Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 479: A Move Each Contender Should Make

Episode Date: June 26, 2014

Ben and Sam banter about seeing no-hitters and team philosophies, then discuss potential solutions for each contender’s biggest need.

But it's doggy, doggy in this rat race And it leaves you bleeding like a flat on your face Reaching out, reaching out for a helping hand Where is the helping hand? Good morning and welcome to episode 479 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus presented by the Baseball Reference Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller. Hi. Hi. Hey, Ben. Hey, Ben. Hi. No, I'm saying, hey, Ben. Oh, yeah, go ahead. So I'm told, I was told, I was alerted to the fact that Bo Jackson was on RSN yesterday.

Talked about the time he hit three homers in a row, then exited with an injury, and then hit his fourth when he returned. And I was just wondering, do you think that Bo Jackson learned about that from Effectively Wild? I think so. I can't imagine what other way he might have found out or remembered having done it himself. Yeah, pretty cool. Pretty cool. I feel pretty proud that I told Bo Jackson about this. You also, as I recall, seemed to tell him that he was kind of overrated. I don't know if he mentioned that. I don't know whether that came up.

of overrated. I don't know if he mentioned that. I don't know whether that came up. I bet he always knew. I assume that Bo Jackson was a guy who was able to do everything so well and excel at everything. I assume his standards were extremely high. I would assume for that reason that he always found baseball to be very challenging. And he knew that it was one of those few areas in life that he hadn't quite mastered. My guess is that he was very well aware of it. Yeah, he's probably just as skilled in the art of self-awareness as he was in everything else. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, another cool thing. A listener named Anthony Rinaldi posted in the Effectively Wild Facebook group a couple weeks ago.

He said he was doing a California stadium tour. He was going to see the Angels and the Dodgers and the Padres and the A's and the Giants. And he was asking people for recommendations of some things that maybe he should do while he was out there. Some people suggested some things. Anyway, he gave us an update yesterday on how that West Coast trip went. He has seen two no-hitters on this trip. He was at both Kershaw's no-hitter and Lincecum's no-hitter. He has the selfies to prove it.

He has posted the selfies. They look legitimate. So everyone envies you, Anthony that is that is quite a trip so we should somebody should figure this would be a fun research project maybe uh maybe i'll do it in fact in fact nobody do this until i decide in the next couple hours if i want to do it okay in a couple hours you can do it but um I wonder if it's possible that anybody since Vandermeer has been in two no-hitters, has seen two no-hitters in such a short span of time. Yeah, the first commenter on Anthony's post in the Facebook group said that baseball

reference should have a fan index instead of play index so that we could search to see whether anyone has done this before. I mean, when was, cause Kershaw, let's see. So Wednesday was, was Kershaw Wednesday. So seven days. I mean, there's probably have only been what a half dozen instances of, of no hitters in history within seven days of each other. Close together, geographically close together also? Right, so then you add the geographically close together.

You could certainly figure out whether any umpires or coaches or players, obviously, had been in no-hitters this quickly, this close together. Obviously, you couldn't do the fans, but you could figure out how often. So all that and more coming up. Yeah, so if you want to tell Anthony that you've been to 2,000 games and you've been waiting all your life to see a no-hitter, he just happened to go to a couple and see two no-hitters,

then you could do that. You ever seen one, Ben? I have not. I have not seen then. You ever seen one, Ben? I have not. I have not seen one. I haven't either, I don't think. No, I mean, really. Anthony's hogging them all.

Anyway, you can go express your feelings in the Facebook group at facebook.com slash effectivelywild. What else did I want to mention? Oh, JD Martinez. Are you following the JD Martinez story? No. Well, he's evidently a good hitter now. He's homered the last couple days. He's homered, what, nine times this month? Seven times this month and a couple times in May, I guess. He is hitting 320, 356, 648 in about 130 plate appearances for Detroit so far.

