You guys knew what you were doing when you released him. He makes too much money for a small market team.
Counsell butchered that game yesterday several different times. He took out Chacin too early as he has done so many times when the starter is going well. He left Knebel in too long when he was struggling and the worst offense of all was removing Taylor Williams with 2 out in the 10th for Jennings who is no better against lefties than he is against righties.
I wouldn't give any useful prospects for Machado. Just accept that we aren't winning the division and make a few low cost rental pickups that don't cost us any legitimate prospects.
There is a chance that I was wrong about Corey Ray. He leads the Southern League in HRs and SBs and has a pretty good OBP. He still strikes out way too often and the batting average isn't where it needs to be but he may end up being a pretty good major leaguer.
I sure do miss our (KC) homegrown talent, Lorenzo Cain. I hope you guys are doing your best to make him feel comfortable in a brand new environment. Oh and Jeffress as well.
For a second I had an idea of a trade idea with the Dodgers of taking Forsythe's salary along with Barnes, but I see that Barnes hasn't been any better than our catchers.
How can we take this team seriously when Wade Miley is starting the first game out of the break. Why do we continue to go with these veteran stiffs instead of Woodruff and Burnes.
I think they have earned some benefit of the doubt with handling pitchers at this point, no? He's a fresh arm in July in a stretch that outside of all star break has no off day from 6/25 to 8/6. Hader has looked bad lately, can't throw off speed for strikes and people are starting to see his fastball. The prior sentence can be repeated for Knebel. Burnes might be needed to fill more of that role for a while.
I guess they have earned the benefit of the doubt but that kind of fades away when they brought up Zagurski and let him pitch in some high leverage situations. As much as I trust Derek Johnson I highly doubt he can get anything out of Miley who has sucked his whole career.
I am sure that Stearns has been criticized but I am happy that he didn't trade someone like Burnes for Machado and I hope he goes the cheap rental route if we are even in contention for a wild card position at the end of the month.
A comp for that Dodger deal from our system would have been headlined by headlined by Ortiz. (A guy on some top 100 lists but not all). There was a quote from Stearns that they made a competitive offer that depended on personal preference by the Orioles.
I know we have injuries but the lineup tonight is a joke. 5-9 is Saladino, Perez, Pina, Broxton, Miley. In other words all automatic outs after the four hitter and Miley as the starting pitcher.
What lineup can we put out there that is wny different? Does Villar instead of Saladino or Perez move the needle? Thames is sitting against a lefty is really all there is to report.
Looking at Shaw's statline is weird trying to find where he is losing 46 points in OPS. His average is down 28 points, but he makes up for that mostly with more walks. He is on Pace for more HR and 2b this year. Was he in the DL for a while last year? He only got538 ABs
I am not saying that we have better options. The point is that this lineup is utter trash and we better get some cheap rentals if we have any chance at a wild card. To be honest if we can't get any bats dirt cheap we should just ride it out.
Taylor Williams cant get anyone out and Counsell just leaves him in there. Five consecutive hits and no one even warming up in the bullpen.
Counsell is constantly pulling his starters too early when they are pitching well. Its a big reason why the bullpen has faded lately.
They should be fresh enough, it just turns out we don't have a bullpen full of Kimbrells and Miller's and regression is crashing pretty hard.
It was always going to be the formula for making these mediocre starters work, but the pen isn't working right now
I understand that but you can't keep pulling the starters when they are rolling and have a low pitch count.
If Perez makes that easy play at second Woodruff gets through the inning. Jansen would have started the 9th and we wouldn't have scored anyway.