Snopek

Everyone’s forgetting that we also need a new play-by-play announcer to replace Benetti to come back in any Cease trade.

Nah he’s still too busy pointing at the 2015 Royals and the 2005 White Sox. He doesn’t strike me as a logical timeline sort of guy. More of a lightning in a bottle and pixie dust guy. So for all we know he does prefer someone like Ortiz, whether it makes sense to the rest of us or not.

Pro Tip: Start reading Sports Guy's posts as if he actually is Elias and is just talking in third person. It at least makes the thread more entertaining.

The last 80 billion pages of this thread could have just been replaced with this. But then you have comments like this that make it go 80 billion more. (Middle ground is not inevitable. You're discounting the possibility of either side reaching a level of desperation that their hand feels forced to make a trade.)

Easy there Seinfeld, that's a sore subject round these parts.

Now this thread is getting somewhere

There's really nothing to back this up, though, so it's one of those philosophies that you can spin however you want. Minnesota and Tampa's good pitching didn't get them very far in the playoffs. You build the best roster you can with the resources you have available and hope for a hot stretch in the playoffs. I think it'd be stupid for the O's not to upgrade their rotation, but I also wouldn't assume an early exit if they didn't.

Another good clubhouse guy to help do Grifol's job for him.

I mean, Bradish IS good. But it's incredibly foolish of them to not get a TOR arm. Both can be true.

Yeah, Cease interest or not, it would've been nice to see them push more chips in.

I like some of the back and forth on hypotheticals because it's interesting to hear different perspectives, but that all takes a backseat now that we're finally getting to the important stuff: which posters will end up being right and which ones will need to admit the other ones were right.

And if you still don’t see the return you like at the trade deadline, then what? At what point are you being too stubborn? Getz should obviously be trying to maximize the return, but it’s also such a fine line to walk. I’m surprised at how comfortable some of y’all are with hanging onto Cease. Just insanely risky.

I enjoyed reading the back and forth and hearing the Baltimore perspective from a couple intelligent/non meatball fans, but ultimately it comes down to they value their guys more than we do, just like we value our guy more than they do. Typical fandom stuff. No one’s necessarily right or wrong, but when no one’s budging on their views, it just becomes using different words to make the same arguments over and over.

Well now that it’s too quiet in here, I think we need some Red Sox board posters to exchange stubborn and definitive statements with. There are more subjective arguments to be had!

Three way trade. Sox get Madrigal and a Bill Ripken fuckface card. Cubs get Cease for the first half, O’s get him for the second half. GM’ing is easy.

I love how there’s a Nick Madrigal side discussion going on in this thread

Sure, but afford and willing to pay for are two different things. Based on everything you’ve told us about Elias, he’s 1) Very concerned and risk averse about not overpaying (which, yeah, tends to not get you very far when trying swing trades) and 2) Concerned with needing your OF prospects to fill holes when Hays/Santander are gone.

Chris Flexen has never been on the Royals, but if you divide his career strikeouts and career WAR by his jersey number you get the lat/long coordinates of Kauffman Stadium.

At that point might as well just send out a tweet of a baseball emoji

I really need a Jon Heyman tweet saying there's now a mystery team in on this mystery player.

I'm not exactly sure this is the positive attribute that you're making it out to be. Plus, I don't find it to be particularly true. I think Cease is definitely a better pitcher than he showed during the 2023 season, but let's not pretend he's some big game pitcher who always shines in the spotlight. He's barely even been in the spotlight.

At this rate it feels like we’re heading towards “Ok, once Brad Keller finally signs, the Cease talk will really start heating up.”

IMO the Dodgers should also acquire me. Just sayin.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but I'm hearing two different things. You say the playoffs are a crapshoot, which I take to mean just get there and you have just as good a chance as anyone to win it all. Then you point to the Rays lack of success because they haven't won a world series, even though they've made the crapshoot playoffs the past 5 seasons.

Sure, but it's just top-heavy on the hitting side. This feels way too much like banking on Montgomery and Ramos to reach their 99th percentile outcome or something. Not a whole lot behind them. This is not an endorsement to solely focus on hitting, though. They need everything. Focus on the players, not the positions. Ehh I get why you say this, but it's one of those things that can be spun any way you want. Texas and Arizona were middle of the pack for most team pitching stats in the regular season, while Tampa and Minnesota were near the top. Pitching wins in the playoffs until it doesn't.