And he is a classic case of the mechanical adjustment followed by the breakout. He is, while he was hurt last season, he hurt his hand, and he started watching video of great hitters, including Miguel Cabrera, who he's now hitting behind or in front of. And he said everything changed. He noticed something that in his swing that he wasn't doing. He's lowered his hands. He's, you know, done the standard mechanical adjustments. And now he is hitting like Miguel Cabrera who he was who he was trying to emulate uh and and the Astros were aware he was he was an Astro of course and not a particularly good hitter for the Astros they were aware that he was making these changes they were

on board with these changes but clearly they did not subscribe to the idea that he was suddenly going to be a great hitter because they took him off their 40-man roster. The Tigers, Al Avila had liked Martinez for a while, so they signed him to a minor league deal, and he's been fantastic. So this is the classic case of the mechanical adjustment. So this is the classic case of the mechanical adjustment. I don't know whether to buy. And also the difficulty of telling whether we should choose the in-season performance over the rest of season projection, which we talked about recently. Anyway, he's the latest.

Kind of an interesting story. I will continue to follow. kind of an interesting story I will continue to follow. And last thing, you wrote a fun article today. It is free for non-subscribers. If there are any silly non-subscribers still listening to us, it's about team ways, as in the Cardinal way, but ways for all the other teams. And the thing that struck me while reading this,

which was very fun, is that there have been a lot of ways, not just formulated or codified, but actually written down in book form or pamphlet form. Do you have an estimate of how many written handbook ways there have been? It seemed from reading your article that there had been maybe 10, maybe more than 10. Lots of teams have books, handbooks. Yeah, I mean, this was certainly not the most. This was a, can you be somewhat exhaustive, or is exhaustive one of those things like

unique where you're, it's either exhaustive or it's not. I mean, I looked around a lot, but there were 30 teams and I had to do a lot of writing too. So it's not as though I spent four weeks researching this. And so, yeah, so we found a published Dodger way, Dodgers way. There's, I didn't even mention this in the book, but there's a published Yankee way, although it's not a manual. It's a Willie Randolph biography. There's also a movie called The Yankee Way from 1918, no relation to the Yankees.

There's a published Oriole way. There's a published, published being internally published in most of these cases, a published giant way, a published A's way of playing baseball. There's a published Blue Jay way. No, there's not. I'm sorry, there's not. There might be, but I'm not sure if there is. There's a published Cardinal way, of course. Published Cub way, published Braves way, published...well, the Rays Way is the official name of their player orientation. And I think there's a Published Rocky Way.

The Royal Way is, of course, their team slogan. And there are Ranger Way t-shirts. So those are the, let's see, those are the Diamondback Way of Life. So that's an official one. So those are the official ones that we found. My guess is that, so that's about 10, yeah. My guess is that probably there are 21, 22. So what I wondered while reading this was,

how many of these do you think were written or created from scratch? Do you think that, because I mean, that is an incredible duplication of work, if they were, because you imagine that the bulk of these ways, as you chronicled in your article, are similar or the same. They have, you know, it's about fundamentals and playing the game the right way and playing hard and giving your full effort and everything. And maybe more specifics in the actual book. Yeah. But.

It's those, the duplication of labor really comes in the, you know, where to stand on a cutoff. Right. of labor really comes in the you know where to stand on a cutoff right because most of them are yeah that when you have a manual mostly it's it's usually it's you know 100 to 300 pages of granular detail about how to do simple steps yeah in baseball so from scratch i would guess well because i wonder whether each way is built on the previous ways and whoever is authoring the way acquires copies of other teams' ways somehow and kind of cribs from those and puts their own little spin on it. Or are they just sitting down and cranking out their way just from scratch, just out of their head, which would take months, you would think, to write hundreds of pages of a way? Well, it does take – I mean, it probably does take months, you would think, to write hundreds of pages of a way. Well, it does take, I mean, it probably does take months. I don't think they would deny that it probably takes months.

