G54377

I definitely feel more comfortable rolling with an OF of Cowser/Mullins/Stowers/Hays next year, assuming all are still on the team. Tony has had some big moments, but I think we can absorb his impending departure.

I will say, I'd 100% trade Kjerstad for Miller. His defense is shaky, and that's enough for me to make him the odd man out. Mayo is the better bat, if we are keeping a guy that may end up at DH (or mostly DH). If we can do Kjerstad + Cade Povich + Horvath? If that gets you Mason Miller you really have to consider it. Even if Miller's arm blows out at some point, we are getting essentially 5 1/2 years. Pairing that with Bautista for our WS window is tantalizing.

I've mentioned it many times but eventually STL has to bottom out. They are 11th in the NL in OPS and 12th in ERA. Ryan Helsley is exactly what we are looking for. We can trade the Norbys and Beavers of the world for him and not have to give up the core blue chip guys.

He's got a big boy fastball, I guess they think they can tweak some things to make it work.

Do my eyes see Dillon Tate throwing 93 and getting swing and misses on his pitches? Where has that guy been?

When was the last time Urias even made solid contact on a ball?

Unless he got a super slow jump on it, but that's not what it looked like with the naked eye.

I think the problem there is Houston is only 4.5 games back of the division, and compared to other teams with similar records (STL/Helsley like I mentioned) are a legit title contender if they make the postseason. Unless they implode I think they will be buyers vs/ sellers if anything.

I'm talking the very end of our upper prospects if that makes sense. Blue chip was probably a bad choice of words. I'm not giving up the top 4 (Holliday/Kjerstad/Mayo/Basallo). For 1 1/2 years of Helsley. Maybe Beavers (fringe 100 guy) as the headliner? I'd consider Norby too? Depends on how the trader market shakes out. I'd have to look back and see what a RP like Helsely requires in a trade. I remember we traded ERod who was somewhere around 60-70 on top prospect lists for 1/2 year of Andrew Miller. But that was a direct 1v1 trade and I think Miller was more highly regarded. I'm not going to pretend to know any more than anyone else. I would say if Oakland is going to trade what amounts to almost Miller's entire 6 years of club control, they will want one of our big 4 at least. Probably one of them AND a guy like Norby/Beavers/Povich/etc.

Ryan Helsley from STL got to be the guy. Mason Miller would cost too much. Helsley is under team control through 2025, so we get another year to bridge into Felix coming back. I think he can be had for one blue chip guy and several lower guys.

Heasley better not see a single game with the Orioles again.

Mateo rising form the dead. I really thought he was at best a long term bench guy. If he puts up even a 700+ OPS with his defense and speed that definitely plays.

We should all put twitter on blast for how crappy this park is because of it.

Diaz may have directly cost us 4 runs. I think Kremer gets out of the inning if he gets the K and I think we'd get one run out a bases loaded 1 out.

Should have been bases loaded 1 out

It's unreal that a year ago this guy was probably thought of by many as our future third best player, and it's not because those people were overrating the other two.

I dont like this, feel like the hitter always gets on base after something like this.

I think Mayo's future position is directly related with what we do with Ryan Mountcastle. We got Mounty for 2 more years, if we decide to keep him. Does the timeline work out that the Adley/Basallo catcher split allows the guy not caching to DH or 1B, and Mayo takes the third (1B/DH) spot?

I think Webb was kind of gassed last year by the time the playoffs rolled around. Dude has spotted a 2.40 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 2.90 FIP, 44 K's in 41 IP for us. For a guy that's expected to be like our 5th best bullpen arm you take that every day.

Robert doesn't strike me as a player Elias would seek out. A guy who's basically never been healthy who we'd have to pay 20 million a year?

I've always thought the difference between "ace" and "#1 starter" is more to do with the established history and relatively injury free reputation. Someone is an ace if they have done it for years putting up the numbers and consistently pitch 30+ starts. A #1 starter has the stuff but might have had some injury derailing seasons or inconsistency (Cease).

He's the worst. Has he ever provided any "inside" information that wasn't completely made up? I completely enjoyed how it seemed pretty obviously EDC/Ravens fed him fake info on the Deebo Samuel rumor and JLC immediately ran with it, then tried to put EDC on blast. Nobody is trading a #1 overall prospect like Jackson Holliday, much less for Luis Robert who has never played a full season and is currently hurt as it is. What's most irritating about him is how smug he is about all his opinions. He's like Keith Law, except he has zero credibility that would give him any sort of validation for his opinions.

Hays, Mateo, Urias, and Holliday represent about 15% of our teams PA's (218 of 1514) and have 12 walks combined. Their combined OBP is like 23% or something like that. It wouldn't be a stretch to say only Holliday is really going to be a future fixture of the team and he will/should be a very good OBP player.

This is painful

He's going to need to work through it. If we believe he's an everyday player like Gunnar and Adley, we need to allow him to work through it like they did.