caulfield12

"In baseball’s ever-evolving landscape of redemption stories, Kyle Hart‘s trajectory stands as a testament to perseverance and adaptation. The southpaw, who once wore the Boston Red Sox uniform before becoming a sensation in the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), has emerged as an intriguing prospect for the New York Yankees as they shape their pitching arsenal for 2025. His story exemplifies how international baseball can revitalize careers and create unexpected opportunities." From Pinstripe Alley...Yankees' fan site...cited in OP. 2024 was already the Year of the Hoosiers, so why not another "feel good" comeback story? Guess it would have been sweeter revenge had he ended up pitching for NY against his former team, the Red Sox.

We shall see...I expected more than just a few flashes last year. Can't play the field sounds like the majority of Sox prospects anyway.

The White Sox stopped extending anyone after Anderson Jimenez Moncada and Robert...lol. OFC Crochet is about to get paid by Boston. The 2 young pitchers and C.Montgomery/Teel will be the next possibilities coming down the pike.

"Hopefully..." Famous last words.

BUMP Signed by Padres/Preller on Feb 13th.

"Notably, the Twins are not alone in recognizing Hart’s potential, as other prominent teams such as the New York Yankees, Milwaukee Brewers, Houston Astros, and Baltimore Orioles have also expressed interest in securing his services. The widespread interest in Hart underscores the competitive landscape of MLB free agency, where teams are actively scouting for talented players to fortify their rosters and elevate their chances of success in the upcoming season." https://motorcyclesports.net/surprise-twist-in-mlb-free-agency-minnesota-twins-indicate-interest-in-rejuvenated-lefty-kyle-hart/ Read where between 12 and 18 teams scouted him last year...and at his showcase. $1 million contract for 2025, $5 million option for 2026.

"The Padres signed left-hander Kyle Hart -- a former big leaguer who pitched in Korea last season and won the Korean version of the Cy Young Award -- to a one-year contract with a club option for 2026 on Thursday." "Hart pitched for the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization in 2024 and won the Choi Dong-won Award, awarded to the KBO League's top starting pitcher. The 32-year-old made 26 starts for the Dinos and went 13-3 with a 2.69 ERA and 182 strikeouts in 157 innings (10.4 K/9). Hart led the KBO in strikeouts and ranked second in both wins and ERA." https://www.mlb.com/news/kyle-hart-contract-with-padres Following in the footsteps of Nick Martinez and Erick Fedde...now they have a five deep rotation, Waldron-Vasquez-Brito-Kolek-Hoenig backing that up and they will probably reacquire Martin Perez at the trade deadline lol. Musgrove back next season.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6133192/2025/02/12/san-diego-padres-nick-pivetta-deal/ "When complete, the new contract will merely increase San Diego’s projected 2025 payroll to $207 million, according to FanGraphs. Team and league sources indicated Wednesday night that the Padres currently are inclined to hang on to Cease, a pending free agent, and enter the upcoming season with a rotation led by Cease, Michael King, Yu Darvish and Pivetta. A deal involving closer Robert Suarez remains at least a decent possibility. Suarez is owed $10 million in 2025 and can opt out after the season. The Padres, still seeking to trim some payroll, believe they could field an effective bullpen even if they end up moving him." $207 million real payroll but $259 for CBT purposes. They got Profar for peanuts last year at this time...and Joe/Heyward for a similar $2 million in total. OFC they have Gavin Sheets now...who won't see any LHP.

Except their payroll is about 3X higher...funny Disney won it all on a budget and Moreno cranked up spending to compete with the Dodgers and look where they are now. To top it all off...Pujols and Ohtani both ended up at Chavez Ravine.

Burger has held his own, especially compared to where things stood in 2020...he fought his way back and made a big league future for himself. Romy Gonzalez was a very solid part time contributor to the Red Sox last year.

Team India! Great marketing opportunity, Brooks! But could we please accrue some outfielders rather than a plethora of 2B who probably can't play SS or if they can play SS can't hit much better than Esteban Beltre or Mike Caruso?

Mark Hampton... Pujols deal with LAA ARod/NYY Josh Hamilton/LAA Zito Giants Sandoval Red Sox Ellsbury Yankees Chris Davis Orioles https://www.hummbabybaseball.com/documentaries/the-worst-10-mlb-contracts-of-all-time-unmitigated-disasters

The next Luke Keaschall?

