WestEddy

For years after my brother died, my wife would remind me that I was angry and acting like a jerk days before the anniversary of his death. I can understand that the whole month of January is probably like that for you. You are in my thoughts.

The "majority" of posters (meaning, the people you pay attention to) also twist themselves into pretzels to pretend good moves are bad, and that every player not picked off of waivers was surely a 4-WAR player who would have brought back a "haul" in return at the TDL. A $4M contract isn't a lot of money. Weird that Austin Hays still hasn't signed. Maybe the rest of baseball has the same concerns Chris Getz had/has. I like to defend logical thinking. We know why Maldonado was signed. We don't have to pretend that Chris Getz was so dumb, he thought he just signed a 10-WAR catcher. EDIT: And I'm sure if you read through, you'll see me saying I didn't like the signing, either. They could have done that all with somebody who would have been productive. The only way it makes sense was that Maldonado was a "veteran" presence, and Grifol wanted him. And by "makes sense", I don't mean, "I love this move, gimme more!!!" I mean that I can understand the thinking behind it, even while disagreeing.

No you don't. You might as well find a flaw in Charles Comiskey's management skills, then apply them to Reinsdorf. The crazy thing is that some of the people you mention as only "leadership" were already under contract. Teams expect vets to exude "leadership". If that's a problem for you, then maybe you have a problem with all of sports.

I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to assume Grifol wanted Maldonado to help keep control of the clubhouse. Could they have had him cheaper? I guess. That's the guy asking why we care about saving Reinsdorf money, then complains about every contract.

...And the Red Sox shouldn't have sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. I'm a 20/20 hindsight genius, too.

COVID TV is all a blur, now. Some recent TV show or movie had a person throwing up in the mascot costume. Can't remember, which show.

Will Southpaw do 21 shots on his 21st birthday? Right before first pitch, preferably.

And of course, San Diego making the move that is going to bring Sasaki home:

Bumped up to stay with the same group of prospects.

For when he sends us Gunnar for international space.

With the new administration taking over Monday, for some this will seem like weeks. For others, a decade...

So potent, his gaffe took David Lynch with him. RIP.

Begin speaking of Jacob Amaya in whispered, "we're seeing greatness" tones ..... NOW!

New friend alert:

James Fegan has more:

Top 4 announced:

Oh, sure. If they explode, they're still going to lose 100 games. But we're finally at year zero of the next rebuild. Last year was like the plane crash on Lost. This year is like early season one, where everybody's just gathering provisions and making friends.

edit

I don't know. I'm excited to see the infield competition, and how that shakes out. I'm also very interested in watching the young rotation of Cannon, Martin, Burke and Thorpe. Last year, my senses were dulled to Lopez, DeJong, Pillar, Flexen. At least we're watching the next team develop, a bit.

Teams probably positioning to sweep up some commits.

WS2023 brought him up. Only cost international signing space

One would hope that will be part of his stated growth. Steve Stone or Hawk might garner respect for having played the game. Bennetti earned it through his preparation. Maybe Shriffen will become the trash talk announcer that players start to think is cool in time. He's got to get there, first.

While SS2k5 does get needlessly pithy, I've done some soul-searching, myself, while reading strings these last few months. WAR and defensive rankings are universally accepted methods of rating baseball players. Any "problem" you feel you have with their methods have already been argued by people who are way smarter than any of us, here. The people who have established them for Baseball-Prospectus and Fangraphs have already argued them out on their platforms. The undervaluing of 1B gets accounted for, oftentimes, in real time. Baseball-Reference has updated their model multiple times, which results in a reseeding of stats. Yes, 30 HRs at 1B may get lost at 1B, while 30 HR at SS is praised, but the ding in value often comes in defensive contributions. Pick two guys. Freddie Freeman, 1B, and Jackson Merrill, CF. They have wOBA's .011 points from each other, and their offensive score is 2.2 from each other. Merrill rates a 6.5 on defense, whereas Freeman is a -9.0. Merrill gets a 5.4 fWAR, Freeman gets a 4.2. While similar on offense, Merrill plays a harder position better, and Freeman plays an easy position below average. I'm not the best person to argue this, as I'm not a mathematician who knows this stuff inside out. So it's great that you decide to have a problem with WAR. It's okay to state that, have a few volleys, then move on. Otherwise, it turns into pages of "yes it is", "no it isn't", "yes it is".....

Hoopster made a bunch of arguments, one of which was that defensive ratings are subjective, which just isn't true. Read up on the MLB explanation of DRS, and you'll see it's a lot more comprehensive than somebody deciding a player could have caught a ball, or not.