Warfarin

I mean, maybe? But they could at least name some names of guys they are interested in. It likely isn't too hard to fake genuine interest. The Dodgers have an army of prospects and are a concern to all contending teams. Why not pretend you are truly interested, then take whatever they are offering on 8/1 to other teams and say "this is the offer you need to beat?" But all that said, yeah, I would ultimately choose to not trade with the Dodgers or Rays. Those teams know which prospects to trade and which ones not to. I just wish it wasn't being essentially announced publicly so early.

I fully agree with this. Managers do have an impact, but it is a much smaller impact in this era of time when a lot of the decisions are made in the FO, not on the field. As I mentioned in other threads, I do think that it is rather difficult for GMs to oversee quick, immediate change. The only way to really see that happen would be for a GM to inherit a team in the middle of a teardown already, and then accelerate it. Anthopoulus gets a lot of credit in ATL, but that team was already several years into rebuilding when he took over. I think Minasian is on the right track to the extent that someone in his shoes could be. He is working for an owner who refuses to rebuild and conduct a fire sale, which means that the GM has to keep adding. He inherited a rather weak farm system and a team that had multiple albatross-type contracts on the payroll, as well as a lot of money committed to a star who was actually performing (albeit hurt a fair amount). When you take all those factors together, inevitably it would be hard for any GM to truly turn around a franchise quickly. Minasian has made some rather solid moves, such as signing Estevez, trading Syndergaard for Moniak, flipping Marsh for O'Hoppe, and so on. I think he (or rather the guys he has hired) drafted rather well in 2022, and we'll see how 2023 looks. Unfortunately, it is "too late" in terms of retaining Ohtani, but that does not mean all is lost. He can likely get some very solid prospects who can make an immediate impact in trading Ohtani, and he can spread the money savings around in the offseason to help fuel depth in the same way that he did this last offseason. Hiring a new manager will help, although I don't think it'll make that much of a difference in the end.

This is my greatest concern, and to be honest, I was a little concerned that this team would mount a half-hearted run leading up to the trade deadline, convince Moreno to "go for it," then flame out and lose Ohtani for nothing but a compensation pick. Unless the FO knows Ohtani is staying, which seems rather unlikely, they really need to get Arte to agree to trade him. Arte reportedly doesn't want to be the owner who trades Ohtani, but it would be an even worse look to be the owner who let Ohtani go for nothing.

The Angels people should at least pretend they are interested. Even if there was never any intent to trade him there, just involve them in negotiations and use whatever they offer as leverage to improve what you get from other teams. No negotiating team should ever tell another team they have no intention to trade a player to them.

It is dumb for Moreno to basically outright say that. It's fine if he has no intent to do it, but why not just at least pretend to involve them? Especially if the Giants become involved .. you would see how pretending to involve the Dodgers could potentially lead to a better return.

no surprise, but can rule out the Dodgers

The general theme I see is once a pitcher who has no options begins to pitch poorly, they are suddenly "injured." After being lit up multiple times, Suarez was "injured," and now Devenski is "injured" ..

I get the idea of pitching Estevez in the 8th against Houston's best hitters, and that part I think was fine. However, the strategy only makes sense if you have someone to pitch the 9th who has at least some experience pitching in high-leverage situations. Before Barria was deployed to the rotation, he was basically used exclusively as a mop-up reliever who only came in to pitch in games that were effectively over. While pitching Loup in the 9th would have been poorly received, at least he has some more recent experience pitching in late/close games than Barria has.

The Rays have never won the World Series. They have been to it twice, but they have not won it.

Right - it is not the fault of just one person, but rather multiple people. Anderson does deserve blame for once again pitching poorly, and Minasian deserves some blame for signing a pitcher who has been mediocre at best for most of his career until he had one great year with the Dodgers.

Maddon won 2 - once in 2002 (as a bench coach), and then in 2016 as manager of the Cubs. Maddon gets a lot of credit, but as has been referenced, he also has had the good fortune of managing for probably two of the greatest GMs in baseball history (Friedman, Epstein).

I laughed when I read this, but you know, maybe.. ?? (Not seriously, though) .. that said, the only way Ohtani is traded is if the teams plays poorly the 2+ weeks post ASB, and so far, we are on that path.

They did draft some middle infielders, just later in the draft. I'm sure there are various factors at play, but this organization does need position players with advanced hit tools/offensive abilities more than it needs high ceiling type MI'ers at the moment. Neto appears to have SS locked down for the foreseeable future, O'Hoppe (and maybe Quero?) will probably have C locked down, and we have Trout to man CF for the next few years (and maybe Rada thereafter, but there's time to figure out Trout's CF successor). What this organization does need is corner IF/OF who can hit. It also needs LHH. Enter Schanuel, who seems like as close to a certainty as a draft pick can be in terms of a hitter who will likely reach the majors based on their offense. Rios doesn't really have a defensive home, but his offense is his carrying tool. I don't know much about Redfield, but my understanding is his hit tool is also fairly advanced. I saw the 2021 draft as the "we need pitchers" draft, and I see the 2023 draft as "we need hitters" draft.

I think the recent era of player development has shown that one of the harder skills to teach is strong plate discipline. Adell was and continues to be freakishly athletic, but if you struggle to make contact and/or correctly identify your pitch, that significantly hampers a lot of the impact that your athleticism could potentially have. I think in general, it seems to be a better idea to draft players who have a very good eye, and then look to develop other aspects of their game. Schanuel's ceiling may not be as high as various others, but he seems to be a really good hitter who has fantastic plate discipline. This organization needs good hitters, and it seems that our high draft picks reflected this emphasis.