Even if you're ripping it off, it probably takes a long time. There was one example you mentioned, maybe it was Frank Robinson took away and then just switched the cover to the Giants cover. Yes. cover? Yeah. So I would say that the... I think that there's probably two answers to this. One is that they all had some sort of manual probably already. I don't think that they were a paperless office before this way had come up. And so I suspect that to some degree it's just rebranding the manual you're already using, the various how-tos that you've already got in the organization. The other thing is that

I believe they do steal liberally from each other. Coaches have played for other coaches, bring their manuals. Of course, the Orioles manual, which is one of the founding documents in the way tradition, was itself a condensed version of a book that the general manager and manager at the time had already published publicly with the publisher Prentice Hall. So that would have already been out there. The Dodger Way, the Al Campanus book was the same sort of thing. That was not an internal document. A lot of this stuff was out there to be stolen. I don't know if they would have necessarily copied and pasted the exact page, but I would imagine that as

far as organizing, if you put them all together, they would share a common structure with the Oriole way more than anything else. All right. So everyone go read about the ways. It's fun. Hey, one other thing. Somebody just tweeted us just two seconds ago. I already answered.

We got a listener email and a tweet, and I already answered one of them. But yeah, go ahead. Sent you guys an email about Sean Doolittle. How about giving him some love? It was like a running joke for a long time that Sean Doolittle was like my Jose Molina. I wrote about him way too much.

I was actually going to write about him today, too. I was finally going to get around to doing part four in the trilogy. But maybe now I won't. My answer to that email was that if there is a player that you love and have written about and have talked about more than Coach Iweihara, it's Doolittle. Okay. So topic for today, I want to propose some moves that teams should make, which is one of my least favorite activities.

So I hope you all appreciate the sacrifice I'm making here. I looked at, because it's trade deadline season now, and MLB Trade Rumors is full of trade rumors now, I looked at the Pocota rest of season projections for all of the contending teams. As recently we looked at the contending teams. As recently, we looked at the worst hitters at any position for any team. This time, I looked at just the worst projected positions for any contender, every contender over the rest of the year, wrote down whatever the weakest spot Pakoda said was, and then where applicable, I tried to come up with someone who

would fit there. So I thought we could talk about this, talk about some of the weaknesses, and maybe talk about some of the solutions. So just starting with the AL East, because that's the way the page was laid out. If you look at the Blue Jays page, and you can do this for pitchers and position players. I looked at both to see which was worse. So if you look at, start with the Blue Jays, who are in first place in the East. Their biggest need, according to Pakoda, is a starting pitcher. Because Jay Happ is a starting pitcher for the Blue Jays. Pakoda is not a big fan of Happ. So solution for Blue Jays. And I feel kind of bad

saying that the Blue Jays should go get a good starting pitcher because Blue Jays fans have been clamoring for this and waiting for this for a while. They spent the whole winter waiting for Irvin Santana or Ubaldo Jimenez or someone of that caliber to come to Toronto. And if you believe Alex Anthopoulos, no one wants to come to Canada and pitch for the Blue Jays. But how about just Jeff Samarja? I mean, he's been tied to the Blue Jays. It's the obvious one. You figure they're not going to get price in the same division as the Rays,

and Samarja is the next best available guy. There's no particular reason for the Blue Jays not to pull out all the stops to go for it right now, I would say. So why not Samarja? Sure, Samarcha. All right. Okay. You have no problem with that. No, it makes sense. They should have done this in November. They probably tried. They tried. I bet you they tried.

I'm sure they tried. Well, they should keep trying. Okay. Next on the list is the Orioles. Biggest Orioles weakness, according to Pakoda, is second base, where Jonathan Scope is playing. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Brian Roberts? Is he going to say Brian Roberts? That's not my answer. I don't have a great answer here because, as Zachary Levine wrote in today's lineup card at BP where we talked about some holes on contending teams,

everyone in the AL East needs a second baseman, sort of. Certainly the Yankees do, the Orioles do. The Blue Jays didn't so much when they had Brett Laurie playing there. He is hurt now. Maybe he'll come back. Maybe they don't need anyone there. But the Orioles seem to need a second baseman. They have Weeks in AAA who is getting on base a lot.

