Balta1701

The problem is that it's hard to predict any specific result. However I think there's some patterns to the two. For the Seattle trade, if Getz made the same deal a lot, he'd come out a winner most of the time. Giving up relievers is generally a strategy that returns a lot of value for a rebuilding team. Giving away years of control on a cheap reliever is a way to restock a team. Trading away guys whose elbows are starting to act up already generally is a smart strategy. If Getz made this move often, it seems likely that he would win more of these than he lost. For the Arizona trade, Getz gave up very young pitching for an OF who fits into the rotation and fills an immediate need but with something of a limited ceiling. However, pitching is so highly prized and highly sought after that there's a lot of risk in giving up young pitching. Maybe you do this deal 5 times and it works fine the first 4, you get two actual ballplayers out of those first deals, but then you give up a young pitcher who turns into a true ace 3 years down the line and you say "oh we should stop doing that".

Crochet is another guy where "actually seeing him pitch" for a while should lead to a pretty substantial increase in his value compared to today. For a guy who basically hasn't pitched in 2 years, I'd be expecting a huge discount if I was trading for him.

The problem with focusing on FIP here is that it isn't taking into account how hard the contact was he gave up. It is entirely saying "oh his BABIP is worse we can adjust for that", but his BABIP was worse because he was being hit harder. Obviously, improving over the worst defense in the league doesn't hurt, but there is a statistical reason why his xERA is quite a bit higher than his FIP. All that said, you guys have clearly established also that the stuff is still there, but he needs to find some more effectiveness with his slider. The pitcher he was last year is probably an ERA in the low 4s with a better defense behind him, would definitely like to see some improvement over that.

He was basically a full time starter last year because Dusty loved him. How much he'll be able to take I don't know, maybe he gets hurt, but if he's healthy my guess is he's the starter overall.

Colas was supposed to be an excellent RF.

We said that exact phrase last year.

Naw, not really. They might have several of them, but that's far from a surplus.

For the White Sox - the offer Baltimore was giving doesn't seem like 97% of the way there. The White Sox need guys to reshape their system. They need guys who can come in and be all stars, because they don't have that. That's different than Milwaukee's needs, where they have a strong system already so any depth they can add is helpful to them. For the White Sox, the Orioles offer was more like being offered $35k on the car that you want $80k for. It's not a terrible offer, and it's better than nothing, but you're probably not in a hurry to take that offer out of the worry that you'll crash the car.

The Commanders could absolutely put together a package to trade for the #1 if they wanted to. Their 1st this year and their 1st next year.

I would suggest skepticism over anyone claiming that this is knowable for certain. Daniel Hudson was a guaranteed injury risk, the White Sox gave him up because the pitching coach said so, he pitched well for a year and then got hurt...and since then has had a 10 year career and made over $40 million as a reliever.

If the comps have to be former Sox, I am getting a Conor Gillaspie vibe so far.

I feel like with the number of NRIs we’ve seen, guys like Colas and Sosa don’t have long.

The year is 2044. The White Sox trade for Michael Kopech’s firstborn son. Soxtalk: “could this be the final piece before a Dylan Cease trade?”

I’d imagine that several of the NRI pitchers and so forth will make the roster early.

Exactly, so when he makes the roster in April he’s an extra roster spot.

Not only was Eaton putting up a .790 OPS in his best years with the Sox, but it was an OBP heavy .790. This guy put up a walk rate in his 2nd year at AAA that was comparable to Eaton in the big leagues; for that comparison you’re counting on him being super patient in the big leagues, matching his AAA repeat numbers.

I was just wondering about this in the context of churning the roster, with guys like Pillar and all the other non roster invitees aren’t they about to need a whole bunch of roster spots?

I’m thinking specifically of his arm. I wouldn’t deal for a guy whose season ended with elbow soreness. Good luck with that to Seattle.

Fine, I was wrong, but I probably wouldn’t do this if I was Seattle.

Is Fletcher out of options? Trying to ask why the DBacks would do this deal when they could use players available now rather than a few years away.

Apparently he can pass a physical now.

This should tell us that there's more to building a successful culture on a baseball team than importing a bunch of free agent veterans though.

I think that as big of a part of it as any were the head coaches. Obsessed with certain veterans, happy to play favorites, outraged at the notion that baseball is different today than it was 20 years ago. If you put veterans into a toxic place like that, they usually turn just as toxic - and the same manager is still here. If we are wondering why Montgomery has been benched for DeJong 4 times in a week in August and are complaining about how poorly he’s treating his roster and how they still are playing favorites, remember that part of the culture, because that’s who our manager was last year.

To stress, they had plenty of so-called character guys the last few years. The situation wound up terrible because the org was terrible, not because they were missing these guys. Veterans getting special treatment because they’re veterans and the manager is a twit, veteran players expecting special treatment and whining when they don’t get it, young players who don’t get fair treatment because they’re young - these kinds of things sabotaged the org the last couple years also. The high character veterans were as much or more of a part of the problem than anyone. We should be bloody skeptical about the notion that importing veterans can import leadership if it is missing or even sabotaged internally.

Aside from the stupid Maldonado deal it’s hard to question any of these individual deals, but when you back out - they spent $30 million on this and have likely $12 million in 2025 commitments already (assuming Fedde isn’t traded), that’s a ton of money to spend on “improving character guys” when it’s hard to see almost any of it making any kind of difference long term. Amd for reference, I hate the idea of calling these guys character guys. Dallas Keuchel was supposed to be a character guy and a team leader when he was signed, KW praised him for being a leader repeatedly. He got here and called things BS that frankly were BS, and now we vilify his attitude. Lynn was a character guy until he wasn’t, and then again ripped the org on the way out. Importing culture from the Royals is a dumb strategy. Some of this money was needed for filling holes, but we should watch closely whether we get anything useful long term out of any of these moves or whether any of these so-called character guys rip the org behind the scenes. The last batch of character guys did that all the time.