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OK, good example. Do the Orioles make that trade?

So wait a minute: are you saying a successful GM would trade Jobe and Clark and Jung and McGonigle to get an established player we need to pay a big salary to? Do I have that straight?

Do you mean to say you think Liranzo is not producing? Because he is slashing .220/.344/.356, good for a wRC+ of 105, in his age 20 season in a Midwest League he is young for by -2.3 years. If this is what you mean by "not producing", then, man, tough crowd here.

Well, "Tork insurance" wasn't me, but I did say I thought this puts Tork on notice, and that maybe a trade to a more less forward-thinking organization might be good for him. But I am taking the scouting at face value has below-average catcher tools but has shown good glove and soft hands at first. To your point, if his hitting is already a finished product, then yeah, he doesn't rank highly at first. But if what I suspect is true—if Harris sees an opportunity to substantially improve his too—then he might end up being a plus all-around first baseman after all.

Can you give me an example of a trade we could make right now that would yield impact talent that would help us win right now?

It was reported that Harris had a very high ask on Flaherty, even with the Dodgers, and settled for Lirzano and Sweeney. But I'm still not quite following your objection to this. Does this mean he should simply have asked for Lirzano and Sweeney last week so he could be done with it? As for the wait-for-development approach: I'm not sure what else our options are. We can't trade our way to an immediate winner because we don't have the prospect capital to liquidate for that. We can't free agent our way to an immediate winner until players actively want to play for and in Detroit. We can't waiver wire or MiLB free agent our way to a winner because there's not enough talent to be gleaned from those wires. That leaves the development process to build a winner. Unless I'm missing something here that you're seeing?

They happen to have one of those at 35th and S. Ashland, just a couple miles from that ballpark. That's pretty local.

One thing I'd like to see Harris do in the next 12 months is secure at least one fire-breathing back-of-the-bullpen guy, whether via trade, waivers, Rule 5 pickup, MiLB contract, or development. That is one component without which you cannot win the 2025 game.

How would you approach team-building differently than you suspect Harris is doing?

If I had to bet a dollar on this proposition, I would take the over on Harris sees something in the kid that suggests his hit tool can be improved.

This is totally fair and we all do the same thing: make devastating judgments about the performance of high-level strategic baseball professional based on incomplete and imperfect information. What could be more fun as an engaged, analytical fan? 😁 But I want to ask you about the bold-faced part. You say Harris has a strategy of overasking and waiting until the end of the deadline to make moves that you don't like. This almost suggests that you would prefer he take lesser deals earlier in the deadline period. I'm not sure that's what you're trying to put across, so can you spool out for me what you mean by this to help me understand your thinking here?

Probably because he never got the offer I proposed a few dozen pages ago that Greg Pappas laughed off.

What part of “that ridiculous” do you not understand?? 😉

Or perhaps Madden, too. And Faedo, who is proving he is not a major league starter, may get a few nods to chow innings for us. I'm thinking it’s going to be all about warm bodies for the rest of this season. I’m doubtful they’ll try to stretch Brieske. He hasn’t thrown more than three innings since Avila days, when he was perfectly awful doing so.

It will be pitchers we believe we can get the clock ticking on without any real future consequence, exactly as with Sammons and Montero, which is why—and I know you didn’t say this, but others have—Jobe has no chance to come up this year.

OTOH, TBF, Liranzo is not a finished major league product.

That’s really what it comes down to: out was a combination of key guys underperforming horribly and guys getting banged up. If Tork and Baez, and maybe Meadows and definitely Manning, had stayed true to their projections, and Carpenter and Mize and (later) Olson had been able to stay on the field, we might have won 84 games this season. But even with everything falling apart, we have been, and still are, within shouting distance of .500. So we may not be a top contender for a ring next year, but we may not be as far, far away as fans might think.

I am totally with you on Harris and the progress he is making in our system, which was all but leveled by TFGM and so is going to take some time to actually build up. It just amuses me how people think we absolutely should be in the playoffs RIGHT ****ING NOW because it’s been ten years already, and obviously I’m sympathetic to that because I lived through all his, too, but when you calm down and think rationally about it, you can see that’s basically lashing out. I’m not sure Avila actually enjoyed lottery tickets as much as he didn’t know how to put the right kind of work into assessing prospects. For all the lip service he paid for Caesar, he either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, put anything along those lines in place to help him do his job. He took the lottery tickets because, as in the 80’s, that’s all he ever thought prospects even were.

I think maybe Liranzo is a little more than just an insurance policy for Tork. Harris might be putting Tork on notice, which, honestly, Tork might not mind because he might be eager to move on to somewhere else for new start. Seems like a non-analytics organization like the White Sox or Angels or Rockies or Nationals might be a good fit for him.

Who was demanding Jackson Holliday for Jack Flaherty?

I’ll bid him Godspeed and everything as he walks out the door, but now that he’s on another team, I really don’t care so much how he does anymore. He’s just another pitcher like all the other pitchers on other teams now. I’m focused on Liranzo and Sweeney now.

Is Lirzano going to take over for Tork? Thayron Liranzo TLDR A below-average arm stands in the way of Liranzo catching. He might have enough power to profile at first if he can't. Full Report Liranzo still has too much to clean up on defense for us to feel comfortable stuffing him on the Top 100. When he can actually get a throw to the bag off, his Patrick Bailey-style sidearm release works ok, but he so often botches or fumbles his exchange that he doesn't give himself a chance to get the runner. Liranzo mostly utilizes a traditional crouch when receiving and is a below-average framer and ball-blocker. Both those skills are more tenable and within the range of big league viability than his arm, but at Liranzo's size and age, it's no guarantee they'll stay that way. There is huge switch-hitting power here — Liranzo hit 24 bombs in the Cal League, hit a ball 114 mph, and had a 48% hard-hit rate last year. He can hit for power from the left side even when he isn't taking his best swing, and he's dangerous from the right side even though he uses super conservative footwork, generating everything with a shift in his weight and the strength of his hands. Liranzo doesn't have great feel for the barrel, which is typical for a young a switch-hitter, let alone one of atypical size. His 65% contact rate is below the threshold of any 2023 big league first baseman (Bryce Harper's was at 68%, the next lowest was 72%), so there's substantial Quad-A risk here if Liranzo can't catch. Whether or not he stays back there is the difference between Cal Raleigh and M.J. Melendez from a production standpoint. Arm strength is perhaps a little less teachable than other issues young catchers often need to fix, which is worrisome in this case. He has a little more minor league experience than some of the other prospects who present a combination of extreme ceiling and risk, and Liranzo's high-end outcomes are driving his placement here.

D'OH!

What the hell is happening? Who is fcking up the report on the return for Flaherty? Or are we getting all four guys?

Whoops! Fangraphs 2024 Updated rankings now has Cartaya at #13 in the system and on a downward trend. https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2024-in-season-prospect-list?org=lad Kendall George ranks #30 here. Looks less than whelming at first glance.