Finding Randy Arozarena

 A couple of years in what appeared to be an odd but minor trade, the St. Louis Cardinals, usually very astute in their dealings, traded Jose Martinez, Randy Arozarena and a future supplemental first round pick to Tampa Bay, a generally even more astute trader, for Matthew Liberatore, Edgardor Rodriguez and a suplemental second round draft pick.  Now I lived in St. Louis for most of my adult life and have become a fan of that team.  At the time I thought it was an odd trade but Martinez was more of a DH and I got that and Liberatore was a prized pitching prospect.  Basically Tampa was being Tampa, going to garage sales and finding treasures in someone else's excess.  The Cardinals were being the Cardinals, being proacdtive about their roster.  It seemed like an odd trade and, in fact, as a transplanted Cardinals fan I have to say I didn't like it much.  Still Liberatore was a top prospect and we all know how I like trading major league role players for top prospects.

Interestingly, I never considered Arozarena in the assets of this trade.  Maybe that is why Tampa is Tampa.  Jose Martinez hardly played in the majors again.  Rodriguez never got out of rookie ball and Liberatore is a top 100 prospect in baseball who is still scuffling to become a regular starting pitcher in the majors.

Which brings us to Arozarena.  Do you think either St. Louis or Tampa expected this?   Arozarena was signed as an udrafted free agent after his senior year in college.  Basically, that meant that he played every year as near or above age for the minor leagues he played in.  Very good stats but we know how stats in the minors for older prospects can be deceiving.   For the Cardinals to get rid of him as what appeared to be a throw-in.   Well, no one expected much.   At least I didn't.

And he didn't play much in 2020, splitting time betwen the Rays and their taxi squad team.  He did show power, hitting 7 HRs in 64 ABs

Then came the 3030 post-season.  Setting records for hittin.

The point of this post is tShat as I look around the league at the teams heading for the playoffs I see inklings of these teams looking for the next Arozarena: a guy who provides impact who the league doesn't have a book on yet.  Sort of the reverse of Juan Soto who people expect to make an impact simply because he is a star player.  A guy whose $17 mllion salary says he HAS to succeed, right?

So, yesterday, in steps Will Brennan.  He replaces Richie Palacios on the active roster.   Palacios has a role in major league baseball but, at least this year, he just looks like an extra player.   If you can replace him with a guy who is playing well, then, well, you could have a useful weapon in the playoffs.  Maybe a difference maker.  

There may never be another Randy Arozarena.  But maybe Will Brennan can make a difference is a meaningful way in the spirit of how the 2022 Cleveland Guardians play baseball.  I think that is the hope with the Guardians. Bum-of-the-month philosophy?  I don't think so, in this case.   I just see Brennan as a guy who, like Arozarena, but in a different way, can become a solid major league starter, starting right now, and make an impact on an offense that needs more juice going into the playoffs.

 

Arizona Fall League Roster

 I saw the Guardians preliminary assignments to the Arizona Fall League. 

Angel Martinez

Mason Hickman

Cade Smith

Lenny Torres

David Fry

Connor Kokx

Of these guys the biggest issue I have is putting Angel Martinez on display for all MLB scouts.  

Normally guys are put on AFL rosters for 3 reasons

(1) They have lost repetitions due to injury (Torres fits in this category)

(2) They are there for need, especially catchers (Fry fits here)

(3) They need experience against stronger competition to accelerate their development (Kokx, Hickman and Smith fit here)

(4) They need more reps at a new position (actually Nolan Jones at 1B would fit here but Martinez does not)

What you do not want to do is to put guys on display in the AFL who are Rule 5 eligible and are not locks to be added to your 40 man. This is why adding Martinez to the AFL roster is problematic.  I think he is a lock to make the 40 man roster this winter but I don't know if the Guardians think the same way.  If they are not planning on rostering him this winter then putting him on display in the AFL only enhances the chances he will be drafted and lost in the Rule 5.  He isn't changing positions, he had plenty of ABs this year and experience at different positions so why put him in the AFL.

It makes no sense and is a big red flag to me.  We'll see what ends up happening but all these guys except Martinez make sense (although Torres IS rule-5 eligible this winter but has pitched so little I doubt if he gets drafted if left off the roster (as he should be, based on his lack of performance and injury history so far).

We'll see but this is a very concerning development to me.

Let's talk reality here

 First, let me say that the front office has, in my opinion, been very astute in how they have used the 40-man roster this year.  Francona has also been very good in how he uses the 26 (now 28) man roster.  

Look, we all should realize that yesterday was a throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks moment.  No way was Hunter Gaddis ready for this start (or his first start).  He simply is not ready to be a major league starter yet.  Maybe ever.  Who knows.  But having watched him pitch all year I can say, without a doubt, he deserved to be on the 40-man roster this winter so, if a need is there and a roster spot is available, why not deploy him as needed?

