caulfield12

But as Spring Training nears, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune hears from two sources that dealing Robert Suarez seems to be “the move that appears most probable.” mlbtraderumors.com

Job creators...

Any realistic answer requires at least Brewers-level free agent spending and likely a new stadium…

Imagine following a team where the best and perhaps only hope for the future is the owner dying so this his family can avoid paying capital gains taxes…that team/fandom is held hostage for a generation of fans over essentially $100-150 million. And the team’s value is falling by the day.

When you watch a game from the stands, do you focus on the players or face the owner's suite? I've yet to see a person wearing a jersey of the owner at a game.

So, Matt, you're telling billionaires how to spend their money? No, I'm absolutely not. They aren't required to follow my wishes. They can do whatever they want with their teams, within the CBA rules. I'm also allowed to shame them for being cheap and dishonest. They can deal with those insults. They should be forced to deal with them a lot more often, in fact. Please join me. They are billionaires and you are a loser sportswriter, so they obviously know more about business than you. OK, so first off, most of these owners were born into wealth, so gimme a break on those. As I've said multiple times about the A's owner, being born to parents who founded The Gap isn't a skill. You all know the analogy about being born on third base and acting like you hit a triple. Well, he was born about a step off of home plate and struts around like he hit a bomb. …. If you hate the owners, you must be a socialist. Yes, I've heard this before and it's an embarrassing take. The best players should make the most money (meritocracy) and I simply want the owners to take care of their customer base, which is a basic tenet of any business model. Bad ownership hurts the enjoyment of the fans and that's just not acceptable to me. It's weird how many small-market fans get angry at me for getting angry at ownership for not better taking care of them as fans. I'm on your side. I want the owners of your favorite teams to stop lying to you and instead try to give you a lot more fun memories. For now, my biggest hope is that I'll stop seeing fans worried about their favorite team signing a generationally great player and then I'll settle for seeing less caping for owners in general. And I really wish we could drive the Nuttings of the league out.

Major League Baseball's ownership class is a blighted place these days. To be sure, team owners in broad terms have operated cynically and lied about their finances in order to curry sympathy with fans and provide cover for their unwillingness to spend. Lately, though, the game has been afflicted by the likes of John Fisher in Oakland, Bob Nutting in Pittsburgh, the Dolans in Cleveland, Jerry Reinsdorf on the South Side of Chicago, and increasingly in recent years John Henry in Boston. These are owners who best embody the "portfolio holding" school of thought, in which the team basically functions as a source of passive income while also functioning as a market-beating long-term investment. Winning baseball games is at best a secondary objective or even a pleasing coincidence. Whether most his guild prefers to acknowledge it, Major League Baseball teams require stewardship such as John Middleton's because they are at heart civic treasures, not index funds or ETFs or shares of crypto intended solely to enrich the possessor. To be sure, the possessor will indeed be enriched greatly for his or her efforts, but succeeding on the field is what matters most. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/phillies-owner-john-middleton-understands-his-obligation-to-fans-and-he-has-a-message-to-owners-who-disagree/ Tray, any fan who is below the ownership level is by definition “the little guy.”

I'll only take issue with the part about standing in public and letting people yell at you. Nutting doesn't do that. He doesn't even listen to people online. He just rakes in the proceeds and doesn't give us any indication that he cares all too much about how the team on the field performs. Oh sure, we'll hear on occasion about how he isn't making any money and how much of a chore it is to own a baseball team. To that line of thinking, I have a simple suggestion: Sell the team. The Royals are a small-market team. They were sold for $1 billion in 2019. The Orioles were sold for $1.725 billion earlier this year. The Nutting family bought the Pirates for $92 million in 1996. I'd say the return on investment is enough to justify cutting bait on the team right now, right? That is, of course, unless they are making a ton of money by owning the team. Think about it. My hunch is Cuban's suggestion that the family is making around $25 million a year is low. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/snyders-soapbox-on-good-owners-bad-owners-and-why-mlb-fans-should-always-root-for-teams-to-spend-more-money/

"Think about your favorite baseball team. Think about the many times a sports team you root for made a baffling decision. Think about the roster rebuild that never seems to end. Now imagine something new. Imagine buying a membership in your favorite team. Imagine voting on who runs the team or on how to finance stadium upgrades. Maybe you should even run for election to the board of directors. You would go to the ballpark knowing that every dollar you spent would go back into the team. Imagine how much better every hot dog and every beer will taste! “Get another round, we need a new shortstop!” you tell your friends, while you ponder that day’s scoreboard stumper." https://sabr.org/journal/article/democracy-at-the-ballpark-looking-towards-a-fan-owned-future/

How does WBWF not have a front office job yet? One can only wonder.

