6 out of 8 positions being locked in would be my wishlist as a fan. I'm down with the FO and the times. I like maximizing every roster spot and matchup. But it feels like a regular season approach that won't work for us in October. Probably just my own bias and pessimism since we fail in the end every year (for varying reasons).
Honestly, with a little health, we probably would have 6. RH/LH C Grandal/Barnes 1B AGon 2B Forsythe SS Seager 3B Turner LF Bellinger/Gutierrez CF Pederson/Bellinger RF Puig 2 of those guys are obviously on the DL and the 3rd is still hurt, thus more days off.
One could see Strasburg´s signing as a no-brainer, but there are enough pitching thirsty teams out there and he´s young enough to gamble on..hence the price still reaching 175M. Still gives you a good idea of what Boras was hearing as far as his market is concerned. With his injury history + Kasten ties..wouldn´t have been too shocking to hear that LAD was interested in some kind of creative long term deal. I mean the 150M that you offer old Greinke with extra-mileage..why not offer it to Strasburg? Regarding Harper..pretty much why we´re now seeing these 500-750M figures being leaked to the press. For him to accept something this close to what could be a bidding war between every major market city + his current team, it´s gonna have to make up for him leaving that opp on the table. With his resume, at his age, he could probably have an off year next year and still get near the Stanton/325M mark
If it actually winds up being 5 days, the the gods have smiled on us...the 10 day would be super groovy as the old song goes.
I can't see him possibly signing prior to being a FA. He is going to be the best/youngest player ever to reach free agency in all likelihood. His childhood dream team is looking in the neighborhood of having close to $100 Mil in available payroll while the closest team to his home is likely to have close to $70 Mil. Boras is gonna take this one to the open market and he is going to go for a shit ton of money. I just have a hard time believing that this FO will spend 30-40 mil a year on this guy.
I bet the WOOOOOs are at a minimum in Cincy right now..that´s how you kill that noise They´re doing all this without Story, BTW Mark Reynolds playing out of his mind
Story was terrible before he got hurt. He had all the signs last season of being a flash in the pan. The real worry is they are doing this without Grey, Bettis and both Anderson and Chatwood have been subpar. Their rookie pitching is just lighting guys up, plus their bats haven't had the usual May cooldown. The one thing to watch will be to see how teams adjust to their rookie pitchers (who do have some warning signs in their peripherals) and how their bullpen does after being routinely taxed. One thing their young guys aren't doing a great job is, is going late into games. If that bullpen starts to breakdown, they could be in trouble.
This is also going on without David Dahl..who´s now nearing game action, so they could be getting another jolt of offense soon
With the Rockies being a notoriously cheap franchise, should be interesting to see how they deal with that. Parra has been terrible and Desmond so far has been meh. Wonder if they move Desmond to SS and Dahl to LF or do they choose to send Dahl to AAA and try to retain him for an extra year?
Not sure, but all this ROX talk mixed in with the Harper/FA situation talk now has me pondering a big Arenado signing after the 2019 season. JT will be long in the tooth by then and going into the last year of his contract..a 28yr old Arenado could take 3B and they do whatever with the 35yr old JT. LAD could strike a real in-division blow to the young/talented ROX with that one..I think I favor this one most, especially since he´s right handed and LAD needs to break up all this left handed talent they have now and still on the way