Friday Thoughts - Waiver Wire Night Hangover

 1. ML baseball is likely to overhaul the irrevocable  waiver wire process over the winter (more on this is another post).  Not that I think it needs to be overhauled but there will be enough crying and whining that it is currently unfair to the richer/more powerful owners/teams that they won't let it stand as is.  Maybe they limit the number of waiver wire pickups in a week to 2 on any 7 day period.  I don't know but I am sure it will change.  No rule that favors weaker, poorer teams like the Guardians will ever be allowed to stand now that it has been identified.

2. Getting Gioloto, Lopez and Moore isn't going to cure all that ails the Guardians.  But it may keep their heads above water long enough to help.  

Some will say, as I did, that they should have brought in Hunter Renfroe.  This would have likely cost us Ramon Laureano on a DFA, which I would have been OK with.  It might have also cost us Juan Gonzalez on a DFA, something I would not have been comfortable with.   

But we didn't get any offensive help when some might have been available.  If the FO decision not to bring in Renfroe or Randall Grichuk is a sign that they think what they have currently is better.  

Looking at the current 26 I don't think we have enough.  Maybe if you include the minors.  Which brings me to what could change.  Bringing up Rocchio won't give us a dramatic upgrade.  Bringing up Noel or Lavastida or Schneeman or Pries or Valera won't give us that upgrade.  There are only 2 guys in the farm system who can help us catch that lightning in a bottle right now: Jonathon Rodriguez and Chase DeLauter.  If DeLauter had been healthy all year and was raking in Akron right now after raking in LC for the first half of the season I might buy into rostering him 2 years early.   But not now.  Which brings me back to Rodriguez.   Sticking with Laureano is a fool's play.  You have to bring up Rodriguez and DFA Laureano.  It probably won't work but if it does, if the league takes 3-4 weeks to catch on to Rodriguez's weaknesses, we might get enough of a spark to the offense to separate us from the teams we are playing in September.   

If Will Brennan or Myles Straw lose a little playing time to get Rodriguez some ABs, so what.  We need instant offense and he is the only guy I can think of who has a chance to, along with Calhoun, give us that lightning.  

With our offense, even if Josh Naylor comes back as strong as he was when he left (his rehab is not really showing that so far) we still need one more hitter.  That hitter is Rodriguez and if the cost of a lifetime fringe player like Laureano to DFA, so be it.  

We are 5 games back.  The time is not for the Laureanos of the world.  We need a hero and my hope is that, like Gonzalez last year, Rodriguez is that guy this year.  Otherwise, we are making the same mistakes we did for most of this year.

C'mon Guardians, be bold. We need SUCCESSFUL bold right now.  Miracles can be made of that.  That plus Bieber and McKenzie coming back in Cy Young caliber form by mid September :-)