What changes should take place in the FO?

This. The thought of him getting fired won't even pop into Kasten's head if/when we have another '05ish season. Or we just can't win a WS under his general management.

 

I was actually agreeing with you. Perhaps you just needed to vent.

 

I would strongly disagree with the term "playoff caliber team" though.

 

Ned should have been fired the day new ownership took over. This team is under.500 for the past 2 months. Our keys to winning the first month was to have Kemp hit.450, Cap and Lilly lead the Cy Young race, Dee Gordon hit walk offs, and Juan Uribe on the DL. Without those things we get shutout in a SERIES in SF. Ned has put together the worst infield in MLB, not just this season, but ever (and that was before Ellis was hurt). This is a bad team in every single way, even with Matt Kemp.

 

Agreed. This team was NOT put together well. We walked into this season with the MVP (I do not care what voting says) and the Cy Young. We have another guy who can hit well. Other than that, we had a plethora of holes thanks to his ineptitude. Kasten should have fired Ned on day one. He should have brought in his own to just get rid of the McCourt era entirely. It remains to be seen whether he will. I am hoping he is not is not stupid and sees what Ned has brought even with constraints.

 

Playoff caliber team----LMAO. We played above our heads thanks to Kemp and pitching. We should have fared better last year but did not. This year we are worse when you evaluate talent. Sure, I would like Votto. But, I have no doubt, there is someone somewhere who thinks he is not all that great. If it is moot point, then sit back and wait and see. Otherwise, enjoy the discussion.

 

As far as Joey Votto goes - yeah, we can't expect to pick a guy like that up now. A franchise player from another team? It would cost us everything. And everything is probably not enough. However, we should have our own Joey Vottos growing in our system and we just don't. In fact, we don't have any natural 1Bmen - at least not in AAA or AA - that I can see. Why is that? Loney has been hot and cold for years. And why no 3Bmen ready to come up? If there's ever a time to break in a young 3Bman it is now. Sure, we can blame the previous ownership for not making the investment in the system. We can also blame the GM for not convincing the ownership how important the farm is. The GM should be thinking way ahead - anticipating our needs. The GM must have a plan. But every year Ned has no plan, he just goes out and buys a bunch of cast offs and fills out the team. He doesn't use the system much - unless as spot fillers when his guys go down. He uses them until he can buy more DFA guys to fill the team out again.

 

I think Ned knows what he's doing when it comes to dealing with agents. Remember how he manhandled Boras? He stands his ground and has gotten over on them in a lot of instances. Mind you. not every one of his signings has been stellar but a lot of them have worked out. There was a lot of bitching about Carroll and Miles a couple years back if you recall. Guys wanted us to go hard after Crawford and look how that turned out for Boston. Teixiera's deal is a monster with no end in sight and he's not performing like he used to any more. Every GM has some closet skeleton signings so Ned's are acceptable to me. Have we all forgotten who was telling Ned yes and no to players over the past several years????

One last thing: When you think of low budget teams that over achieve running a "Top prospects mill" acquired via trade when the older players leave (al a The Marlins and the Rays) you have to wonder WTF they have been doing wrong in KC over (almost) the last 3 decades without a sniff of the post season??? Talk about bad GM'ing????

 

We won 82 games last season and have been in possession of at least a Wild Card spot from literally day 1. You might not like it, but they are a playoff caliber team, that's kind of indisputable.

 

Making the playoffs is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being a playoff-caliber team.

 

Yup. And vise versa

 

What I'll give you, (and I respect your BB acumen), is that Ned has found some dandy band aids. But I must go further and say that a band aid is , well...just that. They get all shitty and fall off and you have to change it again and again, until the would heals.
Problem is, the wounds never heal with Ned...never. They bleed and fester.
Hence, this team we are experiencing now. He's good at getting the last good year that they have left in them out of some guys, like Carroll and Miles.
But he's terrible at band aid fill-out signings like Uribe and Kennedy, etc. Guys who get a couple/three years from us.
And, I've said it many times, I don't think he's going anywhere though.

 

He was hoodwinked by FUCKFACE just like everyone else. God only knows what BS he was fed about how the team would be run during his interviews... He took the job he (probably) thought he was getting and subsequently adapted to the (actual) situation and budget constraints he was faced with and did about all possible within those guidelines (2 NLCS's with Jamie McCourt demanding every last penny for her pool fund)....

FF to now: If he fails to improve the team to the point we are in the hunt and not holding our breath over achieving then yeah, I'd say he's toast and rightfully so. We all need to see what he can do with a budget and a real baseball guy to answer to before we grab the pitchforks and faggots!

 

Not indisputable. With the way we have played, we could easily lose our spot to the Dbacks. We have played well with a subpar team. Some teams get hot at the right time. They sneak in. I tend to agree with Irish a true playoff team is a contender not just based on luck and fast streaks.

 

Like Shaw said, a playoff caliber team doesn't have to make the playoffs. All moot though, as Ned isn't getting fired.