Balta1701

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 11:14 PM) Are you actually comparing Cordell & Frazier as prospects? I mean, I’m a big Cordell fan but Frazier is on another level. After they've both had injury riddled years? Yeah I'm comparing them. Is that upgrade worth 2 decent players? If Cordell, Sanchez, and Fulmer each turn out to be 2 WAR players, to balance that, Frazier has to be a 6 WAR player in 2020. That's the comparison. God I hate this sort of deal but I get it. We're trading 2 possibly decent players and giving up on a 3rd for this upgrade. This upgrade HAS to be worth it. Convince me that the injuries are nothing. Convince me that the Yankees just made a $50 million/2 year mistake. This is a rough case.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 10:52 PM) I suggested in the Stanton thread, Sanchez + Fulmer for Frazier who says no? Sanchez would be an upgrade over Torreyes and Fulmer could compete for their 5th starter spot. I would totally hate to do this, I really would. I think Sanchez is a decent player and Fulmer may or may not be a decent pitcher. I'm not sure if Frazier is an injury related bust or not, but he was a top 10 prospect a year ago. There's a nonzero chance he's a star, there is a zero chance Sanchez is a star. I'd hate this but I'd sit down with every scout in my org and every trainer in my org, and if the reports were solidly positive I'm in. That's the kind of rebuilding gamble I would do if my trainers were ok with it. Frazier has an all star quality bat. It looked dynamite pre-injury last year, that was one quick swing. I'd hate myself for this gamble, but i'd take it. I hate gambling like that, but the reward is too great.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 10:05 PM) No one is going to give them an arm with better than back of the rotation potential for Frazier right now. Dunning and Fulmer? They’d jump at that imho. If Garcia was moved, I'd probably consider this, but gosh I want to see Cordell first. If scouts were ok moving Swarzak for him they thought there was value there. Man, maybe they say "F*** you Cordell was your mistake fix this now", but other than that...is Frazier that much better right now?

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 07:27 PM) Stanton has dealt with injury issues in the past. The track record for sluggers performing after age 30 long term is not great either. If Stanton does Great he opts out in 2020 and gets even more money, or if he regresses you are stuck with him for the next decade. There’s plenty of risk in his contract. The Yankees basically paid the price for Stanton for 2 years. If he struggles the next year or two with injury, they didn't give up much they needed, and they cleared Castro's contract over that time period. If he hits well enough that he will opt out, they are 100 win teams the next 2 years and world series contenders. Their worry is not the record of 30 year old sluggers, it is the worry of 28 year old sluggers. Hypothetically speaking, if Stanton hit FA at 30, would you sign him for 8/$240? That's what he will have remaining after 2020. I'd spend that on him.

QUOTE (SonofaRoache @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 08:06 PM) You'rw not getting top tier free agents coming off a second straight tank season. I know, why on Earth would Jon Lester accept a deal from a team that had averaged 92.5 losses the previous 2 years.

It will take 8-10 prospects to turn into a strong rotation and bullpen. We're not competing if we're scrambling to fill 2-3 positions in the rotation because someone got hurt or didn't develop well. The Yankees don't need AA level pitchers and we might have surplus of that, maybe, if things work well, but if things don't work well then we've got about enough. Wait a year. If things go well then we have a nearly full rotation out of Lopez, Fulmer, Rodon, Kopech, and Giolito, with Hansen waiting in the wings. Then we can start, for 2019, thinking of Cease and Dunning as bullpen candidates and filling guys, and if everything goes well, we can trade one of them. But, let's say Rodon's shoulder never recovers, he pitches 40 innings this year, and goes back to the DL. How we gonna replace that? Ready for a $20 million a year deal to find a replacement? We can afford one of those, but then we are deciding that we're sacrificing a different position where it would be nice to have an all star. For now...COMMIT TO THE PROGRAM. We have the league's best minor league talent. Let it stew. We worked hard this year to do this. The next step is the hard part - patience and development. Do that. Frazier does not fit with that, if he requires giving up the guys we need to develop. They want Abreu? Fine. Aside from that, a prospect for prospect deal is not what we need to be gunning for. There are better matches.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 06:20 PM) And bullpen arms can be so volitale, you could sign a stud reliever this off-season and he might be worthless when the Sox are trying to compete in 2020. QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 06:31 PM) I read an article that stated bullpen pitchers' performance isbecoming a little more consistent. The belief is that guys are being groomed to be relievers far sooner than ever before. For the 2018 offseason the trick remains - we need to look to sign guys who could become better with us. That way either they are tradeable, or if we have them for more than 1 year they are a value guy in 2019. Next offseason, I think I'm going to be wanting the big names. We'll have the money for a Kimbrel or a Miller and we will likely want someone who has playoff experience to anchor that pen.

