Avila won't do it, but I'd be curious what Cinci is asking for with Sonny Gray. Or Oakland with Manaea.
Alexander is fine as a #5 starter. We lack any kind of proven depth behind him if one of the five starters goes down, but I'm not sure anyone in FA right now is a great bet to be better than Alexander. If we're talking about trying to win this year, we need a #2 or 3 starter, because the likelihood of all three of the kids being good this year is very low. There's not really a #2 or 3 on the FA market right now. This is why I'm team a) sign Conforto; and b) see if you can turn some combo of Baddoo/Paredes/low level guys into someone like Manaea, Montas or Gray.
We have a collection of young bats right now that are basically AAAA players where they either need to be given an every day opportunity to sink or swim, or moved somewhere to get that choice. Paredes W. Castro Cameron Hill Reyes I'm tempted to throw Baddoo in there, too, although he'll probably get a good chance this year. None of those guys project to be anything more than depth pieces this year. All of those guys should be people we're canvassing around the league to see if we can get some kind of arm that can help in return. I don't think Al has that in him, unfortunately, because I think he's terrified of trading a young player who turns into something somewhere else and he looks bad.
I actually don’t hate it. He’s been garbage the last couple of years, but we certainly need someone we can throw out there in a pinch.
Thank god clients are willing to pay me to Google Earth spring training sites and watch clips of Parks and Rec.
Because all these guys are 1 or 2 years from FA and they aren't going to sign any of them long term, so they kind of need to trade them now if they're going to do it. Whether they actually could sign them long term or not is up for debate depending on what side you're on, but they're never going to do it so it doesn't matter.
They also weren't going to be very good this year, so that's part of it. Before this they lost two of their better position players in FA from a team that had the 8th-best record in the AL last year.