Where do you pay ANY money on this roster besides Cano and Felix?
You have a few arbitration eligible players, but this year's roster was $20M UNDER the major league average and that is with 2 of the top 10-15 players in the game on that roster.
The other thing that many of you are missing is that this is a franchise that rolls in the $$$ given their purchase of ROOT Sports. They've cut out the middleman and have a tremendous cash windfall available to them. There's absolutely no reason that they can't be in the $115-$135M range of payroll IF their goal is to win a championship.
If you want to win a championship with this roster, you find 2 bats and 1 front 3 of the rotation arm.
If you want to bean count and get yourself into the playoffs and hope everything breaks right, you go try to find next year's Chris Young, hope you find a better version of Corey Hart, and leave yourself minimal margin for error.
For example, if the Mariners threw an extra $5M out there to try to sign Nelson Cruz and get him to sign with them instead of Baltimore, are we talking about next season today?
You have a roster set up to be able to win at a high, high level without too much additional help. But you know you have competition with teams in your league and division that will leave no stone unturned when it comes to trying to win and compete for championships. If you're going to build a roster that puts you in a position to do so with another 1-3 moves, then you absolutely need to do so if you're interested in winning. If you're interested in making money first and foremost, you go the cheap route.
The Mariners have an opportunity to throw away the label of caring more about $$$ than winning by what they do the next few months.
Where do you pay ANY money on this roster besides Cano and Felix?
You have a few arbitration eligible players, but this year's roster was $20M UNDER the major league average and that is with 2 of the top 10-15 players in the game on that roster.
The other thing that many of you are missing is that this is a franchise that rolls in the $$$ given their purchase of ROOT Sports. They've cut out the middleman and have a tremendous cash windfall available to them. There's absolutely no reason that they can't be in the $115-$135M range of payroll IF their goal is to win a championship.
If you want to win a championship with this roster, you find 2 bats and 1 front 3 of the rotation arm.
If you want to bean count and get yourself into the playoffs and hope everything breaks right, you go try to find next year's Chris Young, hope you find a better version of Corey Hart, and leave yourself minimal margin for error.
For example, if the Mariners threw an extra $5M out there to try to sign Nelson Cruz and get him to sign with them instead of Baltimore, are we talking about next season today?
You have a roster set up to be able to win at a high, high level without too much additional help. But you know you have competition with teams in your league and division that will leave no stone unturned when it comes to trying to win and compete for championships. If you're going to build a roster that puts you in a position to do so with another 1-3 moves, then you absolutely need to do so if you're interested in winning. If you're interested in making money first and foremost, you go the cheap route.
The Mariners have an opportunity to throw away the label of caring more about $$$ than winning by what they do the next few months.
Regarding the front of the rotation starter to team with Felix ... the reason you go after that arm is because of the following reasons:
1) An elite SP that pitches over 200 innings will ultimately face somewhere in the neighborhood of 800-900 batters over the course of the season (200 innings x 3 outs = 600 + approximately 1.2 runners per hitting reaching base via walk or hit = 240; 600 + 240 = 840). An All-Star caliber middle of the order bat (i.e. Robinson Cano) had 665 plate appearances this year. The relative worth of the SP is significantly higher than that of a hitter.
2) When your home park is Safeco Field, you play to pitching and defense first and hitting second. Felix continuously shows you the importance of what elite pitching will do for you. You get the same with Kuma. You aren't resigning Chris Young. You have a lack of organizational depth right now in the high minors. You most likely will need to use one of your 3 young pitchers in a trade to find a bat. The supply of high quality SP on the market is actually fairly strong - which increases your ability to grab one. Without bolstering one of your biggest strengths, you run the risk of having to plug your rotation with next year's Chris Young and once again hoping that you strike gold. You are better off spending money to ensure that you eliminate said risk. IF you run into any kind of injury situation, or more importantly, a flame out of a off the scrap heap #5 starter, a starter who by the way will make 30+ starts for you, you could very easily be staring at a 10-20 record in those starts. If you figure going into the year that you need 90 wins to make the postseason, that means that you need to go 80-52 the rest of the way (that's .606 baseball). In contrast, if you fill out your rotation such that you have a strong 5 starter who is able to get you 20-10 in their starts, then you need to be 70-62 the rest of the way to ensure that you get to 90 wins. Getting a top 2 or 3 of the rotation starter isn't just about helping you in that spot of your rotation, but it's lengthening and increasing the quality of that rotation from top to bottom.