So, just to be clear, if anyone thinks, based on these two starts, we should DFA Gaddis if we need a roster spot then those people need to take a step back and look at the big picture/long game/reality of a small market team.

If anything, what we should all admit was that the Cleveland Guardians put winning YESTERDAY'S game at a very low priority compared to the big picture of this season and the future.  Frankly, I think that, although they were playing an important game (win the season series, go 5 games up on the White Sox and Twins) they weren't willing to gamble for the short term.  Were they resigned to losing yesterday?  No.  But they were resigned to go as far as possible with Gaddis whether or not they lost.

And the funny thing is that the Guardians didn't do this so they could WIN this weekend.  What they did yesterday and what they will do this weekend is designed to SURVIVE this stretch.  Hopefully they win, but winning is NOT the biggest priority here.  The Guardians will deny that.  Francona will say that their goal is to win every game.  However, he and Antonnetti need to add "...considering the situations that surround that game and the future" every time they say that their goal is to try to win every game.

Now, don't be confused.  I HATE that they really did consider yesterday a throw-away game and their plan to win was hoping for a miracle that Gaddis would give them 6 innings with 3 or less runs.  This on the heels of starting two rookies against the Angels this week, meaning that they started 3 still-wet-behind-the-ears rookies in 4 games so far this week!  Not the recipe for winning although they won 2 of those 3 games.  Again, throwing it against the wall hoping it wll stick.

They even have received offensive support from two holes in the lineup, Miller and Straw.   The reason I mention this is that Ernie Clement is still with the team although he hardly plays and Will Brennan is still at AAA along with Gabriel Arias and Brayan Rocchio.  The latter two could be called up right now and Brennan could be called up if you DFA Clement.   

So, Guardians, if you are going to throw stuff against the wall then why not do the same with Rocchio instead of Clement?  Why not DFA Clement and bring up Brennan for some extra oomph for the offense?  These moves would help the offense without, in my opinion, harming the future of this club.   

So, in for a penny, in for a pound.  We are bringing up Vargas to see if he can provide an oomph to the bullpen.   If we are doing stuff like that, why is Ernie Clement still on the active roster>

THAT, my friends, is something to gnash your teeth and wring your hands about.

It's Monday and here we are

 After KC and Minnesota I don't know what to think.  

So let's not look back.  Let's look forward

We have 3 vs. the Angels, 1 vs the White Sox and 5 vs the Twins.  

How the Angels' series will go is anyone's guess.  Frankly, I have no idea.  We are starting a lineup tonight with 3 automatic outs (Miller, Straw and Hedges).  In addition we have Freeman who the jury is still out on, both offensively and defensively.  We also have Konnor Pilkington on the mound.  Frankly, I don't know what that means.  

I see this as a situation where all the stars can align and we can make a run the rest of the season.  Or the wheels could come off because we are giving ourselves so much to overcome that any normal team would have troubles, yet along such a young team.  

So, I don't know.

Plus, what will the White Sox and Twins bring the rest of the season?  That is the key, really.   If the White Sox falter I think we have a pretty good chance.  But who knows.

So let's hope for the best.  It is certainly possible that we will come out next Tuesday with the division in hand...or not.

Who can tell on paper?

Looking to the minor leagues, Lake County and Lynchburg begin their playoff series this week.  Lynchburg's roster has been depleted by injuries and callups and, looking at their roster right now it doesn't look like they have much of a chance to score a run, let alone win a game, let alone win a series.  

Lake County, on the other hand, has lost guys but the guys they have on the roster now look strong enough to win in the playoffs.

As far as the last two minor league teams still playing in our system, Akron has a good roster but a difficult road to go to make the playoffs.   Man, blowing the last two games in the first half really hurts.  But, yet, they are still a mathematically viable option to win their second half chanpionship.

Ditto for Columbus who have a slightly better path, only having to jump over one team whereas Akron has to hurdle two teams.  

Both the Akron and Columbu rosters contain enough talent to win their division.  Time will tell.

One last point: Joe Lampe over 3 games 1-10 with 6 Ks in low A ball where he, as a college hitter, should dominate.  Doesn't look good for our draft guru, especially when other college hitters drafted this year have had so much success in the SAME league as Lampe plays.  

It's time to go all in on 2022

 I have been waiting...and waiting...and waiting.

We had an off-day  on Thursday.   We should have made some roster changes.  

We didn't.  

We need offense.  

We have the mantra of let the kids play.  We have brought up Jones, Kwan, Gonzalez, all with initial levels of success.  We have less than a month left in the regular season.  All we need is an initial level of success.  We don't need extended success.  We need my bum-of-the-month philosophy.

