TheFutureIsNear

Gattis is more or less what we all hoped Flowers would be. A catcher who can post an .800 OPS and at least hold his own defensively. Would he be worth it to be a C/DH for us? From what I've read the Braves are pretty set on trading him and the price wouldn't be a ton.

Danks and Viciedo for Cargo straight up....if not they can keep paying him.

Non tendering Viciedo is crazy talk, not going to happen. Why? He's 25 years old right now and has hit 20+ HR's in 3 straight seasons. Now I'm not saying he should be given another year for us, but I refuse to believe that there isn't a team that would be willing to trade for him. I'm not even saying for a lot, but a young arm for the bullpen shouldn't be that hard to obtain in my opinion.

Trade Tank for the best young reliever you can get and laugh at Belesario and $3.9M as he packs his bags.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 4, 2014 -> 03:22 PM) Pardon my cluelessness, but isn't there a Thompson in the system that was thought highly of? Is this a different guy? Trayce Thompson was at 1 point highly thought of...not so much now

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 4, 2014 -> 10:09 AM) Is he a $100 million upgrade? Is any player in the world a $100M upgrade? It doesn't even make sense to look at it like that. But again, I never said we should run out and throw a bunch of $ at Sandoval. I'm just stating that Conor Gillaspie shouldn't be an everyday player and not signing any player because you would have to move Gillaspie is just silly.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Nov 4, 2014 -> 12:52 AM) Don't get me wrong, I like Sandoval and would want him on my team. That said, Sandoval is a left handed hitting 3B who struggles to hit lefties and whose performance has trended downward the last few years. Basically, he's Conor Gillaspie with a slightly better bat and much better glove. To me, that's a fairly marginal upgrade, and considering Gillaspie is a cost controlled asset and Sandoval is looking for $100 million over 6-7 years...I don't think Sandoval is going to be worth 3 more WAR per year than Gillaspie over the next 4-5 years. There are bigger holes to fill, like LF, 2-3 spots in the bullpen, and a mid rotation starter. For the price you'd pay for Sandoval, you could have something like Markakis and a solid pen arm or LaRoche and Billingsley instead. Like Balta said, if this were an 85+ win team, and 3B was the biggest hole, it would make sense to go after Sandoval. With this team, it makes no sense. You're kidding yourself if you think Sandoval's bat is only a slight upgrade over Conor.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Nov 3, 2014 -> 09:08 PM) You saw Mike Moustakas in the playoffs this year, right? There are lots of reasons to pass on signing Sandoval, namely he'll be getting an absurd amount of money that he is not worth. What does Moustakas have to do with Gillaspie? And I'm not advocating signing Sandoval really. Don't get me wrong, I would want if the $ was right (which it won't be), but my post was more about the idea of not wanting to sing any player because of Conor Gillaspie being ridiculous. Sandoval was the example that someone else used.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 3, 2014 -> 04:00 PM) Kinda. The way I keep looking at it...an upgrade to the 3b position is minor. It could push an 87 win team over the top, but we're not an 87 win team right now. An upgrade to the corner OF, middle of the rotation, or bullpen, is a major upgrade. Basically, spending money for a big time player at a position where we already have someone tolerable is ok if we've filled the huge holes and still have funds remaining. It's not the priority though - if you add an upgrade to 3b and the bullpen but leave the corner OF spot with a Viciedo sized hole, that team is not winning. If/When we become serious competitors in the AL Conor Gillaspie will not be our everyday 3B...he's just not that good. We need a long term solution at 3B and Gillaspie isn't it. Is Gillaspie the biggest hole in the lineup? No, but that doesn't mean you pass on a chance to sign a guy like Sandoval because of that.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Nov 2, 2014 -> 03:50 PM) If you sign Sandoval, you're practically committing yourself to trading Gillaspie since Sandoval is a better version of Gillaspie. Headley, Markakis, and Cruz would likely be my top 3 FA targets. Are you really suggesting that you wouldn't sign a player like Sandoval because of Conor Gillaspie?

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 1, 2014 -> 09:59 PM) Lind can't be a full time DH because he's a platoon hitter. So with him, we'd have a partial DH. Yea, Roost, that's a big improvement offensively and defensively at a reasonable cost. Gillaspie could play some first, OF?, DH. Maybe another guy from the right side of some sort. He'd still easily see 450-500 PA's. That's well worth the 7.5M he'll make next year if he can continue his career .860 OPS and 128 WRC against righties. I don't want to make it seem likes its a huge deal that we didn't trade for Lind, because its not, but I just can't imagine how a deal similar to the value of Marco Estrada seemed like too much to give up for Lind. Oh well, hopefully Hahn has something else up his sleeve.

Keep Vmart to 3 years and Rasmus to 1 and I'd be very happy. Of course that probably won't happen so I wouldn't be thrilled with those signings

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 1, 2014 -> 09:23 PM) He's a platoon hitter at a position at which the Sox have a 130 game starter. Not a great fit. Interesting scenario, Roost. I like the idea of Headley. As for Crawford, I would have thought he was north of 35, but he's only 32. We have a DH option worthy of starting 130 games right now? Who?

