MANAGER SEARCH
Well, we are still looking for a manager. Apparently Guardians' history tells us that we should have one near the beginning of November. With Francona being here for so long that has got to be a ridiculously small sample size...and out of date, too.
Thoughts on some of the names that have been popping up:
Will Venable - Interesting that he won't even interview. This says to me that being the next manager in Cleveland is NOT a job that anyone would give their right nut to have. My impression is that they are having a hard time finding a guy willing to replace the HOFer Francona here and, like so many head coaching jobs in college and the pros, the guys who want this type of high profile job are really not qualified for it. They just want to chance to show how good they can be. Really a bad recipe for success.
Female Candidates - I am a little shocked that this is coming up. Being a female GM like Kim Ng makes perfect sense. You are dealing with analytics, interpersonal relationships and business dealings. Your player interactions are not game-based. You don't have to know the in-game strategy. You literally do not have to have playing, coaching or managing experience to be a GM. But to be a manager? Heck, baseball people don't really have the qualifications to be a manager and most of them have been around baseball their entire life. This is not a gender equity thing. We are not talking about why female executives have a glass ceiling. We are talking about managing at the highest level in a complex game.
Mark Budzinski - A familiar name and one that is intriguing to me.
Troy Snitker - He is 34 and like presidential candidates there is a reason that they won't allow anyone who is below 35 to run for president. They are simply not experienced enough. Ditto for Snitker as a manager. However I would pay him $1 million a year to be my hitting coach and to polish up Gonzo, JRod, Noel and all of our young MIF prospects.
RIGHT FIELD SEARCH
I have seen it all now. Left fielders being considered for RF (Austin Hays). One year of control guys being considered even though there is no way they will re-sign with Cleveland (Juan Soto). No consideration of handedness (Soto). No concern about who would have to be moved around to make a trade work and how it would impact the rest of the team (Kwan to CF). Bringing up the flavor of the month rookies (DeLauter, Manzardo) before they are ready not considering that there are other answers internally that need to be tried (JRod, Noel, Gonzo).
This is simply, in many minds, a desperate grab to improve the team next year.
There are alternatives out there. It's just time to find a long-term one, either internal or external.
MIDDLE GROUND PROSPECT HYPE
For a while I have been saying that DeLauter has a weird swing. But even though I have watched baseball my entire life I am no expert on hitting. Heck, when I played I was a three true outcome guy: strikeout, walk, HBP. That being said, I knew something was off about DeLauter. Weird front foot tap, looks like he is hitting without incorporating his lower half, a LOT of weak contact but kbarreling the ball more than I have ever seen with any Cleveland prospect...but many cases without any power at all in his hits.
Now that Keith Law, a known baseball writer, has said the same thing with more detail, now diehard Cleveland fans are all up in arms. When one of guys you have dubbed as the messiah in your farm system is questioned, you get all defensive.
DeLauter has lots of positives about his game. Barreling an inordinate number of balls, big guy (power potential), fast for his size, above average arm and oozing athleticism. A potential steal in the first round of the draft who was a projected top 10 pick before his injury and questions about whether he could hit LH pitching.
DeLauter also has lots of negatives: that swing, his broken foot issues, his lack of current ability at hitting LH pitching which was even evident in college. A potential overdraft in the first round of the 2022 draft at a time where we needed a big success.
Next we have Kyle Manzardo.
Great professional track record marred only by his injury and family health issues earlier n 2023. Hitting for power now in AZL...a guy who is cast as a hit-over-power guy with emerging power at just the right time, maybe making him a viable dark horse option to open 2024 in Cleveland's lineup.
We also have a guy who is limited to 1B/DH, not a great athlete, can't hit LH pitching, not a great fielder, with a recent, significant injury whose power surge may simply come from the Arizona desert and who won't truly be ready until late 2024...on a normal career trajectory.
That's the issue, really. You see what you are looking for, not what is really there. But this is so typical of die hard fans and their antithesis...the emperor-is-not-wearing-clothes 'pragmatic' naysayers.
So let's just have some middle ground here. And let's not overhype certain guys when other, important guys are being overlooked.
The FO and Francona has buried Freeman, Rocchio, JRod, Noel, Gonzo and others and the thing diehard fans should REALLY fear is these inept wheelers and dealers trading some of these guys are the artificially low value that the FO, itself, has created to the refrains of 'the market didn't value these guys very highly and this team had needs we had to address'.
So, diehard fans of the Guardians, don't be misled by the mirages that appear int he desert. We have lots of GOOD prospects like DeLauter, Manzardo, Rocchio, JRod, Noel, Freeman, Martinez, Tena, Arias, Gonzalez and others, but none of them has separated themselves from each other. Overhyping certain guys just exposes the rest of the guys to being given away from little or nothing (Caminero, Jones, Benson, Palacios, etc.). We don't want the FO thinking we won't notice if they screw up again. That was our mistake, as fans, in the past. If we keep an even, wait-and-see keel assuming all of our top prospects are potential above average MLers, maybe the FO won't be so quick to dump some of them, leaving us with Arias as the only viable option at SS and with more of an aging, expensive roster that will soon have to turn over without benefit of a strong farm system.
REASONABLE TRADE OPTIONS
One response to my suggested megatrade with the Cardinals that I posted about recently was to dismiss it saying that it was a dream trade and then suggesting we could probably get a starting right fielder if we sweetened the pot by including someone else with Bieber. The specific target was LFer Austin Hays who has 2 years of control left and middling, non-messiah like stats. The thought of trading our biggest trade chip, Bieber, for Hays AND having to give Baltimore a viable top prospect or major league piece in addition just makes me sick.
Find a reasonable trade that is a win for both teams and, for the Guardians, results in an asset with lots of control.
A guy like Luis Robert. Is it a dream that we can get him at all? Probably. But if there is one guy who COULD be available with a team that matches us (they need prospects, we have prospects) it is Robert.
Or maybe Jordan Walker. Still mostly potential (-0.1 WAR this year and a BAD defender in RF) this 21 year old is likely to improve by leaps and bounds in the future. St. Louis needs starting pitching, we have starting pitching, albeit was limited control (Bieber one year, Quantrill 2 years). Seems like could make this happen. My 'dream' trade (Beiber, Quantrill, Straw for Walker, O'Neill, Graceffo, Kloffstein, Mautz) is all about need, organizational philosophy and matching up with your trade partner. I just would really like to know what the Cardinals would say if you proposed this trade to them.
I would much rather have that trade rather than something like Freeman and Bieber for Hays with Hays playing RF when he is primarily a LFer.
No comments:
Post a Comment