Let's look at who we have:

Ernie Clement: He is unneeded on this team.  I don't see anything that says he is a major league hitter.  His defense is replaceable.  I don't know if that is by Tyler Freeman but, for this last month, I can live with Freeman.

Owen Miller - I had to laugh the last couple of games when I saw Miller had RBI hits.  Then I saw that the first one was an infield dribbler that the Witt couldn't make a play on and the second was a popup that landed right behind a drawn-in infield.

Solution:

You have to rip off the bandaid here.   You have to throw something against the wall and hope it sticks.  Send Clement back to the minors and bring up Rocchio.   Send Palacios to the minors and bring up Valera.  Both will DH, primarily, with Miller on the bench, only playing in games where Naylor absolutely needs a day off.   Valera could also play LF with Kwan moving to center if we want to give up some OF defense to get more hitting.

This is not all I would do but this organization has failed miserably giving us an alternative at 1B that would allow us to send Miller to the minors and get some hitting into our lineup.  We are screwed if we bring up a hitter who will butcher 1B and we are screwed if we let Miller keep playing.   The ideal thing would be for Miller to get his head out of his butt and actually start contributing to this team.  Finish the year the way he started it.  Blind squirrel finds the acorn.  Throw Miller against the wall and hope he sticks. 

Hey, many teams have this problem down the stretch.  It just seems so pathetic to be this close to making the playoffs and see this level of pathetic offense day in and day out.  

Guardians, please do something to get some offense.  We have the bodies.  Throw one at this situation, or two if you have the guts to DFA Clement and bring up Brennan, although the latter got less appealing to me when I saw the list on Cleveland Guardians Prospective of previous Cleveland minor leaguers in the last 20 years with 100 RBI in a season (Whitney, Goleski twice, Jesus Aguilar, Jason Cooper and Ernie Young).  Yikes!

We had an off-day on Thursday to get a hitter or two here.   We didn't do it.  Big mistake by the FO.  They have the guys in the minors who maybe could help.  They have guys in the majors who have had multiple opportunities to fail.  They needed to do something.  They didn't.  

Thoughts for a Labor Day

1. We need more hitting.  Rocchio is hot right now and he should come up and Clement should go back down.  It would be nice to bring up Brennan but, unless we DFA Clement or Miller, I don't see that happening.  The only other thing I can see us doing is to bring up Valera and send down Straw, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle.  I think they would send down Benson instead of Straw but Straw's offensive stats say that he should be hitting 10th in the lineup...and there are only 9 spots in the lineup.

2. I think the FO and Tito need to react more quickly. When Plesac and Civale went down and we had to bring up Morris, I think Shaw should have been the opener to give Morris a little breather before his first ML appearance and simulate more of what he was doing in the minors: relieving.  The FO plan was too one-dimensional on this decision, and I think it helped cost us that game.

3. This is a long season and no one knows, when you have a slump like we are in, when and under what conditions it will end.   No team is immune to these things and there are some epic fail examples of where teams lost playoff spots by having one of these slumps at the wrong time.  All we can do as fans is to keep watching, keep cheering and rooting our team on.  The rest, as they say, has to be done by the team and the management, itself.   As Kim Carnes says: I need a hero!

4. It looks like we will have at the most two of our minor league teams in the playoffs, Lynchburg and Lake County.   Akron blew it in the first half and Columbus just can't make up any ground with Nashville as that 3-4 game deficit is just maddeningly consistent.  Still, all of our US based affiliates, combined, are 59 games over .500 at this point.  For an organization that is all about development and, in many cases, about having underage rosters at most levels, having this kind of cumulative record is a very good sign.  

Keep the faith, baby.   If good things are supposed to happen, with us behind our team, they will.

Friday Ramblings - Angry and not afraid to say it

 (1) The Guardians have been very real all year that their choices in putting their 40-man roster together last winter would impact their choices of who to put on the 26f-man roster (and now the 28-man roster) this season.  

Hey, we all get that and I embrace it.   Frankly, they have done exactly what I would have done if I were them.  Give guys like Mercado, Chang, Zimmer, Myers, etc. a short leash.  If they fail, you have had time to get your young players a few more reps in the high minors so you can start bringing them up.  

What came out of this, however, may have been totally unexpected by the Guardians' front office.  But not me.  I have espoused for years the concept of the bum-a-month club.   As hard as it may be to believe I don't mean this as a derogatory against these young men. 

How I mean it can easily be understood by looking at Kwan.  He came up, guns blazing, and for a month he looked like an all-star.  The league adjusted to him and he suffered.  Then he adjusted to the league and he flourished.    The point is, for that first month he was a very positive factor for the team.  That, in essence, is the goal of the bum-a-month philosophy, which really revolves around hitters, although it can apply to pitchers sometimes: guys with talent, who are not mired in slumps at the time, can be brought up for a short period of time and be successful for AT LEAST until the league adjusts to them.   

