Rank our top needs:

[DocJJ]

1. Ace/TOR Starter.

2. Solid reliable middle relief

3. Solid reliable setup relief

4. MOB masher bat

[Winter]

What MLB pitcher on the trade market or going to be on the market is better than Wells? 

[Aristotelian]

3 minutes ago, Winter said:

What MLB pitcher on the trade market or going to be on the market is better than Wells? 

Why do they have to be better than Wells? They have to be better than Kremer/Irvin.

[Aristotelian]

7 minutes ago, DocJJ said:

1. Ace/TOR Starter.

2. Solid reliable middle relief

3. Solid reliable setup relief

4. MOB masher bat

I would go with starter, power hitting 1B, bullpen arm in that order.

[bpilktree]

Bullpen arm.  The playoffs with off days you can shrink the game down a lot.  Give me a Hunter, Miller, O’day, Brach, Britton in the playoffs and I can work through the first 5 innings to get to those guys.  This offense is deeper then the 2014 team so I think we can score more then enough to win with decent starting pitching and lock down bullpen.  

[Winter]

8 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Why do they have to be better than Wells? They have to be better than Kremer/Irvin.

OP said #1 is an ACE, and Because Wells is our "Ace" and anything better than him is going to come at a price, a price that will cost us big especially for a guy with multiple years of control. We can't afford to deal Mateo, Frazier, Santander, Mountcastles replacements away and that is who teams will want. Cowser, Westburg, Mayo, Kjerstadt & Holliday etc. Elias is about long term success not just this year. Clear need is going to be the bullpen arm especially since there are doubts we even see Tate and Givens looks like a lost cause at the moment. -- GRod needs to force Kremer/Irvin to the pen. 

[dystopia]

1. Middle relief

2. Late-inning relief

3. SP

4. MOB

[ArtVanDelay]

12 minutes ago, Winter said:

OP said #1 is an ACE, and Because Wells is our "Ace" and anything better than him is going to come at a price, a price that will cost us big especially for a guy with multiple years of control. We can't afford to deal Mateo, Frazier, Santander, Mountcastles replacements away and that is who teams will want. Cowser, Westburg, Mayo, Kjerstadt & Holliday etc. Elias is about long term success not just this year. Clear need is going to be the bullpen arm especially since there are doubts we even see Tate and Givens looks like a lost cause at the moment. -- GRod needs to force Kremer/Irvin to the pen. 

Wells is not an ace.  He’s been amazing this year but would you feel great about him going up against a McClanahan, Gausman or Ohtani in game 1 of a playoff series?

We have a surplus of position players both in the minors and big leagues.  It’s time to trade some of it away to upgrade the rotation.  A guy like Marcus Stroman, who is a free agent, shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg.  And he’d immediately be our “ace”.

 

[G54377]

We need an ace the most, but that is also probably going to be unnecessarily expensive. I'd rather target a bullpen arm or a bat.

[Moose Milligan]

2 bullpen arms. 

[Hallas]

a starter.

 

Numbers 2 and 3 become non-issues if we get a top flight starter (at least a bona-fide #2 starter.)  Because the starter that got displaced becomes a multi-inning middle reliever, which improves the bullpen depth.

 

I don't really think we need a bat.  We can solve our position player problems in-house.  Move Santander to 1B when he's not DHing and call up one of our prospects that's on fire to man the outfield.

[NCRaven]

50 minutes ago, ArtVanDelay said:

Wells is not an ace.  He’s been amazing this year but would you feel great about him going up against a McClanahan, Gausman or Ohtani in game 1 of a playoff series?

Wells will not face McClanahan or Gausman.  He could face Ohtani as a hitter.  I would feel fine having Wells face the hitters for their teams.  That’s what matters.  If one of those pitchers shuts our offense down, it won’t matter who our pitcher is.

[NedFromYork]

3, 1, 2, 4

[casadeozo]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

2 bullpen arms. 

What will they cost in terms of prospects?

Obviously we gave up a lot for Andrew Miller back in 2014 so. That would be someone like Hall or Povich maybe?

[Billy F-Face3]

1.Ace

2. RBI Slugger / Power or Clutch bat who converts R.I.S.P.

3. Franchise 2nd Baseman for 2024 and beyond.

4. High leverage middle reliever to help take pressure off of Cano, Baker, and Columbe. Baumann does a good job but he's not yet the elite level we need. We need a guy who we can fall back on if Coloumbe, or Baker, or Cano has a bad game where their stuff isn't working. (I.E. Like Coloumbe's bad outing in game 2 vs TOR when Bradish and Baker were done for the night.)