INEPTNESS AND FRUSTRATION
Well, the Browns were comically inept, the level of ineptness that brings frustration. Electronics stores love it as they likely will be besiged by people looking for replacement TVs after that type of loss.
It was good of the Guardians to be the warm up act of ineptness yesterday, prepping Browns fans of the feelings yet to come on Monday night. I cannot tell you (actually I HAVE told you) about the thoughts of impending doom (of that game) when I see us 1, 2 or 3 runs ahead going into the 8th inning. I have to laugh now about people saying that Clase is responsible for our woes when Stephan has almost the identical number of blown saves as Clase has. It's a team sport, boys. You play together and you suck together. That's just the way life works.
DREAM TEAM IN COLUMBUS
Tonight's lineup in Columbus is exciting to all fans of the Guardians' minor leaguers especially as McKenzie is rehabbing. Still not sure Sticks will avoid TJ surgery but a guy can hope, right? It is like a dream team of guys who can/should help the Guardians next year. In fact, a position player roster next year that looks like this:
Utility (4) - Arias, Fry, Freeman, Brito (the latter two learning to play the OF as well as ALL infield positions in ST and maybe even over the winter)
Catcher (2): Bo Naylor, Lavastida
First Base (1) Josh Naylor
Second Base/SS (2): Gimenez, Rocchio
Third Base (1): Ramirez
Outfield (4): Kwan, Brennan, Rodriguez
would be really appealing if Rodriguez could just put it together for us...please?!?
AAA Depth - Noel, Gonzalez, Tena, Martinez, Pries, Schneeman, Haase
The DFAs Start...Again
Matt Moore quietly put on waivers and being picked up by the Marlins was interesting. Not that he has been that effective here and if we save a few bucks from all we have wasted this year, so be it.
Apparently, to replace Moore, we have brought up Michael Kelly off the IL...because we need another look at a career minor leaguer. I guess this only makes sense if we are deciding about protecting him this winter (or not) and whether we will be rostering guys like Hankins or Cade Smith this winter. Also, can't wait to see Laureano and Calhoun claimed off waivers in a day or two...please!
Francona vs Antonetti
While they both have culpability in this year's collapse, there seems to be some thought about whose fault this season is. IMO, as I have said before, there is no argument. Francona has ALWAYS surpased expectations, even having a winning record in 2021 before he stepped down. Antonetti? Well all you have to know is that the best trade he made since the Clevinger trade was getting David Fry for JC Mejia (NOTE: If Gimenez would have repeated his 2022 season I would have called the Lindor trade even, given we were never going to re-sign Lindor).
Antonetti keeps turning down jobs and I want him here so that is a good thing. He just needs to get better people underneath him because these trades and these last two drafts that are going down are really bad.
I invite people to look at the rosters, stats and records of Cleveland's teams of the 1980s. The rosters weren't terrible yet we had some really horrible seasons. That and what I have seen with my own yetes since Francona got here tells me that Francona has been a magician here, getting more with less and, sometimes, squeezing blood from a stone. While Francona has his faults, most of them having to do with old age and incapacity, without him we might have had 7 losing records out fo the last 10 seasons instead of 9/10 winning records.
Challenges
Sunday Kwan's jersey was clearly hit by a pitch and, has happened MANY times this season, our replay guys and Francona choked, running out of time before challenging the ball call. I know I said earlier in this year that statistics show that we are about average on the success of our challenges, I said at that time that these stats don't capture when we DON'T challenge and we would have won. My gut tells me we have to be among the worst teams in baseball at choking when it comes time to challenge. I also venture to say that while we may, if the stats I read are correct, be average in terms of overall success rates of challenges this year, a detailed look at OUR games might show that our opponents have more challenges, a higher challenge success rate and, especially important, a low rate of NOT challenging when they should have. We simply need to be better and someone should, after the season and Francona is gone, promise us fans that management will do everything in its power to rectify this problem by next season. We simply need to be more decisive and more right on challengable plays. It is so disconcerting to see us be this bad at challenges.
Draft Hangover
Remind me not to look at what could have been...like I could ever do that. We missed out by one spot from having the ability to draft Colt Emerson. While Ralphy Velazquez was having success in a limited sample size in rookie ball (23 AB, 1.132 OPS) while he was mostly DHing, Emerson was splitting time between Rookie and A ball. In the ACL (same league Velazquez played in), Emerson went .536/.629/.786/1.414 in 28 ABs and stole 4 bases. When promoted to Class A his production 'fell off'...to the tune of an .880 OPS in 79 PA as a barely 18 year old.
Given Waldrep's initial results for Atlanta, having success in rookie ball, high A and AA, we have now bracketed Velazquez with a guy I hoped we would get who we barely got aced out for and a guy we should have taken. Hey, it is much better than if Velazquez fell on his face while the other two performed but this makes me even more disappointed how this draft turned out, especially in the first round.
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