It is now August and Cal seems cooked, Julio still hasn't shown signs of life and the fat Racoon in short pant's HR drought is longer than the Flood in the Noah's Ark fable...So yes too much to ask..gil wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2026 9:28 pmVery thorough and detailed analysis. Best I have seen. Thank you for doing this.Seattle or Bust wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2026 5:26 pm
The Mariners may not have done a lot, but they did enough for a team that hasn't proven they deserve to have gotten more. These moves will prove fruitful if M’s stars Julio Rodriguez and Cal Raleigh start to play like the back of their baseball card says they should.
If not, there is always 2027. And sadly, you can thank the M’s flailing star talent for that sentiment.
I want to emphasize what you wrote near the end (highlighted above).
If Cal can hit .260 for the rest of the season, he will JUST get to the Mendoza line for the year.
If Naylor can hit like he did after we acquired him last year.
If Julio can find that second half groove he always has before this year.
ANY of these three would be the equivalent of a major trade deadline offensive upgrade. Is it too much to hope for at least two of the three?
Go Ms!
"They didn't do enough." An article by SOB.
Re: "They didn't do enough." An article by SOB.
dt
Re: "They didn't do enough." An article by SOB.
This was in The Athletic today - seems to echo some of the sentiments in this, and countless other threads:
Competitive windows don’t always cooperate. MLB teams should act like it.
Brittany Ghiroli
By Brittany Ghiroli
Aug. 6, 2026 Updated 6:18 am PDT
Remember the 2022 Toronto Blue Jays? They were talented, full of potential and supposed to usher in the next long competitive window of Canadian baseball. Instead, the team fired its manager in-season, blew an 8-1 lead in Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series and got swept out of the postseason by the Seattle Mariners.
Toronto went nine years between playoff wins, from 2016 until last year’s magical run to the World Series, which featured a roster very different from the one three years prior. Still, the 2025 Jays looked poised for sustained success and largely ran back the same group that fell just shy of the ultimate prize. The Jays, though, found themselves in last place at this year’s trade deadline, working to balance selling and buying.
That’s the thing about windows. They don’t always cooperate.
Sometimes they never truly open at all, like the White Sox’s last rebuild. Current GM Chris Getz, promoted to the role in 2023, orchestrated his own painful rebuild. Chicago is now somewhat surprisingly atop the AL Central, and Getz told reporters a few days ago: “I don’t take any of this for granted. You can’t assume that you’re going to be in these positions every year.”
And yet, some front offices act as if they do. As if their sophisticated models are the only outcome and not a singular idea of a future that has thousands of potential outcomes. As if this sport isn’t a volatile mix of regression, injuries and educated guesses on human beings and their potential.
On the fourth anniversary of Baltimore Orioles president Mike Elias telling fans it was “time for liftoff,” he dealt his first No. 1 draft pick, catcher Adley Rutschman, to the Boston Red Sox. Elias, whose team has yet to win a playoff game since he took over in November 2018, emphatically told reporters on a call Monday that Baltimore wasn’t rebuilding. But the Orioles, who won the AL East in 2023, were viewed by many in the industry as a potential future dynasty three years ago. When they were swept out of the playoffs by the eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers — a team that spent money and aggressively tried to win — Elias said the window was just opening. One manager firing and more than two years of sub-.500 baseball have transpired since.
Liftoff? The rocket is still on the launch pad.
I’m not saying the Orioles, who were 54-58 at the deadline, should have been buyers. The Rutschman trade was a good deal for them, with a lot of future value.
But I’ve yet to see “Future Value Winners” on a fan’s T-shirt or a banner hanging to celebrate the No. 1-ranked minor-league season. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team raise anything at the end of the season for the most wins per dollar or consecutive 85-win seasons that ended in a first-round defeat. Though those are buzzy phrases in the age of efficiency and sustainability and whatever else front offices want fans to believe is the ultimate goal over, you know, actual championships.
I’m not saying teams should throw all caution to the wind, but I do think it needs to be said: Competitive windows don’t always cooperate. Sometimes, it’s OK to push your chips in.
How many years ago was the San Diego Padres’ window supposed to have closed? Two? Three? You can make the valid point that they haven’t won anything under general manager A.J. Preller. You can also make the point that this is a small-market team that thumbed its nose at the notion that you can’t take risks or try to win loudly every year. How have they not run out of prospects to deal? Because Preller, for all his faults, is exceptional at scouting and restocking.
Did Brewers GM Matt Arnold, whose organization owns the best farm system in baseball, not feel confident his group could do the same if it pulled the trigger on frontline pitcher Tarik Skubal? What about Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander? Both the Brewers and Rays have a 99 percent chance to make the playoffs, but what about their chances to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in October?