Correction 75th pick last year was here...might be costing SD around $1.6 million in total to sign Pivetta (including $500k in intl bonus pool money) 75 Athletics $1,043,900

"The Pivetta contract structure helps a Padres team that is trying to keep costs down for a second straight offseason and was already running a 2025 payroll of about $194 million, roughly a $30 million increase from where they were on Opening Day last year." ... "They Padres are projected to be a couple of million over the lowest luxury tax threshold and that might well be the target, so I wouldn't expect much in the way of additions the rest of the winter." Oops!!! https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/43780926/2025-mlb-offseason-winners-losers-free-agency-dodgers-mets-braves-padres

Depends if the Dodgers Mets Yankees win the next two WS...

Fegan interviews Venable, Gonzalez, Davis Martin https://soxmachine.com/2025/02/white-sox-open-camp-emphasizing-environment-over-expectations/ "Gonzalez had three hits and three RBIs apiece in that game in Montgomery, using a new leg kick as a loading action to keep his weight back, after offseason work to maintain his direction at the plate forced him to rework his timing through a season where he slashed .238/.307/.343 across two levels. It was only a small handful of games that Gonzalez was able to try out the move with a swing that’s been remodeled in multiple ways at this point, but the initial results encouraged him to keep working on it through the winter."

Congrats to WestEddy for making the Padres look semi-sympathetic for their Icarus-like small market getting too close to the sun act... You would think JR was a complete idiot for ever considering another "big" FA contract due to the risks it might go wrong...which usually happens about 2/3rds of the time paying aging players for performance at their peak.

He's #40 in most publications around there

Witt Jr. was always unquestionably one of the three best prospects in the entire sport...whereas Keith Law has Montgomery outside his Top 108 right now.

Hyperbole. About the best anyone would realistically expect at his age coming off last season would be a 1.0 fWAR, 1.5 would be REALLY pushing it. That's off by at least 8-9 fWAR from the likes of Judge and Witt, Jr.

So she wouldn't have been HAPPIER with 6 years and $156 million in Houston, or the 6 years/$171+ offered by the Tigers? Because he's not going to get another contract like that again at age 33....even with relatively big offensive numbers induced by 81 games played at Fenway.

And White Sox fans in 2025 care about 2005 right now SO MUCH that they're still buying season tickets? At best, that buys you five years of good will from fans, according to market research. Rays, Brewers, Guardians, Rockies, Mariners fans should basically just give up? And Marlins' fans should come out now to support their team because of 1997 and 2003...something that happened over twenty years ago?

This is where you're in preposterous territory. Andrew Vaughn has never had even a 1.0 fWAR or above in his entire career. Xander Bogaerts was at 4.6 fWAR, 6.0 fWAR, 4.1 fWAR and 6.0 fWAR in the four FULL seasons before he signed with SD. 20.7/4=5.2 average The gave him too many years, but that was the market at the time...his SS skills were eroding as he aged, we all know that FA's at age 30 or beyond are riskier based on regression in the post-steroids era, especially players that rely/relied upon their speed to create value. He has been worth 6.6 fWAR so far to SD. He was also hurt for much of the 2024 season. 6.6 fWAR over $51 million for 2023-24=7.7 fWAR per million, just a slight overpay He would have to average closer to 7.0-7.5 fWAR the next 9 years to make it "neutral," but at best he's only likely to do that the next 3-4 years. They're eventually going to have to eat something like $125 million, like the Tigers' contract for Javy Baez, essentially. Do most of their fans prefer that they signed DeJong, Nicky Lopez and Jacob Amaya/Josh Rojas instead of signing Bogaerts? MAYBE???? At best, Bogaerts should have been offered a 6-7 year deal, but FA forced them to overspend by 2-3 years since they'd already missed on FA targets like Aaron Judge prior to that. Cost of doing business. Name one GM who has signed almost ten $100+ million contacts in the last 4-5 years that has never made a single mistake with any of them. (And yes, 1B Erik Hosmer was yet another bad contract.)

That's all Dodgers' fans had to show for 12 straight post-seasons and 11 NL West championships (106 win team finished second to SFG) until COVID year and then they barely made it past SD this past season or it would have been 1/12, and 2020 would have come with an *** asterisk. Should they have discouraged their ownership group from competing at that point?