It was an interesting draft. They seemingly prioritize players who could hit, regardless of position, out of the gates. Then thereafter, they mainly shifted towards pitchers and SSs, with a few of the reports notable bonuses being for the SSs (and even the non-drafted SS).

Sounds about right I saw Jared Tims posted something on BTV - Would swap out Stone for Busch, but something like this would seem about right - likely mid-rotation SP (Nastrini), MOTO LHH (Busch), possible replacement for Renfroe (Ramos), and a possible decent LHH 2B. Something like this would seem to be about right, in terms of expected return.

The whole process this offseason was rather unfortunate. It basically seemed like Minasian carried over the vast majority of the staff because the team was in limbo due to the possible sale. Otherwise, it's possible (probable?) that he would have hired someone else to a multi-year deal, and we would have seen a different coaching staff this year.

Perhaps the Angels can get the Giants and Dodgers to both bid - that would, seemingly, be a solid way to try to ramp up the return, given they are arch-rivals and will probably be the two most likely destinations for Ohtani this offseason.

I think it has taken the Orioles so long to get to this point that they'd probably be reluctant to part with a number of prospects for a 2-month rental, even if it is Ohtani. I think the Orioles will focus on adding someone that can go with their core and will be controllable. They'd be a fantastic trade partner, but I just don't see it. JMO, but I agree with the idea that the most likely teams to give up significant prospect capital for Ohtani are likely the west coast teams (and Yankees), as they seemingly have the best shot at retaining Ohtani beyond this year. @Second Base, I agree with you that Arte would never trade Ohtani to the Dodgers, even if he got an amazing offer, strictly based on the principle that it's the Dodgers. That's unfortunate, because they're one of the most prospect-laden teams and have a lot of near-MLB ready pieces that we could seemingly play immediately. I'll go ahead and guess that if Arte does trade Ohtani, it will be to the Giants. West coast team with a good amount of prospects, in the middle of a playoff hunt, and will have tons of money to spend after missing out on several high-priced players this offseason. So who on the Giants would we want to acquire?

I think a common thing amongst various fan bases is that most want to trade their underperforming players for good prospects and want to keep their good performers. Obviously, that is not the way it works. Acquiring teams want to acquire your good performing players, not the struggling ones. Last year, a lot of people were viewing Ward as a cornerstone, given his breakout performance. Fast-forward a year later, and as he has struggled most of this year, a number of fans are now proposing he be traded and that Moniak is now a cornerstone. In reality, GM's careers are made (and lost) by these very same decisions. They have to assess - is this player who is performing well going to continue to do so? Or should we trade him before he turns into a pumpkin? Same thing with prospects - some play great in the minors, then struggle and flame out in the majors, whereas others perform somewhat modestly, get promoted, and then set the world on fire. In our particular situation, if we are indeed going to move towards rebuilding, it would make sense to trade Estevez. He has been great, but he is only here through next year and you can likely get some pretty useful players, given how well he has performed, and likely fit our contention window better.

While this is true, if he continues to mash against RHP as he has, teams will probably get ready to deploy their LHRP in key points in the game if he is due up, so he will more likely start to see more LHP than the average player, since it would be easy to neutralize him. If this season heads the direction of becoming lost, I would probably just give him as many reps against LHP as possible, to see if they can help him become a bit more competent against LHP.

Signing a bunch of stars to large contracts rarely seems to work out well, unless it is being done in conjunction with a really strong farm system that is also pumping out MLB ready talent. The Mets only need to look to their own history to know this, and they have a nifty book that they can even reference: History is indeed repeating itself. Eppler was given the money to pursue Cole while he was here, didn't get him, and immediately pivoted to Rendon so he could use Arte's money and sign a star. Minasian, OTOH, was smart enough to tell Arte he needed far more than just Trea Turner, and spread the money around instead of spending it all on one guy. That is the difference between a good GM and a poor one, IMO. But to be fair, maybe Eppler did tell Arte that and he "forced" him to sign Rendon? No idea.

I think Eppler is probably pretty bad at his job. I believe he generally was well-received here for awhile because he was #NotDipoto, but look at the train wreck in New York right now. By far the biggest payroll this sport has ever seen, and they are massively underperforming. He signed just about every big name he could, and it has not panned out. Personally, I think Perry has had to rebuild most of this organization from the ground up. This is not to say everything Eppler did was bad, as we have some solid performing players from his era, but I think overall, he was probably not particularly good at his job. Perry has us heading in the right direction. Likely not in enough time to retain Ohtani, but that is more the fault of his predecessors and ownership than a reflection of him.

Minasian came over after the 2020 season. It takes time for a new regime to hire their people and fill out the FO, and in turn then start to hire people to oversee the draft and development process. After filling out their team, it then takes time to draft/acquire the players they want and, over multiple years, develop them in the minors. Some FOs can accelerate this process by having their owner permit a rebuild. Minasian was not granted that ability for the most part, so he has had to gradually build. There are some good signs in terms of the development of talent, but while no one really wants to hear it, it just takes time for the whole process to unfold. 2021 was the first draft that he had, which was just 2 years ago. The key question is, is the overall talent and health of the organization trending in a positive direction, or a negative direction? JMO, but I think overall, the talent is trending positively.

I would probably poke around and see if we could get something for some of our younger talent that has been up for a few years but still has team control. Someone like Canning, perhaps, could fetch a few interesting prospects. Canning will have 2 years left after this year I believe. I wouldn't be that motivated to trade him, but if we do trade Ohtani and signal a shift in philosophy (i.e. contend in 1-2 years instead of now), could be worth seeing what we could get for him and others like him.