Eminor3rd

But remember how fun it was when they trade for injured Jake peavy?

I’m not sure if it helps us make a deal with LAD. If anything, I’d think it makes them more likely to spend money on pitching instead, allowing them to continue to clutch prospects. Agree on BAL though.

This would shock me. If true, I gotta imagine the Dodgers are about to spend some angry money on the top pitchers remaining.

Yes but… this is a rebuild, and he’s likely to get some real money. The entire offseason has operated precisely like year Two normally would, the only difference is we haven’t traded all our guys yet because they’re all at the nadir of their value, except Cease who will move soon and Robert who could be around for the next push. I expect anyone who recovers value to be jettisoned at the deadline. To be honest, if you accept my premise of a rebuild occurring slightly out of order, Getz isn’t doing a horrible job so far. The first real test, though, is typically the trades that he hasnt quite made yet.

It’s B. It’s basically extremely light hazing. The entire organization runs like that, from sales to operations. The attitude is “you’re lucky you have the opportunity to be here, so stfu and comply. If you don’t get it, you’re not meant to be a Yankee(tm).”

Like it makes me wonder if the issue is really just JR insisting on surrounding himself exclusively with spineless yes-men, that won’t push back on anything, because it’s not like JR LIKES to waste money. Has no one really showed him a $/WAR curve?

No I’m saying there are owners that won’t spend much money and try to be smart about it, and there are owners that will spend lots of money and try to be smart about it, but we have the only one that will spend money but be patently stupid about it, even when every other team demonstrates how to do it better.

There’s no other ownership group that is both (1) willing to dip into the top 5-10 total payroll range relatively frequently and (2) not willing to spend even half of what the going rate is for a single star free agent. It makes so little sense it’s practically impossible that the next group would handicap itself in the same way.

I just want to note that the tweet didn’t indicate there had been any talks between the two at all. It’s just an offhand suggestion from someone who clearly hasn’t paid attention to the acquisitions the Sox have already made the past few weeks.

Ok, this actually makes me feel WAY better about the move.

Yes, but... that's faint praise, no?

Well, I mean, ok. I love both of those guys, but, the Sox got one 1WAR season out of Shingo. I'll grant you Iguchi unconditionally. But the world was a very different place back then.

Oh I agree. Just saying, the next time the Sox figure something out that no one else knows in Asia will be the first time

You never know how these guys will translate, really have to depend on your scouting. With the White Sox as the most (only?) aggressive suitor, unfortunately I have to believe it's more likely a bad signing. I highly doubt they even got a live look at him. But whatever, hope I'm wrong.

Sorry — Fedde was KBO, I really only follow NPB. All I know about Fedde is that he dominated the league. Not sure what he changed, if anything.

Braves just making sure every change-of-scenery dude in the whole league gets his scenery changed.

Didn’t he turn $400m down already?

Maybe as a coach?

I'm really curious how many teams view Yariel as a potential starter, and if that will utlimately affect his decision and/or the money he's offered. To me, he's a high-leverage reliever that can do multiple innings, but a rebuilder like the Sox would have little to lose by promising him a chance to start and just seeing how it goes, if it got him to sign.

I'll check it out -- honestly I'm not sure why I haven't yet. I've heard it referenced several times over the years.

I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the research in that book, but I'd point out a couple things: 1) As you acknowledged, it would be a gross understatement to point out that things have changed since 1995. In fact the very strike event that is subject was a watershed moment for MLB labor that has kicked off three decades of major gains in terms of revenue invested into player labor. Inflation since then is roughly 100%, but MLB salaries have grown at closer to 400% over the same time span. Also the internet happened, and major bumps in broadcast revenue. In the 90s, front offices had a couple dozen full-time employees, today there are a couple hundred. This is all good news -- but the reality is that the economic landscape from then to now isn't similar. I have no idea how much profit Jerry Reinsdorf, for example, was pulling in 1995, but there's a good reason he wanted to collude with all his other cronies back then, and his fear has become a reality. Player salaries are literally the majority of the operating cost today, and that's crazy when you consider the cost of operating a stadium nearly daily for six months out of the year. 2) I haven't read the book, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the analyses of that type I've seen over the years include asset value as part of the "losing or making money" equation. That is very important when the question is whether or not owners deserve any measure of subsidy for investment (they don't) and or whether or not we should sympathize with them when they cry poor (we shouldn't), but it's very different from the issue of annual liquid revenue, and more specifically, the ability for an org to cover significant spending increases based on team need. I'll just reiterate that I'm not suggesting for a moment that all the owners are doing just fine and always will be. It's just important to make the distinction between the entity that owns the capital an the entity that actually makes up and runs the business. And is is critically important for ALL of us -- fans, players, employees, etc. -- that the business remain healthy, because as icky as it feels, without the business, none of this even exists.

You say this a lot but, you have to recognize that there is a difference between the wealth of the owner and the operating revenue of a team. The latter is liquid, the former is overwhelmingly not, and much of it is tied in the market value of the franchise itself. If your argument is that the owner should continually liquidate wealth to infuse more cash into the team at a loss until he/she runs out of money: well ok, I guess you can want that, but even if it happened, the owner would be setting off a spiral that would make the franchise insolvent, torpedo its value (which represents a great deal of the wealth in question in the first place), eventually leading to hundreds of lost jobs and a set of tremendous tax burdens on the city. I say this as someone who believed as you do for a long time, and I do really get it, but I have actually “seen the books” and I think everyone would be surprised to see how narrow the margins actually are year over year. The reason owning a team is a good investment is not because they print money — it’s because the franchise value increases reliably and significantly over time, but that value isn’t just something you can withdraw like a bank account. You can take loans against it, but again, that gets dicey really quickly if you do it very often. Believe me, I have no tears to spare for the rich. But it isn’t as simple as “be less greedy”

There’s no reason not to wait. Yamamoto’s posting window is known and limited. No team is grading Imanaga/Uwasawa in the same class as Cease, and Glasnow costs four times as much in terms of salary and with only one year of control. Half the teams will rightfully balk at Snell’s price because of his peripherals. There will come a time in January when Cease is the premier piece on the market, both free agent and trade, and there are already more suitors than available alternatives.

I'm holding on Eloy for sure. If you want to move him, now isn't the time. He has so much more value to gain from a healthy season than he has value to lose from another mediocre one. And you're not reinvesting the money in any meaningful way anyhow.

Jfc. Can you imagine if they did this AFTER acquiring three middle infielders.