Balta1701

Caulfield did not make that guess. Here is the original person to blame:

They've sort of got a lot of "back of the rotation decent money types" with Chatwood, Tanner Roark, Ross Stripling, and Robbie Ray. They could certainly still use a TOR guy and move any of those pitchers to the bullpen. But they may also decide they've just got enough depth.

3 minutes later....”Padres sign George Springer”...

So do the Padres have enough coming up to do this again next offseason?

If it wasn't for that, I'd say "Let's see how he looks in spring training, and figure things out when we have more up to date information". Hell, AAA might not even exist for all we know.

Fine it's because he's on an innings limit nudge nudge wink wink I promise not to testify before an arbitrator when it just so happens that it also limits his service time. Yes there's other motives that play a role, but the fact that it happens to save the org a year of control...yeah that's as high as any.

Especially if they are expecting Kopech to start at AAA for service time manipulation. I assume starter #5 right now has to be Lopez right?

The logic in this case is that the President is actually in charge of the people who would have the job of prosecuting him, which creates an unavoidable contract of interest at the federal level. Thus, the first step is not a legal step, but is instead a political step that is outlined in the constitution, impeachment - removing him from office to strip him of that control over the justice department first. Without creating additional rules to guarantee the independence of federal prosecutors or to separate the DOJ from the President, that isn't an unreasonable logic train. That's the way the system is supposed to work - if the President is committing multiple crimes or trying to overthrow Democracy, the Constitution assumes he will not have an entire political party supporting those crimes.

While they'd still be vulnerable to righties, Cruz put up a 1.450 OPS last year against lefties. Could that lineup go 162 without losing to a lefty? I'm half serious, left handed starters should just forfeit.

Mind you, I still prefer Quintana, but I'll give it a shot. Richards has a far higher ceiling than Quintana. Last year, many of his numbers were back to where they were when he was starting for the Angels. His fastball velocity is still hanging out at 95, his K rate was comparable, his walk rate was strong, his ERA was hurt a little bit by a higher fly ball and home run rate. It's entirely plausible that he's fully recovered from a multi-year injury and could be a real comeback player of the year candidate. As summarized here, there's also reason to believe that if he were given a chance to develop and pitch a full season with a modern pitching coach, he could gain additional effectiveness on his pitches. https://metsmerizedonline.com/2020/11/mmo-free-agent-profile-garrett-richards-rhp.html If Quintana were starting a playoff game, in general that would mean something bad happened, he should be a worse option than some of the other guys in this org. However, Richards could possibly be a guy that breaks out again this season and becomes a real strong pitcher on that pitching staff. It's reliability vs. risk + possible reward.

I can't imagine the chain of events that would have to happen to make a 1 year and $25 million or so option make sense to both the team and the player. It basically wouldn't be worth the ink used to print that part of the contract. But, if someone in the chain of people who had to agree to the contract thought "that's a brilliant idea!" and that got them on board, so be it.

Paying for an older DH near the end of their career has to work sometime though right?

I could totally understand Giolito signing a 4 year extension because that takes some of the money and turns it into a guarantee. Guaranteeing oneself $40 or $50 million or whatever against injury, that’s a pretty reasonable move for a pitcher and worth giving up a year of control. Its that second year Id say “don’t do this”, those prime years are just so valuable and the risk for a pitcher to get hurt during any year is high enough that it isn’t a very smart move.

Well, I’ve seen guys sign things before where I’ve said they should fire their agent (cough Yoan cough), but if I had a pitcher like this as a client and they were 3 years from free agency, I’d advise them strongly against giving up 2 years of control under any circumstances. If the team didn’t want to do anything other than a 5 year deal, I’d tell them to just play out the arbitration years.

The writings of the Founders suggest that they very much intended the pardon power to be broad. There are at least 30 times when pardons have been issued to cover broad groups of likely illegal actions before charges were filed, going back to at least the war of 1812. https://www.justsecurity.org/73851/the-constitutionality-of-non-specific-pardons/ It seems one big reason why the court hasn’t declared this ok is that courts very rarely have anyone try to challenge a pardon, it’s just been assumed the President can of course do that.

I think you are right. I don’t know that they will get more than 1 year of free agency bought out, but I think they could probably get one. Give up 1 year in exchange for guaranteeing $50 million or so isn’t a bad move.

Altogether they spent about $50 million before 2019, counting those guys, acquiring Colome, Herrera, Nova, McCann, etc. McCann worked out great, Colome was useful the next year, but that was a lot of money to waste on a non competitive 2019 season.

“The money wasted on those guys was inconsequential” White Sox: “loses the guy they tried to acquire over money”.

Can the Bears steal Huntley? Without first team reps and in rough weather conditions that was really impressive.

I genuinely don’t know if his justices are so in debt to him that they will rule that a president can commit crimes and pardon himself. They may be. But if they do, we have to amend the constitution afterwards. That just can’t be legal forever.

Buffalo at Kansas City is going to be a beautiful matchup to watch. I hope it’s as good in reality as it is on paper.

Well, it’s a 3 year window right now, but who knows what moves happen until then. You should draft and sign a few top 30 prospects by then just by random chance even if you’re not good at those things. People will get hurt. Robert could be...well...Godlike. The goal right now is to win a title in the next 3 years. If they win one, you’re talking about a franchise that looks like a different beast in contracts. After that, you figure that out as things develop. Put the best team on the field we can the next 3 years. I question whether giving up Dunnings 3 cheap years makes sense in that goal, but if Lynn is as good as he was in 2019 then it works. Hendricks closing is perfect, can offer zero complaints do that more. Eaton...well...god help us I got no excuse for that.