WestEddy

There's not enough Natty Bo to drown that humiliation.

And Flexen gave up the same amount of runs as Fedde in more innings. So I guess we can also expect a 50+ FV prospect for Flexen, too. Groovy.

The last rebuild was styled around 5 pitching prospects. We have at least 15 scattered over 4 levels, now. Sure, lets use TRU's measure, and say we have 7 prospects. That's more than we started Hahn's 2.0 with.

Martin Davis just had his first clean inning in the Arizona Complex League. I could see him or Sean Burke being ready to tandem with Shuster, or whatnot. We could also take back somebody's ineffective veteran and eat the money in a Crochet or Fedde trade. As I look, all the wild card possibles seem to have expunged all of their baggage. Maybe Patrick Corbin on the Nats. He's still owed about $12 million.

Just to clarify - I haven't been arguing that "the only reason they're bad".... They were supposed to be "merely bad". The first 2-3 weeks set the tone. Yes, they have been fortunate with the items you've mentioned. DeJong also had a better than expected beginning to his season. Sheets broke out. Pillar wasn't terrible. Pham hit the ground running, as did Julks. The injuries have covered up Eloy not really being all that. Sheets has out-produced him. And Robert hasn't gotten off the ground all year.

Right. Not like the top free agents gave Getz a blank contract, and he turned them down for DeJong and Maldonado. I agree with the complaint that we're not giving Colas, DeLoach or Ramos innings. But they're not going to eat 3.5 years of Benintendi's contract. So we're stuck playing the tradeable guys for under 5 weeks.

I'd be quite happy with Clevinger throwing about 10 pitches in his next AAA start, and then being done for the year. Hell, throw Phil Humber back out there, instead.

Thorpe and Cannon need to get their innings, and Flexen needs to be traded. I think Clevinger, Thorpe and Cannon will be the beginnings of the post-TDL rotation.

I just looked at the 2000 pitching staff to see who I thought he was like. Was always underwhelmed by those guys, Sirotka, Parque, Baldwin. I always thought Baldwin "sucked", even though they ran him out there for years. Flexen's stats are right in line with Baldwins. Maybe a little more strikeouts. LOL.

This is not a good team. I agree with you on the Yolmer comp. Yolmer could run into one, tho. Lopez has zero power. I have a sneaking suspicion he will be our SS after 7/30.

You're going to have 2 months of watching Colas, Sosa, DeLoach and others kick the ball around. Right now, at the half way point, Korey Lee and Lenyn Sosa are getting starter innings. Thorpe and Cannon are in the rotation. Tanner Banks, Jared Shuster and Jordan Leasure have pitched a bunch of innings. Pham, Sheets, DeJong, maybe even Eloy and Robert could be gone in 5 weeks. Isn't Julks kind of in a platoon with Benny, now?

Flexen will finish the year as an average major league pitcher. 2 WAR. I don't really look at ERA. Too many other factors out of the pitcher's control affect it. Gowens k/9 and BB/9 are good. Doesn't allow a lot of baserunners. Could do more to limit HRs. But he's an interesting prospect. He'll probably get to AA after the trade deadline. Flexen, granted, he's a bit of a Houdini. But he is getting results. He's not a top of the staff ace, no. He is an arm that keeps you in most of his games. I wouldn't say he sucks. I just wouldn't rely upon him. Somebody will take him in a trade. Thanks for saying I sometimes have good posts. It's appreciated.

No, I'm me. Yes, Nicky Lopez has brought good defense to the position. Just because the team is on a historically bad path doesn't mean I must declare that every player on the team sucks at every part of the game. Out of Lopez, Remillard, Mendick, Sosa and Shewmake I think Remy hits a little better than the rest. I think Lopez is the best, defensively.

Now you're changing the subject. Losses don't matter. and yeah, they're trying to showcase guys like Pham, Eloy, Sheets, etc. to turn them into a bullpen arm. Is 5 weeks of playing time more important than getting another arm in the system? I honestly don't know. I think Colas, if still here, will have a whole 2 months to get PAs with the big club.

