The Offense

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, floplag said:

Im not talking about this week, im talking about the last couple years and basically since Epp took over.  He came in with a very clear plan, to build up the farm above all else which is fine and necessary for a consistent winning franchise, im not now nor have i ever condemned that idea.   

However, as you say, the big club has been a placebo, This is find disappointing.  I for one am not particularly pleased with that even though i see the long term vision, one doesnt exclude the other.  

I agree with the premise of one not excluding the other.  I also see that signing guys to multi year deals just because they are the best available isn’t really a good way of doing business and you are seeing baseball agree with that premise as well.  So when other teams sign this off season’s shiny objects to multi year deals it has hurt more than it has helped those teams.  For every guy who has performed there are 3 that haven’t.  Should they have signed Moustakas last year, probably, but they offered him 6.5 times the money he eventually got and he turned it down.  I would have liked them to sign Moustakas again this off season, but they didn’t.  I assumed that meant they were going with Ward and putting Cozart at 2nd, but once again that didn’t happen.  I firmly believe that Harvey and Cahill will perform to their contracts over the life of their contracts much better than Happ, Eovaldi or even Corbin.  Now wasn’t the time to take risks with longer term deals, on guys like Happ or Eovaldi, nor was it prudent to give a guy like Corbin 6-7 years (and lose a pick).  When you have to fill every major league hole with free agency you are basically screwed and it is such a crap shoot to pick the right ones on budget.  Eppler has failed to do that with the offense.  

[Angel Oracle]

Eppler's almost total inability to find decent enough one year position players is astonishing, given his success with finding pitching.

Or is it that hitting is naturally tougher in which to find one year stop gaps?  

[floplag]

24 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I agree with the premise of one not excluding the other.  I also see that signing guys to multi year deals just because they are the best available isn’t really a good way of doing business and you are seeing baseball agree with that premise as well.  So when other teams sign this off season’s shiny objects to multi year deals it has hurt more than it has helped those teams.  For every guy who has performed there are 3 that haven’t.  Should they have signed Moustakas last year, probably, but they offered him 6.5 times the money he eventually got and he turned it down.  I would have liked them to sign Moustakas again this off season, but they didn’t.  I assumed that meant they were going with Ward and putting Cozart at 2nd, but once again that didn’t happen.  I firmly believe that Harvey and Cahill will perform to their contracts over the life of their contracts much better than Happ, Eovaldi or even Corbin.  Now wasn’t the time to take risks with longer term deals, on guys like Happ or Eovaldi, nor was it prudent to give a guy like Corbin 6-7 years (and lose a pick).  When you have to fill every major league hole with free agency you are basically screwed and it is such a crap shoot to pick the right ones on budget.  Eppler has failed to do that with the offense.  

If you recall most of my targets were places we do not have significant farm depth in the near future thus limiting the risk or blockage etc... but otherwise you are correct.

The one area we have always disagreed is priority.  You and many others put pitching a  far distant priority over anything else, specifically starting pitching.  I see the game differently thats all. 

With so called bullpen games and designated starters from the bullpen to me i see SP as having less value that it maybe once did due to the fact that there are far fewer truly dominant starters in the game today.  I believe that a good lineup top to bottom with a strong bullpen can win as many of not more games than putting all your eggs into SP as noone can really afford both anymore.  I think if we had gotten some better offensive parts, we could get away with the Cahills and Harveys of the world and do so on a far lower budget than allocating 25-30M on guys that play every 5 days. 

Its just my opinion, but i think they ways analytics are taking things that SP value will drop in coming years with the exceptions of the truly elite. 

[Angel Oracle]

Flop, that does make me rethink the Gerrit Cole situation.    If he has another big season in 2019, the offers are liable to go as high as $25-$30 million/season. 

[floplag]

2 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Flop, that does make me rethink the Gerrit Cole situation.    If he has another big season in 2019, the offers are liable to go as high as $25-$30 million/season. 

He probably will, no question, easily 20-25ish
I've felt this was for some years now, that SP are in my view largely overrated, save for the true elite and there are very few guys i put on that list and almost none of them are worth signing as free agents.  The only way it makes sense is to develop them or develop everything else around them to the point where it is your only investment. 
 

[Angel Oracle]

It might help to have mainly your own developed pitchers on the staff, and then re-sign the best of them based on age, recent health, previous use, recent success, etc.   There are rare exceptions to this of course, like with Nolan Ryan after 1979.   He had a ton of innings from 1972-1979, and still pitched solidly for another 14 seasons.

There seems to be so much to know about a pitcher, that it's best to focus on developing your own and get very familiar with how their bodies/arms hold up?

How many big name FA pitchers since 1977 have truly succeeded with their new team?    Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson of course immediately come to mind, and of course the roider Roger Clemens.   There aren't many of them though, many fewer than with position players, it seems?  

[eligrba]

The offense appears to be an opportunity for growth.

[tdawg87]

9 minutes ago, eligrba said:

The offense appears to be an opportunity for growth.

The offense could definitely see some improvement IMHO

[floplag]

16 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

It might help to have mainly your own developed pitchers on the staff, and then re-sign the best of them based on age, recent health, previous use, recent success, etc.   There are rare exceptions to this of course, like with Nolan Ryan after 1979.   He had a ton of innings from 1972-1979, and still pitched solidly for another 14 seasons.

There seems to be so much to know about a pitcher, that it's best to focus on developing your own and get very familiar with how their bodies/arms hold up?

How many big name FA pitchers since 1977 have truly succeeded with their new team?    Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson of course immediately come to mind, and of course the roider Roger Clemens.   There aren't many of them though, many fewer than with position players, it seems?  

Yep, there is a lot of merit to that.  I would agree with that conclusion.
The thing is i don't see a one size fits all approach.  You play to your strengths and whats available, but in general all things being equal i would prefer to go about it a little different than the typical norms.  The game is changing, i think the norms are going to need to change with it.

[Inside Pitch]

43 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

It might help to have mainly your own developed pitchers on the staff, and then re-sign the best of them based on age, recent health, previous use, recent success, etc.   There are rare exceptions to this of course, like with Nolan Ryan after 1979.   He had a ton of innings from 1972-1979, and still pitched solidly for another 14 seasons.

There seems to be so much to know about a pitcher, that it's best to focus on developing your own and get very familiar with how their bodies/arms hold up?

How many big name FA pitchers since 1977 have truly succeeded with their new team?    Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson of course immediately come to mind, and of course the roider Roger Clemens.   There aren't many of them though, many fewer than with position players, it seems?  

Oakland, Tampa Bay, St Louis to an extent -- all are solid examples of teams that have focused on developing their own pitching and in TB and Oakland's case -- using it as currency to extend their windows.   FA is expensive, FA pitching tends to be even more expensive and had a ton more risk involved.   Of course the problem here was Eppler took over a franchise that had absolutely nothing in the pipeline forcing him to simultaneously try to restock everything.   To his credit, he did well picking up pitchers off the discard pile.   Canning, Suarez and the guys at Inland Empire this year are going to be a big part of hopefully filling those needs sooner, rather than later.

[fan_since79]

I've got the answer!

Slump buster.

 

[yk9001]

[Tank]

20 hours ago, fan_since79 said:

I've got the answer!

Slump buster.

 

mark grace's slump buster solution sounded like a lot more fun...