Thoughts For A Monday Night

• Tonight vs Houston

Look, everyone knows these are tough series for the Guardians. Not enough pitching.  Not enough hitting, against the defending WS champions.  Winning one game in this series will be a major victory.  Don't know how we'll do it but we really have to.  A sweep at this point is just not acceptable.

It is maddening to watch Francona manage this team.  The easiest thing would have been to pinch hit for Straw in the 9th but he avoided the obvious, safe decision and left Straw in and it screwed up.  He is a HOF manager but, man, he is stubborn and his hunches or predilections almost never work out.

Syndergaard was acceptable tonight.  How much of this will continue through the end of the year is what is in question.  Remember, I am taking the under, that is, that won't pitch after Sept. 1st because he is cut or is on the IL.

Francona continues to worry about having too many lefties in the lineup at the same time and what do we do?  Draft for and trade for lefty hitters.

I, too, am done with the minor league AAAA pitchers.  They are not a long term solution.  Bring up Morris and Karinchak and DFA Norris and Kelly.

• Trade Deadline - Part 3!?!?!?!

Ominous comments from Antonetti tonight about obtaining another starting pitcher tomorrow.  Unless that comes at the exclusive cost of Josh Bell and is a young version of Aaron Civale, I don't want to even think about it.  I mean, I can really see them wasting Rocchio and Karinchak on some yahoo who fails miserably and immediately.  I really can and it scares the crap out of me.  I mean, what idiot trades an effective starting pitcher with 2+ years of control left and who is doing a good job and then brings in another starting pitcher at the cost of prospects?

As far as the Civale trade, you want a power hitter who DOESN'T play 1B, I think you could have had Tyler O'Neill for Civale.  But, under no circumstances do I want Dylan Carlson from the Cardinals.  He is the classic sucker's bet.  Yeah, he is an improvement over Straw but at what cost?  

I am already calling Tuesday as, once again, one of the worst days in Cleveland baseball in the last few years where our FO makes another ridiculous trade that rids them of guys they totally undervalue (Morris, Rocchio, Karinchak) for a guy they, compared to the industry, totally overvalue.   This will be the completion, along with the 2022 and 2023 drafts, of the most disruptive period since the 70s and 80s in terms of long-term competitiveness of this franchise.

• Lefty hitters 

Francona is always fretting over having too many LH hitters in a row.  Yet Cleveland keeps trading for them and drafting them.  It is a joke, the fans see it and roll their eyes.

Any idiot who thinks they can beat the system by putting contact over power and filling your lineup with LH hitters and be successful is a complete moron.  I mean, there is a chance that Rocchio will be traded for table scraps tomorrow and he is a switch hitter.  

• Manzardo for Civale Trade

Fox Sports gave the Guardians a "B" for the trade and Tampa an "A".   Fanside wast "B" and "B+", respectively. ClutchPoints went "A-" and "B-"  SB Nation was a couple of "B+" grades,   The Athletic went "B-" and "B+", a rare win in this trade for the Guardians.

 Three questions I will continue to ask until I get acceptable answers:

1. What about Manzardo's .148 platoon split against LH pitching this year?

2. Why did you trade for a LH hitter in a lineup filled with 5 LH hitters (Kwan, Gimenez, Naylor brothers and Brennan) already?

3. How can you trade for a LH firstbaseman/DH when you still have to pay $20+ million for Josh Bell?

Along with those questions I have one more for Antonetti: Are you officially ready to call the Bell and Zunino signings failures and the close to $40 million spent on them wasted money?  I think that Antonetti's ego won't allow for that and is probably explains his desperation to look like a genius in his deadline moves.

• 2023 Season

The Guardians officially raised the white flag with the Civale trade.  Either that or, when the smoke clears tomorrow, they will have overpaid in prospects to be right back to where they were on Sunday night.  

My bet is that the Civale trade is a white flag rrade when they were 0.5 games out of first place.  Francona preaches all the time that they just try to win every game, one at a time.  How is that supposed to resonate with players when they see Rosario and Civale go out the door but no help coming in.

In the most ridiculous, ego-centric situation I can imagine, I could really see Antonetti convince himself that he knows more than the experts and overpay for some down-on-his-luck young starting pitcher at AAA (say, Matthew Liberatore of the Cardinals) expecting a big turnaround that never happens and overpays in prospects for the chance to look like a total idiot in a year or two.   

SUMMARY

This appears to be the worst case scenario.  A bunch of guys who think their crap doesn't stink trying to outfox the entirety of baseball just to show how smart they are...falling totally on their faces.  I hope I am wrong but if today is any indication, I now know that these egotistical bastards think that they know better than anyone else and will prove to the world that they are the geniuses and the rest of the world are morons.  

They say in baseball that tomorrow is another day.  For Chris Antonetti tomorrow is just another day to screw up the Guardians for a long time.   And we all have to grit our teeth and witness it.  Pathetic, really, to treat lifelong fans like this but us old guys should expect it. It's what we grew up with in the 70s and 80s.