Nobody had watched TV in our house since the game ended yesterday. I turned it on a minute ago to watch the football game and ******* Dr. Odyssey was on ABC.

So only one home team move on.

Welp. Was hoping for ultimate Mets failure in the 9th …

I was playing around with the trade validator to see what kind of value Yordan has. Here's an example.

BREAKING NEWS: The Reds are hiring Terry Francona to be their new manager, per source. Announcement expected as soon as Friday. https://t.co/JYmdYMD8Ro

— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) October 4, 2024

so in the National League...payroll is king for the NLDS

Mets are #1 in the NL in payroll (and #1 in MLB)

Phillies are #2 in payroll

Dodgers are #3 in payroll

Padres are #9 in the NL in payroll at $171 MM

didn't realize San Diego had dialed back their spending

Aren't the Padres basically bankrupt or did I make up them not being able to make payroll?

something happened there

2 years ago...the Padres' payroll was $224 MM

(according to Spotrac)

MaxPower said:

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1876er said:

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You only trade Tucker if you're not in contention next July.

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Tigers just traded their best pitcher and beat us with a bunch of AAA guys who played their ass off. No one should be untradeable.

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Tigers fans and media would be the first to admit the Tigers run is not something to model, nor even build off of in any sustainable since. This run has shown which individual pieces might be part of the future, but the run is founded in a historical run by the bullpen, with only 2 starters for much of August and September, one of which didn't make then ALWC roster.


I understand the point about no Astro being off the table, but I think even the Tigers have major questions in the offseason about how they make sense of these recent weeks, knowing much of this isn't sustainable

W said:

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yep, wonder what's the combined payroll...of the 7 Detroit relievers yesterday...that shutdown the 'stros

maybe $10 MM total

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The total payroll for the Tigers is $19MM.

Spotrac - 2024 numbers.
Astros have the largest "buried" # in MLB.

Curious what Framber to the Orioles would bring. Package him and Pressly.

Wonder if we could get Rutschman and move Yainer to 1b full time?

It was more about getting a good catcher and moving Yainer to 1B IF we wanted to move Framber.

MaxPower said:

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Deluxe said:

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Agree with you guys. I think we have an opportunity window this offseason to overhaul the offense that may not come again and we should take advantage of it.

As long as we were continually making the CS and playing the WS every other year, I was fine keeping the band together, despite some holes and flaws in our offense/lineup construction. It's hard to mess with things too much when you're winning. Patch holes. Kick cans down the road.

But I think the last out on the 2024 Astros in the wild card round marked the end of the "2017-2024" chapter and frees us up to make some overhauls with the future in mind. Even if it means taking a step back for a year.

I feel very strongly that it's much better to do a "rebuild" a year too early than a year too late. Right now, one could argue it would be a year too early for the Astros. IMO, that's the sweet spot. If we do it right, we could be right back knocking on the playoff door in 2026.

FWIW, I don't think we need to much (if anything) on the pitching side. We've proven over and over that we can find talented arms and develop them. We've got quite a few starters locked in with long term control. Just keep doing what we're doing on that front. Everything "rebuild" related is offense.

On the previous page, Heinekin did a great job above of laying out the consequences of paying big money to keep the core together long term. I've been thinking the exact same things. Let's say we let Bregman walk but find a way to keep Tucker, who along with Altuve and Yordan will make a nice 1-3 for a few more years anyway. Yainer is a dude too.

But what do we have beyond those 4? A bunch of replacement level guys. To me, that scenario is everything we've ever made fun of about some Yankees and Angels teams in recent years. A few high priced stars who can't do it alone burdening the payroll, leaving limited flexibility to fill out the rest of the lineup.

The best way (arguably only way) to set the table for long term success is to anchor your roster with multiple high-level talents on pre-arb contracts. Our farm system is starting to show some signs of life but it's far from being able to lynchpin a rebuild on its own. We need to bring in some close-to-MLB-ready talent (via trade), get them on the field and see what they can do.

We've had good success with pitcher "tryouts" over the years and founds some gems that maybe we wouldn't have otherwise found if veteran mainstays had been blocking their paths. I think we could do the same thing with the offense in 2025. Acquire some strength in numbers on the prospect-front and let them compete with our existing guys.

