Look at Ray Ray Run

Man, he must have had a hell of a second half because he wasn't very good in the first half. That's a nice season despite the k rate increase. If he duplicates that, you are correct - he doesn't need to get any better. Had no idea he had that big of a second half.

He made a swing change in the minor leagues right before the season started. There wasn't much that was flukey about his two months - his MiLB production had soared as well. His power may be very real. He hit 47 homers in 134 games. That's pretty good regardless of level and etc. I tend to side with you, but I do think he's an MLB regular with that power and I do think the power is real. The question is, can he find consistency.

Depends what you think of Senzel and Aquino. If you think their bonafide stars, that's not a bad lineup if they add another piece to it. Suraez and Votto could use a rejuvenated year though.

Yeah, but Grandal had a 3 year period with wRC+ of 121, 102, 125. A catcher ages even faster too. It's bizarre all around, but I understand the owners plan and goal.

Yeah, minimize salary growth over a few year period in the middle of the CBA, and then give them a slight escalation before negotiations to argue you haven't been doing that; hoping that recency bias overcomes the fact that they allowed salaries to stagnate for 3 years while revenues continued to grow. I don't see it working as a negotiating strategy, but I imagine the FA"s this year are happy. How can one argue that Mous and Grandal are worth MORE this off-season than last? You can't, so the only explanation is the above imo.

Wow, this is a lot more than I figured. This is a bad contract by the Reds, but good on Mous. MLB teams seem to be handling this off-season a little differently... with the CBA coming to a close. Seems like ownership may be looking to reverse the salary suppression belief.

Good for Mous.

I don't want to take this too far off topic, but the difference between 8 WAR from one player and 2-3 WAR is incredible. Trout is likely worth about 60-70 million a year, because replacing him is impossible.

Agree to disagree. Trout could be worth 50% of what he was worth in his first 9 years and he'd be worth his contract. I don't think people realize how historically good Trout is and people like him have aged really gracefully. Trout isn't going to fall off the face of the earth, for example.

If Robert ends up being worth 1/5th of what Trout was worth through his age 28 season, I think Sox fans would be happy. 1/5th! I love Robert; I am super excited for his arrival. Saying you wouldn't trade Luis Robert for Mike Trout is just crazy talk though. 400 million for Trout is a bargain.

You wouldn't trade Luis Robert for Mike Trout straight up? Say what? "Just spend it on Betts?" Betts is very good; he's still significantly worse than Mike Trout. If the Angels called and offered the Sox Trout for Robert today, and the Sox rejected, it that would be worthy of changing fanhoods. Trout might end up as the greatest of all-time - if not that, then in the top 5. I'd trade Madrigal and Robert for Trout.

I'd trade him for this guy:

Preller would still be trading for OF'er. You can never have too many!

I don't know how Tim is going to bounce back, but it's going to be hard to consider them a "terrible defensive team" next year. They'll have a very good defensive 3rd baseman (top 5 last year), an elite defensive 2nd baseman (Madrigal), a very good defensive catcher, a very good defensive CF'er, and the talent at SS to be above average to good at the position. If Tim shows some consistency next year, you're talking about having ++ defenders at every important defensive positions (SS, CF, Catcher, 2nd and 3rd). LF and RF could be really bad, and 1st base won't be good until Abreu is DH'ing full time but with McCann and Grandal playing some over there it should be better.

They're actually a good example of how you can fuck up a lot of good, young assets, by supplementing them with albatross contracts that don't work out. Conforto, Noah, Wheeler, Nimmo, Alonso, JD Davis, McNeil, Degrom, Maatz and Rosario is a heck of a young core. The problem is they've supplemented them with Cespedes, Cano, Diaz and other bad signings/contracts. Maatz obviously didn't pan out and Rosario hasn't been as good as advertised or believed, but that'll happen with young prospects. They are both still nice MLB pieces.

It feels like the Mets have alternated off-seasons between "competing" and "blowing it up" about 6 years in a row. It's a weird way to operate, and doesn't really make a lot of sense from a messaging standpoint. As an organization, it seems there are far too many messages and directions coming out.

Profar over Urias; interesting swap for the Padres. Can't say I like it, but Preller certainly has his own way of executing.

Negative. The Wilpons scammed a shit ton of people with Bernie. Bernie tried to cover for Fred when he was busted and claims "he knew nothing about the Ponzi Scheme" but Fred isn't a dumb guy; there were tons of huge red flags regarding their absurd return rates from Bernie's "investments." It was rather obvious what was going on, but people like Fred figured they'd ride the wave out because it was incredibly lucrative to them. People at the bottom bought into the absurd return guarantees and etc because they were naive - someone like Fred Wilpon cannot claim that same naivety. Bottom line, Fred benefited greatly from the scam - he benefited more than almost anyone else in involved. He is scum, and shouldn't be allowed to own a MLB team.

