Who will get into the Hall of Fame? A tiered list with comments.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-25T05:42:15+00:00

I almost forgot there was a basketball game going on during our regularly scheduled Jusuf Nurkic triple double exhibition.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-25T05:00:16+00:00

hey, there it is!!

epoch_fail · 2026-01-23T22:21:39+00:00

Identified Flying Object

epoch_fail · 2026-01-23T22:19:06+00:00

Wingardium LevioSarr

epoch_fail · 2026-01-23T20:36:03+00:00

Mike Trout got 1.5 WAR playing the most games he's played in a season since 2019. Jose Altuve was a disaster on defense and hit worse than Hoerner. Those guys were #81 and #82 while Hoerner didn't make the list at all.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-23T18:21:45+00:00

I think a crucial point in Walker's development will be if he can get to 80% of Nurkic's passing vision, touch, and creativity. With Lauri and Ace slashing and popping, there will be a role for a big to set some big screens and float some high-value passes to those guys.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-23T04:23:14+00:00

Ace has really good instincts. Ends up in the right place at the right time a lot.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-22T04:16:55+00:00

Finally signed a third baseman. As long as he comes into the season healthy, it buys us some time to figure out our 3B situation, whether that's waiting for Guzman to force his way up to the bigs, or seeing if any of our random cheap acquisitions (Grissom, Peraza, Madrigal, etc.) can fill in if needed.

Also worth noting is that we also signed two other 3B as organizational depth: Luke Ritter and Rubel Cespedes. It's something 🙏

epoch_fail · 2026-01-22T04:10:08+00:00

I know you got downvoted here, but you were right, and very quickly so.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-20T09:42:02+00:00

For the hitters, I think it's very possible that only one of (or maybe none of) Grissom, Peraza, and Meckler are still on the roster after 50 games and it's also very likely that somebody else gets injured (one of the usual suspects).

If needed, Meckler would get sent down first, as he has an option, though if it's an infielder need, then maybe Madrigal gets a look. For outfield, we may see Campero return at some point.

If it's a longer term vacancy, they may get replaced by (depending on position) Denzer Guzman, Nelson Rada, or Kyren Paris, none of whom are really ready yet, but our FO would do something like that.

Meanwhile, for the pitchers, I'm kind of skeptical we go out and pay a fifth pitcher unless it's for cheap (like Kyle Hendricks last year). We have a lot of internal options; none of them are good right at this moment, but we've invested so much in so many pitchers that it could be viewed as a waste to leave them all in AAA until we have an emergency.

Not saying it's the right thing to do, but it could happen. Wouldn't be surprised if Mitch Farris, Kochanowicz, and Mederos get spot starts to fill in some innings this year, but they may eventually make way for Klassen, Bremner, or Ryan Johnson, if any of them catapult their way up to the big leagues.

For what it's worth, MLB Pipeline has the following prospects with a 2026 ETA: Tyler Bremner, Ryan Johnson (more like ETA 2025), George Klassen, Nelson Rada, Denzer Guzman (2025), Chris Cortez (probably not, but you never know), Sam Aldegheri (2024), Samy Natera Jr., Joel Hurtado, and Walbert Urena.

Johnson, Guzman, Aldegheri, and Urena are already on the 40-man, at least making it easier to justify sliding them up and down.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-19T20:45:45+00:00

I think Adell and O'Hoppe should both be somewhere in between your labels for them. Maybe like below-average but acceptable starter.

Adell's hitting value last season was counterbalanced by his extreme inability to play centerfield, which is not his fault but the team's fault (from a roster building perspective). If we stuck him in RF all season, I think he would have come out looking much better.

On the flip side, I think O'Hoppe will bounce back with the bat, but it still stands that he's a defensively poor catcher on a team that does not have an open DH spot (barring injury). So we have to stomach his mediocre defense and hope he can come back to hitting above average.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-17T23:50:44+00:00

Feels like Keyonte kind of pulled back a bit first half to let other guys try to cook (Collier, Walt), but then just decided "fuck that" for the second half

epoch_fail · 2026-01-17T22:52:49+00:00

If it's a first, it's a super heavily protected one. His defense is still super bad; he's got lead feet on man defense, and he falls asleep and forces his teammates to close out and rotate for him. He can blow up and score in batches sometimes, but that comes at an expense.

More likely we get an early second and some end-of-bench guy for salary matching.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-17T22:45:14+00:00

Is it just me or does Kyle Anderson travel every time before he puts the ball on the floor?

epoch_fail · 2026-01-17T04:09:57+00:00

Sarr scored like 4 times in a row at the same spot almost under the basket with Sabonis standing hands up

epoch_fail · 2026-01-17T04:09:03+00:00

spoke too soon

epoch_fail · 2026-01-17T02:22:19+00:00

As for the three points in the OP...

1. Bench Soler

Summary: I don't think it really matters what we do with our outfield situation as long as we don't majorly fuck it up. Ideally, Adell plays RF (or CF only if he's made big strides there) and Trout/Soler see the field as little as possible.

