Jose Abreu

This is a good way of summing it up. Engel > Maybin if the role is simply being a late inning defense and running guy. But Maybin > Engel when one of the starting OFs gets hurt and misses 3 weeks, and it’s quite likely that such a scenario occurs next year. So a cheap one year investment in Maybin would be wise IMO

Thanks- I’ll add that you might be right about the guy in general, it’s just the Robert tweet in particular that I think he actually got info on

I also believe Cease was shopped, although I’m not sure about Thor. However, I don’t think the Sox would’ve made any win-now trade without truly believing they could extend the piece they got in return.

I was on break and therefore on Twitter a lot the day Cishek tweeted the Robert deal was close, and I promise you nobody with any status was talking about the deal that day. The tweet was out of left field. It was the following morning that people started talking about it due to Arenado trade rumors. And people choose to ignore the Harris thing because that’s not what he said. I don’t have sources myself but I regularly talk to people who you all know and trust, and I’ve heard Maybin as a target multiple times this winter. I agree with your take on fake insiders but this account doesn’t fit that mold, IMO

This isn’t true. James reported the Robert talks, then over a week later Cishek said they were close, then 24 hours later the deal was announced. There was no national reporter who said they were close before Cishek did

Nah I’m with you, and a lot of Twitter people are too. Sleeveless Cordero or “Jimmy Biceps” has become a movement

That may be true but I'm not sure how accurate the numbers are right now. For example, Mazara still doesn't have one and there are two active players (Keuchel and Cordero) listed as #60.

Grandal is a lock and Eloy should make it partially due to LF being weak. Moncada should make it but the position is stacked and I'm not sure how much weight they're gonna place on 2019 versus past seasons. Same goes for Anderson and Giolito

It's a good thing he hit cleanup

I'm not sure where you were looking, but as far as I've been aware, his defense has always been a major concern. I think a lot of the minor league guys have said he'll wind up as a DH.

Outfielder OAA has been there for awhile now. Mazara was close to average last year and Eloy was very bad

FWIW all this is public now on the Baseball Savant website.

One thing that's interesting to me is how well TA7 graded in 2018. I remember he was a little rough defensively for the first month, then was solid for a month or two, and then was a total beast defensively for the rest of the year. Thus, most of the Fangraphs metrics had him as slightly above average for the season. But I thought that his last few months were so good that they should have far outweighed his early season struggles. I'm curious to know if this new metric would suggest that.

Thanks for posting this. I've really been looking forward to this new metric

In the latter proposal that I'm assuming you're referring to (a platoon player), I think McCann would be the one going. Collins should at least get you multiple years of a reliever

Most likely, yeah. Or a position player they thinks fits the roster better (such as a RF/UTIL who crushes LHP)

I still think they trade one of Collins/McCann

He's way better than people seem to think. Excels at getting weak contact. The only concern I have with him is the slight increase in his walk rate

I don’t think JBJ would preclude you from that. He would simply replace Engel so you could still pursue a Hunter Pence type

I guess it depends on what one considers to be “too much”. I was thinking someone like Collins

He wouldn’t have much of a choice, and it would be Brandon Workman, not David Price

Exactly. I don't get why it was met with such chagrin. Nobody is saying JBJ would be an everyday player, he's just better than Engel and wouldn't cost much.

To improve the 4th outfielder role

I'd love JBJ to take Engel's current role. We wouldn't have to give up much for JBJ + Workman either if we take on all the money

I'm surprised (but not really) at this "the sky is falling" mentality whenever a reliever signs elsewhere. Did we not see these same exact complaints during/shortly after the winter meetings with regards to starting pitchers?