Water Boy said:

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Can't understand it. How can he hit all his spots but as soon as he makes a mistake the ball is out of the park. It was equally as frustrating when the opposing pitcher would make mistake after mistake and we would get 0 runs.

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To quote Tommy Lasorda, "we couldn't hit water if we fell out of a ****in' boat"

There was a long form article on ESPN during spring training last year that also reported deGrom was planning on intentionally taking some velo off his fastball in order to stay healthy.

It was apparent on a pitch-to-pitch basis when watching his starts. He was consistently 96-98. He would only very occasionally reach triple digits, exclusively in the biggest circumstances.

That's fine to do, and it helped him stay as healthy as he's been in a while. Now, he just has to realize you have to mix in offspeed pitches more, specifically his changeup, to keep batters on their heels a little. Gotta keep them thinking about something other than the heater when you aren't throwing it triple digits with insane spin rates anymore.

Vessel said:

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There was a long form article on ESPN during spring training last year that also reported deGrom was planning on intentionally taking some velo off his fastball in order to stay healthy.

It was apparent on a pitch-to-pitch basis when watching his starts. He was consistently 96-98. He would only very occasionally reach triple digits, exclusively in the biggest circumstances.

That's fine to do, and it helped him stay as healthy as he's been in a while. Now, he just has to realize you have to mix in offspeed pitches more, specifically his changeup, to keep batters on their heels a little. Gotta keep them thinking about something other than the heater when you aren't throwing it triple digits with insane spin rates anymore.

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Attakid Rook. Sign up as a Varsity subscriber right out of the gate. Welcome to the board.

What's our payroll now

Fangraphs is projecting $176 million right now.

Yikes

Regarding payroll... COTS has the following:

Payroll: $176M (26) / $178M (40) - Projected payroll includes Serfs and Arbs*.
CBT: $197M - $47M under threshold

*All Arbs are signed/agreed (Jung, Burger, Duran, Haggerty, Smith, etc)

That gives us:
SP: deGrom, Eovaldi, Leiter
RP: Martin, Garcia, Winn, Rocker, Latz

C: Higgy, Jansen
IF: Burger, Smith, Jung, Seager; Duran
OF: Haggerty Langford, Nimmo; Carter
DH: Joc

That's 20 of the 40 we have on the 40.

There are 22 Ps. The others are:
Davalillo (22), Lopez (23), Teodo (24), Santos (23), Corniell (22)
Baumler (23) Kent (27), Church (24), Hamel (26), Curvelo (24)
Bradford (27), Alexander, Otanez, Diaz

There are 18 position players. The others are:
Osuna (22), Ortiz (23), Foscue (26), Freeman (24), MacIver (28), Helman (29)

If the positions are as I have them, there will be 1 more added from the 6.

If the teams projects to stay under the CBT... we have some room to sign some guys. I hope we add a SP under $10M that's desperate, like we've done the past few years (Corbin, Urena, Lorenzen) Rocker could move to rotation, among others. Bradford will return mid-season?!

We need another starter, and a closer. Assuming we sign a starter, then you can put one of Rocker/Latz into the rotation for the 5th starter.

With Bradford not being available until mid-season or so, I'd just keep him in the bullpen for 2026 and keep him there. If all goes well, then let him compete for a rotation spot in 2027.