We don’t know the details of what each club offered for Skubal before Detroit traded him to the Dodgers. Perhaps the Tigers, who opted against one last try with their ace but say they will try to keep their own competitive window from closing, wanted players closer to the big leagues. Maybe no offer was ever going to beat what the Dodgers could pull together from their system.
But we do know that the Dodgers, independent of payroll, try to win the World Series every year. They’re one of a handful of teams that have the gall to say so publicly.
Critics say that’s because they’re the big, bad Dodgers who don’t care about making mistakes with money or prospects, and part of that is true. But frustrated fans clamoring for a salary cap forget that it won’t stop certain players from taking equal — or even less — money to play for a team such as L.A., which offers higher visibility for off-field endorsements and a better chance at a World Series share. It’s happened in other sports. But I guess a cap would stop the Dodgers and Mets (who no one mentions in their arguments) from spending freely, and all that money owners save on payroll could translate into lower ticket and hot dog prices.
Forget the cap and the floor. Baseball needs a system that incentivizes winning. That rewards trying. The current guardrails in place aren’t enough. I guess continually fielding a just-above-.500 team is enough job security for front offices and enough profit for owners to keep the business of baseball humming along.
It seems when front offices go around the table in their war rooms near the deadline and ask if they can win a World Series, far too many teams get squeamish. Credit, then, to Boston’s Craig Breslow — leading a team whose season was nearly derailed by late April — for aggressively going after Rutschman, for telling the media he didn’t want to go through a deadline where they “rearranged chairs.” Breslow’s trade didn’t grade out well for the future-value crowd. But who cares if the prospects he dealt to Baltimore thrive if the Red Sox win another title?
Does anyone remember the swings and misses if the team gets one right? Who cares if the Red Sox win it all in 2026 and have a clunker in 2027? You can stomach the 2020 Nationals because they won in 2019. When people talk about the Giants dynasty that included World Series championships in 2010, 2012 and 2014, do they mention that San Francisco traded Zack Wheeler away for two months of Carlos Beltrán in 2011? Do they care that the team didn’t even make the playoffs in the odd years?
Just get into the playoffs and anything can happen, teams like to say. Except it’s not really true. When was the last time a team without serious high-end talent raised a trophy? Wild Card teams that stumble in and win, such as the ’19 Nats, weren’t plucky. They were hurt for a good chunk of the year. That team had Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Juan Soto. The 2023-winning Rangers — another Wild Card team — had five position players who started that year’s All-Star Game.
Spare me the “small markets can’t take risks” argument. Sometimes, you have to get uncomfortable to win. Aggressive moves do more than improve World Series odds; they’re an enormous shot in the arm for clubhouse morale. It’s one thing for players in a clubhouse to think they’re good enough to win. It’s another for the front office to put some skin in the game and say, “We believe in you enough to push our chips in.” Yes, there’s a time to be rational, when your team is teetering and the talent just isn’t quite there. But there’s also a time to capitalize on a season of good health or guys playing significantly better than expected. If not now, when, Milwaukee? Tampa Bay?
The Padres don’t have a trophy, but they do have some of the best attendance in the game. The best attendance the Tampa Bay Rays ever had, outside of their inaugural season, was in 2009 and 2010, the two seasons after their first World Series run. The Brewers haven’t been to the World Series since losing in 1982. Their last big midseason acquisition, trading for pitcher CC Sabathia in 2008, didn’t work out. They’ve drawn more than three million fans in a single season three times, including 2008 and 2009.
The Rays did make a fairly big midseason move in a 100-win season in 2021, trading for slugger Nelson Cruz in a four-player swap that saw pitching prospect Joe Ryan — then a top-100 prospect — go to the Minnesota Twins. Ryan has since twice been named an All-Star. The Rays didn’t make it out of the American League Division Series, but it was hardly a risk that buried them. They made the playoffs each of the next two seasons.
Sometimes trying in sports doesn’t work out. Sometimes the so-called window doesn’t stay open, either.
Taking a gamble should be part of the fun. This isn’t a stock portfolio. Except for some teams, it feels like it is.
Competitive windows don’t always cooperate. MLB teams should act like it.
Brittany Ghiroli
By Brittany Ghiroli
Aug. 6, 2026 Updated 6:18 am PDT
Remember the 2022 Toronto Blue Jays? They were talented, full of potential and supposed to usher in the next long competitive window of Canadian baseball. Instead, the team fired its manager in-season, blew an 8-1 lead in Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series and got swept out of the postseason by the Seattle Mariners.
Toronto went nine years between playoff wins, from 2016 until last year’s magical run to the World Series, which featured a roster very different from the one three years prior. Still, the 2025 Jays looked poised for sustained success and largely ran back the same group that fell just shy of the ultimate prize. The Jays, though, found themselves in last place at this year’s trade deadline, working to balance selling and buying.
