Huh, Jung Ho Kang was given a work visa again to play in America. I don't know how long it'd take for him to get back up to speed, since it's been over a year since he's been in MLB and he sucked in a brief stint in a Dominican league last year, but if he can provide some offense, that'd be cool (although Moran has been hitting well at 3B, which is where he mainly played for Pittsburgh in the past).

Now he just has to avoid those persistent "glug, glug, vroom, vroom" problems because there's no way he can have any room for error.

Swept the POS Cards, back in first and got a great debut by Nick Kingham, former really high-rated prospect who had Tommy John issues and missed a good bit of time.

Good weekend in baseball land!

Team has had an interesting two-day series with the White Sox. Trailed 4-0 after the first inning last night and came back to score four in the second and go on to win 10-6.

Trailed 4-0 and 5-2 today, but scored four in the top of the ninth to at least have a chance to nail down a two-game sweep of a really, really shitty team. If RomeroVasquez can get three outs, that is.

They have pieced some things together; interesting to see how long they can hang. 

Well, at least the Bucs are high atop the NL Central. 

Currently the daily winner of the four-team roulette wheel to lead the division! Which could change in the next four hours, since there seemingly needs to be a new leader every day, but I'll take it, since I was expecting them to be closer to the bottom than the top by this point of the season.

BREAKING NEWS: They'll still be in first place for at least the rest of this day, as they beat the ChiSox again. Damn, I wish they could play utter shit competition like those guys more frequently!

I'm starting to wonder if my 73-89 prediction might have been a bit low win-wise. Sure, they're mainly feasting on a lot of the league's shittier teams like the White Sox, Tigers and so on, but it's better to kick the shit out of weak teams than to regularly lose to them. Don't know if they'll have the staying power to be a contender, but it's nice to still be at the top of the division in mid-May.

Now they're playing like the 73-89 team I thought they'd be. Slow starts by the pitchers to put them in a hole combined with no offense AND, on the days they do hit, late-inning bullpen implosions = bad times.

So, they have a stretch where they go 14-30 and plummet out of contention; the GM makes "we'll need to play really good going into the break or we might have to be selling" comments; the team then goes 7-1 over their last eight games, including a 5-game sweep of the Brewers (who usually beat them about 95% of the time), so now what?

They aren't really in contention at the moment, they'd have to play a good bit over .600 the rest of the year, as if the current #2 wild card is only .500 the rest of the way, they' have to be .585 by my math to be even with them...and there are a decent number of teams between them and that team. So, they're basically in that awkward position where they're trapped in that no-man's land of mediocrity where whatever choice they make will wind up being the wrong one!

En fuego

Played their way into being buyers, trading Taylor Hearn and a PTBNL to Texas for their closer (Kela?), who'll probably set up Felipe. I mean, I guess I overall looked at relief pitching as one of the team's lesser problems (Vasquez has been great, Crick is surprisingly good, Rodriguez and Santana have been quality middle guys and Glasnow and Brault can at least eat innings), so I'd be hoping for some sort of upgrade to the starting pitching, or maybe infield. But since I thought the team would be a depressing seller a couple weeks ago, just the fact they're trying to contend is encouraging.

MLB Trade Rumors now saying they have a deal in place to get Chris Archer from Tampa. Be interesting to see how much they give up, since TB wasn't overly interesting in trading him unless they were super impressed with a deal, due to years of control.

Archer is a good get. Would've been cool with the Reds going after him.

I think Archer is a great get. Pitched in a league of tough parks for pitchers and DH league....now he’s in way better place with a league that doesn’t know him well.

posted by Ironman92

I think Archer is a great get. Pitched in a league of tough parks for pitchers and DH league....now he’s in way better place with a league that doesn’t know him well.

Would you have given up Senzel for Archer?

Curious what the Pirates would be giving up for him, and what a comparable package from the Reds would look like.

Looks like Meadows and Glasnow. Heavy haul for archer, although you’ve got him for 3 years and he’s a solid sp. can’t really be mad about it I guess. 

posted by justincredible

Would you have given up Senzel for Archer?

Curious what the Pirates would be giving up for him, and what a comparable package from the Reds would look like.

Archer under control for 3 1/2 years, not sure I would’ve pulled that though...depends some on my thoughts on Trammel

posted by SportsAndLady

Looks like Meadows and Glasnow. Heavy haul for archer, although you’ve got him for 3 years and he’s a solid sp. can’t really be mad about it I guess. 

And one more player who is considered a high-quality piece. Overall, it depends on who that guy is. Glasnow has been an elite prospect, but never shown consistency in the bigs (and being a decent long/middle reliever this year doesn't count, considering the pedigree). I like Meadows, but at least the team has a lot of outfield depth prospect-wise. He could have been a good one for us, or lost in the shuffle. And they'd have to give that much or more up for Archer due to the years of control. TB wasn't going to give him up without getting a lot in return.

They've given up one run per game over a five-game stretch. They're 2-3 over that span. How the fuck is that even possible to suck that bad on offense?