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Post by beasleyrockah on Jul 27, 2023 13:10:32 GMT -5
I'm perfectly fine with this, I'm more worried about OT and backup RB. The OL was a mess last year, so far Brown basically waited to after mini camp to start training and Reiff was with backups. We also missed Harris when he went down. We could use a true power runner. Depending how camp starts I'm watching the Bengals LT they want to trade, I'm just not trading Dugger. More like Brown, Reiff or Bourne, yet let's see what happens in training camp first. I wouldn't be against getting Elliott, he's a tough runner. He's also been a better receiver than Harris was. FWIW Jonah Williams has worse PFF grades than Brown each of the last two years.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Jul 24, 2023 14:42:12 GMT -5
I'd like to see the Central division removed from each league, just merge those teams into the East and West. With two divisions it's tough to have a division winner that otherwise wouldn't make the playoffs. Add a couple expansion teams and it'd be eight teams per division. Keep the schedules fairly balanced.
Not a rule, but I want old timer games, with the location alternating each year. Make it a double header with the retired players opening the day with 7 innings or whatever, then play the real game at night. Make sure the pitcher/batter matchups accurately reflect age and current shape, go for entertainment over sticking to traditional rules for the game, and try to include as many generations as possible. Make it a charity game and raffle off all the jerseys and equipment at the end of it. Fans and players may get bored with it after a while, but only hosting two games every four years seems like the right balance to start. There's a huge pool of former players to pull from obviously. Could possibly do a quick home run derby too.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Jul 19, 2023 16:06:50 GMT -5
The article mentioned trading Pivetta. I can sort of see it but on the same end he's got one more year left of control where he's probably going to make like 6-8M and for the most part he's been excellent in the pen. He's worth keeping for next year if you ask me unless some team offers something good for him. The article frames it as if Pivetta becomes "the odd man out" with Sale, Whitlock, and Houck all returning. If all three of those guys are back AND some team is willing to offer "something pretty good" in a trade as Cotillo calls it, then it probably does make sense to sell him. Take the overpay, and if you want an extra arm to replace Pivetta you can buy a rental at a more reasonable cost. In other words, allow other teams to overpay and win the trade if presented with the opportunity. If it's just some fair/borderline trade for Pivetta (aka not much) you hold the player.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Apr 16, 2023 22:48:10 GMT -5
Dalton Kincaid met with the Pats Last time we drafted a pac 12 TE with pre-draft back issues it worked out! Let's just ignore the last time they drafted a TE named Dalton.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Mar 30, 2023 12:18:03 GMT -5
Between this and the power rankings thing, where they/re rated 16th despite having the 6th highest team quality score, I'm beginning to suspect a fangraphs anti-Red Sox conspiracy. Okay, I don't really think there's a conspiracy, but I can't remember a time when the Red Sox have been as uncool as they are now. Not a single analyst or pundit is picking them to be good, despite some real reasons for optimism, and the general tone of the commentary suggests they're some moribund frachise like the Pirates or something.
