79 games? Do you really believe that? We'll win over 80 and it won't even be close unless Shields and Hosmer have season ending injuries.

Yeah, that's atrociously misleading, as it counts EVERY blown save recorded by every reliever in a bullpen.

Case in Point: That chart is factoring in Aaron Crow's billion blown saves against Holland's save total over last year.

So, I repeat, for an individual closer to rack up 10 blown saves would be an absolute atrocity of a season.

Go troll some objective Detroit fans. There's not an honest fan that believes they aren't losing more games this year than last. Ditto with the Indians who maxed out in the most ridiculous fashion. They played WAY above their heads. We'll win at least the same, if not more due to divisional gains. My only concern is how many more wins the Twins will take this year. They won't be great, but they won't be nearly as bad as last season. Sox will be about the same, IMO.

We're the Royals. Anything could happen. We could have both those guys playing and we could underachieve to a new underachieving level. It's called, "Royaling it up." I think we've all seen it before.

Anything new on the Santana front?

Yeah, a lot of those blown saves are going to be situations like where a reliever comes in during the 6th inning, (so there's no way in hell they are going to finish the game), and they blow the lead. They get a blown save, even though they were never going to get the save for that game.

You have to look at only closers for an acceptable save conversion rate.

Dayton's pretty much confirmed that we're done spending and the rotation is set for the year. However, each day he remains unsigned leaves some 1 in a billion like chance that he'll somehow make it back here.

The odds are incredibly slim, however.

Battered wife syndrome has to end. If we tank, we tank. But stop letting previous seasons and experiences dictate your optimism/pessimism. It's weak.

The odds are 1 in 250 billion, I already estimated it a few pages back.

LMAO

Yeah, when you start getting in the double digit category you likely no longer have a 9th inning job. In fact, in MLB history the record is 14 BS in a year. And it was a lot tougher back in the day when guys threw more than one inning. Definitely misleading.

I mean, I know it would be a real drag to have Santana make his way back here again, just to have Chen go back to the bench.....

What I will say is that Santana (unless some team still finds a way to overspend) should look for a new agent next year. His agent ridiculously overpriced him heading into the offseason, and it caused teams to immediately look toward other options before considering Santana. His list of suitors is narrowing by the day. With Arroyo, Burnett and Yoon going to the Diamondbacks, Phillies, and Orioles last week, it looks like the Blue Jays, Mariners, Rockies, Yankees and Indians may be the teams left standing.

This is problematic for Ervin, as all of these teams aren't in a huge need of a starting pitcher and have professed that they're not looking to spend a lot more through FA (with the Rockies and Blue Jays previously refusing to negotiate with Ervin's reduced target of 4/60).

Sure, it's possible that Ervin will still catch lightning in a bottle, but it's much more likely that's he's going to make much less than he could have with a different agent. Add in the fact that his agent OPENLY bashed David Glass over twitter, and it's unmistakably clear that his agent was in over his head with handling Ervin's demands this offseason.


TLDR: Ervin's agent sucks, caused Ervin to lose out on potential suitors and openly trashed David Glass over twitter.

Agreed, Santana's agent is an idiot.

Santana aside, I'm just hoping that Duffy and Ventura have the type of spring where it's embarrassingly negligent on Ned's part to put Chen in the rotation. I like him coming out of the pen and being the spot starter for when those young guys need a week off or when they get dead arm.