2022 Season Series #34 | Astros @ Guardians | August 4-7, 2022

[CATS44]

I find it odd that people blame the front office for not trading for players that weren't traded during the deadline, and insist that the price to acquire them would have been low.

Is it possible that, now hear me out, those teams didn't want to trade away those players? Or, maybe, that they entertained the phone call but the asking price was too high? It's crazy I know, but considering the leaks we have that the team was willing to move players for vets that would've helped this year, this idea that the front office was never willing to trade any prospects away seems foolish at best.

Failure is failure, no matter how it comes about.

It applies to FOs as much as it does to managers and players.

In the past two years, in spite of knowing that it had a glut of MIF, pitching, and now OF prospects, the FO has failed to make a trade that significantly upgraded the team.

Meanwhile, the present team has remained in nearly a dead heat in the divisional race, and the value of previous highly thought of prospects totally disappeared.

The FO deserves high praise for acquiring and developing a slew of promising kids....but all that young talent ain't worth squat if it isn't used to put a contending team on the field, and then upgrading that team when it proves to be competitive.

The cost of trading for significant upgrades isn't going to go down, so the FO can use that excuse until kingdom come.

We do not have a solid rotation with depth next year. We are kidding ourselves if we are counting on Morris as a viable rotation piece for a whole season next year....and because of the 40 man, bringing up Williams or Allen could be costly, because they would have to be added to an already oversated 40 man. This is why we have been forced to use guys like Tully, McCarty, and Gaddis...and watch Shaw open twice. There is no 40 man flexibility.

When we set our 40 man for last years R5, we were left with only 17 pitchers and no MLB catcher. We've been paying the price ever since. We would have paid an even higher price if the R5 hadn't been cancelled.

We will have five RFs on the 40 man, all of whom are, or will be, MLB ready. All look good on paper. All can't play in Cleveland.

We will have at least nine MIFs to figure out what to do with in December, eight of which are, or will be MLB ready...and we are already established at both positions.

But the FO can't make a trade.

Now it appears that the strategy is to wait out Minnesota and Chicago...that they will go downhill while we move forward in 2024. Great on paper, I guess. But it assumes that Minnesota and Chicago won't make moves to improve their teams, which both have done in the past. It also totally ignores Detroit and KC.

You have to strike when the iron is hot, because there are no guarantees...except that this org is not gonna spend big bucks on free agents. Its only spendable assets are prospects.

 

[CATS44]

It is not mortgaging the future to trade prospects who you can't use anyway, or play a position which is already filled.

 

[Obscured By Clouds]

Failure is failure, no matter how it comes about.

It applies to FOs as much as it does to managers and players.

In the past two years, in spite of knowing that it had a glut of MIF, pitching, and now OF prospects, the FO has failed to make a trade that significantly upgraded the team.

Meanwhile, the present team has remained in nearly a dead heat in the divisional race, and the value of previous highly thought of prospects totally disappeared.

The FO deserves high praise for acquiring and developing a slew of promising kids....but all that young talent ain't worth squat if it isn't used to put a contending team on the field, and then upgrading that team when it proves to be competitive.

The cost of trading for significant upgrades isn't going to go down, so the FO can use that excuse until kingdom come.

We do not have a solid rotation with depth next year. We are kidding ourselves if we are counting on Morris as a viable rotation piece for a whole season next year....and because of the 40 man, bringing up Williams or Allen could be costly, because they would have to be added to an already oversated 40 man. This is why we have been forced to use guys like Tully, McCarty, and Gaddis...and watch Shaw open twice. There is no 40 man flexibility.

When we set our 40 man for last years R5, we were left with only 17 pitchers and no MLB catcher. We've been paying the price ever since. We would have paid an even higher price if the R5 hadn't been cancelled.

We will have five RFs on the 40 man, all of whom are, or will be, MLB ready. All look good on paper. All can't play in Cleveland.

We will have at least nine MIFs to figure out what to do with in December, eight of which are, or will be MLB ready...and we are already established at both positions.

But the FO can't make a trade.

Now it appears that the strategy is to wait out Minnesota and Chicago...that they will go downhill while we move forward in 2024. Great on paper, I guess. But it assumes that Minnesota and Chicago won't make moves to improve their teams, which both have done in the past. It also totally ignores Detroit and KC.

You have to strike when the iron is hot, because there are no guarantees...except that this org is not gonna spend big bucks on free agents. Its only spendable assets are prospects.