Fangraphs also released their "positional power rankings" yesterday, which has the Red Sox 15th in overall team projected WAR (Yankees #1, Blue Jays #4, Rays #8, O's #21). Six AL teams are behind the Red Sox (Mariners, White Sox, O's, Royals, Tigers, and A's). Fangraphs "team quality" metric in the tiered power rankings are different. According to them, they take "their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share), and their defense (RAA) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric". This is why the team quality metric has the Red Sox tied with the Rays, even though by projected team WAR the Red Sox are seven teams behind the Rays. It's clear the projected WAR totals more closely resemble the predictions than the team quality scores. Fangraphs projected WAR totals see the Red Sox as the definition of a middle of the road MLB team, but it's clear the stacked division is pushing down their playoff odds. If they were in the AL Central they'd be higher on the tiered power rankings, no doubt. blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-positional-power-rankings-summary/blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-power-rankings-opening-day-2023/
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Post by beasleyrockah on Mar 2, 2023 19:23:06 GMT -5
Jalen Carter is going to be mocked to the Patriots, and Bill seems to like this type of defensive tackle. I don’t. The things I like in defensive tackles are freaky size (long or stout, see Jeffry Simmons, Chris Jones, Wilfork, or Dexter Lawrence), freaky athleticism (Cortez Kennedy, Aaron Donald), freaky production (Barmore) or some combination of all those traits (Warren sapp). Jalen Carter fits none of those categories, and yet many years we see 6’3, 300 lb defensive tackles like him and Tommy Harris and Malcolm Brown and Dominique Easley go too high in the draft. And now he killed a couple dudes, so he’s going to “fall” in the 1st round. Pass. I'm not trying to pick on you here, but recently you suggested teams should defer to PFF's board if their own board was much different from the PFF/industry consensus. PFF's board claims Jalen Carter "is as good a DT prospect as we've seen since we started grading college in 2014. A complete prospect". They currently have him as the second best overall prospect in this class, but you don't want him at #14. Passing on Carter at #14 would be an extreme example of dismissing PFF's board in favor of your own evaluation. It's not like PFF is an outlier either, Carter is a top prospect basically everywhere. Look at the cost to move from #2 to #14, compared to the cost of moving from #86 (where PFF had Strange last year) to #29 (where Strange was selected). Passing on Carter, even if you went chalk and took their #14 prospect instead (currently Calijah Kancey), would be ignoring the value on their board even more significantly than Bill has done to this point. Long term you may be right, who knows Carter may prove to be overhyped, but this would be an example of the type of thing you seemingly wanted them to avoid. If PFF can be high on a player it only follows that they could be low on a player too, right?
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Post by beasleyrockah on Feb 21, 2023 14:38:07 GMT -5
I have to ask, what's your point? You feel that 2022 class is the reason they won? Likely the biggest impactful player was a 7th round RB from Rutgers. Which frankly is funny. My point is, the teams that take the consensus best players are better off than the teams that get cute and trust their own boards. I’ve heard draft pundits saying things like “I think I would draft better than most nfl gm’s” and I’m starting to believe them. www.nfl.com/_amp/chiefs-super-bowl-success-started-with-historic-2022-draft-classMike Mayock tried it and failed miserably.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Jan 26, 2023 22:59:08 GMT -5
This seems to be what others think but I don’t think I agree. They can’t get out from all of Henry’s contract and Jonnu is not a small percent of the cap. I think he might even be the highest paid guy on the team. Doing the same exact thing and spending big in free agency is what got us into this mess. Assuming they keep Jonnu, he'll take up just over $17m. If you combine his money with Henry's $5m in dead money they'd total ~10% of the cap. Even with those figures factored in the Pats have plenty of cap space, I don't see the cap as a short term or long term issue for this team. The roster needs a ton of additions, and even if you've given up on 2023 and want to contend in 2024 the build needs to start now. I certainly don't want to strip down the roster and voluntarily get worse, or go cheap and punt a year just to roll over cap space into 2024. The team started declining in 2019 and was fatally flawed in 2020, long before their big FA spending spree. The extended period of poor drafting and development along with the exodus of former great veteran players left the roster in bad shape (the 2020 team as evidence), and it likely contributed to them overextending in FA. I don't think they've done a great job in free agency, but it's not the primary reason for the decline of the franchise.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Jan 26, 2023 17:03:45 GMT -5
Curious, does anyone think the Patriots might be super bowl contenders next year or that they should focus on getting their cap situation straight for 2024? With 35M stuck to Hunter and Jonnu next year, my preference would be focusing on preparing for 2024 and not reworking any deals that give us cap space at the expense of the future. The Patriots could cut Henry and save about $10m in cap space. They have plenty of cap space as is, with plenty of ways to create more cap space (like cutting Henry). Jonnu is an overpay obviously, but they don't have a bunch of albatross contracts and they have a QB on his rookie deal. I certainly don't think the money owed to Jonnu should have any impact on the overall roster building strategy for next year, it's still a small percentage of the cap. As always, I want good value acquisitions whether it's through the draft, trades, or FA. I don't want them to go all in for 2023 at the expense of the future, but I also don't want them to punt next year in order to maximize the future. This roster needs impact talent on both sides of the ball, and they have the draft capital and cap space to do that. This franchise can't have another year of treading water or regressing, they need to show real growth or they'll likely be searching for a new coach and QB.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Jan 8, 2023 0:17:45 GMT -5
Few of my favorite artists who haven't been named:
Jamie xx - He's part of The xx who are fantastic in their own right, but his solo stuff is excellent. If you want to dip your toes in, check out the videos for Sleep Sound and Gosh. His album In Colour is the official album to get. His Boiler Room set in Reykjavik is one of my favorites, it's on Youtube ready to be watched.. Speaking of Boiler Room, if you're remotely into that scene and haven't watch Fred Again's set from this year, do it ASAP - he's not breaking any ground, but the energy he can bring to a room is rare these days.
