Warfarin

Given they are going for it, might as well see if you can get Hader from the Padres.

No comp pick for a player traded mid-season.

Not a fan of this. Losing Ky Bush is okay, but Quero really hurts. Only way it makes sense to me is if they felt Quero wasn’t going to stick as a catcher. Otherwise, that’s a huge overpay for rental players when you are a fringe contender, which we are.

The timing of this is odd, as it would seemingly have made sense to wait to see how the Blue Jays series goes as that's essentially a playoff series for us. I do hope this means Arte is prepared to offer Ohtani literally whatever he wants as a free agent, though, and that we keep him in the fold for the rest of his career. Even if we don't make the playoffs, but that this in turn leads to us retaining Ohtani, that would obviously be a great outcome.

Rosario for Syndergaard seems like a "we are tired of this guy, so please just take him and we'll take the guy you're tired of off your hands" kind of deal. Both players have been poor and likely don't have much upside, but the Dodgers are great at maximizing hitting talent (see Pujols' "rebirth" with them) and the Guardians are great at maximizing pitching talent, so maybe both teams figure oh, what the hell, why not?

Yeah, I think this is probably why. Although it is also possible that this will be for just a few weeks, much like Neto's stay in hi-A was a few weeks, then get promoted. While Neto started at hi-A, it does seem most of the hitters that the team is more bullish on bypass hi-A and go straight to AA, probably due to the poor hitting environment you referenced.

Can we entirely blame Arte, though? Minasian alluded to a similar scenario this most recent offseason, where Arte wanted to go sign Trea Turner, feeling he was the "missing piece." Perry knew better and told Arte (allegedly) that the team needed a lot more than just Turner, and it was best to spread it around instead of consolidating it into one overpriced player. Maybe Eppler had the same scenario, and he just didn't have enough sense (or courage?) to tell Arte the team needed more than just one star player. What is more telling, though, is to see what has happened with the Mets, how Eppler has approached their finances, and the resulting team record they have now. Again, I just don't think Eppler is very good at his job, and I think Perry is significantly better. Perry's pedigree is from really strong draft-and-develop organizations, as well as organizations who used free agency to largely find value (as opposed to signing the biggest star possible). I think he is way better than Eppler.

Moniak can't really keep up this level of production, as teams will adjust and so on, but he's even getting some hits off LHP now, which is a promising sign. If the FO / player devo department actually "fixed" Moniak and is helping him reach his #1 overall draft pick status, then we absolutely have a good future with the group in charge. Agreed with Sanchez. After a very slow April, he has been crushing it ever since. I would assume he will get promoted soon, maybe even to AA, given it seems a lot of the higher promise picks bypass hi-A and are sent directly to AA (perhaps due to the disparity in hitting environments?).

Both Quero and Flint were challenged significantly by the FO with their aggressive promotions. Quero started off well, then struggled for awhile, but is improving of late. Flint had a really rough start, but his July has been rather good. Numbers aside, though, I think how the FO handles certain players in terms of promotions says more than their numbers do. Flint isn't really on the radar, but just seeing him get fast-tracked suggests the FO thinks highly of his future. Same with Mederos too, despite the rough start he had.

A lot of it will come down to the weekend in Toronto. We have lost the tie-breaker to the Astros and are likely not going to catch them. We have the tie-breaker against BOTH the Red Sox and Yankees, and we are close to them in the standings. The key will be that Blue Jays series. We are 4 games behind them in the loss column now. We are 1-2 against them this year. IF we sweep them, then we are 100% in this race and can catch them. IF they sweep us, then we are basically out of contention. At the minimum though, we need to go 2-1. I believe if we do, the tiebreaker is intradivisional games, and the Blue Jays are 7-20 against AL East teams (we are 16-14 against AL West teams). A lot of games left with that tiebreaker, but obviously we are in a much more solid position than they are on that front.

Ahh okay, so .. "reassigned"

Trout aside, Drury is the one I think we really need to get back soon. Adding Drury to the lineup as is could really make a significant impact and add more flexibility to the lineup as well. I'm assuming O'Hoppe will be out awhile and it may be a struggle to return to form. That is a significant injury he had, and I think for most players, even after they come back, it takes a bit of time to regain strength/power in that shoulder and return to form.

This is true, but invariably, I think every team has things like this happen. When we were facing the Astros, I noticed that both Alvarez and Altuve weren't playing, so I looked them up to see what happened and it seems like Alvarez has been out half the year and Altuve almost 2/3 of the year. Every team has to cope with injuries, which is why it's so important that we can draft and develop well, as it is those teams that do that can plug the gap as their starters work their way back from injury.

As @Duren, Duren mentioned above you, Ohtani has a strong desire to be the best player in MLB history. So I am assuming part of his calculus will be, which organization can help him further advance his skills the most, so he can be remembered as the best player who ever played the game? I am guessing that might take precedence even over winning a title, although I am sure he would never publicly state that. So in his eyes, which organization is best equipped to provide him with the resources to be the best player he can be, while also providing him with a strong shot of winning a title? I do not think that is the Mariners, Yankees, etc. I think the only two teams who will compete with us are the Dodgers and Giants (assuming he prefers the west coast), but I think the Dodgers are probably the favorites, simply due to their track record with maximizing player production while also being in the race year in and year out. If the Dodgers for some reason feel he does not fit their budgetary vision, though, then I think he stays here.