They could try him. They have Steve Lombardozzi and Ryan Flaherty hanging around those kinds of players. But, uh, so sticking with scope is an option. I mean, I kind of like scope coming into the year. Maybe, maybe scope will just be better in the second half. Otherwise there are, there are quite a few second basemen available. I would say there are more second basemen who are maybe on the market than any other single position. So I don't have one that is particularly well-suited to them, so I'll just say Daniel Murphy.

All right. Okay. Yankees need just kind of an entire infield. All right. been so severe so far like Jeter has been almost completely healthy Roberts has been almost completely healthy I don't think anyone expected either of those things let alone both of them Kelly Johnson has been healthy and Jan Jervis Salarte has been much better than expected although he has crashed and burned in the last month or so so they need someone who could play shortstop ideally or could fill multiple positions if that doesn't work out. So Alexei Ramirez. And if not Alexei Ramirez, then Louis Valbuena

because he can play second and third. How does that sound? You'd like to get a run producer. Yeah, well. I'm just referring to Alexei Ramirezors rvi list oh right that's true that's the only reason i brought that up i don't actually think that you need to get a run producer but while i'm here i'm gonna check and alexia mayors went over five yesterday no r no r no rpi continues to choke um uh okay so i'm gonna say one of those guys. Tigers, coming into the year,

Pakoda hated Nick Castellanos and still hates Nick Castellanos. And to be fair, he hasn't really done a whole lot to make Pakoda like him more. He has been pretty bad. But in the last month or so, he has hit quite well. And, of course, the projections. You know why, right? You know why. Why? Because of J.D. Martinez. J.D. Martinez.

Mechanical changes. Yes. When J.D. Martinez makes a mechanical change, you know that other people are going to start hitting too. Yeah, Castellanos probably has watched video of J.D. Martinez now. He has gotten, instead of watching video of Miguel Cabrera, he's getting Miguel Cabrera batting tips secondhand through video of JD Martinez.

So he is... 325, 337, 475 in June. In June, right, yeah. So that is the question. Should the Tigers just hold here? I said yes. Okay. All right, sure. One home run and one walk in that time. Can the Tigers just hold here? I said yes. Okay. Sure.

One home run and one walk in that time. Sorry, two walks in that time. That's not great. Hard to say. Yeah, there aren't a lot of third basemen available. I mean, I guess if they could. And I don't know, like if you could go get Chase Headley or something, I guess they could do that and then worry about Castellanos next year.

But I don't know. He's been okay lately. He's part of their future. I don't hate it. Maybe they can go get a reliever instead. Next is the Royals. The Royals' weakest projected position is shortstop because Pakoda is just not a big fan of Alcides Escobar. Really, I don't think it likes his defense either,

particularly, which goes against his reputation, of course. They're not going to get a shortstop. They have a bunch of kind of weak projected positions, but all of them would be difficult to upgrade for various reasons. Like third base, you know, Moustakas is kind of, what do they do with Moustakas? Shortstop, Escobar. Our friend Andy McCullough wrote something about what their needs are, what they're looking for a couple of days ago, maybe yesterday. And he, he basically had them down for just bench player because they, they don't have much of a bench and right field.

Evidently they are looking for a new right fielder because Aoki hasn't been very good. Um, I don't know. I can't get behind the behind the replacing Aoki movement. I still like him too much. So I don't know whether they need to do anything. I'm okay with the Royals not doing anything, although they really have a lot of incentive to make the playoffs for various reasons.

So even a marginal upgrade might be worth making, but I don't see a clear area of need other than just a bench guy or something. I have a question. So this is just hypothetical. So when they traded for James Shields, they got two years of James Shields. And most people thought at the time they overpaid. If they went after David Price, would it take an equivalent amount of talent at this point, or could they get David Price for what they got Shields for

or less than what they got Shields for? Hmm. I would say, well, if you're getting Price only for a season and a half, right, not two full seasons, which was what Shields was. Yep. So, yeah, I would say it wouldn't be too different. I mean, Shields' price is better, but not that much better, and it's not as long. So I would say roughly equivalent.