3) When you get to the playoffs, your rotation becomes even more important as run prevention gets magnified. I'd be shocked if the Angels got out of the AL and into the WS given their current state of their rotation. Great pitching almost always beats great hitting - and particularly so in October. Bats don't do so well when it is 40 degrees in Detroit.
You are right, I might be asking for a lot from this franchise given their track record.
But it's also why they've earned that track record over the years is because when faced with the opportunity to be a championship caliber franchise, they've taken the cheap way out of doing so.
Make the moves that I spelled out and the Mariners are probably the favorites to win the AL West, a leading favorite in the AL (probably around 5 to 1), and probably somewhere around a 12-15 to 1 favorite to win the American League (which would be a great price to jump on given that the Mariners will not be bet up by the average public/population).
They've put themselves in a position to chase that dream ... are they prepared to chase it now?
Where do you pay ANY money on this roster besides Cano and Felix?
You have a few arbitration eligible players, but this year's roster was $20M UNDER the major league average and that is with 2 of the top 10-15 players in the game on that roster.
The other thing that many of you are missing is that this is a franchise that rolls in the $$$ given their purchase of ROOT Sports. They've cut out the middleman and have a tremendous cash windfall available to them. There's absolutely no reason that they can't be in the $115-$135M range of payroll IF their goal is to win a championship.
If you want to win a championship with this roster, you find 2 bats and 1 front 3 of the rotation arm.
If you want to bean count and get yourself into the playoffs and hope everything breaks right, you go try to find next year's Chris Young, hope you find a better version of Corey Hart, and leave yourself minimal margin for error.
For example, if the Mariners threw an extra $5M out there to try to sign Nelson Cruz and get him to sign with them instead of Baltimore, are we talking about next season today?
You have a roster set up to be able to win at a high, high level without too much additional help. But you know you have competition with teams in your league and division that will leave no stone unturned when it comes to trying to win and compete for championships. If you're going to build a roster that puts you in a position to do so with another 1-3 moves, then you absolutely need to do so if you're interested in winning. If you're interested in making money first and foremost, you go the cheap route.
The Mariners have an opportunity to throw away the label of caring more about $$$ than winning by what they do the next few months.
Where do you pay ANY money on this roster besides Cano and Felix?
You have a few arbitration eligible players, but this year's roster was $20M UNDER the major league average and that is with 2 of the top 10-15 players in the game on that roster.
The other thing that many of you are missing is that this is a franchise that rolls in the $$$ given their purchase of ROOT Sports. They've cut out the middleman and have a tremendous cash windfall available to them. There's absolutely no reason that they can't be in the $115-$135M range of payroll IF their goal is to win a championship.
If you want to win a championship with this roster, you find 2 bats and 1 front 3 of the rotation arm.
If you want to bean count and get yourself into the playoffs and hope everything breaks right, you go try to find next year's Chris Young, hope you find a better version of Corey Hart, and leave yourself minimal margin for error.
For example, if the Mariners threw an extra $5M out there to try to sign Nelson Cruz and get him to sign with them instead of Baltimore, are we talking about next season today?
You have a roster set up to be able to win at a high, high level without too much additional help. But you know you have competition with teams in your league and division that will leave no stone unturned when it comes to trying to win and compete for championships. If you're going to build a roster that puts you in a position to do so with another 1-3 moves, then you absolutely need to do so if you're interested in winning. If you're interested in making money first and foremost, you go the cheap route.
The Mariners have an opportunity to throw away the label of caring more about $$$ than winning by what they do the next few months.
Respectfully disagree. This team isn't going to spend loads of money. So don't blow it all on great pitching. I agree they needs a SP, but you can spend 2/12 on Brandon McCarthy, or 3/25 on Ervin Santana and still have money left over for the offense. 3/21 for Aoki, 2/12 on McCarthy and 4/70 on victor Martinez
Maybe you also trade young pitching for another hitter, maybe an outfielder and look to trade Ackley or Jackson, in that case you probably could go cheaper at dh with Billy butler. IDK 2 solid bats and a depth SP, it might also be good for them to try and sign a better backup c than John suck so you don't have to rely on zunino for 130 games again
The more this gets discussed the more I realize this team isn't going to do anything. Why are we even discussing this? Mariner fans, including myself are getting exactly what we deserve. The excitement this near miss has created is leading perfectly to a 78-84 let down next year. Then Mariner fans will discuss how close we were in 2014. Why do I allow myself to suffer like this? Thank God, my Pirates figured it out after 20 years.
