This was an easy decision. Help him out.
Nick Cannon
Sad thing is a surprisingly large percentage of them are big Trump guys from years of being red-pilled surrounded by 90% MAGA American players in conservative baseball culture. We'll see if those winds start to change when it begins hitting home.
In the short term, glad to see Jacob Young is as good as gone. He serves no purpose here but he's the type of guy Rizzo and Davey would have kept around forever just because Davey loved him personally and Rizzo could say: "See, I drafted a Gold Glove-caliber CF! Take that!"
I'm 50/50 on Abrams.
Their best bet right now is to just load up on talent, hope the new regime does a much better job developing it, then trade for stars from your loaded system when the time comes and we'll see how the new CBA reshapes things and if current or new ownership spends more when/if team is more promising.
I think this path is better than the alternative. The "just spend money" argument is lazy. On whom? Look at this market. Big-market teams are getting shut out because the Dodgers are signing everyone. There are no pending FAs worth it, either. There's not gonna be a 2027 season after Tucker deal.
People are really overreacting to the no top-100 prospects thing. That's extremely subjective and a guy like Fien is a good April at Fredericksburg from being a consensus top-75 guy. Let's see what these guys can do. They had a great track record in Boston and loved Fien. So, let's see.
The Gore trade is antithetical to Rizzo's M.O. With the high uncertainty regarding MLB prospects, most of the smart teams tend to go for yield in trades/draft whereas Rizzo was a big-game hunter. But when you only have one bullet and you miss your shot, it sets you back so far.
With Toboni so far, he told us his vision and you can see it in the evidence of his moves. He said he wants to create a player development monster and he is aggressively adding long-term assets he thinks he can develop. There is a throughline to all his additions. Rizzo had no plan.
Every single thing Toboni has done is what we have yearned for.
- Staffed up w/ lauded rising stars in the industry.
- Invested in modern technology to bring them up to speed.
- Taken a chainsaw to every corner of Mike Rizzo's failed project.
- Aggressively tinkering with bottom of 40-man roster.
More scatterbrained thoughts on the Gore trade and everything going on:
Toboni was brought in to clean up a completely mismanaged organization. Not his fault Rizzo and his cigar-smoking dinosaurs put them in this spot. He's doing what he was hired to do. Don't cut corners. Do it completely.
Have you looked at the projected free agent classes upcoming? They're not buying their way out of this even if Lerner opened things up. However, if things start to improve internally and they show some life, they're acquiring more ammo. Gotta give Toboni a chance to fix it his way.
The dumbest thing you can do is quit rebuilding because the idiots before you sucked at it and never got you out of that phase. You just dig a deeper hole. You'd have to spend so much money to turn this into an 80-win team just to still have the same infrastructural issues. Do what's right.
MacKenzie Gore's best season was worse than Josiah Gray's 2023 season. He turns 27 next month. There might not be a 2027 season. He's TEMU Gio Gonzalez, who you all hated. Don't know why people want to turn him into Max Scherzer now. Team was going to suck with or without him. Love the trade.
I always wondered how they never took notice of say the Brewers. You can win consistently without spending on players of you spend a fraction of the cost of one mega free agent on an entire infrastructure. Someone finally sold them on it. They ate up Rizzo’s nonsense for so long.
As much as we deservedly shit on the Lerner family it seems that they are putting their money where their mouth is and letting Toboni staff up. Maybe late-stage Rizzo embarrassed them more than we thought.
I think this hire is the right idea. Take a swing on a young star. Just a matter of if they let him staff up and improve all the lousy infrastructure. I won't pretend to know anything about him, but people's whose input I greatly value seem to be very high on it.
The Athletic GM search story is the first time I have read something about this team and felt optimistic afterward in a long time. I’m all in on Hawkins. A young data nerd from the outside is the way I’d go. You’re also not interviewing guys of that caliber just to promote DeBartolo.
Nonzero chance Mike DeBartolo’s first two draft picks both turn out better than anyone Rizzo has drafted since Anthony Rendon 14 years ago.
Absolute insanity. His agent is swimming in waters that are too deep for him. Peters is embarrassing him and instead of admitting defeat, he's digging in. Don't cave. You control his ass for two years. Make him play this year out then tag him if you need to. In meantime, look for his replacement.
Ribalta has no business pitching in the majors.
Cade Cavalli is why I don’t care about minor league pitching stats. They don’t matter. His stats never made sense when you watched him because the stuff had come back. The samples are too small and the objective isn’t to win the game. All projection with pitchers. He has real stuff.
Can someone just lay these fucking racists out? Just annihilate them?
Yeah that’s the smart move. It’s good for Lowe too. Give him a chance to catch on with someone else. Sometimes it gets you going. See Asdrubal Cabrera getting cut by a bad Rangers team in 2019 and becoming invaluable for the Nats and replacing Dozier.
To me, Young needs to be the odd man out, but I just don't believe they will do it. He's a guy who makes more sense as a 26th guy on a good team than on a team like this. They should trade Young this winter.
I’m going to be so annoyed when they send Hassell down to make room for Crews. We don’t need Jacob Young’s defense on a last-place team. Rotate the other five.
Chase them the fuck out of our city.
For whatever reason, things have just not worked out in DC for Nathaniel Lowe. With a non-tender around the corner, it is time to just cut bait now www.federalbaseball.com/general/8522...
That's not true, Mike Rizzo gave an extension to one of the worst catchers in baseball.
