GUARDIANS
1. Love to see Josh Bell contribute to the offense. I don't know what it is but he hit soooo much better at home last year (.293 to .240) and that was including his time in San Diego. Let's hope this is the start of something big and not just that his value is only reached when he is playing games in Washington DC.
2. Zach Plesac finally getting a win on a just OK performance. Now, if we can just have him start every game in the second inning he could be an all-star
3. Rick Manning had to open his mouth late in Sunday's game! Damn it! He said the magic phrase that I parapharase here: 'The Guardians need to take care of business against teams with losing records'. Now, while I think that and was disappointed we didn't sweep the Nationals, I prefer to think as Francona's platitudes go: (1) You play the game the right way and good things will happen and (2) you can only control what you can control. Then you can add a 3rd platitude, one of my own concoction: In baseball, the law of averages catches up with you. This is not the first time in a series this year against one of the weakest teams in baseball that the Guardians have dropped a game. The fact that those two losses stung given the level of competition provided by these two rebuilding teams, stuff happens. Would I have rather it not happened to the Guardians? Sure. Like Manning, I want us to sweep teams like the Athletics and the Nationals, even on the road. But stuff happens. Yesterday, our good bullpen threw out its two shakiest (this year) relievers, Herrin and Sandlin and, guess what, the perfect storm happened where BOTH failed which was only made worse when Stephan came into the game and poured a little gasoline on the first. In the 9th a good sliding catch on Zunino by Thomas, a fearless play at the railing on Straw by Call and a questionable second strike call on Kwan followed by an uncharacteristically frozen Kwan left looking at a 3rd strike clearly in the bottom of the zone left us with nothing going to end the game. Add to all this the crucial and borderline blocking the plate call on the Zunino tag at home plate and you have yet another platitude being employed: the universe was just against us today.
So, Rick, I know exactly what you are thinking but it is what it is. We won both the Oakland and Washington series on the road. We have another series against a rebuilding team, Detroit, starting tonight at home. The goal there, as Francona says, should just be to play good ball, the right way. If we keep Bell hot, if we can get Gonzalez started and get some performance out of Arias without him burying himself offensively AND if our starting pitching holds up in these 3 games, those will all be positive, albeit secondary outcomes from this series.
Go Guardians!
MINOR LEAGUES
More thoughts about this in a post for later tonight.
GUARDIANS TRADES
There is a generally accepted wisdom that if you have a piece of jewelry you can get a lot more value if you remove the gems and just sell them separately, and then sell the remaining gold or silver in the setting.
I don't know if that is true in baseball. That is, if you have a bunch of players do you get more for them if you trade them separately in in one larger trade?
I would like to think that the difference was that you get one major league player (if you trade a bunch of prospects in one trade) or you get several decent minor league prospects (in separate trades)
I know it is early in the season but here is what 4 trades that the Guardians made over the winter look like today:
Will Benson for Justin Boyd and Steven Hajjar
The Guardians were concerned that Benson's contact skills were lacking. I was concerned that he just might have turned the corner and was going to provide enough contact to make his other skills, speed, power, ability to take a walk play up to become the guy from the 2022 Columbus Clippers as opposed to the guy he had shown himself to be in previous years.
Well, as it turns out, so far Benson is 1-20 with 1 walk and 12 strikeouts and was recently sent to AAA by Cincinnati.
On the flip side, Justin Boyd and Steven Hajjar are both on the IL and have not played so far.
Although it is very early in this trade's journey, right now it appears that anything we get out of Boyd and Hajjar will tilt this trade in our favor and, given the characteristics and pedigree of these two guys, it is likely we will get SOMETHING out of them, even it is just as a piece in a trade that helps our ML team.
Carlos Vargas for Ross Carver
This is the classic playing the long game trade. Vargas is the 100 mph-throwing reliever every team is looking for these days. His history as a starter is also appealing if you can keep him healthy as was his proximity to the majors.
So far this year Vargas had some uneven results in the majors and was sent to AAA. Carver, on the other hand, has had one good and one mediocre start for Akron, with the mediocre start being pretty bad with a number of walks and hits and no strikeouts.
Again, who won this trade is only going to be known over the long term but, right now, it looks like a wash as Vargas is trending towards being a long-term project and Carver is likely two years away from the majors at best rate of development and may have to be exposed to the Rule 5 draft because there are just too many more highly-rated prospects who would have to be rostered to even ocnsider rostering Carver, at least with what we know now.
Nolan Jones for Juan Brito
My feelings on this trade are well-known. You don't trade a M-ready guy in Jones for a low A guy like Brito who you have to roster. I will tell you that when I was at spring training Juan Brito could have literally walked every time he came to the plate. I swear the Guardians must have told him to stop being so selective and to swing earlier in the count, leading to a lot of weak contact from him later in spring training. So far it seems like the Guardians have put the same pressure on him at Lake County leading to him hitting .185 with one XBH and, of course, 6 BB and only 4 K in 35 PA. Having seen him several of times this season, what I saw in ST is being mirrored for Lake County. Weak contact. Now it is early in the season but compare Brito to Joe Lampe. THAT is how Brito, as a member of the 40-man roster, SHOULD be looking right now. His defense at 2B has been OK this year which, to me, is an improvement over what I saw in ST this year.
Regarding Jones, he is hammering AAA pitching in the hitter-friendly PCL with a SLG of .872 and an OPS of 1.352 and an acceptable 9 K/48 PA strikeout rate. I imagine he should be getting the call to the majors soon.
Again, another long play by the Guardians but nothing has changed for me. Brito is currently just a roster clogger and, unlike Noel was last year, Brito is not performing to give me any more confidence that this trade will turn out positively for the Guardians.
Owen Miller for PTBNL
Look, Owen Miller is on the ML roster for the 11-5, NL Central-leading Brewers. He is a piece to their roster right now, going 4-15 right now. A relatively young veteran with experience on a winning team who has positional versatility. Not exactly sure if we will get a PTBNL or accept the case payout on this one but I would like to see us get at least as much back as we got for Jose Vargas, albeit a prospect who is younger, someone like 3B/LF Luke Adams (19 years old, 2022 draft) or LHP Russell Smith (24 years old, 2021 draft), neither of who would have to be rostered this year.
In the end, I would like to think that if we bunched Vargas, Jones, Miller and Benson together we could have done better but maybe that wasn't possible. In the end, if we get guys who really contribute to our ML team or to a trade for someone who DOES contribute to the ML team it is a plus. Right now these trades are trending to be washouts on both sides but, for a team like the Guardians, you have to maximize the value of each trade. If JC Mejia can get you David Fry, we should be able to get something for trades like the above. Teams like Guardians are almost required to do that.
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