What the organization needs to figure out is what are they trying to do and how much are they willing to spend? They were right around $90M this season. I think they should be looking at getting into the $120-$130M range which puts you consistent with Texas but a little behind the Angels.
There's no chance I want anything to do with Brandon McCarthy - that's just throwing money away to be stupid.
I'd be 100% behind getting Ervin Santana if you are going to a Tier 2 starting pitcher.
Here are my problems with Aoki: 33 to start next season; in his 3 years in the majors his OPS+ has gone from 109, 100, and 98 (in comparison Saunders had an OPS+ of 128 this year, Ackley at 99, and Austin Jackson has had 3 of 5 years ahead of that in his career); and relatively zero power. This is the kind of guy that as soon as you give that contract to you are regretting it IMO.
In your scenario, what I'm taking away is that you'd spend about $25M next year on Victor Martinez and Ervin Santana. However, I do think you're a little light in the comp ranges though. Santana was on a 1 year $14M deal this year. I'm thinking you would be looking at 3 for 35 to 45 for him. Biggest problem with Martinez is going to be that he is the biggest bat on the market this year and will be looking at a potential bidding war from a number of different teams. He's coming off of a 4 for 50 deal so I think your call of 4 for 70 given his age probably isn't that far off. In total, you're looking at about $30M a year for these transactions.
If you take my scenario, I'm looking at going with Lester and Cuddyer as my two big free agent signings. I'm thinking you are looking at needing about $18M a year to be in the contest. Cliff Lee's deal from a few years ago was 5 for $120M. I'd hope that offering Lester a chance to come home, play without state income taxes (which could have an impact of up to $1-$2M per year depending on the state), and a chance to be on a contender with a favorable park for him given how deep left center field is at Safeco) is enough for him to possibly take a slightly lesser offer. Otherwise, I think you perhaps look at someone in Santana's range as what he will give you for about $10M less is worth it. Cuddyer you're ideally looking to get on a 2 year deal (willing to go 3) that will pay him in the $10-$12M range.
In both scenarios, the dollars are relatively comparable. I think you can get value with Cuddyer given that he's coming off a bit of an injury plagued year but has a demonstrated ability to hit. He's got enough position flexibility to make it make sense. And given that there's a strong pitching market in place (I expect the Red Sox and Yankees to make substantial runs and focus their attention on Scherzer and Shields, you might be able to find Lester as the forgotten man and the Mariners can actually find value there).
I think the Mariners value what Austin Jackson gives them in CF defensively and what we've seen from him hitting wise doesn't leave a favorable impression. I think you have to run the course with him given his defense and expect that what we saw over 2 months was as much tied to being uprooted and probably putting too much pressure on himself than anything else. The most interesting thing with him though will be if they try to resign him or not since he's heading into his last arbitration year when they've got a number of OFers coming up gradually through the system. Would he be a sexier name to put in the equation to try to get someone like Goldschmidt?
Zunino just needs to shorten his swing to find ways to make better contact - he'll still have the power regardless. He's good enough defensively, handles the staff well, and you can tell has some strong leadership qualities that he's going to be in the lineup 130+ games per year. There are a couple of other young catchers coming up in the system (on top of Sucre) that makes it so that you really don't need to sink a lot of money into the position.
1) Saunders - OF 2) Ackley/Jackson - CF 3) Cano - 2B 4) Goldschmidt - 1B 5) Seager - 3B 6) Cuddyer or TBD - RF/LF/DH 7) Morrison - 1B/OF/DH 8) Zunino - C 9) Taylor/Miller - SS
Bench: Sucre, Taylor/Miller, 4th OF w/ major league experience (put guys like Jones and Romero back down to Tacoma)
I'm assuming that one of Ackley or Jackson will get moved via trade to obtain Goldschmidt.
Pitching Staff
1. Felix 2. Lester 3. Kuma 4. Paxton 5. Elias or TBD
I'm assuming that Walker will be moved in the deal to go get Goldschmidt.
Bullpen
Closer: Rodney RHP: Farqhuar, Wilhelmsen, Maurer, Leone, Carson Smith LHP: Andrew Miller (offer 3 years for $10-$12M - need better options against LHP as I don't trust Furbush in those spots - also protects you if Rodney implodes and you need to take some of your RHP depth and move it to closer), Furbush
Sometimes you have to overpay for need. This team has 3 hitters who get on base, Cano, seager and Saunders (unlikely he repeats his .340 obp next year). Yes Aoki will give you no power, but his obp has stayed at .350 in all 3 seasons, and he won't cost you a ton to acquire. I would go 3/35 on Santana. And curious as to why you say McCarthy is a waste of money? Career 3.80 era, threw the ball very well this year in NY. If Lester will come at a reasonable price sure. But I still feel you will have to overpay for him, and large contracts with pitchers are usually not a smart investment.
