Monday, May 26, 2025

Roster Speculation Too Early - Part 2

 Let's start with the bullpen because there seems less to say. There're two things here - one is that it's almost impossible to foresee a trade for a reliever coming in principle. I can't remember a trade for a pitcher that anyone rumored more than 24 hours before it happened. The other is that there's not really an obvious way to add a good reliever without losing a good reliever - barring injuries.

Eight MLB spots available. Hoffman, Garcia, Green, Rodriguez, and Swanson are effectively certain when healthy, as well-paid veterans. Likewise Little who has made himself indispensable. You're down to two spots already. If/when Sandlin recovers, he should be on the roster (though he technically has options. If Turnbull is added to the rotation (more on that in a bit) then Lauer is at last a candidate for long relief. That would be eight and yet Fluharty has earned a spot, Fisher has yet to be touched, Urena is at least present, and Burr will have to clear waivers if he's not added. They're obviously not all healthy, but even with three on the IL and Turnbull not quite here, there's really just one spot held by a dispensable guy. Of course, you don't know who will be healthy two months from now, so it could happen - but as of now it doesn't look like it HAS to happen.

The rotation though, there's a chance something big could happen depending on developing situation. Within two weeks, Turnbull will bump either Francis or Lauer but the one who survives that is not above being pushed aside for an acquisitions in a couple of months. But the complexity here comes from (again) the injury list. To be blunt, if Scherzer is still a question mark in two months then you have to treat it like he's not going to solve your need (of course if he is healthy there's much less of a problem here). Alek Manoah thinks he can get back in August some time, and if they make an acquisition they might block him (barring some newer injury on the staff) but they might well do so anyway.

But again - as it stands now, supply is an issue. There are only seven teams that have the appearance of being clear sellers at the moment. There might be as few as 10 at the deadline and the crop of good and theoretically available pitchers is even thinner than the hitters. Andrew Heaney might be the prize of the market in July. Go look at the rosters and count the number of guys that you'd trade for and expect a clear upgrade.

And the thing about both of these posts is that most of these consideration will have at least some application in free agency, If you count Manoah they'll have three rotation spots set, and if there's a big contract it would seemingly be a SP, but barring something really wild like going out and getting Tucker, there's not a buyers market in the off-season.

But off-season aside, I'll be pretty surprised if there's a game changing trade this summer and I expect considerable internet unrest even though it's largely out of their hands. 

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