2036-18: Talons' Strategy of Doing Nothing This Year Actually a Pretty Solid One

[jiminyhopkins]

Phoenix, AZ--

It's been a crappy year for the Talons. Oh, sure, they have one of the best offenses in the BBA, but we knew that. If the club even had one or two decent starters, this would be a playoff team. But they don't, and it isn't.

Right now, Jose Trujillo, Bob Corrigan, George House, and Cesar Aguilar are injured, along with Timofei Bakitski. This represents 80% of the club's starting rotation as well as their elite closer. This despite having a pretty good trainer in Ashton Bryant, who, up to this year, had done a pretty remarkable job of keeping the boys on the field.

The only members of the current rotation who have made more than 6 starts are Alexandre Renard and Juan Martinez, who are in reality relivers by trade. The rest of the starting five are Quad A castoffs. As for the closer, former setup man Adrian Garcia has stepped up nicely and has 10 saves, but there aren't many save opportunities to be had. Either the Talons win via blowout due to their offense, or lose in the same fashion due to their pitching.

Will it get better? In a word, no. Three of the injured starters are out for the season. The Talons have looked around for starters to trade for, but most of the ones on the block also have ERA's in the 5's. The club reportedly made a big play for Mauro Flores, but weren't successful. The club also put SS Tu-fu Yong on the block, but did not receive an offer to their liking, befitting the 3rd ranked SS in the BBA.

So, it's pretty fortunate that the Talons have done nothing up to this point, as everything they could have done would just be sabotaged by this rash of injuries to basically every important pitcher on the team. What's the plan for the rest of the season? Well, mainly, see how many hitters can get up to 5 wars this year, then have a big offseason trade block for players they most likely won't need, including Martin Marin, Brendan Kerndl, Al Gordon, and possibly Thad Meyer.

Go Talons!

[ae37jr]

Not going to lie, I thought about trying to flip Flores to Phoenix in a deal that included Tu-Fu. We need offense, you need pitching. It made too much sense. But then a bunch of my pitchers went down, then you're pitchers went down. Now we both suck and there really isn't a point in it.

[Ted]

Lukewarm take. A GM could employ a strategy of never making in season moves and probably hurt their franchise less in the long run than 2 out of 3 teams. There are so many reasons "fix it" trades don't work, and nearly all of them require giving up more future wins than the modest return you get for one year that a lot of people would come out way ahead in the long run. Not to say that sometimes teams don't make great moves that make a difference, but I'd be willing to bet large sums of money that a detailed analysis would show that this is the exception to the rule.

[jiminyhopkins]

Well, Lukewarm is good! Right? Lol

[jiminyhopkins]

Not going to lie, I thought about trying to flip Flores to Phoenix in a deal that included Tu-Fu. We need offense, you need pitching. It made too much sense. But then a bunch of my pitchers went down, then you're pitchers went down. Now we both suck and there really isn't a point in it.

This.