Frank Ocean - Channel Orange and Blonde are two of the best albums of the past 10+ years, and you should listen in that order if you want to give him a try (and you should). For tracks, check out Pyramids (but not the video version) and Nights.
Flying Lotus - His discography is getting extensive but I'd go for Cosmogramma as the project to hear. It's a mostly instrumental album and the influences go across jazz, electronic music and the various sub-genres, hip hop, and more.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Dec 4, 2022 15:05:21 GMT -5
If the Red Sox don't make a competitive offer to keep Bogaerts it'll make their trade deadline approach with him baffling, to say the least. Personally I love the player but think his next deal will be a bad value if the $200m+ figures are accurate - but given the trade deadline approach with the roster at large, if you *knew* you weren't going to keep him past last year you should've absolutely traded him and other pieces. I was ok with the half in/half out get value where you can but don't tank entirely approach but that was assuming they wanted X for the long haul and wanted to preserve the relationship.
Now, could it be that the Red Sox believe his market is lower than the media hype, and since they believe they'll have a chance to match they're just letting the market play out in hopes another team can set it and then they can simply match it? I'm not going to get too worked up until he's gone, but yikes if they really don't make a competitive offer it looks really bad. Even as a rental he had real trade value, and then you could've got under the tax. The playoff odds were not high enough to basically "buy" a rental of Xander's ability, which is what they did by keeping him.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Dec 2, 2022 13:21:28 GMT -5
The Pats are 5-9 in Mac's last 14 starts including the postseason (since the wind game against the Bills last year). The Patriots used to be a team that would peak post-Thanksgiving, but it looks like for the fourth straight year we'll see them play poorly down the stretch.
To me, this year has been even less enjoyable to follow than the Cam Newton 2020 season. This roster is much better than 2020, but that's part of the issue - in 2020 I felt like they did as well as we could've hoped, but this team is underachieving imo, and even worse it's an undisciplined team that routinely plays poorly in key situations in all three phases. It's just a tough product to watch and root for, beyond the record.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Dec 1, 2022 17:04:30 GMT -5
I'd normally agree, but the problem once again is the Sox went over the luxury tax threshold on a last place team and the penalties are higher for signing players. If they krept under, I'd like the Sox chances of getting maybe Rodon. Senga is out there waiting to be signed. Who knows what else the Sox are targeting right now besides Haniger and Senga? I don't see Chaim making a short sighted move by signing a player with QO attached. Bloom signed Story last offseason when he had a QO attached. *If* there's a free agent that can be signed for a deal they view as good value, the QO should not stop them from doing so. The penalties are part of the overall cost, you can factor the projected value of that cost and subtract it from what your offer would've been without a QO attached - if that offer still nets the player what's the issue? Now, the question is if the money lines up, but the QO is only one factor and it's not a dealbreaker if the money is right.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Oct 31, 2022 14:48:45 GMT -5
Mac's problems are definitely more than the coaching swap. If McDaniels was some magic cure, why has Carr regressed so much under the same guy despite the addition of arguably the best receiver in the NFL? By no means do I think Patricia and Judge are elite offensive coaches, but the play calling hasn't been a big issue overall imo (individual situations and plays yes, but you could say the same about Josh the last few years).
