Until this year, lefties battered houck. Not sure what he did to fix that, but he is still mainly a two pitch pitcher. I still think he might be better suited to be a dominant closer.
Feltman and mata both have unbelievable stuff, but substandard control, improvement in command and control could get them to the majors in late 2021 or more likely 2022!
Houck is working on a third pitch (changeup) which might help him succeed as a starter. Even the top aces on their respective clubs only had 17 innings pitched in the majors at some point. Right now the kid is one of our best prospects going forward. I still think we need to sign quality younger starters if we can find them.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
That is the problem. We can draft a top pitching prospect, but even that is risky. How many pitching prospects get injured or bomb out? We certainly can try to develop the best of the pitching prospects, something we have done poorly. As you say, trading for one is tough, since no organization wants to trade away their future. So to improve our staff, we need to get veteran pitchers and perhaps journeymen through FA or trades. Its not easy to improve our staff, so we will have to focus our offseason efforts in that direction.
It was a great trade. Your reset from last year unlocks your financial assets. Verdugo locks up the position for the next 4 years. Adding Downs is the kicker here. I was shocked you got out from half of Price’s deal, got Verdugo and got a real prospect
Watching Betts with disdain is like making a good gain on a stock and then watching it rise after and kicking yourself. You gotta take the fact that you made a good gain. That he won a title in Dodger blue is irrelevant. You got long term assets for a guy who wasn’t sticking around long term and was only going to affect your draft position in an otherwise abysmal 2020