Balta1701

I believe they released the full results right before they applied for the emergency use authorization in November, which is the same stage as for this. I was complaining about lack of openness in ~June, and those companies responded well by August.

January 29th would have apparently worked fine. Still weeks before spring training.

Is it worth noting that I'm not a fan of how they released only partial data compared to the other vaccines at the same point?

Even if you weren't going to sign Pederson because of a platoon thing or whatever, Joc has been better than Eaton and is substantially younger. At the very least, Eaton should be paid less than Joc. If Eaton was being paid $4 million instead of $7 million, there is money right there to be able to afford a back end pitching acquisition.

Things the title put in my head:

Over the last year, Joc was 0.4 fWAR better (although both were bad). Over the past 2 years, Joc was 1.0 fWAR better. Over the last 3 years, Joc was 1.8 fWAR better. While there is no guarantee when you're playing the weak part of the FA market, there has been a significant difference consistently over the last 3 seasons, since Eaton's major leg injury.

Is there anything Gamestop et al. could do to take advantage of this to support the company (i.e. issuing more shares or something like that)?

When they tried to put him in the bullpen, his wife was on twitter during the middle of a baseball playoff game saying how they shouldn't be putting him in the bullpen.

It’s rather interesting how so many people are now implicitly saying “Don Cooper was just plain awful for years” and yet don’t take the next step of asking “so why did the Front Office keep him on for so long if he was doing that much damage?”.

If someone could figure out the cap details, I’d listen.

S***.

You realize that he said 2022 would be the season with no baseball, not 2021 right?

That's fine. Except, in that context - the moves this offseason make no sense. Giving up Dunning for Lynn, trading 6 years of control for 1 and using up 1/3 of the payroll you can add this offseason in the process, is very much an all in style move. Signing the best closer on the market and spending the next half of your available funds on him is very much a "win right now this year" move. If we were playing the long game, there's a different way to do it. Hold onto young guys like Dunning, continue developing them, take advantage of them being cheap this year. Sign cheaper options - Colome or Hand instead of Hendricks. Sign guys for depth - Quintana or Richards or whoever your pitching coach likes. They're trying to thread this needle of "hurting ourselves in the future just enough to help this year, but not so much that it hurts us a lot", and it has left them with weaknesses this year and long term.

My goodness the NL would be loaded. This would start feeling like the NBA in terms of one loaded conference and one weak one.

If this team is struggling to afford a $120 million payroll right now, they already have $117 million on the books for next year before any arbitration cases are offered, and obviously if not extended Giolito will get offered even if terrible things happen. Can they afford to have $145 million on the books for next year without having to sell off a player?

This is a likely playoff team. However, there are some clear risks to that statement, which could have been mitigated and haven't been.

I dont think it’s necessarily true that they were surprised by the spending limits. If nothing else major happens (still an if), then I think Rick Hahn said “there is absolutely no scenario where my team misses the playoffs, so I am going to target players that help in the playoffs.” If you were interested in the regular season, you would have built more rotation depth, most likely by holding onto Dunning. You would have added a backup catcher. You might add someone else to the DH rotation, as insurance does people getting hurt. You might well have still traded for Lynn, but you would have used Kelley as the main piece since he’s years away. You probably don’t pay for the number one closer on the market, instead you say that Hand or Colome are good enough and might well cost you zero games. If you are playing for the playoffs, you have Lynn able to pitch game 2 or 3, you maybe run Cease and a bullpen game in game 4, and you know that if someone gets in trouble early you have Bummer available because Hendricks can end the game. Rotation spots 4 and 5 and 6 matter less. Less need for a DH. By doing this, if anything goes wrong or someone gets hurt, he may well have left Minnesota or BC Cleveland a way to sneak in around them. It may work, but that’s the bet.

Not what I said. He was getting that much last year and at that time his family member was publicly calling out his employer for not using him in the right way.

I am not doing any of this but have seen lots of statements about TD Ameritrade doing the same thing.

I want nothing to do with a guy who is getting paid $4 million, can't stay healthy, has to be moved to the bullpen just to get him back onto the roster after an injury, and who then has/lets his wife publicly call out the team on Twitter for putting him in the bullpen to get him back on the active roster. However that went down, that is not acceptable.

Eric Bieniemy is so good at his current job that it has stalled his career.

You lost me at "I wanted Innings so Carlos Rodon is an option".

If this is all they do this offseason, blowing half of your available payroll on the most expensive closer on the market while ignoring other needs seems risky.

That’s also the season where a large chunk was off the books as Robert’s signing bonus and penalty.