Okay. Okay, next is the Indians. Indians need a starter right now the indians death chart at at mlb death charts.com has four starters on it they don't even have a fifth starter on it um and the fourth starter is josh tomlin so it's kind of kind of kind of ugly there after Masterson, Kluber, Bauer. It's kind of ugly there before Kluber, Bauer, actually. Yeah, that's true. So they've got Zach McAllister, I guess, is in AAA now.

They've still got Danny Salazar in AAA, straightening himself out. But I'll say they can make a move for a starter. They can make a not super ambitious move for a starter they can they can make a not not super ambitious move for a starter they can go get a Jason Hamill type how does that strike you uh it strikes me well hey uh Scott Feldman is Scott what I can't remember was Scott Feldman uh he he was not considered one of the guys that the Astros were just signing to trade, right? Because they signed him for a three-year deal. Yeah, that was a three-year deal, right?

Okay. Yeah, so probably not. Okay. But yeah, Feldman is a Hamill type. Okay, who is next? The A's. So the A's, according to Pakoda, the A's need a starter because Pakoda doesn't like Scott Casimir or Jesse Chavez. But I think we can safely assume that they will not be replacing those two guys.

So the A's biggest need is a second baseman or just sort of a middle infielder. Eric Sogard hasn't hit. Jen Lowry hasn't really hit. In the BP article today, Doug Thorburn suggested Ben Zobrist, who certainly seems like an A's type player, playing tons of positions and playing them pretty well. And Ben Zobrist is certainly on the market. So sure, Ben Zobrist. And the A's would be scary with Ben Zobrist. The A's are pretty scary already. The A's are really, really good. If they were to add Ben's Obrist at whatever their weak points are, they would have no weak points.

They would be really, really, really good. Remember Bill Simmons' Ewing theory? Yes, right. When the star is hurt, everyone else steps up. Yeah, and it's perceived to be this disastrous thing for the franchise, and then they actually improve. I feel like maybe there needs to be some sort of A's, it wouldn't be a corollary exactly, but some sort of theory about the A's it wouldn't be a corollary exactly, but some sort of theory about the A's adding the one big part. Because it feels like the A's, whenever they add the one big part, or anything close to a big part, it always sort of backfires.

Like the Matt Holliday thing didn't really work out for them. Jim Johnson, of course, has been disastrous for them. Johnny Damon didn't really do much for them, as I recall. One of the lesser stretches of his career when they got him. You could maybe make the case that when, I don't know, this might not rise to the level, but I remember being pretty pumped when they got Arthur Rhodes. I don't know. But it feels like all the A's biggest moves are the ones that, it's almost like, well, okay, so I've had this, I've described Sabian for a while as being this really brilliant, amazing general manager until you give him money. And as soon as you give him the luxury to write an eight-figure contract offer, he becomes a doddering fool.

And so maybe it's sort of slightly similar with the A's, except they don't get to make nearly as many of those big contract offers. But when they do, or when they trade for somebody, it always turns out to kind of backfire. So maybe Zobrist would just be another disappointment. Maybe. Hypothesis. Hypothesis only. But probably as much evidence as the Ewing theory ever did. Right. Okay, next, this is your wheelhouse, I suppose. The Angels need a starting pitcher, which Pakoda says and which you also said in lineup card today.

Is there any starting pitcher who strikes you as the perfect fit for the Angels? I put Brandon McCarthy down. Sure, perfect. Yeah, Brandon McCarthy has been very good, as we have discussed, even though his win-loss record is like 1-10 now and his ERA is over 5, but he's much better than that.

Okay, Mariners need a center fielder, Pocota says. The James Jones story has taken a sad turn since the first couple weeks of the year. He has about a 600 OPS since mid-May, so they could use an upgrade there. Not that the rest of their outfield is really any great shakes. They've got Andy Chavez and Dustin Ackley out there. So I'm going to suggest Seth Smith

because he can play pretty much any outfield position, and the Padres are certainly interested in selling him, and he's been good. He's pretty decent generally, so Seth Smith. Seth Smith can play center field. Can't he? I mean, he was the A's DH last year, and he's slow. He's slow as punch.

