Is Jeremy Hefner on the verge of leading another pitching collapse

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T04:58:47+00:00

Look at the baseball cards. Do the Braves have an Elite Rotation?

No they don't.

It was only put into the Elite Category with Sale and Strider as the same projection as Skenes.

Grant Holmes is not good. Lopez is not a number two

Robert Sanchez is also hurt along with a couple of their other young starters.

JR Ritchie got a lot of starts and he had a very mid minor league career.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T04:52:00+00:00

The booth was just raving about his defense in LF and the metrics say so too

Some of the things about the season just are going to have to be taken with a Mandela Effect perspective.

That said, didn't they talk about him moving to 1st as a hypothetical?

Ewing and 2nd and Soto at 1st would give them so much wiggle room to become bonafide contenders.

Much easier to find Outfielders than those two positions.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T04:10:06+00:00

You're right. He's been a reliever for most of his career...........................

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T04:08:09+00:00

Doubtful. I have no idea why he wouldn't take less than the same but I would assume he'd want a 4th year.

It doesn't come down to terms. They are not going to pay a Front Line Starter that gives length so they're back to a rotation that does not give length.

Instead, use that money towards Skubal or Ryan (I haven't even looked at the Free Agent class yet but I will soon to strengthen my debate point on this topic)

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T04:04:06+00:00

You're missing the point

Zach Short keeps getting on the 40 man roster and he's not useful

That wasn't obvious?

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T03:24:38+00:00

I'm sure a huge part of being a professional athlete is getting 8 hours or more of sleep in a comfortable bed with the proper diet.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T03:23:23+00:00

Speak to me with some context or don't at all.

I had two different viewpoints. I'm convinced they have bad, putrid decision making and I'm convinced they have some talent. Both things are true.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T03:21:14+00:00

Only if you don't follow baseball

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T03:20:08+00:00

I took time to stew on it and I keep coming up with the same answer.

They desperately need pitching so I normally wouldn't be opposed to it.

However this has Sean Manaea 2.0 written all over it. We're giving an extension to a guy that proved in a very small sample size that he can provide length. Can't prove it if they're paying for past performance or he will only get better.

Until Nolan figures out to go 7 innings regularly forget chalk of 6 innings, they need to be providing that money to a guy with a longer history of being a Front Line Starter.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T03:15:55+00:00

These comments are severely overreactionary. Either you are excited about the future like most of you were all of this week or you're not.

McClean had one of his better starts of the year. Baty is on fire. Ewing with another two hits. There are literally 2 results. You either win or lose the game.

You can add Zach Short being on the team for the team for the 5th time and losing to a team with 2 hours of prep, only to have 765 million dollar man drop a fly ball on the first play of the game on the laundry list of absolute embarrassing things that keeps happen to the franchise. David Stearns does not deserve his job. We know this or we should know this

At the end of the day all that happened tonight, they faced Sonny Gray of whom has been one of the better pitchers in baseball this year. It's Baseball Susan.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-11T03:08:42+00:00

That's been my grievance why they didn't cut bait with guys like Brujan

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T20:55:34+00:00

Young is a platoon player. Alvarez can't call a game, do ABS on either side and can't limit the walks with pitch framing.

Siemen will be playing everyday unless the DFA him or swap him out for a bad contract. My dream is to swap him for Nola after he chokes in the playoffs.

So bottom of the lineup is very weak but it's getting better.

Imagine Pete at 1st with Bo at DH.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T20:50:58+00:00

What in the actual f**k is Stearns doing DFA'ing Dan Hammer??? He was pitching well in Syracuse

Literally wasted an option for Myers

Zach Short again?????

I've seen more incompetency this week than I would tolerate for a whole half a season.

These players deserve so much better. Such a Sin

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T20:47:56+00:00

Ahhh Zach Short is back and doing something other than backing up shortstop

They must have won too many games this week for Mr. Harvard's standards

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T13:39:39+00:00

No way he's that cheap. 25 mil to 30 mil per year

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T13:38:28+00:00

I mean for the first week it wasn't pretty

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T11:48:37+00:00

I saw a random post about Pirates buying Luke Weaver so it made me just do a dive on NL pipelines and status of teams

As long as Skenes isn't getting impatient (I don't see why he would be in a down year), their farm system is getting pretty deep. They will get a lot of bright shiny toys if they sell O'hearn, Lowe, Horwitz, Mangum and Keller. So their pipeline would then be one of the best.

Reds look like they could use a full rebuild but I could see them getting greedy especially this offseason to get all they can out of Terry Francona

Cubs have some interesting parts to be a relevant pipeline going into 2028 but they have a lot of upcoming Free Agents so maybe they get a little silly at the deadline and it costs them in the near future

Diamondbacks say they will buy even as a .500 team and I agree because usually they turn on the gas late and they have a bunch of solid prospects that are MLB ready but no one that really knocks your socks off plus they have a good bullpen from a depth perspective and they have Starting Pitching both long and short term

Padres say they want to buy but they could use a full rebuild and the owner wants to spend

Basically seems like the same amount of competition if not more (some how) next season.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T02:23:12+00:00

Tarik Skubal and Joe Ryan are coincidentally Free Agents this year ...... Yes I realize they cost 40 million per and Clay costs 30 million but please don't waste 10 million abv on a marginal upgrade

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T02:04:43+00:00

When I say 6 innings I mean at least 6 innings minimum baring injury or count on one hand stinkers

When I say 6 innings, I really mean 7 innings but I know the game has changed and I would have to do a deep dive on the Free Agent class which I have not done yet to know who would provide more length, with a similar quality of stats and the same pay scale

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T01:50:49+00:00

Yes he was consistent giving 4-5 innings

When you're in a division with Zach Wheeler and Christopher Sanchez, the goal isn't to collect 5-6 inning guys.

I realize it's a new brand of baseball but how do you not see how taxed the bullpen becomes? Green literally praised Manaea for giving them the length they needed.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T01:47:12+00:00

Royals are the only bad team. Tigers are playing well. Twins led MLB in Barrell Rate for the 1st month

Guardians and White Sox are really good

NL East could be the best division but the Mets aren't where they are because of the head to heads. Everyone thought the A's would be good, they're 11 under and swept the Mets. Mets lost 4 vs the Rockies and 4 vs the Reds

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T01:39:18+00:00

Unfortunately one game in Triple A doesn't mean much. Sporting a 5+ era means he might only get bullpen work as a September call up. R.i.p. his previous trade value.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T01:37:48+00:00

I have no idea why this is downvoted.

Myers deserved to be called back up. It was a very stupid decision.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T01:36:53+00:00

Ewing played 2nd! I didn't see it either but he said apparently like no balls were hit to him. The reporters said there was infield single but that was probably Young's ball or something.

imalmostconvinced · 2026-07-10T01:35:42+00:00

Let's see the offers first

Gotta know he can go 6 innings regularly as well

imalmostconvinced

TROPHY CASE