Every year, the same teams are in the mix for the guys we want.  Every year those teams, despite developing their own guys, always have the prospects to land the Darvishes, Grays, etc.

The idea that M's never have the assets to do this, or that their #3 ia always #18 in other orgs can't be true.  Unless they are so historically bad at developing guys or hitting on some good players in the draft or IFA, as James says, all orgs have great players in their systems.  All of them.

In hindisght it may turn out great that Marco and Erasmo are the guys we got and we get to keep our prizes.  I'm okay with that line of reasoning in a single season vaccuum.  But in the M's long history, despite DiPoto's talent and vision, they still appear to be content to 'hope for the best'.  They are admittedly closer to carrying a winnning mission and going after a pennant, but as long as they let the very teams they're competing with lap them in July, they're still looking in from outside hoping to catch a few breaks.

Catching a few breaks has never been a big part of things here unfortunately.

...Mildly disgusted.  If only because it was the Yankees and Dodgers, and because it feels like Monopoly with those teams starting the game with the greens and blues and getting $1000 for passing Go, while we get $200.

Why the NFL, despite some of its issues, remains a far more interesting competition than baseball for me.  Even though as a sport and game concept, I still love baseball as a game.  Just not as fair competition.  It is far from that.

It's too early to focus heavily on such things, but even though we are 2.5 games back of the second wild card tied with Tampa Bay and chasing Kansas City, of the FIVE half-games that make up that deficit, FOUR of them are LOSSES. You can make up wins because you HAVEN'T played the games yet, but it's much tougher to make up losses chalked up in games you HAVE played. If we play competitively going into the last two weeks of the season, the deficit of those four losses will loom like El Capitan in Yosemite.

The good news right now is that we are chasing only one team. But we will need Kansas City to lose at least four games more than us over the next eight weeks or so.

Sonny Gray: RHP / 5'-10" / 190lbs / 27 yrs, 8 mos / FB velo ~91-95mph / (Last 3 years) 7.6 K/9 / 2.8 BB/9 / 0.9 HR/9 / 3.71 ERA / 3.74 FIP / 3.78 P/PA

Erasmo Ramirez:  RHP / 5'-11" / 200lbs / 27 yrs, 2 mos / FB velo ~90-94mph / (Last 3 years as SP) 7.0 K/9 / 2.2 BB/9 / 1.0 HR/9 / 3.91 ERA / 3.90 FIP / 3.61 P/PA

Don't know if this will copy well, but here's a graph from Sully's article on the Gray trade yesterday:

In short, there's a 'super seven' at the top of baseball--and we aren't one of them.  What seems to group them is the ability to draft and develop.

Granted, this has hardly been a strong point for us, But in my mind, getting rid of Lewis and Neidert and Bishop (or similar pieces) for a couple years of Sonny Gray doesn't get us into that group---this year or ever.

I am not at all sure McKay's Werner Erhard act is the right way to go to develop the kids...I continue to be very sour on Stottlemyre's abilities...and frankly, I don't know how in the world Candaele keeps his job as baserunning coach. (We are 29th out of 30 teams in baserunning WAR--only the Mets are worse).

So I'm not in favor of stealing from our nearly barren farm system for a slim chance to make it into a one game playoff this year. Even if we did, I'm sure we'd lose by having someone fall asleep in the ninth and get picked off.  

Segura, Gamel, Miranda, maybe Martin...we are a Mitch Haniger oblique, muscle tweak, and devasting faceblast away from being really, really good at the trading part of success.

But hey...seriously, we aren't doing that badly deciding on our gems with DiPoto. We decided to keep Zunino, Diaz, Paxton (some of us Denizens were really to toss him and Mikey overboard last season). Sucks about Chris Taylor, but nobody in the world saw 140 OPS+ coming out of that guy.

Could be better, but I don't think we're talking Valle, Schooler and Eric Hanson by comparison.

who are ultimately responsible for the dubiously competitive nature of our local organization?  Could there be sufficient social pressure (or sufficient lack thereof) exerted by the local fans that ownership/management doesn't feel the flames licking at their heels the way the owners in, say, BOS, LAD, or NYY feel it?  I'm just spitballing here.

Forget about polls, forget about revenues, even forget about geography.  Is there something inherent to M's fandom that creates a feedback loop into the system--a system which, in spite of myriad turnovers at-or-near-the-top of the corporate latter over the decades, has persistently taken the low-risk road when presented with an opportunity to do the opposite?

I honestly can't think of what it is, or how such a mechanism might look, but it occurs that there might be something lacking in the fanbase itself which perpetuates this seeming satisfaction with beta status in the MLB hierarchy.

If you cut off the head and it keeps regrowing with the same basic flaws, the problem's probably somewhere south of there...

?

Chris Taylor could always hit. He's had parts of 3 seasons at AAA, with 2 different teams, and hit .300+ each time:  .328-.397, Tacoma '14; .300-.391, Tacoma '15; .322-.397, Tacoma/OKC '16.

OK, he was below that in his OKC short tint this season.  But he also hit   .287-.347 for Seattle as a rookie in '14.  He stumbled in '15, and I think that soured us on him.  A mistake.

He had a .150 AAA ISO, built mostly on doubles.  I'm not in with the PED theory, I just think he's capitalized on his playing time, and perhaps has bought in to the swing for the fences philosophy.  It's possible that he's just stalking pitches, a skill that comes with experience. And his K's really aren't up this season.  Prior to '17, he had K'ed in 27% of his MLB PA's.  It's 28% this season.

Anyway, the guy could always hit.  LA found a way to maximize his glovey abilities, too.  Good for them.  Bad for us.