I would very much take Clint Frazier on our roster, but we don't have any assets the Yanks could use. The main assets we have that are tradeable and MLB-proven are Abreu and Garcia and they're trading Frazier because they have no room in the middle of their order or their corner OFs. They need starting pitching that is established and will contribute next year, and they will almost certainly find someone to give them that. I would if I had it, but all I have that is established is James Shields.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 04:39 PM) The knowledgeable fans complain, but the NBA tv ratings are way up the last three years. Lots of talk that NFL owners want Silver as next commissioner. As long as the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs or Dodgers are one of the top four teams...baseball will be fine. You also might be able to add Angels with Ohtani/Trout as the fifth megafranchise. FWIW, the 2016 and 2017 world series had the highest ratings since 09 when the Yankees were last in it. And seriously, you posted the phrase "Lots of talk that NFL owners want Silver as next commissioner" 3 days after they gave Gooddell 5 years and what, $200 million?

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 04:11 PM) MLB is soon going to have the same issue that the NBA is now having. Three or four "super" teams...Dodgers, Yankees, Indians, Astros. A small number of very good teams...Red Sox, Cubs, Nats and all the rest mediocre at best or tanking / rebuilding with ZERO CHANCE to win anything. Not good for the fans and not good from a business standpoint when fans stop watching or going to games because there isn't any point. And I'd argue just the opposite, on a point. Miami actually has Stanton over a barrell. The guy wants to play for a winner and doesn't want to go through a rebuild. Fine. Miami should have said, 'you go to the Cards or the Giants or we'll trade everybody in the f***ing lineup and you'll be out there alone with no protection in last place. How would you like that?' I'm willing to bet he'd change his tune mighty quick. Instead Miami acted like Miami even with new ownership. As long as the teams that are on top swap out every few years, this setup still remains workable for MLB. White Sox and Braves come in for 2020-2022, maybe someone like Detroit and San Diego pull it together after that? The thing that kills franchises is the "10 years of mediocrity" that the Mariners are in, the White Sox did, the Royals/Pirates when they couldn't figure out how to rebuild. Give people in the city a chance to cheer for a winner once or twice while they're growing up and you've done something fundamentally different from the NBA.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 03:55 PM) How do the defensive ratings score Judge? I suspect he doesn't rate out as good as Harper and could see New York being New York and getting all three. Fangraphs graded him out as an average fielder - better than Avi Garcia in the field, for example.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 03:31 PM) If they didn't do this, they'd be in on Machado/Harper most likely. This way they didn't really have to bid with anyone and gave up close to nothing. Also opening 2B for Gleyber. Ps: you just KNEW when Stanton signed his deal that he would end up with the Yankees or Dodgers at some point. Really amazed that this seemingly does take them out of the Harper sweepstakes next offseason. They'll have the money to spend but they can't play all 3 of him, Stanton, and Judge.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 04:09 PM) I mainly was referring to the previous discussion, so I probably should have quoted Cali's post. We're talking about the Sox developing relievers, and no one mentioned Jones. I am not counting on him for anything more, plus he's on the wrong side of 30. I'm hoping for him to show he's healthy enough to be able to flip him. My mistake, I thought we were still talking about guys in our next bullpen, thanks.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 12:50 PM) I’m still trying to understand if you’re suggesting most police shootings are unwarranted because your use of the word “murder” certainly seems imply that. I think it's a fair description of this video and the use in this case is deliberate.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 03:32 PM) Did we all forget about Nate Jones? Injuries aside, he's one of the more dominant relievers in the game when his arm is right. At this point, yeah I think we can and should forget about him. If he gives a healthy first half of 2018 somehow, we should trade him. At this point we can't count on him for more than a couple months of health. The odds of him being healthy when we actually need him in 2 or 3 seasons seem extremely low.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 01:32 PM) I think it’s more that expansion is probably ready to happen. Parity is gone now? Not the league I’ve seen. AL is really good: Angels Astros Red Sox Yankees Indians Twins Mariners Easy to assume now that all work out perfectly, but look how quickly cubs went from unstoppable force for decade to fighting for division from Brewers. Their staff fell apart like that. Maybe every year will be the same 4 teams, but still likely that injuries, strange regression, and baseball happens. 2018 isn’t over. How are you defining parity? Yeah, there's 4 or 5 90 win teams on there. But there's also the White Sox, Tigers, A's, Royals, Orioles, and Blue Jays - there's going to be a number of 70 win teams on there. The Twins and maybe the Mariners, Rays, might be on the 80 win level, but it seems like we have a lot more "awful" teams and a lot fewer "2nd wild card" teams now. The games with the really good teams will be really good, but the AL is also going to feature a lot of really bad baseball teams next year and FA will not change that.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 12:21 PM) Assuming Fulmer would be too much of a risk for the Yankees? He'd be a young controllable 5th starter (potentially). I'm not sure Frazier by himself nets more than an established 3rd/4th starter type. Yeah, I was thinking they would target someone who was several years above that. Scrolling through names, now that the M's missed out on Ohtani, James Paxton was a guy that came to mind. First year arb guy, 29 years old, hasn't put up more than 136 innings in a year, but is really good when he's on the mound.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 12:12 PM) Certainly makes you wonder how the Yankees view Frazier. Not that the Sox line up as a great fit but would a package of Sanchez and Fulmer get it done for Frazier? Frazier might be the way they're thinking about satisfying their pitching needs. They probably don't have a ton of money to spend but I've got to figure they'll be after someone who is more ready.