That’s the thing about windows. They don’t always cooperate.
Sometimes they never truly open at all, like the White Sox’s last rebuild. Current GM Chris Getz, promoted to the role in 2023, orchestrated his own painful rebuild. Chicago is now somewhat surprisingly atop the AL Central, and Getz told reporters a few days ago: “I don’t take any of this for granted. You can’t assume that you’re going to be in these positions every year.”
And yet, some front offices act as if they do. As if their sophisticated models are the only outcome and not a singular idea of a future that has thousands of potential outcomes. As if this sport isn’t a volatile mix of regression, injuries and educated guesses on human beings and their potential.
On the fourth anniversary of Baltimore Orioles president Mike Elias telling fans it was “time for liftoff,” he dealt his first No. 1 draft pick, catcher Adley Rutschman, to the Boston Red Sox. Elias, whose team has yet to win a playoff game since he took over in November 2018, emphatically told reporters on a call Monday that Baltimore wasn’t rebuilding. But the Orioles, who won the AL East in 2023, were viewed by many in the industry as a potential future dynasty three years ago. When they were swept out of the playoffs by the eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers — a team that spent money and aggressively tried to win — Elias said the window was just opening. One manager firing and more than two years of sub-.500 baseball have transpired since.
Liftoff? The rocket is still on the launch pad.
I’m not saying the Orioles, who were 54-58 at the deadline, should have been buyers. The Rutschman trade was a good deal for them, with a lot of future value.
But I’ve yet to see “Future Value Winners” on a fan’s T-shirt or a banner hanging to celebrate the No. 1-ranked minor-league season. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team raise anything at the end of the season for the most wins per dollar or consecutive 85-win seasons that ended in a first-round defeat. Though those are buzzy phrases in the age of efficiency and sustainability and whatever else front offices want fans to believe is the ultimate goal over, you know, actual championships.
I’m not saying teams should throw all caution to the wind, but I do think it needs to be said: Competitive windows don’t always cooperate. Sometimes, it’s OK to push your chips in.
How many years ago was the San Diego Padres’ window supposed to have closed? Two? Three? You can make the valid point that they haven’t won anything under general manager A.J. Preller. You can also make the point that this is a small-market team that thumbed its nose at the notion that you can’t take risks or try to win loudly every year. How have they not run out of prospects to deal? Because Preller, for all his faults, is exceptional at scouting and restocking.
Did Brewers GM Matt Arnold, whose organization owns the best farm system in baseball, not feel confident his group could do the same if it pulled the trigger on frontline pitcher Tarik Skubal? What about Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander? Both the Brewers and Rays have a 99 percent chance to make the playoffs, but what about their chances to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in October?
We don’t know the details of what each club offered for Skubal before Detroit traded him to the Dodgers. Perhaps the Tigers, who opted against one last try with their ace but say they will try to keep their own competitive window from closing, wanted players closer to the big leagues. Maybe no offer was ever going to beat what the Dodgers could pull together from their system.
But we do know that the Dodgers, independent of payroll, try to win the World Series every year. They’re one of a handful of teams that have the gall to say so publicly.
Critics say that’s because they’re the big, bad Dodgers who don’t care about making mistakes with money or prospects, and part of that is true. But frustrated fans clamoring for a salary cap forget that it won’t stop certain players from taking equal — or even less — money to play for a team such as L.A., which offers higher visibility for off-field endorsements and a better chance at a World Series share. It’s happened in other sports. But I guess a cap would stop the Dodgers and Mets (who no one mentions in their arguments) from spending freely, and all that money owners save on payroll could translate into lower ticket and hot dog prices.
Forget the cap and the floor. Baseball needs a system that incentivizes winning. That rewards trying. The current guardrails in place aren’t enough. I guess continually fielding a just-above-.500 team is enough job security for front offices and enough profit for owners to keep the business of baseball humming along.
It seems when front offices go around the table in their war rooms near the deadline and ask if they can win a World Series, far too many teams get squeamish. Credit, then, to Boston’s Craig Breslow — leading a team whose season was nearly derailed by late April — for aggressively going after Rutschman, for telling the media he didn’t want to go through a deadline where they “rearranged chairs.” Breslow’s trade didn’t grade out well for the future-value crowd. But who cares if the prospects he dealt to Baltimore thrive if the Red Sox win another title?
Does anyone remember the swings and misses if the team gets one right? Who cares if the Red Sox win it all in 2026 and have a clunker in 2027? You can stomach the 2020 Nationals because they won in 2019. When people talk about the Giants dynasty that included World Series championships in 2010, 2012 and 2014, do they mention that San Francisco traded Zack Wheeler away for two months of Carlos Beltrán in 2011? Do they care that the team didn’t even make the playoffs in the odd years?
