Pancake Bear

Adell has the body of a freak of a nature and the baseball iq of a middle schooler. Frustrating because it's not hard to see what he could be, but he just keeps making these absolutely boneheaded plays.

Yes. Do I think they *will* be competitive? That's a lot more questionable. But the potential is there, especially with better coaching. There's no ace, other than maybe Detmers (#1 upside is possible, per Keith Law), but their top five all have the ability to keep them in games. My issue is we needed another arm for depth, because otherwise we're stuck with Soriano as our #6, which is...not exactly inspiring. Not like it would've cost much to bring in Lorenzen, but f'n Arte.

They look like a roughly .500 team. If that's where they end up, Minasian probably stays. If they lose 100 games? He probably is canned.

Kinda doubt Perry gets fired after this season unless the team really sucks. It's obviously a transition year, and doesn't really make sense to dump the GM at that point. If they were going to do that, it would've made more sense to do it after last season.

...Some of you were crying about wanting Perry to ship Anderson off to save a few million? Because I do.

It was a very good series against a really bad team. Against Baltimore, not so much. Let's give it some time before we start going with the "things feel different this season" posts.

This is what happens when you turn a box score into grades and present it as analysis.

13 or 14 wins. No big injuries. Offense, rotation, and bullpen all in the top ten, with at least one of those top five in the league. Defense and base running noticeably improved. Multiple young guys (e.g. O'Hoppe, Neto, Schanuel, Adell, Moniak, Detmers, Silseth) performing well.

Fubo was more than I felt like paying, so I'm just going mlb.tv this year.

But that won't win you points as an edgy reporter who asks the hard questions.

If results matter at all, Strickland earned a spot.

Okay, he's a part-time journalist. Better?

Blum isn't really a journalist. He's a dude building his own brand, which is why he so often inserts himself into the story. That's not journalism.

I just assumed it came down to Arte changing the budget on him. But it could be that he felt that was the best value. Or maybe Arte insisted we improve the bullpen, since he has to approve all big deals anyway. Regardless, it sounds like we had an offer out on Snell, so it isn't like he wasn't willing to spend more, Arte just undervalues pitchers.

Neto is awesome. That is all.