Dude, that was some really ridiculous rant. You are in the economics thread, went from a Trump "Lock her up" chant in favor of Roy Moore, to 5 paragraphs on polling data, and then somehow that connected to insurance and then to the tax bill. Come on, clean that up and make it legible, bring it to a point, it's unreadable.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 12:12 AM) They are quite literally advocating for more dead police officers. If the choice is "more dead police officers" or "More people killed by police officers", we need to be smart enough to find a third option. Your statement could be misinterpreted the same way as "you are quite literally advocating for more people murdered by police officers".

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 12:05 PM) I like everything you're saying here. I think it's worth noting that parity might be at an all time low as well. Maybe not but it feels that way. I think that's a great thought too To stress - it doesn't mean that low payroll teams can't win. But for a low payroll team to win in this era, when the Yankees and Dodgers and Red Sox are combining big payrolls with big contracts and with big time talent coming through their systems...the way you have to win is to make yourself a 100 win team by development. If your team has to go through the "win 100 games then rebuild cycle", you still have the shot to win 100 games and put yourself in the world series. A successful rebuild is more important for competing today than it was yesterday. So parity may be going away, but the era of small market teams winning titles is not.

QUOTE (dpd9189 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 11:55 AM) I don't see how this move doesn't put the Yankees as the AL favorites for years to come. Wow. Favorites? There were two 100-win teams in the AL last year in Houston and Cleveland and they could easily do that again. This just makes for another 100-win caliber team. Right now it pushes them past Boston, but let's see what Boston does in reply. They can't sit on their hands. There could readily be 4 different 100-win caliber teams in the AL next year and injuries/guys struggling would be the difference between them.

We already have a Brewers OF in Cordell to try out.

So...I think people should remember this day. Remember the concept that KW and Hahn pushed for several years - that with enough pitching, if we could just make the Wild Card, that pitcher could go on a run and take us to the end? Take a look at the teams now. The Yankees, the first wild card team last year, won >90 games and they just added the guy who hit the most homers in baseball for basically nothing. They have enough talent coming up that even without this, you'd have thought they could be better next year. The Red Sox won >90 games in a season where their team never got comfortable and their #2 starter spent basically the whole year on the DL. The Astros won 100 games. The Indians won 100 games. There's not only 1 way to do it - you can get there by spending a lot of money and having some talent coming up (Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers), you can get there by fully rebuilding and having an enormous glut of talent come through (Indians, Astros), but if you want to be a team that does damage in the MLB now, you have to have a team on paper capable of winning 100 games. That's the message today. The AL now has 4 teams that, on paper, you can look at and say "This is a 95 win team", and that's without knowing what other teams do or what Ohtani can do. That model of "oh let's just sneak in at the backside and that's good enough", that model is broken.

Here's another stat - 1/3 of the people in this country killed by strangers are killed by police. That's rather remarkable.