DMVol

I think it is important for Thaiss to continue to develop and keep O'Hoppe from wearing down.....a serviceable back up catcher is a big part of a roster....

He doesn't have to be 2022 good to help....just somewhere between 2022 and 2023....which isn't unrealistic....

I am old enough that you started Little League when you were 6 (no Coach Pitch or Tee Ball)…When I was 6, I was so small they used me to pinch hit because my strike zone was nothing. 12 year old pitcher got mad because he couldn’t throw me a strike so he hit me in the head (no batting helmets)…I never got over it…became a basketball guy that day…

If we’re only going to sign one, I’d probably prefer Snell…my first preference would be to sign maybe 3 mid-range guys and pass on Snell and Bellinger both.

Appears they might be… I don’t get it but we’ll see.

Boras has never hesitated to wait until spring training, and sometimes beyond, to get a deal done if he thinks the market can get better. He sometimes misjudges things and his guys end up with "pillow" deals if they wait too long. I don't know if we've ever had a year where he has the top remaining FA's this late in the year though....

And/or waiting to see a resolution of the TV deals, especially Minnesota...

My view might not be worth much but, for overall sports coverage, I don't think there is an equivalent to the Athletic out there. There just isn't anybody out there to compete anymore. And, I generally like their writing staff.

Or the Rangers….

They're not wrong.....until Stephenson proves he's worth the risk...

Actually, until the TV deal gets done, I’m not sure we know how the market plays out.

Anderson sometimes (not always) pitched pretty well the first time through the lineup, then would get hammered. You can’t put everybody in the pen but I wonder what he might do there, more as 2/3 inning guy. I know he’s getting paid starter money but if he has no trade value (he doesn’t), why not give it a look?

Belt might work if he still could play OF…but he’s strictly a 1b/DH now….Maybe a Bellinger Light (1b/OF) would work, whoever that might be…not sure there is anybody out there who fits that description….Merrifield could give you 2b/OF coverage…with Rengifo, that might be workable, to cover 3b/2b/OF…and move Drury to 1b if Schanuel struggles…

Or keep Estevez and potentially have a strong back end of the pen that doesn’t wear down after the All Star break…

Matt Moore?

I wouldn’t trade him if we’re in it….I would trade him, and pretty much anybody else but the young core guys, if we’re not within striking distance at the deadline.

Thought the same thing…everybody is skeptical I guess….same as Anderson last year…

Loup had some decent numbers before we signed him but not like this guy last year….we’ll see how it translates…I wouldn’t bet on it but maybe he (and others) give Wash a chance to keep Estévez fresh…

Bowden is a drama Queen but he’s not wrong here.

I don't blame Manfred and MLB....They have to look at things through a broader lens than Diamond or Amazon.....Amazon potentially could provide a longer term solution but the shorter term fix isn't necessarily good for all of MLB...

Unless the deal gets blown up by MLB and/or the Bankruptcy Court…

Not sure of the signing dates but Suarez and Barria?

I think this is it in a nutshell, why we’ve been awful for a decade. There hasn’t been a consistent, well executed plan. Arte may mean well (and I think he does, by in large) but running an organization based on his whims of the moment, is not a recipe for success.

I still think the inactivity in the International market under Reagins has had as much to do with this awful decade as anything else. Not sure I’ve ever understood the reason or reasons but it has been a killer. If just 2/3 of the guys we could have signed pan out, it could have made a big difference. And I don’t mean not signing a Baldoquin over Vlad Jr….as IP says, it’s a crap shoot, stuff happens…but if we had signed a normal amount of guys in that Reagins timeframe, particularly from DR and the usual pipelines in Latin America, odds are a few would have panned out….but we totally shut down….