As an setup role Neris, Montero, Abreu got to be a #1. The combo is near lights out. Then long relief is near the top in baseball too. Staff is still stacked with the loss of Jake and Justin.
Let's see IF we need to be active first. There's a reasonable chance we will be better by not being active or need help at a position we think is strong now.
SS: Correa, Seager, Turner, Lindor, Bogaerts, Tatis, Swanson, Franco, Adames, Anderson, Bichette, Story. I can't say Pena won't be there, but I'd be surprised (as I was with McCormick). Shortstop has just never been as deep as it is now, and that is with me not listing Baez (who could bounce back) or Semien (since he'll be listed at 2B). Not sure how they will handle Bogaerts/Tatis, but I'm assuming they will list both at SS for now, or Story being hurt. SP: Verlander, Scherzer, DeGrom, Urias, Cease, Alcantara, Ohtani, Fried, Bieber, Manoah, McClanahan, Gallen, Burnes. Pretty easy to leave Framber out of the top 10.
eh. Let them leave Framber out. Not too many on that list can say they were 2-0 in the same World Series which their team won. We know who’s stones have their own mailing address. Frambers ****s Minute Maid Park 2022 World Series Way Houston, TX, 77002
Yuli is a career .267 hitter with a .711 OPS in the postseason. He had a great run last postseason, but he hasn't been an awesome postseason performer over his career.
I've been tempted to post something similar a few times as he's only had 2 really good runs out of 6 seasons. On the flip side, those two runs were in 2017 and 2022.
And how many guys did he resign that were key to us winning? I have no idea why people keep acting like anybody and their mother could have done what Click did he had some hard decisions to make with resigning guys, getting extensions and having the balls to trust all the young pitching on this team and not trading them away for more proven talent. All of these "Lunhow guys were mostly in the minors and most were not really on the radar for having the impact that they did.
So you just spend 30 million just to spend 30 million? You act like he gave him 30 million to shop at Walmart and the selections were endless. Who was available that he passed on with the 30 million?
Unspent on who? Who was available to spend it on? Just because you have money does not mean players will sign with you or trade with you. All of this is supreme nitpicking.
That is why GM's are given the big bucks. They are supposed to figure this stuff out. Are you telling me there wasn't a player available that would have made the team better? No relievers, no utility guys, no rental bat that was better than the DH's that we were trotting out during the world series? What happens if Pena gets hurt? What happens if Montero gets hurt. What happens if both Mancini and Gurriel **** the bed at the plate. This is common in the business world. If you don't spend your budget, the board will always ask couldn't you have made the company more competitive if you had spent the money.
GM's are supposed to make teams deal with them or make players sign with them? Nothing about baseball or sports is common to the business world, does the business world make trades or have free agency. If you are given a budget in the business world It's for things that for the most part are readily available not things that you hope are available or things that can be bought by the highest bidder, what if the 30 million was not enough to get the asset, whose fault would that be? If those players had gotten hurt or **** the bed, do you think you would have had guys just sitting on the bench making that kind of money able to replace them? Also, you could save that money and use at the trade deadline if those things happened, right? What if he did spend that 30 million, and it was wasted and stopped the business from getting better in the future, what would the board say then?
They went and got 2 rental bats that everyone was excited about. They just sucked. Should they have gotten 4? 8? Should they have acquired 17 rentals on the offchance the first 16 sucked? What if a sharknado ate up Alvarez while he was at the beach one day. Should the Astros have planned for that? And if you don't spend your budget, it leaves you flexibility to spend it on actual needs if you decide they exist. There's a reason every team's annual budget doesn't go right up to their luxury tax, or that every NFL team doesn't hit its cap every season, or whatnot. GM's aren't paid the big bucks to spend money. They are paid the big bucks to make smart moves. Part of that means positioning yourself to have flexibility when ideal opportunities present themselves.
Baseball is the only business I have ever heard anyone say "Your controllable expenses are too low, spend more and hurry up about it." I can not say this enough. We are vying for a baseball championship, not a spending championship.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/35466344/mlb-power-rankings-preseason-2023-braves-padres 1. Houston Astros Final 2022 regular-season ranking: 2 The Astros remain a solid member of baseball's upper crust, but after a winter in which a number of recognizable and aging players departed only to be replaced by a small group of free agents who are just as old, you wonder if this offseason will come back to haunt the champs. The pitching depth, even with the loss of Justin Verlander, is tremendous. And the cornerstones of the lineup are elite. But you wonder if a James Click front office would have been engaged in a much different approach in rechanneling the payroll space opened up by the exits of Verlander, Yuli Gurriel and others. The initial forecasts see a slight step back for the Astros, though they remain in the thick of the World Series race. The forecasts might well be wrong but the thing is, it's been a while since there have been these kinds of questions about the Astros. -- Doolittle What questions? Lol And by the way they ranked the Yankees 3rd.
It isn't quite that simple in this case. For example, Click did not want to give Verlander the player option for 2023. The owner did want to, and did so - and Verlander was the best pitcher in baseball and a big part in the Astros being World Series champs.... something that the owner REALLY wanted after the 2017 WS being questioned by some. The owner looks at some of the moves, and the position that the GM took and was wrong about and that can call into question the GM's performance. Now, some of it was just bad luck.... for example, Click did not want Gurriel starting at 1st in the playoffs or on the roster....... as it turned out, Gurriel got hot and that made Click look bad. Same with the trade deadline and Josh Bell, and passing on signing guys last Winter....
How many real contenders last season spent less than us? The answer is zero. Braves spent less but they weren't nearly as good as they were the season before and weren't a real threat.
For me, trading for Starling Marte 2 deadlines ago and then signing Starling Marte last offseason might be the biggest moves Click could have made that he didnt. That and lobbying against Verlander were the 2 things I would pin on him as significant misses. So basically his bet on Jake Meyers really cost his rep.
The team that won 101 games, in a division that featured another 100 win team, and the NL Champs? The team that had the 4th best run differential in baseball? They weren't real contenders? WTF is a real contender?
And betting on Baez and Odorizzi. The Odorizzi options were stupidly generous. There was a reason he was still available when Framber got hurt.
