Trade Watch (It starts)

[clapdiddy]

That would be devastating to see.

Yup. I could handle him with teams outside of the AL East. Hopefully, an NL team will make him an offer he can't refuse.

[MdSooner]

I do not want to trade for rentals, and I am not of the mindset of blowing it up when we're only 2 games back. Like it or not, I'm in the holding pattern, with the caveat being...

DFA Snider and Chicken Parm. Call up Walker and Alverez. Play Nolan more.

My mostly everyday lineup would be something like...

3B: Manny

DH: Nolan

CF: Jones

RF: Davis

C: Wieters

SS: Hardy

1B: Walker

2B: Schoop

LF: Alverez

Walker and Alverez cannot be any worse offensively then Parm and Snider, and they also offer a glimpse into the future when a bunch of the current O's are gone.

I like this line-up with 2 exceptions. I am playing Nolan in LF and Im starting Caleb over Matt

[DJHJR86]

Yup. I could handle him with teams outside of the AL East. Hopefully, an NL team will make him an offer he can't refuse.

I think I'd only be able to stomach seeing him in the NL. He's been my favorite player for the past 4 seasons.

[MdSooner]

I hear ya. And it could happen, but I've done the math with the odds of each team winning and I don't like the odds at all. If we sneak in as a WC, I'd put our chances at

Odds of winning:

WC game home team - 55%

WC game visiting team - 45%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Yankees (they have home field advantage) - 35%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Royals (they have home field advantage) - 30%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Angels (they have home field advantage) - 45%

So, to get the best and worst odds of making it multiple the WC odds x the divisional series odds x AL championship odds using the largest and smallest odds.

Best:

55% x 45% x 35% = 8.66% to reach the series

Worst:

45% x 35% x 30% = 4.7% to reach the series

I just don't like those odds.

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So, you are saying we have a chance? !!!!! ;-)

[schittenden]

I hear ya. And it could happen, but I've done the math with the odds of each team winning and I don't like the odds at all. If we sneak in as a WC, I'd put our chances at

Odds of winning:

WC game home team - 55%

WC game visiting team - 45%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Yankees (they have home field advantage) - 35%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Royals (they have home field advantage) - 30%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Angels (they have home field advantage) - 45%

So, to get the best and worst odds of making it multiple the WC odds x the divisional series odds x AL championship odds using the largest and smallest odds.

Best:

55% x 45% x 35% = 8.66% to reach the series

Worst:

45% x 35% x 30% = 4.7% to reach the series

I just don't like those odds.

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The odds are always long when looked at like that. Even if you had a 50% chance of winning each round, you'd only be at 12.5%. Even a 60% in each round (and overwhelming favorite, really), you'd only be at 19.6% or so. In other words, even an overwhelming favorite isn't going to make it 4-out-of-5 times looking at it that way.

[DJHJR86]

2 games out of the Wild Card currently. I like our odds this year.

[El Gordo]

I think we will sneak in the play-offs in the WC, but I still think we shouldn't do it because I don't think we can get through 3 rounds of play-offs to get to the WS. We would have to beat 2 of KC, NYY, and LAA to get to the series and I don't think we can do it. I typed this long post about why and lost it when I tried to cut and paste. LOL

The summary is that the Royals and Angels are good and the Yankees look to having one of those magical years where almost everything goes right.

While it absolutely kills me to admit it, I don't think we will get through these 3 teams (despite having a puncher's chance) so I want us to prepare for the future. That probably would go over very badly in the clubhouse though so I don't blame DD at all for not doing it. Keeping the right atmosphere is a big deal.

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It will go over even worse with the fan base IMO, and I'm not so sure PA would be amused. I'd like to hear the sellers' explanation to Pete and the fan base why you are folding your tent 2 games out of the WC at the TD.

