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Early 22 GM Thread! (Trade Ideas here)

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Oscar Mercado is at least competent enough to play just about anywhere on the diamond save for pitcher and catcher, given time and opportunity.. He's just best suited for the OF where his best tools can be exploited..

Otherwise.. it comes down to who is best suited for the opportunity to play that day.. Most days, it will be someone other than Mercado.. but.. Mercado is cheap and on the roster already..

...and not sure what the fourth or fifth OF'er on this year's teams has to do with an early GM thread...

Cause you are only as strong as your weakest link! Lol

Well the OF situation in 22, is no where near set in stone so we need to figure out who exactly will be the candidates out there... I always thought Johnson and HRam will be gone in 22 from the 40 man, while we kept Mercado as essentially a "4th OF"
 
Cause you are only as strong as your weakest link! Lol

Well the OF situation in 22, is no where near set in stone so we need to figure out who exactly will be the candidates out there... I always thought Johnson and HRam will be gone in 22 from the 40 man, while we kept Mercado as essentially a "4th OF"
Safe to say, I think going into this offseason, there's a loooot of uncertainty.
 
Steven Kwan is starting to kick down the door. Straw, Zimmer, Kwan and (hopefully a quality add) is an OK start for 2022.
 
Sportscoach began this thread on Sept 6th.

The premise was simple. As GM, what decisions and moves would you make if you were the Guardians GM with a $70 mil budget for this year.

Up til now, a lot of comments...a lot of critic...a lot of comments about who should be kept and who should be cut....

But only two posters, including sportscoach, have laid their plans out, including their 40 man for the Rule Five.

An example is...if you wanna keep a Kwan or Gonzalez, which prospects are you gonna leave off the 40 man to make room for them?
 
As GM, there is another important thing I have to do. Somehow, some way, I have to have a good idea of what the new CBA will look like...enough to make sound educated guesses on.

In particular, the DH in the NL.

Adding the DH opens up fifteen jobs for corner type bats. It makes some of my targets less available, and others more expensive. It also raises the value of a prospect like Gonzalez. It could also make an extension for Franmil slightly more expensive.
 
Ok, in the spirit of CATS44 reminder of the thread, this is what I would do.

Pitchers — Allen, Bieber, Civale, Clase, Garza, Hentges, Karinchak, McKenzie, Mejia, Morgan, Nelson, FPerez, Plesac, Quantrill, Sandlin, Stephan, Vargas, Cantillo, Morris, Scott, Pilkington
Catchers — Hedges, Lavastida
INF — Arias, Bradley, Gimenez, Miller, JRam, Amed, Freeman, Rocchio
OF — Jones, Josh Naylor, Reyes, Straw, Zimmer, Palacios, Kwan, Valera, Benson

Non-tender/Release/free agent— Cam Hill, Scott Moss, Blake Parker, Shaw, Wittgren, Young, Lavarnway, Berto, Ramos, Chang, Clement, Daniel Johnson, HRamirez, Mercado

Left open to Rule 5 — Oscar Gonzalez, Robert Broom, Alex Call, JFermin, Juan Hillman, Bracho, Tena, Holmes, Noel, Planez

My general thinking — No need to worry about OFs 26 and older with low ceilings. Obviously trading for players who don’t need to be on the 40-man would be nice but other front offices have eyes.

Bold moves — I would put a lot of effort into acquiring a corner bat and a back-end pen arm. Even though I am excited about the prospect of Bieber, Civale, Plesac, Quanty and McKenzie in the rotation next season, one has to give up something to get something in return. I’d be willing to trade Plesac and one of Freeman/Arias/Rocchio/Jones to form the foundation of a trade. The resources are there to create another 3-5 year window starting in 2022. The way I see it, JRam, Reyes, Straw and Hedges are the only true locks for the 2022 lineup. They have to do better than Eddie Rosario as a ‘professional’ bat to add to the lineup.

I know the above is probably waaaay off what the org will actually do. But I do hope they get away from risk aversion and more into risk management.
 
Although we have some roster disagreements, I dont think that you are in general that far off of the FO's thinking.
 
Ok, in the spirit of CATS44 reminder of the thread, this is what I would do.