Moniak's development is a promising sign for our organization in terms of player development. He languished with the Phillies for years and looked like a failed pick. I don't know what changes this organization helped him make, but it has made a huge difference. His performance is not sustainable (evidenced by his BABIP), but I think he can be a rather good (significant) role player. Also, the improvements the organization helped Silseth make with his repertoire and pitch utilization is notable as well too. There are a lot of good signs with the direction this organization is heading in.

In terms of name to toss out, I think a guy to consider would be Hader. Our bullpen has been our weak spot of late, and understandably so - a lot of these guys were promoted directly from AA (Soriano, Bachman, Joyce) and/or have been journeymen previously (Webb, Moore). I think the bullpen could really use another shutdown reliever, and Hader would most definitely be that. Hader and Estevez would occupy the 8th/9th innings, and whoever is pitching best of the rest can cover the 6th/7th innings. I think the Padres are likely to sell, but they will almost assuredly only sell players who are due to be FAs, as I am sure they will want to ramp up for another run next season. So that means guys like Soto, etc will stay put, but that guys like Snell and Hader could be dealt. Hader will cost a bit, but likely not a ton - relievers with 2 months of control don't command THAT much in a trade, even if they are really good. That said, while this was a great series against the Yankees, there is a lot more work to be done. To really have a shot, they need to sweep the series this month against the Blue Jays (and hence, secure the tiebreaker against them, given they have lost the tiebreaker to the Astros). If they finish this month strong, along with sweeping the Blue Jays, then they are right in the thick of the WC race.

Personally, I don't think Rendon is particularly necessary at this current juncture. He is slightly above replacement level. He has had a 700 OPS for 3 years now when healthy. His defense has declined. I am okay with a rotation of Moose, Rengifo, and Escobar at 3B, with Moose and Cabbage (and probably Drury once he returns) occupying 1B. Rendon does not add much to this team in his current form.

Yeah. The loss of Neto hurt quite a bit, which is rather funny how invaluable he has become so quickly. And that is basically a reflection of how poor our SS options are overall. Velazquez, Fletcher, Soto .. these are all just temporary stopgaps that you use to bide time until your best option comes back. On a deeper team, those options would be adequate, but not on this team. The development of Thaiss and Wallach has been a rather surprising turn of events, and another reason perhaps to be a bit bullish on this FO on the whole. There are a number of players who have seemingly improved a bit, both in the majors and in the minors, under the current FO's purview.

I am not sure how typical it is. I think typically, when a new GM comes in, the top people in the FO change along with the GM, but I am not sure about the entire FO. I have read that other organizations tend to quietly sweep out those guys over a course of a year, so it's possible that Minasian permitted Swanson to oversee the process (since it was about halfway as you said), and then decided to move on with a different vision thereafter. It'll be interesting to see how those drafts compare to one another over the upcoming years.

You bring up a fair point, but I'd say even the best of teams tend to see varying production from players. Even with Ohtani, there are some years that he is better than others. I think the key thing, though, is to have enough depth such that you have more options to promote for guys who are struggling, underperforming, etc. Minasian built a deeper team than last year, but we did see what happened once injuries started to mount - we started lacking MLB quality options and had to trade for guys (Moose, Escobar) to fill the gaps we had. Ideally, if we had a deep team, we could promote guys and cycle through players as needed to help fill those gaps. Eppler did not draft and develop well, which was one of his downfalls. I think Minasian, so far, has done a better job of that, and he has also had the discipline to avoid doling out a mega contract (such as Rendon's).

I think a lot of times we look at a draft and think of that as belong to the GM who was working at the time, but I think a fair question would be to what degree can we assign the success and failure of that draft to the scouting director at charge at the time? Notably, when Minasian took over, Swanson was the scouting director. He was permitted to oversee one draft (2021) in which we drafted Bachman, Bush, etc. He was let go after that season and replaced by McIlvaine, who has overseen the last 2 drafts. While you would like a GM to immediately take over, sweep out the previous regime and replace them with "his guys," it seems some GMs take time in evaluating the staff they already have, then make changes after a year or so and bring in "their guys." It'll be interesting to see how the 2021 draft compares to the 2022 and 2023 drafts over time.

Considering that Rendon's OPS has been around 700 for the last 3 years .. I was hoping his defense would provide some value, as his offense hasn't really been there for years now. He seems like a sunk cost at this point, though.

Right. Good CF defense and great speed gives you a floor of a 4th OF. I think he would be a somewhat better version of Phillips in that he can hit a bit more, but probably not that much more. He is likely someone who you keep up to serve in that 4th OF capacity, mainly coming in as a defensive replacement, pinch runner, and getting a spot start here and there. However, if someone gets injured, he is likely not a guy you start regularly, but rather you call someone else up while having Adams stay in that 4th OF role.

Yes, this. I think if we were looking to add talent, it would probably be something akin to that deal, where we trade good young talent for other good young talent. But to that end, quite frankly, I am not sure who we would be looking at, as absolutely nobody had a Marsh for O'Hoppe deal on their radar. The question moreso is, what areas would we look to improve? We (hopefully) have both our SS and C of the future already entrenched. We could always use more pitching (who doesn't). Maybe some corner IF/OF?

I'm no scout and don't have much basis for this comment, but I seem to recall he didn't play too much prior to being drafted and was drafted as a supremely raw talent. While it's possible (probable?) he could be done developing, I would think that perhaps there's a bit more progress that can be made with more reps. Obviously there's the lost COVID year, as well as time he has missed with injuries, and so on. I think he could perhaps have value as the weak side of a platoon with Moniak, as you guys have mentioned, and he'd probably be better in that role than Adell. Adams can occasionally spot start in CF for Trout and give him a day off, and provide great defense while doing so.