Cool story, it's almost like I've read it before, though.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

You have to know which prospects to trade. You wouldn't want to trade Bieber when he was in AA while hanging onto Logan Allen.

If any franchise should understand the dangers of trading prospects it's the one that traded for Carlos Santana, Shin-Soo Choo, Cliff Lee, Joe Carter, Sandy Alomar, Carlos Baerga, Grady Sizemore, Jake Westbrook, Carlos Carrasco, etc, all when they were minor leaguers.

Gonzalez, Jones, or Benson? What about Palacios, Brennan, and Valera? Move Benson to first base?

Same with the middle infielders. Gotta separate the gold from the fool's gold.

Maybe they just need more time to evaluate these guys, especially since they all lost a year in 2020.

 

[Real Deal]

The CATS will be out of the bag when the FO trades Amed come Winter and the return is underwhelming.

 

[daddywags]

I have a feeling that many of the prospects we feel are "highly valued" really aren't that highly valued around the league. Bimbo has told us that teams judge prospects much differently than do media folks who create top 100 lists.

 

[buzzdog]

Watching our team competing against the Astros it highlights the talent disparity and how far we have to go.

I'm just happy to see Clement and Call gone even if it's just to watch more unproven rookies get their chance. We've been pretty lucky so far with the likes of Kwan and OGonz. Hopefully guys like Jones and Benson figure it out, and Freeman has been promising.

After months of me bashing the offensive output of our catchers they've started to produce a little bit. I won't count on them at all but it does help if they can chip in once in awhile.

Quite frankly Jose has been somewhat disappointing lately. If he could raise his offensive production closer to the upper end of what we know he can do then it tends to cascade over to the whole team's confidence. We really need Jose to start stepping up and get out of his little funk.

 

[CATS44]

Bobby Bradley has been released. At one time he was a top five prospect in our system.

Franmil has been DFAd to open a spot for Jake Jewell. Basically, we have traded Reyes for Jewell...because we didn't manage the 40 man well.

Anybody think that trading Franmil, even with the problems he has had, for a journeyman AAAA relief pitcher is a win?

 

[buzzdog]

Bobby Bradley has been released. At one time he was a top five prospect in our system.

Franmil has been DFAd to open a spot for Jake Jewell. Basically, we have traded Reyes for Jewell...because we didn't manage the 40 man well.

Anybody think that trading Franmil, even with the problems he has had, for a journeyman AAAA relief pitcher is a win?

Seems to me you're complaining about the front office tinkering with the bottom fringes of our available talent. I don't see any of that type of movement as being important. It matters more how we develop the upper tiers of what we have available.

 

[CBBI]

Franmil has been DFAd to open a spot for Jake Jewell. Basically, we have traded Reyes for Jewell...because we didn't manage the 40 man well.

Anybody think that trading Franmil, even with the problems he has had, for a journeyman AAAA relief pitcher is a win?

I have to assume an improperly managed 40 man roster is decidedly not the reason why Reyes was released, but you do you baby.

 

[CATS44]

Not sure that the games against Houston demonstrate a huge talent disparity.

We threw Plesac, who is struggling, and a sacrificial lamb...whose only thing going for him at the time was that it was his day to pitch and there was nobody else...against the CY favorite and their #2.

Kinda like throwing Plutko and Merimando against Kluber and Cookie in 2017.

Merrill Kelly and Christian Walker instead of Gaddis and Miller might have evened things up a lot.

 

[CATS44]

We have needed to make a lot of moves to bring up warm bodies that can pitch, because we began our 40 man with only 17 pitchers.

And many of those fringe guys fans now shrug about were once highly valued prospects.

 

[Obscured By Clouds]

Bobby Bradley has been released. At one time he was a top five prospect in our system.

Franmil has been DFAd to open a spot for Jake Jewell. Basically, we have traded Reyes for Jewell...because we didn't manage the 40 man well.

Anybody think that trading Franmil, even with the problems he has had, for a journeyman AAAA relief pitcher is a win?

Nobody even offer a 'journeyman AAAA' for Reyes.

 

[daddywags]

Nobody even offer a 'journeyman AAAA' for Reyes.

Yeah, if nobody picks his contract up for free then nobody was going to trade anything for him.

 

[Gson]

I have a feeling that many of the prospects we feel are "highly valued" really aren't that highly valued around the league. Bimbo has told us that teams judge prospects much differently than do media folks who create top 100 lists.

...as has been stated.. it tells you what value prospect lists are..