He has been the same basic size since 2018...he has always been a monster physically, the concern was that he was so ripped that it would lead to more injuries rather than less. Maybe he has gained another 10-15 pounds from injuries/inactivity. Right now he's the only true plus defender...along with Rojas, on the major league roster. Nobody is moving him out of CF when half of his value prior to last season came fromaying GG level defense. If he can't get back?to that level due to injuries or hesitation/lost confidence...his trade value plummets from the stratosphere to the basement.

We have Braden Montgomery and MAYBE Colson Montgomery that can be stars. Real MLB stars tend to go for 5-10 fWAR seasons... See Luis Robert 2023. If you don't have any stars at all...you need to get pretty much 2+ fWAR production from every single spot in the lineup to make up for that. We might have 4 or perhaps 5 players capable of that in the future. MIGHT.

No team's going to move Luis Robert out of CF unless he's hurt. He's had 2 seasons where he was clearly the best or one of the top 2 with Kiermaier in the entire sport. It's highly unlikely he's going to add that much more mass/bulk until he's in his 30s. The constant injuries are what has impacted his game more than anything... The jury is still out on Zavala. He's going to have to hit 100 points higher and be at least above average in CF to have any value at all.

That DeLoach Julks and Fletcher aren't even good enough to even approximate those "nine or ten good players rather than 1-2 stars" that the Bulls claim is their new operating model for sustainable success. It's not hating on players to be realistic about their capabilities...right now, Braden, Teel and maybe Colson Montgomery and Quero are the only position players who project at 2.5-3.0 fWAR or higher. Without any stars like a Witt or Jose Ramirez, you're going to have to get above average production from every single position instead.

"Zavala can hold down center field for now with his good instincts. His arm strength may be his best defensive asset and will serve him well if he eventually moves to right field. Lessening his defensive responsibilities would put more pressure on his bat..." https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/samuel-zavala-694214?stats=career-r-hitting-milb The biggest concern is his frame and losing speed as he gains weight and gets older...he's certainly not a pure CFer, and a move to a corner seems forthcoming.

Who also appeared on The Apprentice?

"He wasn’t a headline piece of the return by any means, but the Sox surely hoped that he could build off two solid seasons to begin his career as a member of the Padres’ bullpen. From 2022-23, Wilson totaled 106 innings of 3.48 ERA ball with a 25.4% strikeout rate, 10.9% walk rate, 1.19 HR/9, 27 holds and a save. Things didn’t pan out as hoped. Wilson had multiple IL stints due to back strains, saw his fastball velocity dip from 94.5 mph to 93.4 mph on average, and served up eight homers in just 34 1/3 innings (2.08 HR/9). His 20.9% strikeout rate and 16% walk rate were both career-worst marks." mlbtraderumors.com

He is now the 30th/31st rated prospect at BA. Other than pitchers like a Davis Martin or maybe Romy Gonzalez at some point...hard to remember an impact player coming from so far back in the pack with the Sox.

"That excellent return for two years of Crochet aside, the club’s offseason has mostly been defined by adding shorter-term ancillary pieces who could potentially be flipped at the trade deadline in July. Matt Thaiss, Cam Booser, Mike Tauchman, Austin Slater, Bryse Wilson, Josh Rojas, and Martin Perez all fit this category to one degree or another, with the latter five names all being signed to inexpensive one-year deals that should make them easily affordable for even budget-conscious contending clubs this summer should any of them play well enough to justify a trade." Well, Getz did beat the Twins of the AL Central teams for best off season... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/02/poll-whos-winning-the-offseason-in-the-al-central.html "For now, Bader and Coulombe add up as a $9.25MM boost to the Twins’ payroll. President of baseball operations Derek Falvey told reporters ( that the spending space came about after Twins chairman Joe Pohlad “greenlighted….the ability to add a little bit here to this team. I think that’s a credit to them and certainly a tick up for us that allows us to add a little bit more to this roster that we feel already had a good base, but now we’ve clicked off some of those needs.”

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/steven-wilson-621051

He's 2-3 years away right now. The bigger problem is that he's not a CFer in the same way Montgomery isn't a major league SS. That puts even more pressure on his bat.

Even Trae Young is getting tired of it all...

What's the definition of a crooked developer vs. an owner who refuses to spend any private money for a project...when the near universal model recently has been something close to public/prvt partnerships? You can certainly not argue that the new Federal government stance is to cut spending across the board...so what compelling reason would a highly subsidized (through anti trust exemption) sports league be protected at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars?

If Heyward hits like 2023 when he was a capable platoon bitter for LA...but he was oft injured last year and 36 now.

2. Orioles: 31.6-point difference PECOTA: 75.6% | FanGraphs: 44.0% "PECOTA projects the Orioles to overcome the losses of Burnes and Santander and challenge the Yankees for AL East supremacy. FanGraphs, though, sees things differently, ranking the O’s eighth among AL clubs in terms of playoff odds." https://www.mlb.com/news/2025-mlb-playoff-odds-biggest-differences-in-projected-standings