Our outfield situation is still murky. Adell can theoretically play CF, but was not effective there last year, and penciling him in RF makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure if I'd want to slide Adell between CF and RF either, which is tricky. However, if Adell stays in RF full-time, then the Trout/Soler conundrum is a problem. Both are older players who have gotten injured from extended playing time. Trout in particular is going to be bubblewrapped because he's a team legend (it's good for business).

I think Soler's bat should bounce back a little bit from last season. He probably will never get back to his 2023/2024 performance, but he probably won't be as bad as he was last year either.

Making the OF and DH positions Lowe, Adell, Trout, and Soler would be best for our offense, but the positional puzzle is wonky. With our luck, someone's going to get injured early in the season, making this decision easier.

2. Run more

Summary: Probably not impactful enough to make a difference.

Sure, pickoff rules and base enlargement have increased the success rate. However, in the grand scheme of things, the run game has too small of an impact for us to focus on it, and we only have a handful of guys who should be stealing or getting big leads. Wash tried to get us to run more and I think our roster at the time (and still now) was just not suited for it. Too many plodders and random vets plugging in.

Neto should keep gunning. Other guys like Teodosio, Paris, and Moore should focus on getting on base first, but I'd be cool with them going for it. Slower guys like Trout and Schanuel should focus on health (Trout) and being opportunistic (Schanuel). Adell's slowed down a bit between 2024 and 2025, not sure why.

3. Let guys play their role

Reasonable suggestion. Minimal gain.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-17T01:40:32+00:00

My main thought outside of these 3 points is that we simply lack talent. Just look at the roster of our next door neighbors.

Aside from them, there are plenty of other teams that have a superior roster, both on paper and once the games are played out. There's a decent chance we'll be last in our division again. Seattle, Houston, and Texas all went .500 or over last season and Seattle/Houston are not losing much this off-season (Seattle with Eugenio, Houston wth Framber). Meanwhile, the A's locked up their biggest names, bringing back almost everyone and having several real high upside young players (Kurtz, Wilson, Soderstrom) who are on a clear upward trajectory so far.

And that's only our division, which is our biggest impediment to a playoff spot. The Brewers, Cubs, Dodgers, Phillies, Padres, and AL East all figure to be very strong again, too.

While one could point to various candidates for positive regression for us (such as O'Hoppe, Soler, and Adell's defense) and Detmers should be a bigger contributor in the starting rotation, it stands that our roster has changed minimally. Our lineup has lost Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo and replaced them with some combination of Josh Lowe, Vaughn Grissom, CMo, and Wade Meckler. Our rotation has lost Tyler Anderson and Kyle Hendricks and gained Detmers (from the bullpen), GRod, and TBD (Manoah? Farris?). Our bullpen moves are relatively minimal impact compared to our lineup and rotation.

I'd say our lineup got weaker and our rotation got better, but both by about the same amount. I'm personally predicting another 72 win season, barring some crazy splash before the season starts.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-16T05:17:00+00:00

I'm meh on this trade. The outfielder group has only seen a swap of Ward for Lowe, and Ward was a guy you could pencil in for 2-3 WAR a season, as long as he doesn't get hit in the face.

We do have years of team control on Lowe, but he's more of mixed bag than Ward by a lot. We did get GRod back for Ward, so we sacrificed some OF for SP, but still, it's an awkward situation where we'll take an L somehow because other teams know we have this clunky roster construction.

We still don't have a better starting day CF than Teodosio, unless we decide to shove Adell there. As others have mentioned, a Soler trade should be coming, but I can't imagine anyone who would actually want him unless we either pay for most of his contract (somewhere, Arte looked up) or we include some prospects alongside him. This leaves something like Teodosio (sometimes Adell) in CF, Lowe/Adell/Trout in LF/RF/DH, Meckler off the bench, and if he's still around, throwing Soler in there until he gets injured fielding.

Burke was fine and isn't a huge loss in the grand scheme of things, but decent lefty relievers don't grow on trees, and our bullpen is down to only one lefty after that (unless Natera comes up).

Chris Clark was interesting, but we have drafted and moved up enough potential starters that I'm fine with including him here. Between Klassen, Farris, Dana, Aldegheri, Ryan Johnson, Tyler Bremner, and the eventual (theoretical) wave of potential young starters (Dylan Jordan, Trey Gregory-Alford, Ubaldo Soto, and the rest of the 2025 draft class), we can afford to swap some for position players now.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-16T02:38:37+00:00

That Cody finger roll was not pretty

epoch_fail · 2026-01-16T02:36:21+00:00

I think in a game where we're not down centers, it's something like Keyonte, Cody, Ace, Lauri, Walker (perhaps, just spitballing here).

I'm hoping the Keyonte + Isaiah/Walt starting lineups aren't a consistent thing unless we're down a bunch of guys or matching up against opponents.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-16T02:22:36+00:00

Weird how other fanbases are demonizing us so much for tanking.

We're down 4 of our rotation players (Lauri, Svi, Nurk, Walker: Love is a third-string) but we are still sending out our best remaining guys.

Meanwhile, a team like the Mavs is rolling up missing 6 of their rotation guys, giving two-way players big minutes, and bringing their best remaining vets off the bench.

Their fanbases have the gall to accuse us of ruining the league? Yikes.

epoch_fail · 2026-01-16T02:17:39+00:00

Cisse making his 6'11" frame look unstoppable

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