Let me see if he's played um yeah i guess maybe he can't play center field hmm he has played center field in the past but not recently in 2008 or 90 yeah okay well so that won't solve the james jones issue well i don't know maybe maybe they can move actually good i mean yeah maybe they can move actually Maybe they can move Ackley or Chavez out there. Yeah, so I'll stick with that one. Okay, now the National League. The Nationals

don't need anything as far as I can tell. They don't really have a projected position where they need help. They need to figure out a way to get everybody in the lineup. They need to get rid of some guys. They do.

Yes, they should figure that out. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, they can just have a surplus for the rest of the year, and Spann and LaRoche are free agents at the end of the year, so the logjam that they have now currently will not probably be one next year. But, yeah, I don't know. They don't really have to add a big piece anywhere, I can see. The Braves' biggest weak point is third base, Chris Johnson.

And I'm going to give Pakoda a hand here because Pakoda really did not like Chris Johnson coming into the year. I think I wrote about that at some point. I thought it made some sense because coming into last year, Chris Johnson was regarded as a platoon player, not really a starter. And then he had a crazy BABIP year and was good and got an extension and everything. But Pakoda was not convinced. He has been pretty lousy so far. And, of course, Chris Johnson has really, I mean, he's a right-handed hitter.

He has not hit righties at all. This year he has crushed lefties as usual, only in like 50 plate appearances, but he has 1,000 OPS or so against them and a sub 600 OPS against righties. So I'm going to suggest, and I think this is a perfect fit, that Eric Chavez go to the Braves. Eric Chavez can hit righties plenty. He should not ever hit lefties and has not, but that's fine.

He can platoon with Chris Johnson. I think that makes a lot of sense. I was on mute, but I agree. Okay. By the way, the Eric Chavez comeback is one of my favorite comebacks. I love that Eric Chavez has been a productive, a useful player again. Because, I mean, he was such a, it was such a sort of a sad running joke there for a few years that he could not stay healthy at all. And he was close to retirement a couple of times and people said, why doesn't he just retire instead of trying to come back? And for the last three seasons with the Yankees and then with the Diamondbacks, of course,

he's been a much more limited player than he was in his prime. I mean, he never faces a lefty. His teams have done a good job of making sure that he never faces a lefty. But against righties, he has been about as productive as he was overall in his prime. He's been a significantly above average hitter over the last three years, which is really cool. Kudos to Eric Chavez for sticking with it. Why not Eric Chavez to the Royals, since we didn't really have one for the Royals? Hmm.

Yeah, sure. I could see that. Well, they have... Mike Moustakas. Yeah. They also have Valencia. Yeah, but the point was that Moustakas, right? I mean, Moustakas is the part you're replacing. Right. And Valencia is Yeah, but the point was that Moustakas, right? I mean, Moustakas is the

part you're replacing. Right. And Valencia is a righty also. So yeah, sure. Eric Chavez. There should be a bidding war between the Diamondbacks and the Royals for Eric Chavez. Okay. Next is the Marlins. And the Marlins have a lot of positions that Pocota doesn't particularly care for. Pocota is not a big fan of Casey McGee, not a big fan of Echevarria at shortstop, not a big fan of the guys at the back of the rotation, Tom Kohler and Discofani. But I don't know that they should do anything. I'm kind of on board with the Marlins just sort of writing this out right now. They're 500. Their playoff odds are the same as the Mets, under 5%. They've been a nice story, but I don't think they should

do anything crazy. They should not be thinking about trading Andrew Heaney or anything like that. They should just stand pat if there's a little minor move they can make here or there. That's great, but I think they're a 2015 and beyond team. Cool. Because they're in a division with the Nationals who need

nothing as well as the Braves who are going to be great once they get Eric Chavez. Okay. Brewers, Brewers, Pocota thinks they're in a pretty good position. Pocota doesn't, doesn't hate any,

any Brewers position except first base. And the Brewers have, have had a lot of trouble finding a productive first baseman over the last couple of years. They have been going with the over Bay Reynolds platoon. Reynolds has not been awful. He's been a league average hitter and probably a sub, sub average,

below average fielder over Bay has been over Bay, which is not good. I am going to propose an out of the box solution that, that might be crazy. that might not work. What if the Brewers were to trade for Adam Dunn? And he has played, I think, 19 games at first this year, obviously primarily at DH. I don't know how much first base he could handle.

