Balta1701

We also call this "The 2015 MLB season".

There were 2 events on December 15 - the McCann signing and the Alonso trade and Hahn had a press conference call that day for the articles in the paper in the morning. You can probably guess what most of the questions were about, but there were some quotes in the articles talking about the young catchers.

Because it would be bizarre to have a signing with no press availability with the player?

Does Yonder count as family? If he wants to do what is best for Yonder...

You and your coded language again, you said roster spot, not starting spot. In 2020, unless we sign a former NL MVP, obviously we need outfield spots available because that's the year the glut at AA this year, including Robert and Adolfo, should be approaching the bigs and breaking in sometime. So yeah, he's got to basically be an all star at some position for me to consider him for a permanent starting spot. And hell, if he was that good there's a decent chance I might be thinking about trading him to clear that spot.

A starting spot or a backup spot? They already play him somewhat at CF so he can cover all 3 positions, and he put up '17 Leury-like numbers then I'd go with him as the primary backup OF in 2020. If he puts up age 26 Haniger numbers then we can start wondering what kind of trade haul Robert will bring.

There have been plenty that have smoke to them. The biggest of course was the Chris Sale deal - everyone knew that was coming we just didn't know where. People (Chili) had Herrera several days early just last week.

You know, this seems like a great reason to put your opt-out after the "2022 season", if there is such a thing.

I gotta see serious positive S*** in the big leagues. 2 years ago when Leury put up a .739 OPS in the big leagues in 300 PAs, something like that.

Your coded language is equally strange and I would appreciate a cipher be included in the post next time.

That wasn't just a problem in the OF at the time, the OF was just the worst part and still is. There were slots for pitchers at A ball, but if your offer is Cordell vs. some particularly weak A-ball pitching, you take Cordell, and you really don't want to trade for A-ball relievers.

At the time our A-ball teams didn't have a whole lot of at bats available, especially in the OF.

Well just from modern baseball we've got Votto, Kershaw, Mauer, Felix, Pedroia, Braun, Posey, Y. Molina - that's everyone with over 39 rWAR on a single team. Maybe some get dealt in their last year or something like that.

He's one I'm skeptical about the rushing mattering. Gordon never was really pushed to develop his swing, and since he was literally destroying minor league pitching at the time he was called up there's no sign that he'd have gone into a slump in the minors and really been forced to work on getting out of it. Dude was only in Charlotte for a bit but he went 14/30. He didn't really hit slumps until he got to the big leagues, and then when he started working on his swing everything just fell apart. It'd be like calling Eloy up last year - yeah it was fast, but he was simply better than the league he was in.

The problem for the White Sox is that no deadline they can set is believable except for Opening Day. No one honest thinks this team is good enough to be 1 piece away from competing next year, even if they signed Harper first. If the White Sox set a deadline, and then Machado's side came to them a week later and said "we'll accept an 8 year/$240 million deal" the White Sox would shake his hand and print him a uniform. The Yankees - you could believe it, they might just go out and sign a cheap 2b somewhere to replace Neil Walker. The Phillies you might believe it, they could go do damage elsewhere and improve their roster. But the White Sox? Go ahead, sign Keuchel and Pollock and turn down Machado if he comes back, and congratulations on your 70 wins I hope it was worth it.

I don't know what the dollar amounts for Pollock would be, but man that makes an awful lot of sense for the Phillies.

You're right, 2nd round pick. Stupid ESPN article only talked about the luxury tax and revenue sharing teams, not the ones in-between.

I believe it would cost us our 3rd round pick.

I'll be honest, if the Sox only sign 1 of the 2 big ones, and Keuchel could be had on a 1 year deal, I'd probably be ok with that. I hate the idea of a 2 year deal because of all the pitching arriving in 2020, but on a 1 year deal?

I just can't get worked up to complain about athletes when billionaire owners are taking a progressively larger slice of the earnings over time.

There's got to be a fundamental rethink of the economics. Right now, the economics of baseball have pushed too many teams to the point where your statement "Teams want to win" is no longer true. As a consequence, there is no longer enough demand for guys who can win 1-2 extra games for teams to satisfy the number of players available. One other way you could change that is to make it less viable to build with young players - by making them more expensive or by doing something else that similarly shifts teams' motivation.

I'm sure you already know this, but most union contracts include a "no strike" clause whereby a person can be terminated from their contract if they go on strike while the contract is in operation. Cub fans right now are encouraging Jason Heyward to go on strike, for example.

Jeff Keppinger. He's the guy who was so bad that I had to mentally reevaluate how I thought about the free agent market.

Remember they also wouldn't be outbid for Corbin.