It’s too bad Judge couldn’t break the Seattle home run into about four doubles. That was a monster shot worthy of Reggie.
Cubs and Pirates playing very good baseball now all of a sudden. They might well overtake Milwaukee and compete for the NL Central. Cubs are the defending champs but the Pirates have a lot of young talent on that team if they can just start having playing well at the same time. Dodgers are in the stratosphere – maybe low-earth orbit at this point.
From the not-quite-MLB roundup: Meanie outfielder Richie Shaffer of the Columbus Clippers takes a home run ball away from Fat Kid in the stands:
http://www.dispatch.com/storyimage/OH/20170719/SPORTS/170718491/AR/0/AR-170718491.jpg
At first glance, I mis-identified which finger he has extended.
It turns out that StatCast is easy to break… :dubious:
The Rafael Devers Era begins tonight for Boston. Let’s hope for something better than the Will Middlebrooks Era.
Probably earlier than they wanted, but he’s been tearing it up in the minors.
Another guy doing well in minor league ball is everyone’s favorite QB/RF, Tim Tebow. Since his promotion a month ago, he is hitting .317/.398/.549 with 4 HRs in 25 games for St. Lucie. I must admit, pretty damn impressive for a 29 year old guy who apparently played no baseball in a decade.
The Blue Jays have seven days to tear the team apart.
I’ve been saying since 2015 the team had a talent base a mile wide and an inch deep, and the chickens have come home to roost, folks they’re old, falling apart, and there is no one to replace the broken pieces.
For those who care this is the team’s 41st season, and I would argue it’s the worst team they have ever had, if you discount 1977-1978 when the team was just expansion castoffs and they hadn’t acquired any good prospects. They have had worse W-L records, but those teams all had, at least, some interesting young prospects. Today’s team has… well, Roberto Osuna and Marcus Stroman could be members of the next winning Blue Jays team. I don’t believe anyone else could.
Furthermore, the cupboard’s bare. There’s resistance to idea of trading any starting pitching simply because it’s not clear the team even has replacement level pitchers to make those starts. There are NO prospects at AAA worth discussing; Dwight Smith Jr. or Roemon Fields might be okay fourth outfielders, I guess. That’s about it. There are no pitching prospects.
Double A? Nearly empty. Anthony Alford is a strong B prospect and theres a few B- guys, Danny Jansen and Lourdes Gurriel (who is much hyped, but has not demonstrated much yet) and the pitching staff is horrible. You cannot find an A prospect until you get to A ball, and that young it’s all wishes and dreams.
The thing is, I don’t think the Jays can restock much through trades; who do you get value for? Josh Donaldson might return something. But these days no one gives up a lot for short term rentals, and a lot of the Jays’ assets are expensive. No one will take Troy Tulowitzki and the enormous money he’s owed.
It’s going to take years to rebuild.
J.A. Happ is very tradeable. Get a 5th starter to tide you over and some prospects for him. The team picking him up is looking at the remainder of this year and what $13m for next year for a lefty. Estrada & Liriano may bring back a little as they are both FA at the end of the year.
Roberto Osuna should have very good value. Many teams are looking for closers or top notch setup guys and despite being young is probably a piece they could live without as they rebuild. With 3 years of Arb left he would fetch a lot back I believe.
They probably should try to move most of the above and go into rebuilding mode.
Might be able to get a nice haul for Justin Smoak from a team needing some power at 1B. Unless you want to hang on to him, thinking this is the new normal for Smoak. But I suspect his value will never be as high as it is now.
If the team is in rebuilding mode, trading a 22-year-old, who is one of the best relief pitchers in the major leagues, with three more years of team control isn’t where they should start. They’re trying to get guys like Roberto Osuna.
Osuna, Sanchez and Stroman are the only players I WOULDN’T trade, for anything short of an insane, illogical offer.
Smoak’s an interesting case in that
- He might fetch you a good return, but
- He is very cheap, and so there’s little financial benefit in moving him.
I would assume the Jays absolutely will trade him if a good offer is made; it will make the rest of the year depressing, but Smoak will never be more wanted than he is now.
Preliminary estimate: Kershaw out 4-6 weeks.
The good news for Dodger fans is that if the team plays .500 ball the rest of the way, they’ll win 99 games and almost certainly still make the playoffs. But what happens after that?
I’m fearing the Dodgers are going to give up some excellent prospects out of semi-panic with Kershaw down an unknown period of time.
Are you hoping to contend next year or in 3 years? If 3 years then trading the high value kid makes sense, if 1-2 years then not at all.
Nix panicus. After how well the team performed last year with Kershaw out, I’m not seeing any signs of anxiety yet. The bullpen will step up, they’ll bring up a couple of AAA starters for a try-out in the show, and things will chug right along. Kershaw returns in September and Robert’s your mother’s brother.
Cubs vs White Sox this week, with two day games at Wrigley as it should be.
Naturally, the Cubs want more night games because $$$$$$$$$$$
Either way I see no point in trading them. All will still be affordable and reaching their peaks in 3 years, barring injury, but anyone can be injured so there’s no point worrying about that.
You can’t get rid of EVERYONE. You don’t want the team to go 40-122. If you’re going to do anything at all, see about turning Osuna back into a starter, maybe.
Do day games at Wrigley not sell out? I’d kind of assumed that that team sells out almost everything, and the limiting factor on money was the size of the stadium as a whole.
Maybe there aren’t enough unemployed people left in Chicago, right, Lee Elia?
Jose Altuve is now hitting over .500 for the month of July.
Impressive. It looks like Altuve and the Astros should play as many games as possible on the road. So far the Astros are 30-21 at home and 36-12 on the road. So why are the Astros 25th of 30 in average road attendance? Altuve started 1 for 7 in 2 July home games, then went 15 for 24 in 5 road games. It looks good for him personally that the Astros still have 5 more road games in July before July 31 at home, given that he’s batting .130 higher on the road than at home. His other stats are also better on the road. Details here. Best wishes for continued success.