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Nov 1, 2014 -> 02:21 PM) I would have guessed Lind could bring a better return than Estrada. Shows how little I know. A little frustrating to see him go for that little and not end up in our line up honestly. He would have been damn near perfect for the middle of our lineup.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/11/astr...-adam-lind.html Well there goes 1 option for our LH DH option.

Alright my new plan.... Trades- -Viciedo for Carson Smith and PTBNL -Carlos Sanchez for Adam Lind Signings- - I still can't decide so 1 of Melky, Markakis or Rasmus - Chad Billingsley - Sergio Romo - Zach Duke - Jorge Despaigne C- Flowers 1B- Abreu 2B- Micah Johnson/Semien SS- Alexei 3B- Conor/Semien LF- Free Agent CF- Eaton RF- Garcia DH- Lind SP- Sale SP- Q SP- Rodon SP- Noesi SP- Danks RP- Bassit RP- Colton Smith RP- Putnam LHRP- Zach Duke LHRP- Snodgress SU- Petricka CL- Sergio Romo

QUOTE (rowand's rowdies @ Oct 26, 2014 -> 02:14 PM) Rotoworld says Mark has been made available and the Jays will have to eat some of his $19 million salary. Why not let them take John Danks off our hands for Mark, straight up, for one last season for Mark, much like Paulie's last year. These last year type years will help bridge the gap until Rick and the boys can. Thoughts? Any prospects match up? No one wants John Danks. No one. People need to get this through their heads.

This article is old so not sure how many have seen it, but it really showcases Bassitt. His fastball is impressive and can be a real weapon. Regardless of whether its in the pen or as a starter that fastball should earn him a nice a career in the MLB. I agree he's underrated around here. I'd put him somewhere towards the bottom of our top 15. http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/chris-bas...ching-prospect/

Another name from the Philles is Darin Ruff. He's not a lefty, but he's still a very interesting cheap DH option in my eyes. He's 28 already and still doesn't have a spot on the Phillies roster because of the Ryan Howard contract so he should be pretty cheap to trade for. He has 20 HR's and a .805 OPS in 447 spread out at bats at the MLB level. Back in 2012 he hit .317/.408./.620 with 38 HR's in AA and .311/.392/.511 the year before in High A, so the guy definitely has a history of hitting the ball. He's obviously not ideal and wouldn't be anywhere near my 1st choice....but it would interest me to see what he could do at the plate if given a full season. Maybe could be an option C type guy if Hahn's initial plans don't work out.

QUOTE (LDF @ Oct 19, 2014 -> 10:22 AM) obviously I didn't that it that way. ........ my bad. Yeah definitely agreeing with. Just trying to be funny with the crazy examples. Guess it didn't work lol.

QUOTE (LDF @ Oct 19, 2014 -> 08:41 AM) I just don't believe that as an example. there has to be an explanation This. There HAS to be some explanation. Something going on in his life, injury, amnesia, sudden fear of cowhide, the Monstars stole his talent?? People don't just suddenly become less talented at something they've been very good at their entire lives at the age of 25. If it wasn't an injury then I can only hope he bounces back this spring from whatever happened.

His injury was pretty pretty horrific wasn't it? Fracturing your arm while throwing a pitch has got to be pretty damn scary. Wonder if will affect him mentally even if his arm is healthy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 18, 2014 -> 04:13 PM) Well their teams were a helluva lot better. Lol and?

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 18, 2014 -> 12:39 PM) Like I said, it sounds awful when you don't accept that fact that he has the 2nd highest WAR total in baseball since his first full season in the bigs. That's from 2009 through 2014, the ONLY player in baseball who has been better is Miguel Cabrera, and not by much. He ranks better than Cano, Longoria, McCutchen, Beltre, Votto, Pedroia, Tulo, Pujols, etc. Would you not give up 3 prospects who may not even be listed as top 100 prospects for one of those guys for 1 year coming off an MVP season, even at age 33? I think because it's Ben Zobrist and not one of those names above, we feel we don't trust it. WAR has its flaws and should be used as only part of evaluating a player. At some point common sense needs to be put into the equation. WAR puts way too much stock in flawed defensive metrics. If you trust WAR that much than that means both Zobrist and Alex Gordon were more valuable than Abreu last year. And I'm just not accepting any kind of argument that says this.

It's a little mind boggling to me how many of these trades involve our top prospects by the way. We are just now building up our farm system for the 1st time in a long time, lets not ruin that by trading them for guys who in all reality aren't big difference makers. Rodon, Anderson, Hawkins, Micah, Montas, Adams, and Danish should all be borderline untouchable imo. Unless someone blows us away with an offer of a hitter under 27 who could be a cornerstone of the franchise for years to come I'm not moving any of them. With the pieces already in place we have a real shot to build something special, don't ruin that by trying to rush it.