I've seen narratives that Daboll has unlocked Daniel Jones (PFF has him playing worse than he has the last two years, QBR has him slightly ahead of his first two years) as proof Judge stinks, or that Mac's struggles compared to last year prove Patricia stinks, but if you keep that same energy with the Raiders you'd come to the conclusion that Josh stinks - yet he's the same guy who could supposedly turn Mac back into a competent NFL starter.
To be fair, some QB's are going to click with certain coordinators and especially certain schemes, but there's way more to it. Last year, Mac looked like he was going through his progressions quickly, making the right read most of the time, and did a good job of limiting mistakes. The focus has been on his turnovers which of course are killers and unacceptable, but he flat out hasn't made many big plays or big time throws, and he's especially struggled in the red zone. I also think including last year Mac has feasted against bad defensive teams but struggles to make plays consistently against better units, which is typical of a lower mid-tier NFL QB. The system is less complex now by all accounts, so I don't think it's an issue of him picking it up/understanding it, he's just not making the correct reads enough and even when he does it's a bit late - and that's not to mention his actual throws.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Oct 10, 2022 13:13:26 GMT -5
Rhamondre is an absolute joy to watch run the football, and the fact that he's now contributing in the passing game is huge. We all talk about it - having a back that can stay on the field all three downs and be a dual threat makes the whole unit more unpredictable. Still, I hope Montgomery can get healthy or Strong bucks trends and contributes this year so they don't overwork Stevenson. Hopefully Harris doesn't miss time and stays healthy as well, I'm a fan of his as well, but there's no doubt who the better player is at this point.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Oct 8, 2022 14:21:55 GMT -5
Jake Bailey has the worst average and net average of any punter so far, and he also has the most touchbacks in the league. You may say that's a product of Belichick being conservative and making him punt near midfield a lot, but he's only tied for 16th place (with five other punters) for punts inside the 20. He's tied for 18th in longest punt.
The Pats devote a lot of resources to special teams, and on paper he should have a pretty decent coverage unit helping him out with that net average. Not only do the Pats punt too often, they have a punter playing bad football after signing an extension for real money relative to punters. Playing the conservative field position game is really tough when your punt operation isn't getting it done.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Oct 6, 2022 14:57:34 GMT -5
The Braves will face the winner of the STL-PHI series while the Dodgers will probably face the Mets. The Yankees will face the CLE-TB winner while the Astros will probably face the Blue Jays. Under this dumb system it's clearly better to be the #2 seed than #1, and better to be #6 than #5. On top of diluting the importance of the regular season by having so many teams make the playoffs, it doesn't even reward the teams that were best in the regular season. I don't see the downside to allowing the top seeds to pick their opponents, it'd be an extra reward for teams with the best records. This current system isn't more fair or interesting, and this year isn't some glitch.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Sept 10, 2022 12:16:16 GMT -5
Listen to this idea, Mac Jones plays good but not awesome but very respectable this season and we get bounced first game in playoffs. then the offseason comes and we sign Lamar Jackson because we have a lot of money to spend. So then right before the draft coach deals Mac Jones to the highest bidder. Just think about that one. The Ravens will definitely franchise tag Lamar if they can't extend him.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Aug 7, 2022 15:18:50 GMT -5