Pitchers — Allen, Bieber, Civale, Clase, Garza, Hentges, Karinchak, McKenzie, Mejia, Morgan, Nelson, FPerez, Plesac, Quantrill, Sandlin, Stephan, Vargas, Cantillo, Morris, Scott, Pilkington
Catchers — Hedges, Lavastida
INF — Arias, Bradley, Gimenez, Miller, JRam, Amed, Freeman, Rocchio
OF — Jones, Josh Naylor, Reyes, Straw, Zimmer, Palacios, Kwan, Valera, Benson

Non-tender/Release/free agent— Cam Hill, Scott Moss, Blake Parker, Shaw, Wittgren, Young, Lavarnway, Berto, Ramos, Chang, Clement, Daniel Johnson, HRamirez, Mercado

Left open to Rule 5 — Oscar Gonzalez, Robert Broom, Alex Call, JFermin, Juan Hillman, Bracho, Tena, Holmes, Noel, Planez

My general thinking — No need to worry about OFs 26 and older with low ceilings. Obviously trading for players who don’t need to be on the 40-man would be nice but other front offices have eyes.

Bold moves — I would put a lot of effort into acquiring a corner bat and a back-end pen arm. Even though I am excited about the prospect of Bieber, Civale, Plesac, Quanty and McKenzie in the rotation next season, one has to give up something to get something in return. I’d be willing to trade Plesac and one of Freeman/Arias/Rocchio/Jones to form the foundation of a trade. The resources are there to create another 3-5 year window starting in 2022. The way I see it, JRam, Reyes, Straw and Hedges are the only true locks for the 2022 lineup. They have to do better than Eddie Rosario as a ‘professional’ bat to add to the lineup.

I know the above is probably waaaay off what the org will actually do. But I do hope they get away from risk aversion and more into risk management.

This is a solid look at everything. My biggest question is, do you think Lavastida is ready for the pros?

I personally don't think he is ready yet in 22... If he isn't, how will you handle the other catching spot?
 
In defense of anybody that posts his/her preferred 40 man for the Rule Five, the 40 man in December will very probably look a lot different on opening day.
 
I'll eschew the 40 man as it's a lot to digest and just post the opening day "active" roster...

Active Roster (26): Listed Alphabetically by group (w/ the exception for Clase)...

Starting Pitchers (5) — Bieber, Civale, McKenzie, Plesac, Quantrill
Relief Pitchers (8) — Clase (CL), Cantillo, Garza, Hentges, Karinchak, Morris, Sandlin, & Stephan
Catchers (2) — Cartaya and Hedges
INF (6) — Amed, Arias, Bradley, Gimenez, Jones, & Miller
OF (4) — Marte, Ramirez, Straw, & Zimmer
DH (1) — Reyes

If you noticed.. there are some changes... Thoughts?..
 
No fair telling us the final results without letting us know how you got there...lol.

I'd sure like to know what you gave up to get Marte and Cartaya, and your thought process in putting a 20 yr old catcher who has played only 31 games above rookie ball...and who is out for the season with a bad hammy...on the active roster.
 
This is a solid look at everything. My biggest question is, do you think Lavastida is ready for the pros?

I personally don't think he is ready yet in 22... If he isn't, how will you handle the other catching spot?
Great questions and thanks for reading!

Catching being a rarer commodity than lower level power hitters/middle infielders is what I am thinking at this point by protecting Lavastida.

The 40-man for the Rule 5 won’t be the 40-man heading into camp. I may be off base, but I wouldn’t be adverse to bringing back Berto for more appropriate dollars. For once it would nice to have an actual prospect at Triple A to bring up instead of a journeyman catcher prone to catcher’s interference calls. One can hope!
 
Although we have some roster disagreements, I dont think that you are in general that far off of the FO's thinking.
Thanks for reading and keeping this thread on track. What was interesting about this exercise to me is that I have read both sides of the arguments about the Rule 5 draft — one side saying “OMG we have a roster crunch“ and the other saying “hey chill, end of the day not many are taken anyway” — and I leaned in my head towards “chill”….but I ended up protecting more than I thought. The tough part is trying to consider if the bulk of trades will happen before or after the Rule 5 draft takes place. Anyway, it is cool to read everyone’s thought processes.
 
No fair telling us the final results without letting us know how you got there...lol.

I'd sure like to know what you gave up to get Marte and Cartaya, and your thought process in putting a 20 yr old catcher who has played only 31 games above rookie ball...and who is out for the season with a bad hammy...on the active roster.
One trade (not mine).. https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades/trade-57691/
 

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