RandyMarsh

On the topic of FA signings of that era I can't remember if it was the Pudge or Magglio year but I remember the rumor mill on ESPN atleast(i oddly didn't listen closely to local radio/news at the time) was that we were pretty hot for JD Drew and Adrian Beltre at the time and at one point they listed us at the favorites before being trumped by the Red Sox and Ms. If that was legit and we did indeed sign them I wonder how different things may have turned out for the franchise. Do we still go after Magglio? Or even Cabrera for that matter since we originally had him at 3b?

To be fair in regards to the Pudge signing that was at a time before teams and metrics did a better job of analyzing just how much value a particular player can add to the team. In those days I think teams overvalued a singular players worth and that's why you would see bad teams sign players in hopes that he would be the guy to turn it around. In recent memory the only mediocre teams I can think of that signed big money players were the Rangers last year and the Mariners when they signed Cano and even in the Ms case it coincided with a bunch of highly touted prospects coming up so there was some hope, kinda like us this past season when we signed Baez and ERod.

Yeah definitely a good deal in that regard it just kinda sucks for somebody like me who is a cable subscriber but would sometimes stream the games if I was at the gym or had some down time when working the late shift.

Not sure if it's been mentioned or not but I think you now have to pay for Bally's streaming service even if you have a cable/satellite package with them. I'm not 100% on that but I saw some Pacers fans I follow on Twitter say that is the case with Indy so I imagine it's the same here.

That team was more disappointing from a win/loss record but there were atleast some positive signs that could be taken from it going forward in terms of player stat lines. Many of the predictive stats pointed towards us being unlucky and that things would probably correct themselves which they did the following season when we were much better. There's really none of that this year, perhaps we may be due for a little bounce back cause it's hard to believe the players are truly this bad but other than that I don't think there was much you could look to say confidently that they will be better next year.

A-Rod just said the hardest hit ball all inning has been 88mph yet the Phils scored 6 runs. Crazy!

Damn Cardinals just unraveling, one of the best defensive 3Bs of this century Nolan Arenado just whiffed on a grounder to score a run to make it 5-2 Phils.

Yeah particularly since atleast according to them there is a big drop off after Dingler in regards to the league rankings. I believe they had Peyton Graham next but I don't think he was in the top 150.

Fangraphs posted their end of the season board, Jobe is at 58, Keith 77 and Dingler just outside the top 100 at 103.

I will say Kay did have a good quote earlier as all the fans in St. Louis were up cheering, to paraphrase "If you want to sell baseball to somebody who has never watched, show them this scene."

Woj said that Wemby is the best prospect to ever come in to the NBA and from what he is hearing from folks around the league that there are going to be a bunch of teams trying to tank to try to get a chance at him. Reason I bring it up is that our roster may be bad enough on its own to tank without trying but I don't get the vibe that we are going to try to lose so if other teams do have that mindset particularly in the East could we possibly sneak into the play in game despite our flaws?

Well Pujols hit's a 109mph missile but didn't get enough height on it and it ends up in the CFs glove just short of the warning track. Thought it was gone when it left his bat.

I thought Jose Quintana was toast a couple years ago but here he is starting game 1 for the Cardinals. Just looked at his stats and he has an ERA just over 2 since STL acquired him. Working their magic again.

Just turned on the Cards/Phils game, really just want to see what Pujols does.

It's been so long since we've been to the playoffs and in turn me really paying attention to the WC/1st round but did they always have playoff games on during a weekday at Noon like they do right now with Cleveland and TB?

Just a disaster of a season, probably the worst case scenario that you realistically could ask for. Disappointing free agent signings, the Meadows disaster, major injuries to your two top young pitchers(plus your 3rd ended the season with a dead arm), your 2 blue chip prospects struggle, 1 of your few legit bats coming into the year in Candy collapses, Baddoo takes a step backwards and you got no real positive surprises thats going to be long term outside of maybe a reliever or 2 and we all know how volatile they can be. Only positive thing was Avila getting canned.

I jokingly have said that Poole has one of the more punchable faces in the league, apparently Draymond thinks so too. Seriously though I hope he's alright, that punch appeared to land flush and came from a big dude. That could do some serious damage.

Forgot about Wiggins, he was definitely hyped out of HS but I seem to remember folks cooling on him during his freshmen year of college relatively speaking cause I remember some small section of people talking about possibly taking Jabari Parker over him.

Best news since the Avila firing!

I think at this point Wemby is probably a tad below what Lebron was viewed at as a prospect, from my memory of top prospects of the last 20 or so years I think he'd probably be number 2 though just ahead of Anthony Davis.

Yeah the ship has definitely sailed for Daz and unfortunately for him he doesn't have that one great skill that a team my gravitate at to give him a shot if they are in a pinch. Perhaps some other org can unlock something in him but personally I put those odds at slim to none.

Pujols had such a strange downfall, perhaps it was just playing in LAA but it was weird cause he still had years where he hit for power, had 3 years where he hit 30+ and even 40 once but even in those years he couldn't crack .800 OPS. Looking a little deeper his K rate went up slightly in those decline years but only a couple percentage points which considering the league wide increase in K's that probably just coincided with that but the difference was his BABIP dropped over 50 points most years and over 100 some and his walk rate just plummeted. His Walk rate was half or even a third some years of what it was in St. Louis. Also at the age of 42 he just produced his 2nd highest HR percentage of his entire career.

Last year we were -38 in differential through 4 games, this year -1 so another sign of some yearly progress. Yeah ultimately you have to start winning but I think we sometimes forget just how bad we were a year ago at this time.

If you look at Victor's scouting report it sounds alot like Darko's pre draft, of course Victor has actually shown to have the ability to do the unicorn things in competition where as Darko's was based off what people projected while seeing him in workouts or garbage time.

While there may certainly be merit to injuries and plus 7 fters I don't think it's been a big enough sample to prove for sure that they are going to have chronic injuries. There have been too many cases of big guys that have little to no major injuries throughout their career for me to think about passing on somebody like Wemby. Perhaps if it was a coin flip between guys I may play on the side of caution and take the smaller player but otherwise I'm going with the more talented player regardless of size.