Balta1701

Rick Hahn after reading this post:

I don’t know what this season will look like for him on health or performance but I do think this raises the chance that they listen if they get a serious bidder. Ditto next offseason.

Like you said it will all depend on whether someone blows them away, but you also can’t talk about building a good football Team and ignore the QB and cap hit/rookie contract topics.

2.21 ERA and 1.117 WHIP in a little more than half a season out of the bullpen in ‘22, ERA of 6 as a starter last year. Guessing he was out of options.

I'm saying this repeatedly right now because I expect the opposite to happen. And yeah, the opposite happened with Fox, the opposite happened with Nagy, so the Bears have a pattern here of "not firing the coach, drafting a QB, then firing the coach first year".

The other side of this is that having access to Williams potentially sets you up for a big career boost if he has a good first year. Bobby Slowik of the Texans may well wind up a head coach this year thanks to CJ Stroud after 1 year as an OC.

Throw in Bijan and Kyle Pitts and maybe we can talk?

As I said yesterday, if they're doing this and they draft a QB, they must commit to the same staff in 2025 barring their OC trying to overthrow the US government or something like that. They cannot fire their OC or HC just because the team or the QB struggles in 2024. Make that decision today, right now. Like add a poison pill into their contracts or something like that, their salary is $1 million in 2025 but it costs the team $10 million to fire them.

My "Rick Hahn" reaction is that the Yankees have 1 super reliable guy, one innings eater, then 3 questionable up and down guys with limited or inconsistent histories, and not a lot of depth behind them, but it's super hard to add anyone else to the rotation because no one is currently hurt and there's no obvious person to say "you're in the bullpen/minors" if everyone comes in healthy. So, they sign Stroman, but they can't trade for Cease or sign Snell because they don't have a slot open for him, but there's no obvious backup plan for if and when Rodon gets hurt or whatever else. This was the Hahn in 2022 setup - "you can't sign another pitcher because you can't bench anyone so we're going to sign the dregs and put them in the bullpen", and then Lynn, Kopech, and Giolito are hurt early leaving their rotation for a week as Cease, Martin, Velasquez, "please let Cueto get here soon", and Mr. Offday.

If the Yankees do sign Stroman, am I right that their rotation sets up as: Cole Stroman Rodon Nestor Cortes Clarke Schmidt (no really, THE Clarke Schmidt). Seems like a pretty "Rick Hahn" rotation to me?

of this year? Naw, in a perfect world Quero is hitting well in the minor leagues on 9/1. Don't rush him up to the big leagues.

The more negative version of this could be that Getz doesn’t care about prospects and really likes his veterans so he doesn’t mind burying and losing guys, especially if his coach doesn’t like a guy.

In both 22 and 23 Cease had an OPS about 100 points higher against lefties. However the details are rather interesting. In 22, most oF the difference was in OBP, neither side hit him well but lefties got on base more. He had a lower K/BB ratio against lefties by a lot, over 60% of his walks Went to lefties. In 23, the OBP is similar for both hands but there is a big difference in slugging, Cease actually had a higher K/BB against lefties but he gave up a ton if home runs to lefties, over 60% of the home runs he gave up were to lefties. So, 2023 Cease would likely have a big problem with that short porch. 2022 Cease might walk some lefties but that’s a guy who is still good In the Bronx. As usual, the question for the acquiring team is which cease they will get.

The only thing more white Sox stupid than starting him in the rotation with no restrictions would be sending him to the bullpen and burying him there. They already did the dumbest one so I will expect him throwing 90 pitches in April in Chicago until proven otherwise. I will give them credit if I’m wrong.

Naw. No one ever demands accuracy from these sorts of links, there are never consequences if they're wrong. The closest you'd get is Morosi saying "oops sorry Ohtani isn't on his way to Toronto", and he went right back to his reporting of leaks without ever burning his source, and with people continuing stating things he says are rumors about other moves. They're getting eyeballs and clicks, and it's the role the GMs want them playing.

Because the White Sox have been telling Rosenthal "We will get a strong package for Dylan Cease" since November?

Not with the moves they've made, no. Pretty much every "leak" and "Insider report" makes sense if the White Sox have spent the offseason trying to pump up the market for Cease using deliberate messages to anyone who will listen. Over and over it's been how much demand there is for him, how high his price is, but how they totally expect him to move, how they're talking to team after team. For right or wrong, they believe that doing this in public will help them strengthen the offer that they receive for him.

I will bet you that in August we are angry because of how often Dejong is playing while Montgomery is sitting.

Maldonado, Dejong, Lopez, and RF_x are going to be in their everyday lineup most of the year. If anything, they've actually downgraded on power and OBP this year from the worst OBP team in baseball last year. There's just no way they are a top 10 offense set up like this, 99th percentile or not. Who is actually going to score runs?

What are the odds that he stays fully healthy as a reliever and gives them 60 outings this year to build some trade value as a reliever? If the chances of him getting hurt while trying to stretch out as a starter are 33%, and the chances of him getting hurt as a reliever are 25%, just to put example numbers on it - having success as a starter would make him way more valuable in a trade next year than if he was a reliever only. So maybe you raise the chances of injury a little bit, but you create a potential strong reward, and Crochet is totally cool with it since a successful starter might make $100 million+ and a successful reliever might make $20 million. And, if he does get hurt again as a starter, you still have 2 more years where you can move him back to the bullpen if it doesn't work. This is just a smart risk. It should have been the goal last year, to start stretching him out, but Rick Hahn was terrible.

Who cares if they don't turn out well? If most are a fiasco, it's fine, we clear out Moncada's and Eloy's contracts, no long term commitments, and there's space for Montgomery to step in next year. At least that's a starting point where we haven't made things worse. If one or two guys turn out decent, then hopefully we've manufactured a guy or two who can be traded at the deadline, that's literally all that really matters here. For Crochet, decent chance they've screwed him up so much that it won't matter either way, but if he's off to a good start as a starter in 2025 that could have some real trade value. So, try to get him over 100 innings this year, see how he does, there's not a big loss if he doesn't work out like this. Since 2024 is a lost year anyway, if he puts up an ERA of 6 in his last 30 innings, who cares as long as he doesn't get hurt?

that's the job of the other Royal they just signed.

This is 100% the right idea. He's already arb-eligible, so only 3 years of control remaining. The best you're going to get from him if you don't try this is a reliever for a couple years. If he hurts himself doing this - oh darn you lost the trade return for an oft-injured reliever in 2025? Not a big loss.

Paul DeJong was a -0.5 rWAR SS last year and 0.3 fWAR. That's not convincing that he'd be positive next year.