What the organization needs to figure out is what are they trying to do and how much are they willing to spend? They were right around $90M this season. I think they should be looking at getting into the $120-$130M range which puts you consistent with Texas but a little behind the Angels.
There's no chance I want anything to do with Brandon McCarthy - that's just throwing money away to be stupid.
I'd be 100% behind getting Ervin Santana if you are going to a Tier 2 starting pitcher.
Here are my problems with Aoki: 33 to start next season; in his 3 years in the majors his OPS+ has gone from 109, 100, and 98 (in comparison Saunders had an OPS+ of 128 this year, Ackley at 99, and Austin Jackson has had 3 of 5 years ahead of that in his career); and relatively zero power. This is the kind of guy that as soon as you give that contract to you are regretting it IMO.
In your scenario, what I'm taking away is that you'd spend about $25M next year on Victor Martinez and Ervin Santana. However, I do think you're a little light in the comp ranges though. Santana was on a 1 year $14M deal this year. I'm thinking you would be looking at 3 for 35 to 45 for him. Biggest problem with Martinez is going to be that he is the biggest bat on the market this year and will be looking at a potential bidding war from a number of different teams. He's coming off of a 4 for 50 deal so I think your call of 4 for 70 given his age probably isn't that far off. In total, you're looking at about $30M a year for these transactions.
If you take my scenario, I'm looking at going with Lester and Cuddyer as my two big free agent signings. I'm thinking you are looking at needing about $18M a year to be in the contest. Cliff Lee's deal from a few years ago was 5 for $120M. I'd hope that offering Lester a chance to come home, play without state income taxes (which could have an impact of up to $1-$2M per year depending on the state), and a chance to be on a contender with a favorable park for him given how deep left center field is at Safeco) is enough for him to possibly take a slightly lesser offer. Otherwise, I think you perhaps look at someone in Santana's range as what he will give you for about $10M less is worth it. Cuddyer you're ideally looking to get on a 2 year deal (willing to go 3) that will pay him in the $10-$12M range.
In both scenarios, the dollars are relatively comparable. I think you can get value with Cuddyer given that he's coming off a bit of an injury plagued year but has a demonstrated ability to hit. He's got enough position flexibility to make it make sense. And given that there's a strong pitching market in place (I expect the Red Sox and Yankees to make substantial runs and focus their attention on Scherzer and Shields, you might be able to find Lester as the forgotten man and the Mariners can actually find value there).
I think the Mariners value what Austin Jackson gives them in CF defensively and what we've seen from him hitting wise doesn't leave a favorable impression. I think you have to run the course with him given his defense and expect that what we saw over 2 months was as much tied to being uprooted and probably putting too much pressure on himself than anything else. The most interesting thing with him though will be if they try to resign him or not since he's heading into his last arbitration year when they've got a number of OFers coming up gradually through the system. Would he be a sexier name to put in the equation to try to get someone like Goldschmidt?
Zunino just needs to shorten his swing to find ways to make better contact - he'll still have the power regardless. He's good enough defensively, handles the staff well, and you can tell has some strong leadership qualities that he's going to be in the lineup 130+ games per year. There are a couple of other young catchers coming up in the system (on top of Sucre) that makes it so that you really don't need to sink a lot of money into the position.
1) Saunders - OF 2) Ackley/Jackson - CF 3) Cano - 2B 4) Goldschmidt - 1B 5) Seager - 3B 6) Cuddyer or TBD - RF/LF/DH 7) Morrison - 1B/OF/DH 8) Zunino - C 9) Taylor/Miller - SS
Bench: Sucre, Taylor/Miller, 4th OF w/ major league experience (put guys like Jones and Romero back down to Tacoma)
I'm assuming that one of Ackley or Jackson will get moved via trade to obtain Goldschmidt.
Pitching Staff
1. Felix 2. Lester 3. Kuma 4. Paxton 5. Elias or TBD
I'm assuming that Walker will be moved in the deal to go get Goldschmidt.
