Balta1701

You see a path to not sucking on that list?

If I had to pick, I'd bring back Shields and let the Yankees give me something nice for taking Gray's contract off their hands.

Which is exactly why it's so important to develop the guys we have. The only name missing from that list is basically Corbin, and he seems a very likely Yankee.

Did Kershaw opt out? Was the deadline yesterday?

After his last 2 years, I don't know if he'd get a full minor league deal, but I wouldn't write him a check for $2m.

"reset" isn't the correct word, as far as I know they've never been over it, and definitely not in the last several years where their guys were cheap. I believe the Nats and Red Sox were the only teams to pay it last year.

Yeah, it would work on paper, but really - if the Cardinals ate half that deal, they'd be asking another team to eat $24.5 million. What level of prospect do you have to get back to be willing to take on $24.5 million in payroll that otherwise might go to someone who helps you? You need a top 100 player to do that, and the Cardinals in that case would probably rather just buy out Fowler than give up that level of prospect.

If they go over the threshold they pay 20% on money spent over $206 million (Theres like an $8 million jump compared to last year). There's still a penalty for going over in year 1, but it gets bigger every consecutive year they're over. 30% in year 2, 40% in year 3, 50% in year 4. The year 3 and 4 is where it really starts to hurt teams, that's what the Yankees wanted to get out of.

The last 2 years in STL his defense has rated as bad as it did in his worst years in Colorado. $49 million remaining and given the choice last year, Adam Engel was a solid upgrade. Basically, there's a good chance that if you take him on you're buying him out for nothing. Even if the Cardinals picked up half of that deal, you're writing a $25 million check that is wasted money. They better be sending along a Luis Robert caliber prospect if they want a team to take on the whole deal.

Says everything about who you are as a person that your instinct also included the comment about the haircut.

If I had more coding experience I'd probably go for this but I'm too far away. If there's 1 or 2 languages from that list you don't know, fire in an application, worst that happens is they say no.

Worth thinking about - baseball salaries have inflated by nearly a factor of 2 over the past 15 years, and that was while the share of revenue going to players declined. If that rate continues, a guy making $25 million in 2030 could be comparable to a guy making $15 million these days as a fraction of a team's total payroll. There's some reasonable sense in backloading such a deal for that reason, and if you are gonna offer an opt out...

I just thought of this after reading your post for some reason, but Davidson also has pretty impressive platoon splits as a hitter. .882 OPS last year against lefties, .687 against righties. A team like the Dodgers that goes heavily in with using subs to get the platoon advantage - the ability to get one out could be a big deal for that team. Pinch hit the guy for the pitcher's spot, get the platoon advantage, then throw him out there against the right handed hitter or two that leads off the next inning before bringing in another reliever, and in the process it saves a roster spot for the game while still giving them that platoon advantage.

If Machado was sitting there with those offers I would happily, with this franchise, make an offer that is several years longer to beat that deal and then offer a year 4/5 opt out.

Well, they took a tiny look at him, sent him back down to the minors, then traded him. Any more hot takes?

Given his performance this year, that kind of statement has a solid potential of being "rushing him", unless literally all of his performance this year was dictated by injuries, and the White Sox will figure out how to deal with that next year to keep him healthier.

Your opening post literally is an argument to move Moncada to CF to start getting ready for Madrigal's arrival.

Saying "We need to give Madrigal time to develop power and not rush him upwards until he does" is not the same thing as saying "Madrigal is a bust who will not develop power" and no matter how many times I say that I get replies saying that I'm jumping to conclusions.

This is the first time I'm gonna say this - Roberts get your starter out of there. That last curve ball was completely hung and that was after the fastball left the park.

Well there were no excuses with Eloy either but we made some. Moncada had a wRC+ of 130, but his numbers were way down in June and July, in part due to an injury. But, we convinced ourselves that the injury was the only reason his numbers were weak, and called him up anyway. His OPS in April was .885, it dropped every month, and in July it was .762, with his worst K-rate of the year. We ignored those numbers, convinced ourselves it was the injury, and hey we needed a 2b anyway so we called him up. When you say we don't rush guys since 2017 but you can go find posts by me saying "I wouldn't call him up now he doesn't look ready to me" about Moncada when he was called up, and he was literally our top prospect, then we still have a recent history of it, and now people are arguing for the same thing with Madrigal in order to replace Moncada. Kopech was the only one I think got a reasonable treatment. He wasn't ready to start the year, and in July he started destroying everyone, and in August he was up. If Madrigal does that in April, then he's at AA in May.

Yahoo Sports saying "Boras was Joking"

If that's anyone other than the nationals is it even legal for them to have been negotiating? Edit: Per article below, answer is no, any other team it would have been tampering.

Walker's numbers weren't good...but I'm sure not starting him off at a partial-season team. Should he go up to W-S based on his draft status?

I think we should expect it takes most guys many months to adapt to each level, and I think Madrigal needs time to adjust to the level he's currently at (and maybe, uniquely in his case, to have time to hit the weight room). Want a simple standard? One sentence? Guys get called up when (gasp) their numbers and performance show they are ready to be called up, and after that point we give them the time they need to work through things at each level until their numbers show they're ready for their next callup. It's a simple standard and yet we never follow it, we always let things from the big league calendar or their draft position or their prospect ranking be more important. Moncada's numbers, especially everything after a hot April, strongly suggested he wasn't ready to be called up, but it was the trade deadline so apparently he had to be. Eloy and Kopech looked ready to be called up, but hey service time matters for one of those players. It's no mystery why one guy felt like he was being treated unfairly enough that he wrote an article called "I'm Ready" for the Players Tribune, because there's no consistency in how those guys were treated.

Frankly, yes, what people said about the guy before he was drafted is of minor importance to me right now. 2 months actually facing minor league pitchers and working with my coaches matters to me a lot more. I would go so far as to say our org would be in far better shape if, once the draft was over, they stopped caring about it and focused on what people actually were doing. Ditto prospect rankings once a guy is acquired. Moncada, Rodon, Fulmer - there’s a laundry list of guys we rushed up based on something other than their performance and the results have not been quality. Rick Hahn himself once said that the hitters will show us when they are ready to be called up, but we don’t live up to that standard.