This is not true. Wilpon lost nothing in the Madoff scandal - regardless of how much he and his family played themselves off as just another victim. Wilpon made a ton of money working WITH Madoff. Anything they "lost" at the end was, at worse, a wash for the Wilpons. Knowing how these people handle and move money though, there's no chance they lost money with the Madoff scandal. They came out well ahead; as has been reported by others that aren't me. There's a reason they were sued along with Bernie and it's because that POS was complicit but escaped criminal prosecution. Fuck the Wilpons. edit; just to clarify, the only reason the Wilpons had the money to buy the Mets in the first place was because of their dealings with scum like Madoff. They're not suffering because of Madoff, they're just closer to their reality of net-worth.

Yeah, and Hahn has been absolutely awful in FA and has been ripped and ridiculed endlessly for his participation and lack of success in that market... You've certainly been HIGHLY critical of him, and rightfully so, yet here you are defending the Cano deal which falls in line with the value the Sox have been getting out of FA. You can't have it both ways.

Paying for the first few years? Pal, you're not signing 10 year deals in hopes of getting 5 good years. No one is doing that. 50% of the contract cannot be an albatross - especially when he simply played to the contracts value the first 5 years, he certainly didn't exceed the value of the contract. Had he greatly exceeded the contracts value early, you'd have more of an argument, but he didn/t 21 WAR over 240 million is not a good outcome. lt's actually WORSE than what teams pay per WAR when factoring in all the bad contracts as well. This means it falls on the wrong side of the normal curve, and it is in fact a bad contract. That's 11.5 million/per WAR when, at the time, teams were paying 8.5 million/WAR. That means that contract is 35% worse than the expected outcome, which is not a good deal by any means - especially when you consider that "good contracts" need to fall on the other side of the 8.5/WAR curve. 8.5/WAR just means it wasn't as bad as it could be, but it certainly wasn't "good." Obviously if he throws out a couple league average years of 2WAR, this moves the needle closer to the 8.5 number, but I don't think anyone could argue this was a good deal. I actually do understand the free agent market, which is why I am saying if you fall on the right side of the curve you should not be happy with the outcome.

This year has just been an abortion. They run a 5 out offense with poor shooters and two bigs that were supposed to be able to spread the floor, but can't. They drafted a big with a decent mid-range game, but they refuse to allow him to take anything that could be considered mid-range (I don't hate this, but at the same time there are stats that support the mid-range game for certain big men as they are efficient enough to execute it) Their defensive sets, I don't really even think there's enough time to critique everything wrong with this side of the ball. The Bulls still believe archaic nonsense such as three pointers lead to fast break points; when in fact, it's the exact opposite - shots in the paint lead to fast break opportunities. They are the laziest and most disorganized fastbreak team in the NBA - both defensively and offensively. They somehow LEAD the NBA in shots at the rim, while also being dead last at conversion rate - this is quite the accomplishment, and not something you see everyday. Their entire offense collapses on the paint after nearly every single shot up - which destroys their fast break defense. Their defense grades out poorly but it's actually EVEN worse than you think. They've actually been the luckiest team in the NBA when it comes to outcomes against; their guards keep no one in front of them, and they allow the most shots at the basket in the NBA but they have been lucky and teams haven't converted at the expected rate. Lavine worked all off-season on his defense and he's somehow worse. His defensive awareness looks like Ben Gordon 2.0. He goes under on shooters, while fighting over on guys that can get by him into the paint. He doesn't rotate with the ball, and he gives way to "rim protectors" that simply don't exist far too frequently. You'd think with his defensive style he'd be great on the fast break going the other way, but he actually tends to crash the glass - as do the other guards - which doesn't have anyone leaking out. Boylen is a disaster because he's simply teaching systems he's seen work elsewhere with entirely different personnel. His rotations are absolutely atrocious - he doesn't understand the concept of match-up basketball. This team needs to blow it up again. At least their bad enough that they're no longer in basketball hell.

I mean... he got a 10 year contract, and after 5 years it looks like it's a huge loss. He was a .8 WAR player in the 6th year. If he continues that downward trajectory, he's basically worthless years 6-10 of the deal. I don't think they wanted to get 21 WAR over 10 years. If he puts up anything less than 25 WAR, which looks very likely at this point, at the time he signed the contract that would make it a bad deal.

Omar signed up to be the manager of a Mexican team; seems there weren't a lot of big league organizations breaking his doors down.

Giolito taking another step forward would make him the "best pitcher in baseball" good. He was a top 6 pitcher in WAR/rate last year. I think Giolito can duplicate last year, with a few more innings, over the next few years and the Sox would be ecstatic.