Why would he have wanted to non-tender Soroka? He could have also non-tendered Eloy. Or Robert. Soroka was part of the plan to get a small group of starters, and to see who popped, if any. Lopez is probably the most balanced of the group of utility infielders they were going to fill second base from, you know, in a rebuild year. And you with the hyperbole. Flexen already has more than 1 bWAR. That's an average major leaguer. I think most teams would love to slot a 2-WAR pitcher for 33 starts at #5. I'm not even going to look up names, but there's guys who could barely cut it in AAA that the Sox ran out there for 10 starts in years past who were "weak" #5s. Flexen is so much more than Odrisamer Despaigne, or whatever. Yes, a team that is in the wild card race, has been hit by injuries, and doesn't have 'that guy' at AAA will be 'desperate' for a guy like Flexen who could take the ball every 5th day, and has a fighter's chance of throwing you a quality start. That's about a third of the league, at this point.

But you would mock any moves to shave 20 losses off of that final total, wouldn't you? At this point, while there's a difference, that difference doesn't matter.

Why would he have wanted to non-tender Soroka? The plan was to get Fedde, Flexen and Soroka, and try to make any of them pop. As I told TRU, the ~$12m invested in those three was a huge success. That would be like signing Frankie Montas, but having him be one of the most sought after arms on the trade market. Flexen is also serviceable, and may even bring back an interesting piece. The same goes with the money spent in the bullpen. I don't know how Getz would do it differently, but Knebel and Barlow also exist, and are both throwing rehab games right now. I'm sure they won't be productive before the TDL, but it was a gamble. If Wilson or Brebbia bring back pieces, that gamble was a success.

Lopez is a small part of the bad offense. He's also a saving grace on the infield.

The point of this season was to grab up a bunch of pitchers, see who they could rehab into innings eaters or better, then flip them. You won't hit on every player. The $12m spent on Fedde, Flexen and Soroka was an insanely great investment. Fedde will be one of the best pitchers on the trade market, and Flexen will bring back an interesting piece. He does not "suck". He's a serviceable #4. The Bummer trade brought us a pretty good pitching prospect in Riley Gowans and an okay bullpen arm in Shuster. You're not going to hit on every single player who puts on a uniform. I think of them in bunches. If one of three hits, the whole exercise is a success.

Sure. And maybe he cut a year or two of "kinda suck" off of the timeline by biting the bullet.

1) If you don't think this is a rebuild, then there's really nothing to discuss. However, all activity points to this being a rebuild, so I will react accordingly. Getz' job is to raise value on the talent, and trade that talent for prospect. He seems to be doing that, and well. Please tell me how 10 more wins will be important for this team. 2) Tommy Pham is 36. If you think he's the same player he was at 30 when he last played CF, then you should tell the guy who logs into your account to whine about older players. And in case you haven't noticed, players go on hot streaks, cool off as the league adjusts to them, they make adjustments and start hitting again. You declare Gavin Sheets' "hot streak" over every 10 days. It's silly. Pham is doing much better than the 33 year old Michael A. Taylor. I can't imagine how loud you'd be screaming about how Getz screwed up had he signed Taylor. I guess you could say Taylor's hot streak NEVA CAME!! I feel bad for the saps who wanted him on our team. 3) Julks has pretty much always hit lefties better than RHPs. Please tell us where a 5 WAR starting RF is so we can sign him for the major league minimum. Julks came across the waiver wire, we claimed him, and he did his job. Maybe he's a keeper. I think it will take more than your small sample size to make that determination. BTW, have you looked in on Canaan Smith-Njigba's AAA line lately? Hint: you don't have to start screaming that Getz messed up by not claiming him. 4) Fletcher's 2023 was evidence that he has hit in the majors. I don't think I talked about him as more than a platoon, maybe I did. Many players get multiple chances to take over a roll. You seem eager to declare victory every time a player takes a strike, or grounds out.

No, they shouldn't have bullshitted their way through that press conference. However, in biting the bullet, not trying to patch holes with $15m players, I think they might just be shortening the timeline of the rebuild. Well, they at least cut out the 2 year descent into total suckage.