Drink More Yakult

I feel bad for their wives/girlfriends. Hope Astros’ fans don’t beat them too much.

Does McHugh still have options?

That’s right. There’s probably pitchers we want over Price anyway. It’s still more likely they go in sell mode after the punishment comes down than before.

I expect us to acquire another pitcher but not until closer to the season. I have to imagine some of the conversations right now involve GMs saying: ”Sure Billy, let me stop my Arenado talks so you can tell me you aren’t trading Adell or Marsh for Gray” or “We’re waiting on the decision on if I’m going to be fired and we lose 4 draft picks for our cheating scandal. I’m getting calls for Mookie. You can talk to the new GM about Price.” The Kris Bryant grievance decision hasn’t even come out yet. That’s holding up some of the trade market. KB will have a higher demand than Arenado because he’ll be almost half the cost for the same amount of control. The only reason we’re hearing rumors of the Cardinals going after Arenado is the Cubs would never trade Kris Bryant there. Dodgers are probably in on Bryant but they’d also be interested in Lindor and Clevinger so the Bryant decision is holding up anything about Clevinger. If the Angels have asked about Clevinger, the Indians would probably want to wait for a superior Dodgers’ package. The Red Sox are waiting on their punishment which will give them an excuse to sell off a bunch of assets or even just clear payroll to get under the threshold. I think patience is the right move right now, there aren’t any acquirable pitchers that would make us clear contenders. The trade market still needs to settle out.

What’s the value of a win in free agency? $9 million or so. The Astros were fined half of a win.

Luckily for the Astros, Big Brain Brad is available.

How’s his elbow doing?

What does better mean? Does every team have a pitcher you would choose to pitch in a one game wild card over Shohei? https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ANA/ANA201804080.shtml

That’s kind of the point. The fact that I can even get close to an unobtainable goal with realistic inning targets for the pitchers we have is my argument against the doom and gloom about us having no pitching.

You couldn’t tell he was a fat, lazy fuck from looking at him?

Let’s say we get a quality start every game next year. That would be pretty optimistic. 6 innings a game for 162 games is 972 innings of 4.50 ERA. Bundy and Teheran have basically had a 4.50 combined ERA for 350 combined innings over the past 3 years. So now we’re looking for 620 innings. You’ve chalked up 200 to Barria, Suarez and Peters. Throw ‘em max effort you can get 66 innings of 4.5 out of them. Down to 420 innings and Ohtani, Heaney, Canning, and Sandoval. Can they get 105 innings averaged at 4.50 ERA between them?

Barria threw 130 innings in 2018 with 2.6 bWAR or 1.4 fWAR. Maybe he returns to that/improves with a pitching coach not telling him to only throw harder and spin the ball more. Then you’re looking for 70 innings and replacement level isn’t that bad

Replacement players are replacement level. Once you start replacing with above replacement level, that becomes the new replacement level. The definition of WAR puts those guys at 0 because 6th-8th starters are replacements.

If we get to the point of needing Pena before June, then we will have bigger problems. It’s getting to the point where we don’t really have roster spots to put guys. We could probably get one more guy and have a rotation of Ohtani, Heaney, Bundy, Teheran, Canning, FA/trade. But if you go 2 more pitchers, are you starting Canning in AAA? He’s the only one with options. He’s proven himself to be a MLB pitcher and should be getting MLB innings for his development. I think Sandoval has shown he should be in the rotation with his last 6 starts year but I think he should probably start in AAA and be first one up. Maybe we hold out Ohtani until mid May to keep his innings down in which case he would be most likely replacing someone that gets injured. Alex Wood is probably a good add because by the time he gets inevitably injured, we can plug Ohtani or Pena in for him. Apparently Wood is upset at the amount of guaranteed he’s being offered so he’s in no rush to sign a glorified minor league contract. If we play our depth right, given our injury history, we can just use the IL as our de facto AAA and shuttle pitchers between it and our rotation. I guess I agree with you that we could use 2 more pitchers but it’ll probably need to be guys that accept a minor league contract and the we can add them to our roster after we put some guys on the 60 day IL. Most of the FA right now are going to be holding out for a guaranteed contract, or at least the guys that are going to help us.

Also avoided arb with Noe Leaves Bundy, Goodwin, and Robles.

We gotta call up Marsh a year after Adell so when Adell hits free agency, he’ll have to leave his best bud if he signs somewhere else.

We still need 2-3 pitchers. IMO the rotation is worse than last year.

Only if he doesn’t block Will Wilson.

You trying to tell us something else isn’t straight besides the line mapping player WAR to value?

Invariable would be a line that has no slope. The definition of straight is has no curve. You are arguing against the dictionary.

If this is the Cardinals stocking up to make a move for Arenado, that could make the Rockies more amenable to selling off Gray. Not sure how that affects the price and market with other teams but you gotta think it gets them to start thinking about selling off other pieces.

Liberatore was selected one spot ahead of Jordyn Adams and seven spots after Kyler Murray.

That makes sense. Why spend $36 million on four 1war guys when you could spend $36 on two 2war guys and have two chances at someone providing value on a league minimum contract. The way to win is having young cost controlled guys play well.

Dilly Pickles is gonna break out this year!

And Shohei Ohtani and improvement from Canning and Sandoval. It’ll also probably help if someone doesn’t die mid-season.