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Beewolves Lose a Heartbreaker 3-2
Hurley Bender develops blister in mid-innings, bullpen blows the late lead.
Well that was unfortunate. With the loss we fall back below 500 to 16-17. While we're only a game and a half behind the second wild card spot, what concerns me is we're going in the wrong direction exactly when we should be making a surge. Hurley Bender gave us everything we could have asked for in an ace, battling through a thumb blister developed in the fourth to give us a heroic 6 inning, 1 run performance. Unfortunately we failed to score runs of our own against an honestly pretty bad pitcher, and the bullpen did what it does late in games.
It's possible that we could have won if Bender doesn't develop that blister but this team's issues go much deeper than that. The bullpen can't hold a lead to save its life and we have multiple hitters below .200, if we want to chase a wild card spot at this point then we are going to need to make some moves.
If we decide to wave the white flag, then we need to think about who we're selling off and who we should hold on to. Keep in mind that those players may very well decide to test the market in the offseason, there's no franchise tag in this game so if we decide to keep Handley Dexterez' almost 18 million salary on payroll and he walks anyway, we're out all that development money.
Here's our current roster. Tatts Balfour has to go, as much as I love the name. He doesn't have any standout stats, his fastball is garbage, and he isn't getting any younger. I'd also like to move Smack Avery although if we decide to keep him he might develop into something useable. Right now though he isn't accurate enough to be a closer and he hangs way too many breaking balls.
Benson Rushmore performed pretty well coming out of the pen in this game and I'd like to hold onto him. He's young, he's got a good pitch selection, and if he works on his accuracy he'll make a kickass setup man. BB prone isn't a good trait obviously but it's situational enough that it may not matter, and it should help keep his cost down as well.
If we have any space left over I would like to move Benny Balmer for a utility infielder. Poke Foster is a cheaper right fielder with better offensive stats and solid all around defense. Sure he's slow, but Benny isn't exactly the Flash either. It feels wasteful to have two such similar players holding essentially the same role. Overall though, I think we look at the lineup once we address the bullpen if we decide to try for the wild card.
Here are some free agent options we can pursue. I'm going to start with potential bullpen upgrades then talk a little about who we can pursue if we decide to be sellers.
Zacharia Banks and Bocks Knight would both be nice replacements for Tatts Balfour, and would leave about 9 million in cap space to spend on a closer or an offensive upgrade. Banks has a similar skillset to Balfour but just does it much better, while Knight's a right handed flamethrower which can be immensely useful for a different look out of the pen. I think the better move right now is to bring on Banks just because our bullpen is so heavy in righties and he could give us a situational edge. If we go with him I would suggest holding off for a few more days to see if the price comes down.
We could also go for broke and sign Aviana Landry. At 35 years old and 10.8 million she would be a rental, but she's got an awesome skillset and can start or come out of the pen as needed. I don't see her going very deep into games with that pitch selection but the versatility could make up for that in the playoffs (and getting us there). To be clear I would personally recommend pursuing a reliever and upgrading on offense, but she would be the headliner move here.
One more intriguing option is if we pull the plug on the Smack Avery project, Phillip Dekeness is an amazing upgrade at closer and I'd feel much more confident with him in the 9th. Unfortunately that would also cost us another 5 million even after shedding Avery's contract, so getting Dekeness and Banks would only leave us without about 4 million left over.
The last thing I want to look at are offensive options. I think we should move on from Benny Balmer regardless of strategy and Liz Crane or Graham Burgess are both good options for infield utility players. I think Liz Crane is a bit more of a long term investment but even if we decide to try for a run here, that isn't necessarily a bad thing in a bench player and we could be looking at a future starter if she comes along. That said, Graham is a significantly better player even if he can only cover part of the infield defensively.
Benny Balmer makes about 3.4 million so if we spring for either of these two, we're looking at a 3 million dollar cap hit. We can wait for a bit and see if they come down, but there's always the chance someone else signs them, not to mention that every game we're negotiating they aren't contributing to our success.
Here's our current team one more time. Now I'd like to talk about selling. We've fallen back under .500 and there's a good chance we'd miss the playoffs even if we used up all our cap. If we swing and miss here, that's a lot of wasted development opportunities.
The question if we sell is who is untouchable? Should I release Hurley Bender? If I can I would like to pick up Natasha Hezeldean. Left handed starter, throws very hard and has a good forkball, with some development of her breaking pitches she could be great at 2 or 3 in the rotation.
Can I release Handley Dexterez? He's probably the best position player in the game and can play literally any position on the field at a superstar level other than catcher, and at 22 he probably won't leave or retire any time soon. However he also makes nearly 18 million which at this point in the season would take up nearly 9 million in development funds. He has also underperformed his stats so far.
Is anyone else untouchable? Do we need to move anyone? Keep in mind these questions are only valid if we decide going for the wild card is too risky at this point in the season and we should build towards next year.
So issue your directives. Are we:
Buyers or sellers at the midpoint in the season.
If we are buyers, should we focus on offense, starting rotation, or bullpen.
If sellers, which players am I not allowed to move? Or, do I get carte blanche to tear it all down so we can rebuild in the offseason?