To add on, Dombrowski inherited those exact same players with the one exception of JD Martinez. Xander, Devers, and (until recently) Vazquez were all in the organization already. Well, he went and got Sale at exactly the right time. And Kimbrel. And Eovaldi. But yes, he got a great core. But this thread is about Bloom. I wasn't even knocking Dombrowski before you felt the need to defend him with side arguments. Everyone inherits talent when they take over, which was my point. Even the trades you cite above used inherited prospects. If anything, I'm citing the lack of impact positional talent the organization has developed since Benintendi & Devers half a decade ago. That gap isn't due to players drafted and developed under Bloom's tenure, it was before him. Bloom was tasked with improving the organizational depth while simultaneously trimming payroll, all while the best players he inherited became progressively more expensive, with almost no impact talent near MLB ready at the farm. If you aren't developing that talent, you need to buy or trade for it. People act like Bloom is just naturally obsessed with bargain bin value signings and acquisitions without acknowledging this specific situation has called for it. Ironically, many people don't acknowledge that DD was tasked with buying impact talent to complete a talented roster, even if it was above perceived market value. If Bloom inherited the team when Dombrowski took over, I think he'd have a much different strategy, in the same way that Dombrowski would've run the team differently if he took over when Bloom did. As others have said, this offseason will mark the first time Bloom has both the payroll flexibility and prospect capital to make multiple significant long term moves to overhaul the roster.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Aug 7, 2022 13:03:57 GMT -5
I did get a good chuckle when looking at the wRC+ of the current roster and the only everyday players over 100 were guys Bloom inherited and everybody Bloom has added fell below league average. To add on, Dombrowski inherited those exact same players with the one exception of JD Martinez. Xander, Devers, and (until recently) Vazquez were all in the organization already.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Jul 31, 2022 11:39:41 GMT -5
This is partly true. But again, they were marginal when healthy. But also, the “build” was adding Hill and Wacha to the rotation, which was so obviously going to build in IL trips a child could see it coming. So you *knew* the rotation was going to be patchwork. The Story and Kiké injuries were the most fluky and damaging, but rhe latter was off to a terrible start anyway. Injuries have made the season a disaster. They were partly predictable. With better health, they were still aiming at the bottom WC slots. If “we might get the 3rd WC slot” counts as a contender, yes, they were. Add: this is the thing about going bargain hunting… usually there is a downside. Bloom loves reclamation projects and cheaper arms like Perez, Richards, Hill, Wacha… but if these guys didn’t have drawbacks — that we see manifest— they wouldn’t be so cheap. So this is part of the risk of the strategy. You seem to think the bargain/cheap/reclamation signings are the preference rather than a strategy due to circumstances. I see it as a necessary strategy due to the fact so much money for the last few Red Sox teams was already committed years ago, and they didn't get enough surplus value on those commitments. Paying good players fair market value wasn't going to cut it, they needed to find hidden value to stretch the available money enough to cover all the holes to the roster. The rotation is patchwork largely because the three biggest investments (Sale, Eovaldi, and Price) have combined to give almost zero value. All three guys were inherited, and that's a substantial amount of money invested right there. When that much money is wasted, bargain hunting becomes necessary to fill in the gaps, you can't just lose those three guys and keep paying their salary and just plug in ready made replacements at market value - you have to find hidden value to have any chance unless you have ownership willing to outspend every team year after year. I think it's safe to say the rotation would've been built differently if Sale and (part of) Price weren't on the books. If the Red Sox had a ton of payroll flexibility and decided to just lower payroll and load up on bargain signings I'd be upset too. Not all the money has been spent efficiently, but there hasn't been anything comparable to the wasted money on guys like Sale, Price, etc. Once the Red Sox have real payroll flexibility to make noise and dramatically overhaul their roster, I'll be upset too if they simply resort to cheap signings and are content to lower the payroll. Hopefully they can use their financial resources immediately to eat some money in trades to maximize the talent return this deadline.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Jul 3, 2022 11:48:08 GMT -5
I hate re-litigating trades years later, but let's not re-write history either - there were only two pitchers with a negative WPA in the 2018 World Series: Sale and Brasier. The Sox won in five games, it's a major stretch to act like Sale was required to win *that series* - the journey to get there can be a different argument.
