoff series. Maybe Baker if he's right.

Yep. I get why people want to move on from him, but it’s not like O’Hearn has a long track record of maintaining this production. Mountcastle, while flawed, does have more data to draw from. I think the O’s are smart enough to continue to ride O’Hearn while he’s hot and give Mountcastle at-bats when possible. If O’Hearn regresses they will not hesitate to go back to Mountcastle full time. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Seems like a small trade of Urias or Mateo for a middle reliever is in order. Though I think they will be inclined to wait until the deadline. While Westburg has looked good it’s still too small of a sample size to declare him a big league starter. Mountcastle is the trickier one. He’s been a mainstay for a while and you have to wonder how important he is in the locker room. These are still human beings and it might not sit right with the team to see a guy lose not just his starting job but his spot on the MLB roster to vertigo. Maybe it’s a non-issue and they accept it’s a tough business, but I think there could be a veteran consideration at play here.

Yes, but in my opinion baseball has a special quirkiness that the other sports don’t.

Gotta love baseball, man. It’ll break your heart sometimes but then you get moments like the defensive replacement coming up in the spot of your hottest hitter and walking it off. Good for him.

Yep, when he first came up guys could barely hit the top of the ball. Now they are lining/flying out with regularity. It is likely an arm slot thing. I'm sure they are trying to find that movement again.

I don't expect anything major, but I do think we'll see some tinkering. I wouldn't be shocked to see us move a prospect or two from the 15-25 range for a rental reliever or maybe a non-premium starter (depending on how our rotation fares results-wise and health-wise over the next month or two.). I don't see us really doing anything until the deadline is much closer. I don't think it will happen, but it seems to me that we need to make some sort of decision with respect to Mateo. It is pretty clear that he is prone to wild swings of hot/cold. If he's on a cold streak in the playoffs he's basically unplayable. Maybe we just ride it out and go to Ortiz in those spots. If that's the case, I'd like to see us go with more of a timeshare at SS for the short-term to see what we have. Then, just hope Mateo gets hot again at the right time.

It's an interesting question. I am both a believer in "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and "just because it's what we've always done isn't a good enough reason to keep doing it." In this case, I'm not sure the origins of the song's use warrant its continued play. By the same token, I don't like when a change feels forced. I do think we are in a sort of rebirth organizationally so it would be a good time to try some new stuff, but hopefully they find a way for it to be organic. Maybe the song should change annually, like this year they choose something based on the sprinkler theme the players started. I don't know, but I would let someone more creative than me figure it out.

This is not interesting analysis, but I'll say it anyway: I really dislike the Blue Jays. It's a different type of feeling than my hatred of the Yankees and Red Sox. This one is more acute and annoying. Whenever I see the Blue Jays' logo on the schedule for some reason I can feel my blood pressure rising.

I went to one of those games during his 6 for 10 "streak". Hell, I remember them playing "New Sensation" when his name was announced. I also remember his batting stance. Weird what the brain holds on to, though I think it stems from a "if this guy can do it then I can too!" mentality somewhere.

We need the bats to wake up this series, the pitching can't keep this rate up. Specifically it is time for Santander and Henderson to start pulling their weight. Hopefully it starts this week.

I think this idea along the lines that "kids need instant gratification" is a total straw man argument. It is objectively true that baseball games didn't used to take this long. I'm 40 and I would love for the game times to revert back to when I was a kid. Count me in the demographic that loves baseball but does not watch interminable postseason games anymore (unless the O's are in them!) because they drag on so much. The game has changed due to analytics (mostly because of people my age). I think it's OK to want to return the gametime to what it once was. I, for one, am excited about it.