Thoughts for Septmber 1st - Callup Day, Formerly Known As the Prospect Geek's Second Christmas

 PROSPECT PROMOTION DAY

Today is September 1st, formerly known as the Prospect Geek's Second Christmas

Ahh, in the old days when I was a kid, teams were allowed to have as many as 40 guys in the dugout when the rosters expanded on September 1st.  Now, with the rosters expanding to 28 at the most, it feels a lot less like Christmas to a prospect geek like me. 

This is even less thrilling in 2025 as the best hitting prospects, DeLauter, Bazzana and even Brito, are unavailable to be promoted.  Pitching prospects like Walters, Stephan and Aleman who could bolster the bullpen are unavailable to be promoted.  

So, on a day when prospects are supposed to get their first look at the majors, we, instead, have to look at the following promotions:

1, George Valera (good promotion)

2. ? (to be updated later)

I HAVE QUESTIONS

Given that my prospect giddiness has been artificially muted by limited roster expansion and the injuries and circunstances limiting the prospects who could have reasonably been promoted, I have to look for other things to talk about.  

1. Why does Travis Bazzana continue to struggle? 

I don't' want to hear "Our organization is continuing to partner with Travis to finish off his development and address anything that would delay his promotion to Cleveland"

Instead, we need to hear something like this "Travis and the organization, while disappointed with his performance so far, have identified a number of things he can work on to maximize, at some undetermined time in the future, his value to the major league team.  These will not be easy fixes and so I wouldn't count on him making his major league debut until mid-2027.  We probably should have identified these issues in the pre-draft process and we own that."  

It's just time that the FO and Bazzana were honest with all of us and acknowledge that he is a flawed baseball player and what the reason are for his struggles and how the team is addressing them.  I have my own ideas, some of which I have mentioned before, some of which I don't want to speculate on, as to why he is struggling.   My ideas do not involve his injury this year as what is going on with him existed last year and earlier this year, before his injury.

C'mon people.  Fess up.  

2. Do we really think that Manzardo should be learning 1B at the major league level?

We can get him all the ABs he needs in the majors as the full-time DH, but if Kayfus and Manzardo are both in the starting lineup, Kayfus should be at 1B most games and Manzardo should be at DH.   I look at Manzardo in the field of think Travis Hafner.  In the field, that is.

3. What is wrong with Tanner Bibee?

I believe the answer is 'nothing' and that this is just his maturation process.  People are all over him now but many of those people were all over Gavin Willaims last year, too.  So there's that.

4. Did we really get enough for Beiber?

Many of us (me included) were OK with the return of Khal Stephen for Beiber.  As long as Stephen's shoulder impingement was really nothing,  I am good.  

However, as we continue to re-level-set this trade, remember that Stephen was a 2nd round pick last year.  His value comes from goaod drafting and development by Toronto.  We would have likely gotten an equivalent or better pick (based on slot value) if we had kept Shane and done a QO this off-season and Beiber had declined that offer.   So our value for Beiber was good...unless Stephen is really injured.  Then we got skunked, once again, in a trade.  But, under no circumstances can anyone, knowing the origin of the players in this trade, say that we got a great deal.  At best it was a fair to good deal, at worse we got skunked once again, especially if Stephen does have a significant shoulder injury.

5. Do we really have a chance to make the playoffs?

Unequivocally, yes.  No single loss will take us out of the race this early.  Not even 2 in a row.  Maybe not even 3 losses in a row.  But we need to limit the losing streaks to 2 and keep winning series, sweeping at least a couple of our remaining series.  This is doable.  All they have to do is do it.

 

6. Is our situational hittin player or coach related?

Yesterday Schneeman came up with runners on second and third.  Looking at the defensive alignment a simple ground ball down the 3rd base line or even a good bunt scores 1-2 more.  Looking at Schneeman's spray chart after the game my impression is that he doesn't have either (only 2 bunts this year, no hits down the LF line) in his arsenal. I think this is a coaching thing.  Clearly when you are a scrappy, super-utility guy like Schneeman you need a full tool set on both offense and defense. The hitting coach should make sure Schneeman, and all the hitters, know how to take advantage of the defense at all times, especially with guys in scoring position.  In my opinion, this is another area where our hitting coaches have let the team down this year and slowed the development of players.  This needs to be fixed.