Didn't he come up as a 3B? Was he moved to OF because he was bad defensively or just to make their team "fit"?
no way Springer goes...that would suck. If I had to choose between the two, I take Springer every day. No PEDS, Younger, still has upside etc. Braun would be interesting for some prospects.
Yeah that's fair. My main point was that a lot of money needs to come back given all the factors I listed, and even more should come back assuming prospects are included. Regarding the type of prospects--you're totally right. I was feeling "none of the 'A' prospects should be included" when I wrote that. Also..I was suggesting what we would need to get back to make it reasonable. Not that Milwaukee would do it. I don't think they'll give up as much money as I think we need to get back--which is why I doubt this will happen.
No team except maybe the elite spenders are willing to take on a potentially toxic contract outright, and even they are hesitant about it. When the Yankees traded for A-Rod, the Rangers paid over 1/3 of his remaining salary, they got Soriano in return. 100 million dollars is a lot of money, even to the filthy rich. It's not monopoly money, or else every team would be spending 300 million.
A-Rod's contract was also crazy at the time. If Braun was a free agent today, what do you think he would sign for? Probably not 5 yrs / $100MM, but he would still get a pretty big deal coming off a nice rebound season.
Yes, and I expect MLB to do just that, but it will probably be relatively minor (10 games?), where as being charged and found guilty would lead to a major suspension (50 games?).
A 32 year old, with a PED history and one year removed from a sketchy season. He would get a decent sized contract, but not close to 5/100, Alex Gordon didn't even get that. My random guess is he would get something like 3/60 or 4/75. Teams really place value on safety with these big deals, and he seems to have a lot of red flags for somebody still owed 40 million after turning 35. His potential for dead salary seems high to me.
I've read a lot on here how our pitching is "not as good" as last year as we have lost Kazmir and only have Feldman for our #5 spot. While i'd be plenty happy if we were to add a mid to front rotation starter, our pitching overall is well ahead of last year. We started last year with Keuchel, Feldman, Wojo, McHugh and Hernandez as our rotation. Hernandez started 11 games to the tune of a 5.18 era, Wojo started 3 to a 7.16 era. We also had Deduno start 2, Straily 3, Peacock 1 and Obie start 8. That is 28 starts we gave to pitchers who aren't starting rotation quality to say the least. Almost a full rotation spot for a season So for 2016 McCullers and Fiers are replacing Wojo/Hernandez and the rest of that junk for two rotation spots. Then Feldman backs up to the 5th spot, where he becomes good quality as a #5, although obviously he comes with bigger injury risks than most. Our rotation has been upgraded in a major way, overall
Pitchers getting hurt is a when, not if situation. Nobody makes it through with 5 starters, we're gonna need at least 20-30 starts from somebody else, probably many more. The proverbial "6th starter" that everybody has to use is a complete unknown for us right now, and could be completely terrible (although I expect us to address that in season, or before the season starts) McCullers is unproven for a full year, and may suffer a sophmore slump. Last year was Fiers first full season as an MLB starter, and he's now in the AL. Keuchel should still be awesome, but most people feel he is likely to be worse than last year. There are legitimate question marks that make this rotations "cone of possibility" pretty wide, although nobody expects it to be a big problem, we just have big expectations now, so there's more scrutiny.
Which AL rotations would you rather have than ours? I agree there will ALWAYS be a need for more than 5 starters And yea the possibility always exists that everyone gets worse, I just see no reason to expect that. That could be said of anyone on any team
Indians That said, I expect the Astros rotation to pitch about as well as last season. Losing VV takes away the 6th starter and award winners typically have some regression, but Fiers for a full year should almost balance that. Good health and a repeat Cy Young for Keuchel and Astros would likely have a much better performance than last year. That said, I expect Astros to add a starter sometime between now and the deadline to give rotation a boost.
I love our rotation, and think it's quite possibly the best in the AL. But I also acknowledge the concerns that people have about the rotation, it's depth in particular. I've said all along if we avoid injuries to the key guys, this team is gonna be special, 100 win territory. I see no significant weaknesses. The depth of the pitching staff, and Giles being unproven in a pennant chase are the only areas that could stop us from domination. Our offense has a lot of failsafes, which our rotation doesn't at the moment.
