Wow, that was the longest title for a blog post in the history of my blog. Let's talk today about the statement "The basseball draft is just a crapshoot".  How much of that is fact, how much of it is falsehood or is it somewhere in between. There is so much anecdotal research that people have been done on the first-year player draft in baseball that it takes a while to sift through it.    There are 3 basic questions about every player drafted: (a) How well will an amateur player's skills project into his success in professional baseball? (b) How well will an organization b ..read more

 As fans look for ways to run their latest whipping boys, Myles Straw, Amed Rosario and Mike Zunino out of town, I have been following the LA Dodgers prospects who I proposed to trade for.  Here is the latest update to the trade proposal. Cleveland trades: Myles Straw, Amed Rosario, Shane Beiber, Zach Plesac and Eli Morgan LA trades: Michael Busch, Bobby Miller and Chris Taylor While Miller has made himself almost untouchable by his first 3 starts in the majors, this package might entice the Dodgers.  Us taking back Chris Taylor's bad salary is, to me, a key to this deal as it o ..read more

 You have to be happy that McKenzie is back.   You have to be sad that Plesac is gone.  And, you might be scratching your head about Michael Kelly and Peyton Battenfield. Let's peel back the onion. We all knew Triston McKenzie was coming back today.  We all knew that this would require us to trade or DFA someone.   What we didn't know was who that would be.  There were several candidates who were making themselves available by bad performance.  Zach Plesac and Richie Palacios were the most likely.  Palacios is hitting close to .200 at AAA.  ..read more

 GUARDIANS Didn't actually get a chance to watch any of this game live...yet.  But my general thought from afar is what I have said already: Some games you win.  Some games you lose.  Some seasons you win.  Some seasons you lose. This team has enough talent to make the playoffs but if the FO doesn't help the manager by giving him good players, if the manager doesn't manage the players well, if the support staff (yes, I am talking to the guy responsible for determining the replay challenges as it is getting really embarassing) don't do their job and if the players take ..read more

 MAJORS Anytime you win a series against a hot, first-division team in their home ballpark it is a good sign.  When your two veteran starters EACH get hammered for 8 runs in 4 innings it is pretty disturbing, though.  I try to tell myself that this is just another series but with teams starting to make decisions about whether they will be buyers or sellers at the deadline...or even right now, if the Guardians tank in Minnesote and end up leaving there 7 to 9 games under .500 I am afraid they will make the decision that this season is lost and they need to salvage what they can ..read more

 Guardians 1. Even the wins are painful and nerve-wracking.  I envy my wife.  As a Cardinals' fan she waits for result to see if she wants to watch the game.  Me, I am like that moth drawn to the bug zapper.  I just can't look away and watch the Guardians from start to the very end.  As such, watching them get 3 runs on one hit (again) and then hold on to the end due to letting the starter go too long and then a shaky bullpen (except for De Los Santos) (again) and hoping against hope they can somehow find a way NOT to lose the game, is no way to make baseball and ..read more

BRINGING BACK INJURED PITCHERS  Advice to the Cleveland Guardians: Don't rush getting Morris,  McKenzie and Civale back unless you think they can go Ohtani on the league.  We need hitting, ptching is less of an issue. Watching Civale's second start it is apparent to me that he could use 2 more starts, at least, to get back to the majors.   It was hard to tell about Morris but he, too, looked like he could use some more work before being added to the 26-man. The thing is, none of these 3 guys is the cure for what is wrong with this team.  Here are my thoughts: 40 ..read more

 I was really going to title this post "My Thoughts on the Current State of the Cleveland Guardians." The text of the blog was then going to be "My mother taught me that if  couldn't say anything nice then don't say anything at all" and that was going to be the entire post...because there is nothing nice I can say about this team right now. But I was thinking about not just what was being done by this team but what was being said about this team by management and what was being done by that management to try to make this team better.   So let's go over that: Francona has s ..read more

 The 2023 amateur draft is coming up and it looks like the same people are running this one for Cleveland as ran the last couple.  Two years ago the Scott Barnsby-led draft gave us Tanner Bibee and Gavin Willaims, among others, in the famous pitcher-dominant draft.  However, the 2022 draft does not look as productive.  In fact, I can say that the 2022 draft class, as it looks right now, could end up being the worst draft class for Cleveland in my memory.  This draft class, which featured left-handed slap-hitting, fast college players, pitchability college pitchers and ..read more

 One of the common themes I have been reading is that the Guardians are/like hoarding prospects.  That they should have traded some of them for veteran help AND still should. But you have to have prospects that other teams want in order to make those trades. Recent results should teach us that maybe that isn't true.  1. Sean Murphy trade - The A's ended up accepting a trade in which they got ZERO top 100 prospects in baseball for Murphy.  They got back Kyle Muller LHP (Braves #1), Freddy Tarnok RHP (Braves #8), Esteury Ruiz OF (Brewers #8) and Royber Salinas (Braves #6) and ..read more