Just get into the playoffs and anything can happen, teams like to say. Except it’s not really true. When was the last time a team without serious high-end talent raised a trophy? Wild Card teams that stumble in and win, such as the ’19 Nats, weren’t plucky. They were hurt for a good chunk of the year. That team had Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Juan Soto. The 2023-winning Rangers — another Wild Card team — had five position players who started that year’s All-Star Game.
Spare me the “small markets can’t take risks” argument. Sometimes, you have to get uncomfortable to win. Aggressive moves do more than improve World Series odds; they’re an enormous shot in the arm for clubhouse morale. It’s one thing for players in a clubhouse to think they’re good enough to win. It’s another for the front office to put some skin in the game and say, “We believe in you enough to push our chips in.” Yes, there’s a time to be rational, when your team is teetering and the talent just isn’t quite there. But there’s also a time to capitalize on a season of good health or guys playing significantly better than expected. If not now, when, Milwaukee? Tampa Bay?
The Padres don’t have a trophy, but they do have some of the best attendance in the game. The best attendance the Tampa Bay Rays ever had, outside of their inaugural season, was in 2009 and 2010, the two seasons after their first World Series run. The Brewers haven’t been to the World Series since losing in 1982. Their last big midseason acquisition, trading for pitcher CC Sabathia in 2008, didn’t work out. They’ve drawn more than three million fans in a single season three times, including 2008 and 2009.
The Rays did make a fairly big midseason move in a 100-win season in 2021, trading for slugger Nelson Cruz in a four-player swap that saw pitching prospect Joe Ryan — then a top-100 prospect — go to the Minnesota Twins. Ryan has since twice been named an All-Star. The Rays didn’t make it out of the American League Division Series, but it was hardly a risk that buried them. They made the playoffs each of the next two seasons.
Sometimes trying in sports doesn’t work out. Sometimes the so-called window doesn’t stay open, either.
Taking a gamble should be part of the fun. This isn’t a stock portfolio. Except for some teams, it feels like it is.
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Donn Beach
- Posts: 20716
- Joined: Thu May 02, 2019 1:06 am
Re: "They didn't do enough." An article by SOB.
I think Dipoto would probably agree that windows don't always cooperate. I think that could be behind his approach. He isn't shooting for going all in, and he isn't shooting for a window. I think he sees it more of a continuum. It's an ongoing process of bringing up talent and competing for the playoffs. That was the point of his 54% over a decade wasn't it? That wasn't about a window, a decade isn't a window
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Michael K.
- Posts: 14614
- Joined: Wed May 01, 2019 5:27 am
Re: "They didn't do enough." An article by SOB.
Jerry has one of those shirts, he just wears it under is button up.
Exactly what is wrong with baseball. Stay competitive, charge an unreasonable amount of money to fans that keep paying it to watch a below average product and laugh all the way to the bank.
Great read Big Maple, thanks for posting it.
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Michael K.
- Posts: 14614
- Joined: Wed May 01, 2019 5:27 am
Re: "They didn't do enough." An article by SOB.
Again, yes, that is ALL they care about. Staying just competitive enough for fans to continue to dump money on their over priced pathetic product. You can back it all you want, I think it's dogshit. Doesn't matter that I don't spend money on this bullshit, enough do that nothing will ever change.Donn Beach wrote: ↑Thu Aug 06, 2026 2:54 pmI think Dipoto would probably agree that windows don't always cooperate. I think that could be behind his approach. He isn't shooting for going all in, and he isn't shooting for a window. I think he sees it more of a continuum. It's an ongoing process of bringing up talent and competing for the playoffs. That was the point of his 54% over a decade wasn't it? That wasn't about a window, a decade isn't a window
Same with the players. Julio wouldn't giggle after yet another out of the zone K, yet another blunder, if it impacted his wallet. It won't, so he don't care. He will make every dime of that $ whether he produces or not. Cal has become one of the worst hitters in the game, and it won't impact his $.
Imagine being able to go to work every day knowing no matter how you perform, you'll get paid. Imagine an off season of that kind of comfort. I don't need to get better, I just need to be able to put my uniform on. It is a stupid model, and one that has turned the game into this. One where four or five guys hit over .300, no one swings it like Gwynn or Griffey....why? If you swing in the air, you won't hit much, but you'll maybe hit enough out of the yard to get paid, and if you don't? You'll at the very least make every dime of the contract you already signed. Naylor is case in point. What does he care?
It's a horrible product. I saw some last night because it was on at the Taphouse I took my wife to. It was disgusting. Neither team have a clue with a bat in their hand.