But if he would be willing to not start every day, to start sometimes if he could play first enough uh imagine how much fun an adam dunn mark reynolds platoon would be that would be the best platoon ever i would love to see a dunn reynolds platoon just a couple yeah three true outcomes stars wouldn't be that hard to get russell brannan back in Milwaukee too, I bet. No, probably not. What is he up to these days? So that's my crazy suggestion. Don't know whether he can physically handle playing first base enough to do that, but I think for the good of everyone, the Brewers should try. Cardinals don't really need anything. I know they've had some underperforming positions thus far.

The closest thing would be a starting pitcher just because they've got a bunch of injured starting pitchers, Waka and Garcia and Kelly. Pakoda has never liked Kelly, although he's coming back sometime soon. I'm going to say they don't need a whole lot. They called up Marco Gonzalez. Maybe he'll be okay.

Joe Kelly will come back, Waka, whoever. They've got plenty of depth at lots of other positions. I'm going to say that they don't need to do anything major, although if they want to, they certainly have the players to do that. But I don't know. I mean, if they want to do something, they can just call up Tavares or something. Okay. The Reds, I mean, Russell Carlton suggested that they make a big move for David Price in today's lineup card. I doubt that that will happen. I don't know that they need to do that.

They've got a lot of pretty good starters. Pakoda says that they need a left fielder to upgrade over Ryan Ludwig, who's been, eh, he's been okay, not so great. So I don't know. If they want to do something, they can go get an outfielder. I don't know who would make sense for them in the outfield maybe they can go get alex rios let's

say matt joyce okay both of them yeah sure both of them pirates uh pirates need a starter i think more than anything else pakoda indicates and just glancing at their depth chart right now, the Pirates' starting pitcher depth chart is scary right now. Charlie Morton is at the top, followed by Vance Worley, Brandon Compton, Edinson Volquez, and Jeff Locke. That is ugly. They do have Garrett Cole coming back this Saturday. Francisco Liriano, who

has been shaky, has an oblique thing, will be back at some point. But they could use a starting pitcher if they do want to compete. I could also see an argument for them not really going for it, because the odds are sort of long

at this point. I don't know who would make the most sense for the Pirates. I guess I already said McCarthy for the Angels, but McCarthy is certainly the kind of guy they like to acquire, a ground ball guy with all the shifts and everything. So maybe they could go after someone like that. Maybe they can reacquire A.J. Burnett since things ended so well in such harmony for those two parties last year. So I don't know.

A starter. Someone who starts. Giants. Pakoda says that Joe Panik is not the answer at second base, so they could use a second baseman, perhaps. I don't know who most fits the Sabian mold at second base for them, whether it would be Murphy, who I mentioned for the Orioles. Maybe Murphy makes sense.

Maybe Bonifacio. Maybe Gordon Beckham. Maybe Valbuena, one of those people. Does one of those people sound like a Sabian trade target to you? No, not really. Ricky Weeks. Yeah, okay, sure, Ricky Weeks. And then finally the Dodgers.

Pocota says that they need nothing. I can understand why Pakoda says that because you look up and down their lineup and their rotation, and it looks pretty strong. They could use a reliever, maybe a closer, maybe just a late-in reliever type. But that seems to be just about all they need. They have been playing like everyone thought the Dodgers would play lately,

and I would expect that to continue. Wait. Wait. Yes. Who's fifth starting for them these days? Let's see. Because this is a team that likes to carry six. Yeah, right. Oh, it's Beckett.

It's Beckett, yeah. They're fine. Yeah, they're fine. I mean, Heron is the fifth, but Beckett is the one I was forgetting. Yeah. And Beckett's eight. Yeah, they're okay there. All right.

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