Angelfaninidaho

So Cowart Kubitza don't even have trade value?

Cowart, Kubitza, Shoemaker, Tropeano, Skaggs, Bandy, Featherstone, Navarro, Gentry, Nava, Ortega.. all tradeable. One or two won't gut the team.

Bingo

Isn't Simmons dominant and cheap? The best shortstop in baseball for a long reasonable contract?

Exactly this.. And Escobar has an option for 2017, right? Furthermore, using all of Tdong87's defensive fangraph stats, the following players are as bad or worse than Gia.. Zobrist, Kendrick, Owens, Lawrie, Walker, Shoop, Cano. Pretty good company.

Yeah, of course there were 15 or 16 other 2B players that don't qualify so where was he compared to all the teams you aren't paying attention to?

I just don't hate him with the white hot passion you do. I think he had an illness that directly affected his f*cking eyesight, which is important for a major league baseball player. He won the position out of nowhere in Spring Training and was pretty clutch after being terrified that he may never play again. I watched almost every game, I've seen his stats, and if Cowart OR Kubitza really stood out at all and, frankly didn't f*cking suck just as much as Featherston, I wouldn't care that much. But you keep being you jackoff..

First off, I don't think we should pick one or the other at all. I think we have a legit 3rd baseman in Escobar and a semi-legit back up in Pennington. So I don't even think 3rd is a priority. But I understand that some people on this board will do anything to move Gia off 2nd base so this leaves room for Cowart and Kubitza to compete for a spot if Escobar moves. Now last year when Freese went down Kubitza started 9 games at 3rd, had 2 errors in 20 total chances and batted .194 with a .256 OBP. Cowart started 13 games and had 2 errors in 52 total chances and batted .174 with a .255 OBP. Small sample, yes, but Gia is simply not bad enough at defense and is good enough on offense that "hoping" one of those two becomes vastly better just to replace Gia seems unnecessary. Especially since Gia will be playing alongside Simmons and Escobar and has his "rookie" season under his belt. If they traded one of them for a high level 2nd base prospect and let that guy battle with Gia I would be fine, but improving average talent at 2nd for questionable (to date) talent at 3rd makes no sense to me.

So we are so done with Gia at 2nd that trying that again at 3rd, even with a legit major league 3rd baseman on the roster, is preferable? Serious question.

THIS^^^^^^^

And the coaching?

Despite the contradictory statements, SS, 3rd base and C are all better, SS defensively and the other two offensively. Simmons increases the "talent level" of the org for a few years. As far as the rest of organization, the coaching staff seems vastly improved. Hopefully Disarcina is better at 1st then 3rd. Hanson must be salivating for a legit LF'r but has been successful throughout his coaching career. The team and organization is just plain better so far.

I had no idea he was not yet 30! Seems like he's been on the M's forever. He has started over 30 games every year for 9 years in a row. Total workhorse, but that's a hell of a lot of pitching.

You think so? Aoki was a very nice pick up. Lind is really good, but Trumbo was right there last year. And Iannetta is the most micro of micro upgrades at C. Not sure they are vastly improved. Felix has to start aging soon as well.

We are a better team now by a pretty far margin, a LF big name star would be a complete game changer and make us a contender. An additional starter like Chen would put us over the top and make us a favorite. Just ****ing do it!!!

It's not a bad thing. But it has been stated ad nauseum that we should throw "Kubitza and Cowart" at 3rd and move Escobar to 2nd. Or not worry about replacing Freese so we can fix other positions by letting "Cowart and Kubitza" play 3rd. It's just strange to me to be so concerned with some positions but be completely willing to relinquish 3rd base to two prospects. Especially prospects that are apparently completely interchangeable and not inspiring enough to stand alone.

Glad you agree, he really ****ing sucked.

"Kubitza and Cowart"

The changes in coaching, especially at 3rd base, is good for one or two wins as well. And Escobar will be the second best offensive player on the team and improve their record by 3 wins. There's 5 right there. Simmons will give them 2 more with his defense. Perez and Soto, and the subtraction of Iannetta, will give them 3. They'll win more games against the Royals, the Dodgers, the Giants and the Blue Jays than last year and we crushed our division other than the Astros last year, which will be more difficult this year, so maybe a wash there. Heaney will be good and Santiago will settle down. I'll split the difference and say we are 5 games better and a 90 win team without a major injury. A top 3 LF gives us 93-95 wins and the West.

Using your metrics I found that Cano is a similar defensive player at 50x the money. It was just an observation.

OK. Thanks for forcing me to figure out UZR and DRS. Seriously, it was kind of interesting.. So essentially we have Gia who is 28 and makes $516,000 vs. a similar defensive 2nd baseman in Robinson Cano who is 34 and makes $24M. Sounds good to me.

Are errors still a defensive statistic?

More than replacing Iannetta and our FA 3rd baseman? That's just wrong. Gia was Ted Williams compared to Iannetta last year and Freese is a FA. They had to be replaced 2nd and 3rd. At least we agree on the LF disaster being top priority.

It's our second largest priority now... after we cleaned up the catcher position, replaced our FA 3rd basement, randomly added a better SS, and replaced an inept coaching staff. And LF is still a total disaster, which I assume you are alluding to. So really 2B was about 6th in order of importance. Which seems about right.

So our rookie 2B wasn't the best defensive player on the team and was one of the better offensively. Great. Our veteran catcher was the worst catcher in the MLB behind Seattle's and our veteran LF was a coke head a-hole who couldn't stay on the field. This guy doesn't deserve the BS he gets here.. "That's one of the more frustrating parts," Giavotella said. "I can't do anything to speed up the process. There's no toughening it out. I can't see. I'd like to think that I'm a fairly tough person and play through a lot of pain, but there's no going out there and toughing it through this kind of injury." Giavotella woke up two weeks ago seeing double and "went into full panic mode." He laid back down hoping it would go away, then rushed to the hospital when it didn't. The Angels placed Giavotella on the disabled list on Aug. 24 but didn't reveal specifics of his illness, largely because of health-information privacy laws but also because doctors were still trying to figure out what was wrong.