1. In the trivia for tonight, a transaction caught my eye. The Mariners purchased the contract of Ryder Ryan. When he appears in his first game he will be the 9th player from the Guardians 2016 draft signees to make the majors. That is the draft with Bieber, Jones, Benson and Civale. Unsigned players from that draft include Will Crowe, Spencer Steer, Kramer Robertson and Blake Sabol. Obviously some of the guys who signed and a number who didn't still have a chance to make the major lagues in the future so the numbers of draftees from this class could grow larger. Down the road I think, just counting the guys we actually signed, this will turn into the best draft class Cleveland has ever had.
2. As I am looing through the remaining games on the schedule something hit me, unless we sweep the Wihite Sox in this series I think we stand a chance to not win 70 games this year. That is, from this point on, it is not out the question that we could go 16-37 the rest of the way. Clearly the FO looked at the schedule, looked at our team and what they have done so far, and saw this as a possibility.
3. Khalil Watson had a good first game tonight for Lake County. It should be noted, however, that he batted 4 times and swung at the first pitch every time. His HR was on a 2-1 pitch. I guess if you are going to hit .500 with an OPS of 1.750 you can keep swinging at the first pitch. However, truth be told, this is not the Guardians way and they have their hands full in turning Watson into a Cleveland player.
4. Tommy Mace had his moments tonight just like Nikhazy did last night. Really hope these guys are going to continue on the steep part of their learning curve for the rest of the yer.
5. I will have a bigger article on this later, but we have seen a lot of movement in the farm system with all kinds of promotions over the past month. We have also seen a number of guys who didn't get promotions get a bump in their stats the last few weeks. The reason I am mentioning this is that there is a school of thought that says July/August/September statistics for guys who remain at a level for an entire year are inflated somewhat because teams are promoting their best players to the next level in June and July, diluting the talent at a given level and allowing guys who reman at that level for an entire year to increase their performance as the talent pool is depleted. We have seen guys like Fox, Tolentino, Tena and others have this sort of bump this year. At the same time, guys who are promoted don't tend to do as well with their new, higher level team. That makes what Juan Brito is doing at Akron even more interesting.
6. As far as the Civale trade I still don't buy it. Manzardo is a good prospect but the warts on his game (shoulder injury, very poor platoon splits, another LH hitter, poor defense) really have put a damper on this trade for me. Antonetti's comments when asked about Manzardo on the broadcast on Wednesday were really interesting when asked about when Manzardo would be ready for the majors. He really stopped short of saying he would be ready for the majors at the beginning of the 2024 season.
7. I honestly can't believe how bad Gaddis' pitching has degraded this year. I would love to see them give him a chance to be the opener as his stuff tends to play better in the first few innings of his starts. Karinchak, right or wron, needs to be called up. Could they be waiting for him to miss some sort of threshhold in terms of service time before they call him up? Could it be that diabolical?
8. We all thought the Bell thing was part salary dump, part opening playing time for others. However, what happens if Bell doesn't exercise his option next year. Doesn't this change the financial end of the deal and instead of saving about $8 million in salary if Bell exercises his 2024 player option, don't we actually lose $8 million or so from eating Segura's contract? That would be hard to swallow if that is the way it turned out, especially if Bell helps Miami as much as he seems motivated to do.
9. I don't know the Cardinals injury situation, but they played the Twins tonight. Note that they open a 3-game series against the cellar-dwelling Rockies tomorrow. Yet, Nolan Gorman and Nolan Arenado did not play in a game that had significant playoff indications when those guys could have gotten some rest this weekend in a series that doesn't involve a team with playoff possibilities. I just think teams who are out of the race should feel the obligation to keep the races above board by trying their hardest to win games against playoff contenders instead of resting key veterans in those games.
10. I still don't think that bringing up Cantillo is a good idea. I think it could backfire significantly given the controll issues he has. You may think you are getting another quality starter when you are actually getting a guy who might not make it through 2 innings of a ML start, causing our bullpen to cover 7 innings.
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