Bullpen
Closer: Rodney RHP: Farqhuar, Wilhelmsen, Maurer, Leone, Carson Smith LHP: Andrew Miller (offer 3 years for $10-$12M - need better options against LHP as I don't trust Furbush in those spots - also protects you if Rodney implodes and you need to take some of your RHP depth and move it to closer), Furbush
The lineup will consist of the bare minimum to keep the dumbest fan base in baseball content.
Comments
You have a few arbitration eligible players, but this year's roster was $20M UNDER the major league average and that is with 2 of the top 10-15 players in the game on that roster.
The other thing that many of you are missing is that this is a franchise that rolls in the $$$ given their purchase of ROOT Sports. They've cut out the middleman and have a tremendous cash windfall available to them. There's absolutely no reason that they can't be in the $115-$135M range of payroll IF their goal is to win a championship.
If you want to win a championship with this roster, you find 2 bats and 1 front 3 of the rotation arm.
If you want to bean count and get yourself into the playoffs and hope everything breaks right, you go try to find next year's Chris Young, hope you find a better version of Corey Hart, and leave yourself minimal margin for error.
For example, if the Mariners threw an extra $5M out there to try to sign Nelson Cruz and get him to sign with them instead of Baltimore, are we talking about next season today?
You have a roster set up to be able to win at a high, high level without too much additional help. But you know you have competition with teams in your league and division that will leave no stone unturned when it comes to trying to win and compete for championships. If you're going to build a roster that puts you in a position to do so with another 1-3 moves, then you absolutely need to do so if you're interested in winning. If you're interested in making money first and foremost, you go the cheap route.
The Mariners have an opportunity to throw away the label of caring more about $$$ than winning by what they do the next few months.
1) An elite SP that pitches over 200 innings will ultimately face somewhere in the neighborhood of 800-900 batters over the course of the season (200 innings x 3 outs = 600 + approximately 1.2 runners per hitting reaching base via walk or hit = 240; 600 + 240 = 840). An All-Star caliber middle of the order bat (i.e. Robinson Cano) had 665 plate appearances this year. The relative worth of the SP is significantly higher than that of a hitter.
2) When your home park is Safeco Field, you play to pitching and defense first and hitting second. Felix continuously shows you the importance of what elite pitching will do for you. You get the same with Kuma. You aren't resigning Chris Young. You have a lack of organizational depth right now in the high minors. You most likely will need to use one of your 3 young pitchers in a trade to find a bat. The supply of high quality SP on the market is actually fairly strong - which increases your ability to grab one. Without bolstering one of your biggest strengths, you run the risk of having to plug your rotation with next year's Chris Young and once again hoping that you strike gold. You are better off spending money to ensure that you eliminate said risk. IF you run into any kind of injury situation, or more importantly, a flame out of a off the scrap heap #5 starter, a starter who by the way will make 30+ starts for you, you could very easily be staring at a 10-20 record in those starts. If you figure going into the year that you need 90 wins to make the postseason, that means that you need to go 80-52 the rest of the way (that's .606 baseball). In contrast, if you fill out your rotation such that you have a strong 5 starter who is able to get you 20-10 in their starts, then you need to be 70-62 the rest of the way to ensure that you get to 90 wins. Getting a top 2 or 3 of the rotation starter isn't just about helping you in that spot of your rotation, but it's lengthening and increasing the quality of that rotation from top to bottom.
3) When you get to the playoffs, your rotation becomes even more important as run prevention gets magnified. I'd be shocked if the Angels got out of the AL and into the WS given their current state of their rotation. Great pitching almost always beats great hitting - and particularly so in October. Bats don't do so well when it is 40 degrees in Detroit.
You are right, I might be asking for a lot from this franchise given their track record.
But it's also why they've earned that track record over the years is because when faced with the opportunity to be a championship caliber franchise, they've taken the cheap way out of doing so.
Make the moves that I spelled out and the Mariners are probably the favorites to win the AL West, a leading favorite in the AL (probably around 5 to 1), and probably somewhere around a 12-15 to 1 favorite to win the American League (which would be a great price to jump on given that the Mariners will not be bet up by the average public/population).
They've put themselves in a position to chase that dream ... are they prepared to chase it now?
Marinerization
Too soon?
They're the cheap ass fucking Mariners until they prove otherwise.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
3/21 for Aoki, 2/12 on McCarthy and 4/70 on victor Martinez
2 solid bats and a depth SP, it might also be good for them to try and sign a better backup c than John suck so you don't have to rely on zunino for 130 games again
What the organization needs to figure out is what are they trying to do and how much are they willing to spend? They were right around $90M this season. I think they should be looking at getting into the $120-$130M range which puts you consistent with Texas but a little behind the Angels.