All that to say, I think we need to deal Framber and Tucker this offseason. 100%. Let Bregman walk. Let Pressly walk. Let JV walk. And seriously explore what we can get for Yordan or Pena. With regard to Yordan, obviously you force a team to let us pillage 4-5 their top prospects. No settling.

This ought to be right up Dana Brown's alley. Let him cook and use the eye for talent that he's known for but we haven't really let him use during his tenure.

We could walk away from that with a surge of ~10 prospects, 4-6 of which are prime and ready to go into spring training and compete for a job. Combine them with Melton, Dezenzo, maybe Matthews later in the year, etc and you can kind of start to see something take shape.

Altuve won't like it much but he can't do much about it. Let him take it easy next year. Give him a month long "IL" vacation in July. Part of me wants to start the process of turning the locker room over to Yainer anyway. Come 2026, I think he'll like what he says. After "tryouts" are over in 2025, we should hopefully have line-of-sight to a couple foundation players to build around. We'll also know what we need to address via free agency in 25-26 offseason and have plenty of cap space to do it. No more Abreu/Montero dead money.

Anyway, that's the path that gets me most jazzed up.

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Well put. I think the fans will get behind a rebuild of sorts. The question is whether Crane can. This team will have a very good pitching staff. If you can get young players that can increase team speed and defense this team could still be competitive, even if it takes a year or two for those bats to develop. That's the formula the Tigers and Royals used this year.

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Agreed. It will be very interesting to see how Crane plays his hand. Once you get a taste of the top, I think it's tempting to fall into the trap of almost every "big market" owner before him and try to buy your way into staying relevant. But despite a few ill-fated decisions over the past couple years, I still trust him and I'm happy he's our guy. I hope he sees the writing on the wall with continuing status quo on the offensive side.

The Tigers/Royals are great evidence of the new parody in baseball and chaos caused by 6 teams getting in and a dice roll 3 game wild card series for 4 of those teams. A large premium is placed on being a top 2 seed now. But if you can't look at your roster and say "we have great line of sight to being a top 2 seed now and into the future" (which I don't think we can), I think you're better off reshuffling the deck a little and trying to get younger.

I agree with Honolulu above that the lesson from the Tigers/Royals isn't that they're the new template for success. And I know that's not what you were trying say here, Max. I think we're all on the same page.

To me, the lesson from Tigers/Royals is that going into a semi-rebuild doesn't have to mean 6-8 years of playoff irrelevance (like maybe it did in years past). If we play our cards right with a 2025 reconfiguring of the offense with some emerging young guys, we could easily have a squad in 2026 that gets hot at the end of the year and becomes a thorn in the side of higher seeds that have more to lose.

Young emerging offensive players + fill in some gaps with free agents (we'll have the cap space next winter) + experienced pitching staff. That's my recipe in 2026. And it comes with the added benefit of being setup for sustainable success. Not the patch-work model that we'd inevitably have to adopt if we build around a few high priced stars.

That's how I would play our current hand

Farmer1906 said:

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I think anyone expecting a full lineup overhaul will be sadly mistaken.

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Expecting that's what we'll actually do? Nah.

I think you're probably right, unfortunately.

Farmer1906 said:

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I think anyone expecting a full lineup overhaul will be sadly mistaken.

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No one is expecting it.

Let me ask yall something since the general consensus is that Crane wont overhaul most of the lineup. If we bring in a damn good hitting coach, would that be enough to salvage the likes of Pena and Meyers, hell even playoff Tucker?

Maybe they try to address the issues through coaching personnel rather than players

Ag4life80 said:

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Curious what Framber to the Orioles would bring. Package him and Pressly.

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I want to get some of our FO talent back. It was fun being considered the smartest org in baseball. I remember JV and other vets being floored at how far ahead we were vs where they came from...

The 26 that won the series make the same as several individual Astros.

The Porkchop Express said:

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Tuckers playoff problem can be fixed by fining him $50,000 every time he swings at the first pitch.you know things have gotten tough when the only guys I trust to work the count for a walk or a pitch to hit are jon Singleton and Chas McCormick. With the bigger bags and his speed, Pena should be hitting 285 and stealing 35 bases a year. Instead he feels like the Omar Epps version of Willie Mays Hayes, just expecting th3bgsme the game to be as easy as it was during that one stretch when you were unstoppable as a rookie.

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Porkchop I know it's Friday but no need to hit the sauce this early man