smg58

He's righthanded, and the Guardians have lefties at 1B and DH, so the fit makes sense on a no-risk deal.

Jose Rojas.

Frequently discussed Twins pitcher Pablo López has a torn UCL. It's a head-shaker that the Twins would trade all their other short-term contracts, but hold on to a pitcher.

He's a good pickup, but we have all these lefties lined up when we could really use a righthanded bat. The confidence being shown in Tyrone Taylor to handle the short side of a platoon as a corner outfielder is baffling.

There's nothing fake about my love for you. [FIMG=1200]https://s.hdnux.com/photos/46/30/15/10060649/4/1200x0.jpg[/FIMG]

That was the last really dramatic overhaul. The 2004-05 offseason brought a couple of very major signings, but the team's core wasn't dismantled to do it. Hopefully this team won't duplicate the 2002 team's performance.

Yeah, you'd think he'd have fit in better with the Phillies than he did.

That's an excellent point, and I don't think enough rebuilding teams take advantage of it. If the 2023-24 Ozuna shows up but the Pirates aren't contending in July, they still bought themselves a good prospect.

I'm definitely not against it, but who's playing right?

I agree on that, although I would have been in on Ozuna at that price. There are lots of teams that need third basemen (like the Brewers, who just traded Caleb Durbin to the Red Sox), so there would have to be some market for Vientos. Speaking of the Red Sox, I still can't help wondering if they'd have traded Abreu for Baty.

I also wouldn't ignore minor-league signing Jose Rojas, who has far more upside than Melendez.

He's a depth piece. If I remember right, an arb-eligible player is only guaranteed the money if he begins the season on the team or accepts a demotion should he not make the team. That means the Mets could DFA him before the season starts, and another team would have to take his contract if they claim him or he'd walk away from money he wouldn't get back should he declare fee agency. The Dodgers do this sort of thing often. This is shaping up to be the third straight year that the Mets open with two righthanded, glove first outfielders. (I'm counting Robert as glove first because his last two seasons give me no reason to do otherwise.) It's a waste of a roster spot, again. I'm not sure Melendez could outperform Baty or Mauricio overall as a leftfielder. In fact, given that Melendez is a fairly known commodity, I think you have to be rooting against it.

Something happened during what was supposed to be a routine surgery. That's all the details I know. Just awful. They say you can't steal first, but Gore latched on to a couple of post-season rosters because of his legs. It's a neat trick if you can pull it off.

Miguel Andujar goes to the Padres for one year and $4M. Given that the Mets kind of need a righthanded bat with some outfield experience even if/when Benge does come to Flushing, this strikes me as criminal negligence.

When I first started following baseball and the Mets, Mickey Lolich was the guy they had just gotten in a big trade. Had I known anything about Rusty Staub at the time, I would have probably been less impressed.

I'd have much sooner gone for Valdez at three years than given up two top 100 prospects for one year of Peralta.

Austin Hays goes to the CWS for a year with a mutual option, at $6M guaranteed. While I'd prefer Miguel Andujar, that's almost too reasonable of a price given that the Mets could really use a righthanded bat in left field.

I like this. The error bars are huge, but if you get anything on the good side of the median it's a great value play. And if you don't, you lose nothing.

I'm not against giving a minor league deal to somebody capable of earning his way into the rotation, but I don't think you can justify another major league contract right now. That's not a knock against Quintana at all, but there are teams out there that would give him a clearer path to starts.

This. Both players would have been a part of this year's team. Peralta's an extremely good bet to regress to his career norms, so we probably got a year of a 3.60 ERA for two people who will probably be starters before the year is out and continue to be starters for a while. I'm not happy about this at all.

This deal depends on how you read Acuña's .282/.397/.542 performance in the VWL this offseason. I hope they got a reliable scout's impression of it.

I think the McNeil-plus-cash-for-Yordan Rodriguez deal is leaving them even more behind the eight ball, at least on paper. Fair point.

Bichette is a very good player, with only one bad season that is very clearly an outlier. His salary is somewhat nutty, but Tucker's is extremely nutty. (And the small market teams were just given a whole lot of ammo going in to the next round of bargaining. And Soto is definitely opting out now.) There's no reason why Bichette can't play third and Polanco can't play first, but it's fair to be concerned that the adjustment period might last beyond spring. Having said that, they've at least broken even overall on the infield corners. I would argue though that, beyond further dealing, the Nimmo-for-Semien trade looks silly right now. One way to get the Red Sox to consider trading from their outfield surplus to get an infielder from you is to snatch up the best remaining infielder on the free agent market. That's worth keeping an eye on. You don't need to throw a ton of money at anybody to upgrade centerfield significantly. I'd still take a look at a righthanded bat for leftfield. Miguel Andujar seems to have regained the bat he had as a rookie and while he still lacks experience in the outfield, he's better suited there than at third base. Plus his presence would take pressure off of Benge to hit lefties right away when he gets the call. Nobody is mentioning Marcell Ozuna at all, but he played hurt last year and makes all the sense in the world as a DH option. And I wouldn't complain if they still had room for Framber Valdez.

The Jays had a Murphy's Law season in 2024, seemed to be second in the bidding on everybody last offseason, and needed one more thing to break their way and they'd have won a World Championship in 2025. Now they've made multiple big splashes and are being super-aggressive. We'll see if they get any closer.

Juan Soto, because if the Mets can afford to pay Tucker that much...