There's no chance I want anything to do with Brandon McCarthy - that's just throwing money away to be stupid.
I'd be 100% behind getting Ervin Santana if you are going to a Tier 2 starting pitcher.
Here are my problems with Aoki: 33 to start next season; in his 3 years in the majors his OPS+ has gone from 109, 100, and 98 (in comparison Saunders had an OPS+ of 128 this year, Ackley at 99, and Austin Jackson has had 3 of 5 years ahead of that in his career); and relatively zero power. This is the kind of guy that as soon as you give that contract to you are regretting it IMO.
In your scenario, what I'm taking away is that you'd spend about $25M next year on Victor Martinez and Ervin Santana. However, I do think you're a little light in the comp ranges though. Santana was on a 1 year $14M deal this year. I'm thinking you would be looking at 3 for 35 to 45 for him. Biggest problem with Martinez is going to be that he is the biggest bat on the market this year and will be looking at a potential bidding war from a number of different teams. He's coming off of a 4 for 50 deal so I think your call of 4 for 70 given his age probably isn't that far off. In total, you're looking at about $30M a year for these transactions.
If you take my scenario, I'm looking at going with Lester and Cuddyer as my two big free agent signings. I'm thinking you are looking at needing about $18M a year to be in the contest. Cliff Lee's deal from a few years ago was 5 for $120M. I'd hope that offering Lester a chance to come home, play without state income taxes (which could have an impact of up to $1-$2M per year depending on the state), and a chance to be on a contender with a favorable park for him given how deep left center field is at Safeco) is enough for him to possibly take a slightly lesser offer. Otherwise, I think you perhaps look at someone in Santana's range as what he will give you for about $10M less is worth it. Cuddyer you're ideally looking to get on a 2 year deal (willing to go 3) that will pay him in the $10-$12M range.
In both scenarios, the dollars are relatively comparable. I think you can get value with Cuddyer given that he's coming off a bit of an injury plagued year but has a demonstrated ability to hit. He's got enough position flexibility to make it make sense. And given that there's a strong pitching market in place (I expect the Red Sox and Yankees to make substantial runs and focus their attention on Scherzer and Shields, you might be able to find Lester as the forgotten man and the Mariners can actually find value there).
I think the Mariners value what Austin Jackson gives them in CF defensively and what we've seen from him hitting wise doesn't leave a favorable impression. I think you have to run the course with him given his defense and expect that what we saw over 2 months was as much tied to being uprooted and probably putting too much pressure on himself than anything else. The most interesting thing with him though will be if they try to resign him or not since he's heading into his last arbitration year when they've got a number of OFers coming up gradually through the system. Would he be a sexier name to put in the equation to try to get someone like Goldschmidt?
Zunino just needs to shorten his swing to find ways to make better contact - he'll still have the power regardless. He's good enough defensively, handles the staff well, and you can tell has some strong leadership qualities that he's going to be in the lineup 130+ games per year. There are a couple of other young catchers coming up in the system (on top of Sucre) that makes it so that you really don't need to sink a lot of money into the position.
1) Saunders - OF
2) Ackley/Jackson - CF
3) Cano - 2B
4) Goldschmidt - 1B
5) Seager - 3B
6) Cuddyer or TBD - RF/LF/DH
7) Morrison - 1B/OF/DH
8) Zunino - C
9) Taylor/Miller - SS
Bench: Sucre, Taylor/Miller, 4th OF w/ major league experience (put guys like Jones and Romero back down to Tacoma)
I'm assuming that one of Ackley or Jackson will get moved via trade to obtain Goldschmidt.
Pitching Staff
1. Felix
2. Lester
3. Kuma
4. Paxton
5. Elias or TBD
I'm assuming that Walker will be moved in the deal to go get Goldschmidt.
Bullpen
Closer: Rodney
RHP: Farqhuar, Wilhelmsen, Maurer, Leone, Carson Smith
LHP: Andrew Miller (offer 3 years for $10-$12M - need better options against LHP as I don't trust Furbush in those spots - also protects you if Rodney implodes and you need to take some of your RHP depth and move it to closer), Furbush
I would go 3/35 on Santana. And curious as to why you say McCarthy is a waste of money? Career 3.80 era, threw the ball very well this year in NY.
If Lester will come at a reasonable price sure. But I still feel you will have to overpay for him, and large contracts with pitchers are usually not a smart investment.