Reveille1984

Pujols last 40 games: .220/.276/.375, 12 XBH.

He is definitely the J.B. Schuck of the infield. Mediocre power, mediocre hit tool, terrible defensively, doesn't walk and he's not even that fast. I guess he is establishing himself as another replaceable fill-in until we can find something better, which is pretty much 2/3 of our offense.

Its not really a curse when you're bringing over shitty, washed up veteran players. I don't think anyone believed that DeJesus, Victorino and Murphy were going to push this team into World Series contention. They mainly just give Scioscia options for his obsessive "platoon over everything" strategy, and everyone knows we don't have the farm system to make any big moves anyways. We really need to just suck it up and rebuild for a few years, although with this front office I don't see that happening. Our system has some decent talent at the lowest levels, but our big league club got old fast and we have basically zero position players even close to making a real impact. Giovatella is about as replaceable as a guy gets, 3B and LF are a black hole, Aybar is turning 32 and slowly declining, Pujols is a nightmare contract, etc. Trout, Albert, and our pitching depth have basically single-handedly kept us in the race in a weak division so far and its no coincidence that when they slump our team falls apart. I love the team and always will, but this has to be one of the most boring, slow, unexciting clubs in baseball right now.

Iannetta sure is fun to watch this year.

Yeah, there's a certain point where velocity DOES matter despite how immaculate your deception and command are. It's one thing to drop from 95 to 90 and still be effective, its another thing entirely to try and compete with a fastball approaching the 70's. There's a reason you don't see guys in the bigs with fastballs below 88-89 MPH.

Seems weird to go that hard in when the Jays are 7 GB. They better hope Price throws a CG shutout in their Wild Card play-in game.

I don't think Puig is "done", but his decline is anything but encouraging at such a young age. Maybe he can get past his injury bug and put his game back together, stranger things have happened. Also as someone else mentioned, the Dodgers front office are run by some of the smartest and shrewdest guys in the game. The fact that they are willing to move a guy with his talent on such a team-friendly contract should be the biggest red flag in this conversation.

Most teams have bottom third hitters that are barely AAA quality. If you believe that we're playing over our heads, it's mainly the pitching that has been lights out over the past month.

He's not streaky, he just sucks. You're not paying that salary for a baseball player, you're paying that for a mediocre DH who is basically the CJ Cron of outfielders. If you really believe that 21 million for 4 years "isn't terrible" for a 31 year old Matt Kemp, I don't even know how to approach a discussion about this.

Kemp is about to turn 31, has accumulated about 1 WAR over the last 3 seasons, and is under contract for another 4 yrs/$86M after 2015 (!)... this is probably the worst possible contract we could take. To say he would be an instant upgrade in LF is not even close to the truth either. Kemp has been one of the worst defensive outfielders in the game for a while now. He would also have to switch leagues and is basically a glorified DH at this point in his career.

It's more that it is insanely risky financially to blow that much of your wad on one guy than arguing whether a player is worth/should be paid $50-75M a year. Like Scotty said I could actually see Trout getting $50M a year in 2020 if he hits free agency. But if he gets injured, then you have 1/4 to 1/3 of your payroll tied up into one dude.

Terry + Gubicza = zZzZzZzZzZzZz

Stop fact checking, you jerk!

Just more evidence to show how expendable and volatile bullpen arms are.

Joyce has an .800 OPS in his last 40 games after putting up an abysmal .435 OPS in his first 35 games, which brings down his numbers a lot obviously. I would be fine with Joyce going forward in LF as long as he keeps playing like he has, instead of trading for a plug like Revere.

I thought we already cornered the market on overpaid, aging dudes.

Looking at his stats, the encouraging thing with Maybin is that his LD% is way higher than past seasons (almost a 6% increase, which normally isn't a fluke over such a large sample size). It seems like he must have changed some mechanic in his swing that is greatly increasing his hard contact rates. At first glance he looks like a guy primed for regression over the second half (unsustainable HR/FB%, way higher BABIP than average, etc.), but if he really has made improvements in his swing it may just be a new and improved version of Maybin. He's also signed through next year and has a team option for 2017, so that's another plus.

The Phillies front office is basically delusional as far as the returns they ask for with their roster guys. Gott/Revere would have been at least reasonable, but mentioning guys like Heaney/Tropeano for half a season of Revere is almost laughable.

I'll have you know Scioscia's FEEL+ is well above league average!

There's a difference between quitting selfishly and leaving a toxic situation. We'll never know what happened behind the scenes with the "PC response to every situation" line that this org tows at all times. You have to be the most commited to your own mental state and sanity over anything else.

No

It's probably a lot easier to be the smartest guy in the room when you run all the intelligent minds out of town.

I think peace-brokering is a bit late at this point in the game. Seems like they've been at odds since Dipoto was hired basically. Arte really needs to just man up and show Sosh the door. Dipoto leaving would be a huge blow to the prospect of this franchise actually becoming modernized and relevant, and who the hell is going to want to be GM here after that sort of fallout?

This org really is a train wreck this year in the front office, kind of sad to see what things have escalated to.

They aren't mutually exclusive, and those aren't the deficinies that I'm addressing anyways. Do you know why the Royals can play like that? They are 1st in the league in team batting average, last in the league in strikeouts, the best team in the league defensively and they are also young and fast. The only way to make that style work is when you're the best at everything required to make it work, and the Royals are.