10-09-2015, 08:35 AM
(10-08-2015, 03:05 PM)Hoofhearted Wrote: They really messed up by gutting the core of their team for 3 years of latos and a year of Choo. Grandal and Gregorius emerged as everyday/ platoon starters this year on playoff teams. Boxberger collected 41 saves. Alonso was hampered by injuries again but put OPS/OPS+ numbers virtually identical to Grandal’s
Boesch, Schumaker, Bourgeois, Negron, and LaMarre put up a combined -4.0 WAR for around $4M. Bruce put up .1 WAR for $12.5M; Pena .3 WAR for $1.5M; Phillips 2.6 WAR for $13M; and Byrd .1 WAR for about $3M.
Together that’s -.9WAR for $34M. You should be able to get that level of production our of 4 regulars and 5 part timers for less than $5M. I’m way more worried about that than I am getting 7.4 WAR from Votto at $14M, or $20M or heck, even $34M.
So they drastically overpay for utility players and hang on to them way to long. They also have very little depth in the minor leagues. Winker is the only prospect worth writing home about.
To be fair, some of this is 20/20 hindsight. Choo looked to be exactly what the team was missing and if everything went according to plan, we'd be discussing the World Series championship we had in 2013 and how it was worth the down years we're having now. Grandal and Alonso were surplus to requirements since they had Mesoroco and Votto.
I give the team credit, they went all in; they failed but they tried. If they would have stood pat, kept all their prospects and had the same results, people would be complaining that they were too passive.
