Also, I will slap Porcello in his horse face whenever I damn well please!
We miss you Mike.
Of course at that time we needed a starter, we had Porcello, Price and Wright and some really bad starts from everybody else. We stayed ahead of the market for Pom. The return on Rich Hill was even worse. Beane was also asking for Espi for Hill , an upcoming free agent who was injured. for it to work out for us Pom has to stay healthy, but Espi is a long way from being a major league pitcher and a lot of factors can impede his development.
No. Not "after the fact."
I hated the trade at the time, and said so repeatedly.
I do think we could have used another starter, but it was not essential. I said that at the time too.
When the league offered a give back, I said we should do it, even knowing we were past the trade deadline, and it meant we'd have to finish the season without Pom.
Something did not "have to be done", At worst, we could have traded for a 5th starter tyep for less of a bounty/
At the time of the trade, we were 50-38 and 2 games up in the division.
Seems we were doing pretty good despite the fact that we had these numbers from our 4 through 9 starters:
3-9 5.91 Buch (13 GS)
2-0 8.46 Kelly (6)
1-3 8.59 ERod (6)
2-0 6.75 O'Sullivan (4)
0-0 5.11 Owens (3)
0-1 15.88 Elias (1)
No doubt, these numbers were frightening, while Pomeranz had put up great numbers in the first half of 2016, but we didn't "have to" do anything. Pomeranz's second half performance proved we didn't, and yes that is hindsight, but I still think we didn't need to try and find a number 3 type starter. A one year fifth starter rental was an option as well as doing nothing but hope Buch or ERod would rebound.
Let's give us five starters for now.
Is our option after those five really the WORST in MLB? Are we that bad?