n_touch said:

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tjholley16 said:

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I guess this is the best season to get it done. I don't think any cities have had worse off seasons than Houston or Boston

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To bad he fired Hinch so fast, looks like it would not have mattered this year anyway

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I get where you're going, but would it have counted as a season suspension if the season itself was suspended?

ESPN article on top Houston prospects for 2020 from last week... not sure if it was posted. It pretty much paints the picture that we've been discussing:

Something... anything... about baseball to read

From Kiley McDaniel: "A quick refresher on a key term you'll see throughout the team lists: I use something called Future Value, shortened to FV hereafter, as a term that sums up the value of a player into one number. It's graded on the 20-80 scouting scale. A low-end everyday player is a 50, which correlates to 2.0 WAR; a well above average position player, No. 3 starter or high-end closer is a 60, or somewhere around 3.0 WAR."

1. Forrest Whitley, RHP, 55 FV (No. 25 in the Top 100)
2. Jose Urquidy, RHP, 50 FV (100)
3. Abraham Toro, 3B, 45 FV
4. Hunter Brown, RHP, 45 FV
5. Freudis Nova, SS, 45 FV
6. Bryan Abreu, RHP, 45 FV
7. Brandon Bielak, RHP, 45 FV
8. Korey Lee, C, 45 FV

2020 impact: Jose Urquidy and Forrest Whitley

Ranked breakout pick: Hunter Brown

Unranked breakout pick: Jeremy Pena

Ranked prospects beyond the top 100:

• (Where the F*#& is) Toro already has some big league time and can passably play all four corner spots. He's a strong athlete who is a little stiff, but his offense plays around average and his plus arm fits anywhere.
• Brown was a second-round talent who slipped to the fifth round in 2019 due to being from a Division II school and getting some bad draft-day advice. His pro surface stats are just OK, but teams are excited due to the underlying metrics: fastball velocity that sits mid-90s, a slider that flashes plus, his feel for it is advanced, starter traits.
• Nova is a bit of a free swinger but young enough that he can still improve. The good stuff here is rare and loud: plus bat speed, potential plus power, shortstop fit, plus arm.
• Abreu also got a 2019 big league look and has a mid-90s heater and a plus hook but reliever command.
• Bielak is a starter, but he's more of a back-end type since his fastball plays about average; the curveball is his go-to pitch.
• Lee was a late pop-up prospect in 2019 out of Cal and has everyday potential due to his across-the-board athleticism.

Others of note:

• RHP Cristian Javier throws a kitchen sink's worth of solid-average stuff at hitters with feel for how to best use his stuff, but isn't a textbook starter or reliever.
• RHP Jairo Solis had a late 2018 Tommy John surgery but flashed three plus pitches before that; there's still big upside here if it all comes back and the command progresses.
• The Houston system has a glut of very similar hard-throwing reliever-type righties that often signed for small bonuses via its bulk-shopping international process: Enoli Paredes, Jojanse Torres, Luis Garcia, Jose Rivera, Manny Ramirez and Carlos Sanabria are among the best of the bunch.
• RHP Tyler Ivey is a domestic version of that cadre of talent and Venezuelan RHP Angel Macuare is a more starter-looking type.
• SS Jeremy Pena was a glove-only small-school prospect from Maine and his best tool is still his glove, but the offense is coming, even if there isn't big over-the-fence power.
• CF Colin Barber is a 2019 draftee with plus speed and average-ish other tools
• CF Jordan Brewer is a 2019 draftee with contact issues but loud other tools (70 runner, 60 arm, 60 raw power).
• Two middle infielders to keep an eye on are 2B Luis Santana (hit-first player, limited other tools) and 2019 draftee SS Grae Kessinger (glove over offense, average-ish tools, could be a swing/approach adjustment candidate).

n_touch said:

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tjholley16 said:

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I guess this is the best season to get it done. I don't think any cities have had worse off seasons than Houston or Boston

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To bad he fired Hinch so fast, looks like it would not have mattered this year anyway

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Hinch was fired because he ****d up. Not because he was gonna be missing a year.

Not saying that he should not have been fired. Just stating that it would have been a little funny and piss a lot of people off if the season that he missed was one that was cut short or did not happen.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28929787/imagining-team-usa-baseball-dream-team

This is the kinda petty bs I'm going to get really sick of this season

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So let's have some fun and pick a U.S. dream team of 28 players (the roster size for the WBC). My rules:

1. Stroman has to be on the team because this whole thing was his idea.

2. Christian Yelich and Eric Hosmer have to be on the team because they were two of the leaders of the 2017 team and Stroman asked them to help in recruiting.

3. No Astros. Hey, chemistry is an important thing in a tournament like this. Can't take the risk of some bad blood if, say, Alex Bregman has to dress next to Cody Bellinger.

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It will feel weird rooting for those other teams instead of the US, but it'll happen nonetheless.

We're all missing the portion where this says best 28....that does not include Cody Belinger anyways...

Maybe you missed the other article. They want him, and he wants to play.

[url] https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28927685/marcus-stroman-recruits-team-usa-dream-team-2021-world-baseball-classic[/url]

Well for one the quoted section made it more like a challenge in my opinion like each person makes their own.

Second, the author is an idiot. He didn't mention bellinger in his 1st base debate, he mentions him in the outfield. Then decides at the end to move him to first anyways...

