Look at Ray Ray Run

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.

If you pretend 2016 didn't exist and somehow the Yankees didn't brainwash two teams into giving them way too much for relievers, there's really no precedent of an elite prospect being traded for a Bpen arm. I think 2016 was not the norm. Osuna obviously had other things hampering his market (being a massive POS), but he was moved for another top talent RP. Britton had been hurt, but he was moved for middling prospects. Mejia was probably the highest priced paid, and he was trending downward at the time of his trade - anywhere from 25-40th in baseball. He was a 1 for 1 for Hand as well. If you view Robert as a top 3 prospect and talent, no way does he move for a reliever but it's all about how you value him. There's a huge value difference between a top 3 guy and a 20th ranked guy.

Chris Archer was worse than Ivan Nova and he was in the NL. Archer is awful now.

I think, at this point, Hader is a reliever. The Brewers have had SP issues, yet they've never attempted to stretch him out. It appears that his 3rd pitch never quite developed, and he is certainly a max effort guy as a reliever - you have to wonder how much juice and life his fastball would lose as a starter. The reluctance of the Brewers to put him there would lead me to believe that he just didn't play up as a starter. Reminds me a bit of the Aroldis Chapman situation.

We get that you dont like Madrigal. If the Sox thought Madrigal was only as good as Yolmer they would likely trade him. I agree it's important to be able to evaluate your talent in house and move the pieces you think are overrated. That's important for a rebuild as well. I just dont think the sox should be in a position to move any of their huge prospects that were listed - maybe Vaughn if they felt inclined. Kopech and cease? Too risky to move either imo. Madrigal and Robert? Floors are too high to move those guys imo.

Why give up assets when you can buy those pieces for nothing but money when going young was supposed to open up your financial flexibility?

Idk, I imagine he has budgets every season and this just gave him a little more flexibility this year by putting 5 million on last years budget.

They put it on 2019. I imagine for their budgetary purposes it bought them an additional 5 million this year. It's an article posted in the abreu thread here. Says it's only 11 million this year for them for abreu.

There was a link posted here.

Abreu signing bonus was put into 2019

For dynasty, they really lag behind imo.

Would love to do another like this. I have one league going 15 years. Would love to add a second. $500 min would be great as a buy in because the time commit is significant. If we cant get 10-12 at $500, we could try $300. I'm interested.

So it looks like none of these roster moves meant anything.

Who said he hasnt been claimed?