[weams]

I hear ya. And it could happen, but I've done the math with the odds of each team winning and I don't like the odds at all. If we sneak in as a WC, I'd put our chances at

Odds of winning:

WC game home team - 55%

WC game visiting team - 45%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Yankees (they have home field advantage) - 35%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Royals (they have home field advantage) - 30%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Angels (they have home field advantage) - 45%

So, to get the best and worst odds of making it multiple the WC odds x the divisional series odds x AL championship odds using the largest and smallest odds.

Best:

55% x 45% x 35% = 8.66% to reach the series

Worst:

45% x 35% x 30% = 4.7% to reach the series

I just don't like those odds.

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What are the odds at the beginning of the season in a division where the Top three teams spend 160 million to 285 million.

[mdbdotcom]

It will go over even worse with the fan base IMO, and I'm not so sure PA would be amused. I'd like to hear the sellers' explanation to Pete and the fan base why you are folding your tent 2 games out of the WC at the TD.

Should go over about as well as in '96, when Pat Gillick tried to get PA to sell. Angelos said no, and we went to the playoffs. That was when PA became a certified baseball genius.

[DrungoHazewood]

I hear ya. And it could happen, but I've done the math with the odds of each team winning and I don't like the odds at all. If we sneak in as a WC, I'd put our chances at

Odds of winning:

WC game home team - 55%

WC game visiting team - 45%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Yankees (they have home field advantage) - 35%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Royals (they have home field advantage) - 30%

Divisional or AL Championship vs Angels (they have home field advantage) - 45%

So, to get the best and worst odds of making it multiple the WC odds x the divisional series odds x AL championship odds using the largest and smallest odds.

Best:

55% x 45% x 35% = 8.66% to reach the series

Worst:

45% x 35% x 30% = 4.7% to reach the series

I just don't like those odds.

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That's a great post. Run similar numbers for a 100-win division team and you'll see that almost no team ever has more than about a 20-25% chance of winning it all on day one of the playoffs. This idea that you can design your team to win in the playoffs is misguided. Every single team has but a fleeting chance to win it all. Going all in because you know this is your year to win the Series is basically bumping your odds from "long" to "unlikely".

[hoosiers]

I don't think you can sell because you don't like our chances once in the playoffs. We can beat anyone in the playoffs and we haven't seen what our GM might add to this team to improve our chances. Tillman, Chen and Gausman can all be good enough to get a close game to our bullpen. There is plenty to like about our lineup. We have more than a puncher's chance against NYY, LAA and KC. It's a bit dramatic to hint our chances would be like Villanova v Georgetown.

Our lineup can turn around in a big way with a couple above average corner OFers to supplement Machado, Davis, Jones, Schoop and Wieters.

[DrungoHazewood]

It's a bit dramatic to hint our chances would be like Villanova v Georgetown.

There simply are no MLB playoff situations as lopsided as an average NCAA tournament game, although I'm not well-versed in the particulars of the Villanova-Georgetown game. A MLB typical playoff game is a .580 team vs. a .540 team, maybe tweaking the numbers a bit for the starters. If you normalized the records for schedule strength you'd probably have .900 teams playing .500 teams in the NCAA tournament. (Caveat: what I know about college basketball is fuzzy and vague and subject to debunking by those more knowledgeable than me.) I do know that there are regularly NCAA football games where one of the teams essentially has a 0% chance of winning, the line is 30 points or more. That simply can't happen in MLB, not even in the regular season with totally mismatched Cy Young starter against emergency fill-in from AA.

[ChuckS]

I don't think there there is much of a chance at all of O'Day receiving a QO. Also, if Wieters finishes this season with mediocre offensive numbers he either won't get the QO or will get it and has a high probability of accepting it. Chen and Davis I can safely say will get a QO and elect free agency, so we may only get two supplemental picks.

I'm not sure how much value our pending FA's have, but I'm off the sell ship. Hard to justify selling when we are two games out of the Wild Card.

[MurphDogg]

Wieters will be getting a QO and declining it unless he suffers an injury with a 9+ month recovery time. I agree that O'Day will not get a QO. He will barely earn more than the QO salary over a three year deal.

[Crazysilver03]

Go go go rumors for 2 or 3 days and now it just kind of stopped.

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