Let's assume there will be < 60 game regular season

You can have your picture printed on a cardboard cutout and placed behind home plate for 50$. I think the guy that wanted to dress up as the giant peach for games needs to put up or shut up.
 
Annoying that we are still without Will Smith. But that's the unpredictable nature of this virus. He had no symptoms and has been out longer than Freeman.
 
Annoying that we are still without Will Smith. But that's the unpredictable nature of this virus. He had no symptoms and has been out longer than Freeman.

And as a pitcher he’ll most likely take a lot longer to get back up to game speed once he’s back as well. We’re probably looking at 2-3 weeks of no Smith at this point.
 
You can have your picture printed on a cardboard cutout and placed behind home plate for 50$. I think the guy that wanted to dress up as the giant peach for games needs to put up or shut up.

Not sure I'm reading the story right - does it stay up for all games???
 
Now the pitching side of all this mess becomes murkier - the offense more or less straightened itself out last night IMO. Still odd that Culberson has been added to the 40-Man IMO - Doesn't mean they HAVE TO carry him as part of the 30 the first two weeks, but you'd figure that they would have wanted the extra flexibility with that spot. Probably means A-Jax, Culberson, and ??? (Solarte maybe) make up the taxi squad.

vs. RHPs

RF- Acuna, 2B- Albies, 1B- Freeman, LF- Ozuna, DH- Adams, 3B- Riley (Camargo when he's back), SS- Dansby, C- d'Arnaud, CF- Ender (Flowers, Camargo/Riley, Duvall, Hechavarria)


vs. LHPs

CF- Acuna, 2B- Albies, 1B- Freeman, LF- Ozuna, RF- Duvall, 3B- Riley, SS- Dansby, DH- Camargo, C- Flowers (d'Arnaud, Adams, Ender, Hechavarria)




If the plan is to carry 17 Pitchers out of the gate, we're going to be extremely light on lefties in the pen until someone takes Newk's rotation spot and Smith makes it back.

SPs - Soroka, Fried, Newk, Folty, Wright

RPs - Melancon, Greene, Martin, Matzek (?), Jackson, O'Day, Rusin (?), Tomlin, Chacin, Minter (?), Wilson/Weigel (?), Dayton/Davidson (?)




Smith and Hamels need to hurry back, and/or someone needs to step up and take Newk's rotation spot (Chacin?) if it takes Hamels "a while" and Minter still can't throw strikes.
 
There is at least one good thing about this season. I feel like this would be the year that we would make a big trade deadline move.

With the expanded rosters, we can add extra players on the cheap side (can still even sign Puig for example). With a short season, I don’t see us making any “all in” moves.

It just gives us one more year to evaluate players. One more year to protect us from making a mistake on a late bloomer (especially pitching).
 
You can have your picture printed on a cardboard cutout and placed behind home plate for 50$. I think the guy that wanted to dress up as the giant peach for games needs to put up or shut up.

They sold out already in 1 day. They were only selling for the bottom level between the 2 dugouts. The cardboard cutout would stay in the same seat for the entire season and you would be able to pick it up at the stadium at the end of the season (it would probably be pretty ruined from rain but still cool).
 
Now the pitching side of all this mess becomes murkier - the offense more or less straightened itself out last night IMO. Still odd that Culberson has been added to the 40-Man IMO - Doesn't mean they HAVE TO carry him as part of the 30 the first two weeks, but you'd figure that they would have wanted the extra flexibility with that spot. Probably means A-Jax, Culberson, and ??? (Solarte maybe) make up the taxi squad.

vs. RHPs

RF- Acuna, 2B- Albies, 1B- Freeman, LF- Ozuna, DH- Adams, 3B- Riley (Camargo when he's back), SS- Dansby, C- d'Arnaud, CF- Ender (Flowers, Camargo/Riley, Duvall, Hechavarria)


vs. LHPs

CF- Acuna, 2B- Albies, 1B- Freeman, LF- Ozuna, RF- Duvall, 3B- Riley, SS- Dansby, DH- Camargo, C- Flowers (d'Arnaud, Adams, Ender, Hechavarria)




If the plan is to carry 17 Pitchers out of the gate, we're going to be extremely light on lefties in the pen until someone takes Newk's rotation spot and Smith makes it back.

SPs - Soroka, Fried, Newk, Folty, Wright

RPs - Melancon, Greene, Martin, Matzek (?), Jackson, O'Day, Rusin (?), Tomlin, Chacin, Minter (?), Wilson/Weigel (?), Dayton/Davidson (?)




Smith and Hamels need to hurry back, and/or someone needs to step up and take Newk's rotation spot (Chacin?) if it takes Hamels "a while" and Minter still can't throw strikes.

I’m thinking Tomlin will be in the rotation for the first few weeks of the season. Probably in Wrights spot.
 
I’m thinking Tomlin will be in the rotation for the first few weeks of the season. Probably in Wrights spot.

The fifth slot is likely going to be a piggyback situation regardless - some mixture of Wright/Tomlin/Chacin/Wilson/Touki when he's cleared (with one or two of them available for Newk's starts as well), doesn't really matter which name you want to put there.

Still going to leave the pen terribly light on lefties until Smith and Newk are out there - particularly if Minter doesn't throw strikes.
 
I’m thinking Tomlin will be in the rotation for the first few weeks of the season. Probably in Wrights spot.

I ****ing hope not.

It’s time to give Wright a chance. And even if you disagree, Tomlin isn’t the answer.
 
Up to 96 the other night. You gotta give stuff like that some leash.

The problem with Wright flashed itself again yesterday. The stuff is there, no doubt. The problem seems to be that he's Folty/Newk v 3.0 - fastball is too straight, and he ALWAYS throws the fastball in fastball counts and the breaking stuff in breaking ball counts. I have no idea whether they can "fix" this with pitch sequencing or not (maybe take away the ability to shake the Catcher off), but this seems to be an issue with almost every one of our young arms not named Soroka lately. Fried even struggled with it in the beginning. They're digging their own holes - falling behind 2-0 and 3-1 constantly when they nibble, then saying they have no clue why hitters are piling up so many 10 pitch ABs against them. When you KNOW a 3-1 fastball is coming, it's pretty easy to just flick your wrists and loft it over the dugouts. Chip's boneheaded definition of what made Markakis a "great hitter".

If you're going to split the plate with a straight 96 MPH fastball, do it with the first or second pitch - the hitters that can hit it hit it just as far early in the count as they do when you've already shown them 8 other pitches. Throw it when they're not looking for it and maybe you get away with it.

"Don't think Meat - just throw."
 
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Good to see there's nothing to be surprised about - roster deadline was 3 hours ago and we've heard plenty of crickets.
 
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