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At least one guy is.

I could see us taking a run at Dylan Cease. Good strikeout guy, albeit with a slightly elevated walk rate, and his soft topline numbers are bolstered by some solid numbers under the hood. That might even save us a year. Given that he's coming out at age 30, I could see going for 4/100, although he'll probably want six years. His being a flyball pitcher might scare off teams with short parks, so that might help. As for the position players listed here, I don't know that we seriously go for any of them, even Bregman. I wouldn't mind seeing Bregman suit up for us for a couple years, but with Max Anderson taking reps at third (and looking good there!) and due to arrive next year, he might be the guy we're looking to step in there. We also have Hao Yu-Lee banging on the door. But if we throw 8/300 at Bregman instead, I'll gulp and support it.

Harris hoped to strike gold by picking up volume. It look like it might work for the first one or two starts, then it stopped working, so that approach did not bear fruit this year. But given that no one was eager to deal frontline starters, what should Harris have done instead? Merrill Kelly? It took the Rangers three top 15 pitching prospects to get him, it didn't work for them, and now Kelly is gone as a free agent. Shane Bieber? What do you suppose it would have taken the Tigers for get the Guardians to trade him to us? Dustin May? Lol. Zack Littell? He couldn't strike out a fly and his FIP was a run and a half higher than his ERA, and the buyers had to pull a third team into the trade to make it happen. Those are the top starters that moved in the market.

And his way is working. Building up to his team takes time, effort, and development. There simply aren't any All-Star hitters available for the picking on the shelf at Walmart.

Yeah, I think it can be discounted. More than that. Disregarded. It's bonkers to think he will torpedo a high-profile business just to spend the money on a broad instead.

I think we're gonna take a run at keeping Finnegan, and maybe Montero, although he doesn.t exactly control the strike zone. I can see us also picking up Urquidy's option, depending on how he looks behind the curtain.

Maybe it's a talent issue and not a philosophy or coaching issue. We're still working with a lot of Avila's signs, some of whom (a) are not inherently good talent fits for the eventual Harris peak team we will evolve to, and (b) were drafted and initially developed a under completely different hitting philosophy and structure than Harris has brought to bear in his time with the organization. I think once this team becomes primarily a Harris team, we will see his philosophy of controlling the plate really come into view. Example: Of the 20 hitters who logged plate appearances this year, 66% of the plate appearances were by Avila signs and 34% were by Harris signs. In aggregate, the Avila signs drew walks in 7.4% of their plate trips; Harris signs drew walks in 10.5% of theirs. That's the difference between a team of Avila signs ranking 28th in the majors in walk rate versus a team of Harris signs ranking 1st. Same thing with strikeouts: The Avila team strikes out at a 25.5% clip, which would rank them 28th, versus the Harris team at 20.5%, which would rank them 6th. That tells me that the philosophy is working—we just have to get the right players on board to execute it.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Boras told Harris, "sure, kid, go ahead and make us an offer now, we're listening" in order to get a benchmark to go to the market with, and Harris declined.

Baseball has always tinkered with the mechanics of the game to equalize pitching and hitting so one doesn't over-dominate the other. I don't think they'll do anything as radical as move the mound back—I can't imagine the chaos of them suddenly having to completely overhaul their mechanics during the course of a winter and successfully compete at the highest level in mere months—but I do think they need to consider changes to the ball. One idea I thought of many years ago that might help hitting is to make the ball heavier. My idea was to reduce ball movement on the way to the plate to make it cross the plate on a truer trajectory and hitters could square it up more often. And bonus, the ball won't get hit as far, which would reduce homers, keep more balls in the ballpark, and create more fielding and baserunning action which is more fun for fans. Turns out there's a recent study that indicates that a heavier ball (i.e., six ounces vs five) might also reduce UCL injury in pitchers, because elbow varus torque would be reduced naturally, putting less pressure on the ligament and thus reducing exposure to rupture risk. Whatever the answer is, I think it's better for the integrity of the game if it comes from changes in equipment over changes in dimensions.

Well, Tony Gwynn would be 65 years old, so I kind of doubt he would hit more home runs ... 😉

I think Javy knows that, but he may simply be poor at differentiating sliders from fastballs, or he may be poor at reading pitchers moves while in the box. It might be a physical thing. I think he'd like to be able to lay off those if he could, I mean, who wouldn't, but maybe he just can't because there's some physical shortcoming he has that can't be fixed. If this is the case, it might be a vision issue.

They're definitely going to give him a look. They're going to give a few guys a look. I also think we're going to have to get at least one guy to replace Flaherty, and maybe another one-year guy to push Jobe. It won't be in-house options only.

I'm sorry, am I reading this right? Are you actually suggesting that Chris Ilitch will choose not to spend on the team because he's going to spend the money on some broad instead? That sounds absolutely bonkers to me.

I agree they should seven guys they can slot into a rotation if needed, although practically by definition, your #6 and #7 starters will end up being no better than #4 or #5 in your rotation even if you need them, and it would be even worse if they're replacing two of your top three, and that would be a suboptimal rotation. Meaning, we're not going to be carrying seven guys who could all be top three in a playoff rotation. We're going to have a couple of Keider Monteros in such a mix. That's what signing Cobb and Urquidy and trading for Morton and Paddack was supposed to accomplish.

I want Toronto to win for a reason I can't talk about here. 😏

Whether we go out feebly one-two-three, or we put a bunch of guys on base, not scoring all the time is low-key infuriating.

Really, though, how does your leadoff hitter reach base six times in a game and you score only two runs??

ANOTHER great throw by a catcher on a caught stealing! Holy ****, this game.

Two on and no out have turned into an out and an inning ending double play for the second inning in a row! This game has entered the realm of the all-time classics.

Two called thirds on the far edges of the zone. Just ... agggghhhh ...

Holy ****, what a ****ing game!

Holy ****, this is going to be Brandon Inge all over again! That's it, we're ****ed. ****ed right up the ass by MLB. Even the announcers know it was a foul.

Man, what a game.

Other things being equal, men on first and second, no outs = 1.44 expected runs.