So we have our September callups and we bring up Morris and DFA Castro.  Perfect, exactly as the Guardians have proceeded this year.  Castro is a AAAA player being held in reserve in case of emergencies.  But his place on the 40-man roster can easily be given to someone else if the need arises.

But then we bring back Ernie Clement.  His time in Columbus after his demotion did nothing to convince me that he is not still the offensively-challenged, defensively-slightly-above-average guy he has been since he started with the Guardains.  To make matters worse the team was struggling offensively before Sept. 1st and snd struggled worse yesterday.

We should have brought up someone to spark the offense.  Someone who the league hasn't seen.  Someone on the 40-man roster.  That is Brayan Rocchio, if you want an infielder.  George Valera if you want an outfielder.  Not Ernie Clement.  That is just redoing Chang/Mercado/Zimmer/etc.  Insanity is just repeating the same, failed experiment over and over again and expecting a different result.    

Hey, would inserting Rocchio as the DH yesterday have changed the outcome of the game?   But right now we have an offensive hole in centerfield that we can only fix by moving Kwan there.  We have an offensive hole at catcher that we aren't able to fix right now.  And we have an offensive hole whenever Owen Miller takes the field. 

We need to do something positive.  We need to find our bum(s) of the month for September.  We need to do it now and we have the resources on the 40-man roster to do it.   Let's do it and send Freeman down and bring up Arias.  If we had guts we would DFA Clement and bring up Brennan.  Knowing how Chang ended up I think it wouldn't be a bad strategy to gamble and DFA Clement.  Certainly, bringing up Brennan and sending down Benson and starting Brennan, would be an improvement to our pathetic offense.  Go Guardians1

(2) I am a draftnik.  I did not like the Guardians draft this year.   I had to endure watching Dylan Beaver and Jud Fabian trash our Lynchburg pitching staff (I wanted Fabian in the second round) was bad enough.  Yeah, mature college hitters feasting on young pitchers at low A ball on a pitching staff that has been depleted somewhat by promotions.  Yeah, it makes sense and I was able to rationalize it.  Then I saw Joe Lampe play the last two games.   The difference between him and Beaver/Fabian is night and day.  Weak contact by Lampe vs. hard contract and homeruns by Beaver/Fabian.   Yeah, it is early but the apples-to-apples comparison was striking.   I dislike our draft even more today than when it happened.  Hopefully our draft strategy group knows more than it appears they do on paper.

(3) I will begin this point by saying that there is, in no way, a direct comparison between DeShaun Watson and Donovan Mitchell.  None.  However what there IS, is a direct comparison between the trades that were made to get them.  In fact, it can be argued that the Cavs gave up A LOT more for Mitchell than  the Browns did for Watson, although I would argue that guaranteeing him all his salary makes the Watson trade MUCH more lopsided in favor of the team trading with Cleveland.   That being said, both teams 'went for it' in these trades.  They had the infrastructure to win now.  They felt they needed a certain piece and got great player value at an extreme price before their competitive window closed.  The Browns didn't hurt their current depth.  The Cavs current depth took a big hit.  The value of the draft choices lost is reversed, with NFL draft choices seemingly being much more valuable than NBA draft picks, especially when the latter are late in the first round as we hope the Cavs' will be over the next 5 years or so.  Still, both teams went for it.  Guardians...are you listening? Go Cavs...and Guardians...and Browns.  

(4) Daniel Espino, where are you?

(5) What kind of world is the NCAA creating when a college athlete can give each of his teammates $500 to buy themselves a stylish suit?  Now $500 in tutor-hours so they can graduate with a useful degree, I get that.  NIL is a great way to keep kids in college and I am for that.  I am even more for an NIL 'tax' where a certain percentage of NIL football and basketball money goes into a general pool for athletes at that college or university based on the level (full, half, etc.) of their athletic scholarship.  But $500 x 80-100 guys.  Any college kid with that much money to waste and one whose family would allow him to spend it like this needs some attitude adjustment as he has just made himself the prime example for those totally against NIL and paying college athletes.

(6) Excited about the Browns on Sunday?  If Stefanski is a good coach we can survive the season without Watson for the first 11 games.  If he is as out of touch with his team as he was last year the Haslems have just wasted a year's worth of salaries/expenses.  Flushed it down the toilet.  And we should be looking for another head coach by January. Go Browns!

(7) I am excited about Ohio State and Notre Dame on Saturday.  However, this is NOT the type of game that should be the first game of the season.  Just too much at stake to put two top-10 teams against each other this early as they are trying to shake off the rust of the off-season.  These matchups should be saved for the end of the season or, rather, be played out in an expanded 8-team playoff system.  Go Buckeyes.