If the most simple results based traditional stats are your jam, the only Red Sox pitcher that gave up more ER than Sale that series was E-Rod, who gave up one more run but pitched 1.1 more innings. Sale gave 5 innings in two appearances, giving up 3 ER (with a strong 10k-2bb to be fair). In terms of championship importance, Joe Kelly was much better than Sale during that series, so maybe we should celebrate the Lackey trade instead, and forget all about Allen Craig. We could do the Lester trade too, since Cespedes was flipped for Porcello and Porcello was also better than Sale in the WS. Of course, it's baseball, so things aren't as simple as pointing to banners - it's a team sport with major luck involved. Maybe the 08 team would've won a title with Hanley and some other players making the money assigned to Beckett and Lowell, who knows?
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Post by beasleyrockah on May 13, 2022 18:08:20 GMT -5
I guess if someone said three years ago the Sox are on a 5-6year plan, we’d have all been on board? How long does a “rebuild” go on before you are just, you know, not a good team? Are the Pirates “rebuilding”? Put differently: if they sell big now, then maybe it is a few years too *late* — why not pull the plug back when you were trading Mookie and Beni instead of the on-going drip drip drip of pain? The whole thing sucks, and I am not excited about getting 6 more prospects to rank between 25-40 in the system and wait years on. Put differently again: how much are rentals of X, Nate, or JDM really going to get back? 2020 was the first season of Xander's extension, and Mookie was traded prior to that. Trading him before the extension kicked in would've been awful - how many times has that happened in recent baseball history with a home grown star player? It looked bad with Bronson Arroyo, but he wasn't X. Trading him before 2021 was possible, but it still would've been a bad look and he was a huge part of a team that sniffed a WS appearance. Without him, especially for a prospect return, they very likely don't make the postseason at all last year. Trading him this offseason would've been tough considering the FA market and the Correa pillow deal, how much better would the return have been then vs now? Eovaldi was a negative asset when Bloom first took over. He smartly held him while dealing Price. He pitched well in the shortened season, but at best was viewed as a neutral asset then, no team was absorbing his deal and giving up a significant return before the 2021 season. During the 2021 season he likely had real value, but the team was in the hunt and he was a key part. Now he has less control remaining, but staying healthy and pitching well since that time has boosted his stock and I'd bet the difference in trade value now isn't that huge. JD never had real trade value. He's proven he agrees by opting in each year. I guess Bloom could've eaten salary to get a return but that limits the overall value as well. With hindsight I get questioning whether they should've done a more aggressive rebuild earlier, in theory it makes sense. Realistically, they didn't have many pieces that made sense to sell and would've returned real value. It's not all or nothing though, Vazquez for example made sense to sell earlier.
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Post by beasleyrockah on May 13, 2022 15:57:06 GMT -5
Devers will be 27 in 2024, it amazes me how many people forget how young he is. I'm actually the opposite. I keep forgetting how old Xander is. I keep thinking he's 25.How? He was on the 2013 team. To me it's crazy he's not thirty yet, it feels like he's been in the organization forever.
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Post by beasleyrockah on May 12, 2022 19:28:56 GMT -5
I want to see the guys who are here for 2023 and beyond rebound and finish the season strong. I want guys like Paxton and Sale to come back healthy and pitch well. I want Houck and Whitlock to solidify themselves as guys you'll want in the rotation for years to come. I want Story, Verdugo, Dalbec and others to play good baseball. If these things happen, they won't be bad enough to lose that many games.
Rooting for a bad draft pick requires wanting your own guys to suck or get hurt, that's how teams lose a ton of games. Tanking for pick #5-8 vs finishing around .500 and getting pick #16-18 comes with actual consequences, you lose value in other real ways. It's not as simple as "well we're not making the playoffs so let's destroy the team so they lose close to 100 games".
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