Tap Baseball. Fun game, but it's impossible to hit a curve ball on there when it's always magically called a strike. No, I'm not bitter at all.

No one signals you to let a breaker ball is coming?

Red Sox lawyer suggests team is aware of and disagrees with MLB findings - Athletic
Free MSN article.

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A lawyer for the Red Sox on Friday morning suggested that MLB already has made a conclusion on whether the team in 2018 violated baseball's ban on in-game use of electronics. The attorney declined to admit that the Red Sox illicitly stole signs using electronics.
"We do not admit that," Lauren Moskowitz of Cravath, Swaine & Moore told the judge when he asked her, "Do you admit or not that the Red Sox violated the rules?"

The interaction occurred during a one hour, 47-minute oral argument on whether lawsuits brought by daily fantasy sports (DFS) contestants over the sign-stealing scandal should be dismissed. The Red Sox, along with the Houston Astros, and MLB are defendants. The arguments were made telephonically.

"That's interesting," Judge Jed Rakoff replied. "So you think the commissioner of baseball was just off base in your view?"

MLB has yet to issue a report or prospective discipline against the Red Sox after sources told The Athletic that the team used its video replay room illegally during its 2018 championship campaign.
Nevertheless, Moskowitz replied, "Your Honor, I think that there are distinctions between what the Red Sox believe occurred and what the commissioner found. And I think that certainly they're entitled to disagree that that activity happened at the club level. Certainly, we did find on certain occasions in 2017, that this electronic device was used to communicate sign information."

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Why we haven't seen the Red Sox investigation findings yet.

Is there any "For the H" merchandise out there? Haven't seen any online.

Wonder if some of the frivolous lawsuit fallout from the Astros "admission of guilt" is driving the Red Sox decision to deny, or at the very least speak vaguely, about MLB's findings.

saw some discussion that the 2020 season could mark the return of the doubleheader.

whenever the season returns...May 1st, June 1st, July 1st...make every currently scheduled Saturday game into a doubleheader

one small hope is that 2020 is an election year in the U.S.

there's no way all the politicians from the federal level to the local level...want to go into the November elections with the country still mired in non-stop event cancellations.

come May or June they might start eyeing MLB as the first step in the return to normalcy (at least from an entertainment standpoint)

In an election year there's going to be a delicate balance between returning to normalcy and leading the charge on eradicating the virus, which personally I expect measures through the end of April, maybe even May.

ESPN and Fangraphs rank Houston's farm system at #26... and that might be generous. Hopefully baseball gets going this year, because the championship window is definitely "on the clock" as they say.

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The Zack Greinke deal was an even bolder move that it appeared at the time. Losing Corbin Martin, J.B. Bukauskas, Seth Beer and Josh Rojas cleared out four close-to-the-big-leagues talents from an Astros farm system that was already struggling. This was due in large part to picking late in the draft because of big league success, but the international program also takes a bulk approach that doesn't produce many impact-type talents. With the league turned against them, the team scraping up against its payroll ceiling, and with multiple stars without much club control left, alongside a system that will be even lower when a few upper-level prospects graduate, things are more grim here organizationwide than casual fans might think.

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the price for Greinke was steep --- no doubt about that

W said:

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the price for Greinke was steep --- no doubt about that

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would have been worth it for sure if we had played decent baseball at home in the world series

Still could be if we win this year or next with Greinke playing well

tjholley16 said:

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W said:

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the price for Greinke was steep --- no doubt about that

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would have been worth it for sure if we had played decent baseball at home in the world series

Still could be if we win this year or next with Greinke playing well

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Agreed, and that's why I think THIS is the year if they can salvage a season. Verlander with fewer innings on his arm would be a difference maker.

Is Greinke worth it based on how he performs or how the team performs?

Interesting times for our farm system. Obviously we've taken a pretty big hit over the last few years with trades and guys like Yordan/Tucker inevitably being promoted. And the loss of 1st/2nd round picks the next couple years definitely hurts the replenishing process. But unlike ~2005-2011 when I think we basically only produced 3 big league caliber talents (Pence, Lyles and Norris), I think our system right now is sufficient to sustain our needs going forward and buy us some time to restock.

1) We've got some young pitchers with really good stuff who are "close". We've got two more firm years with JV, Greinke and LMJ, so guys like Abreu, Whitley, Perez, Urquidy, Valdez, etc have some time to groom.

2) These rankings don't include Pedro Leon, who will almost certainly be a top 100 prospect when he starts up. Between Leon, Nova, Korey Lee and Jeremy Pena, we've got some guys with bright futures who don't have to be rushed. I suspect at least 3 of those 4 guys will be top 100 in the next year or two.

3) Lastly, it's much easier these days to fill holes in the position lineup via free agency. The days of journeymen 2B like Kaz Matsui getting a 3-year/$20 million deal are over. Market right now gets big money to the elites and cheap contracts for the journeymen. So if necessary, we could plug holes cheaply via this route. We also have some big league ready young guys like Toro and Straw who can help bridge gaps as we start losing a few position players to free agency.

tjholley16 said:

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W said:

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the price for Greinke was steep --- no doubt about that

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would have been worth it for sure if we had played decent baseball at home in the world series

Still could be if we win this year or next with Greinke playing well

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Would have been worth it if AJ didn't pull him too early.