Frayed Knot

A lot of this depends on the details of whatever happened to him between 2016 when he played 156 games/633 PA of 784 OPS for a championship competitive team in the non-DH league, and 2017 when those numbers became 71 G / 252 PA / 642 OPS and he supposedly became this "can't hit, can't move" piece of trash.

Longoria is a bit older than I would have guessed (just turned 32) and not quite the superstar he looked like he was headed for earlier in his career as his mid-800s OPS rates have dropped to more like mid-700s over three of the most recent four seasons - so this is not quite the blockbuster news it would have been a couple years ago. In other off-season non-NYM news, Orioles closer Zach Britton rupture his achilles tendon during an off-season workout. Four months minimum so it'll kill the beginning of his 2018 season anyway.

The Rdd Sox re-upped Mitch Moreland on a two year deal.

Such is the discontent of our winter. see what I did there?

The Braves have been involved in more than their fair share of these multi-player/high-contract swaps in recent years as they seem to lurch back and forth between GMs and organizational strategies. This is even the second trade of that type involving Kemp who they originally got in mid-2016 by dumping off the $60 million dollar contract of Cuban import Hector Olivera, a guy/contract they had acquired just a year earlier (from LAD) in a three-team / [u:3smb3shf]13 player[/u:3smb3shf] trade!!

Been quiet in Braves town so far ... except for that whole crooked GM getting banned for life thing couple with the loss of nine amateur signings. So I guess for them it hasn't really been quiet enough. But that dam burst today with news that they've re-traded Matt Kemp back to the Dodgers (didn't they already have too many aging OF'ers?) in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez, pitchers Scott Kazmir and Brandon McCarthy, infielder Charlie Culberson and cash considerations. No doubt the cash is to help pay for Gonzalez although what they plan to do with him eludes me. Freddie as a full-time 3B?!? This one is going to take a while to sort out although I suspect this trade may just be the first in a series of moves involving at least some of these players.

And in sort of MFY news: also back on one-year deals are the radio team of Sterling & Waldman. Not sure if the Yanx have something else in mind or if this has more to do with the changes of ownership/mgm't at FAN, but one year deals sounds unusual to me for media contracts, particularly long-standing ones. There was even apparently talk of adding a third voice but that's not going to happen (when would he/she even get a chance to talk?!!?).

Sabathia back to the Yanx on a one year deal. His 2017 was a nice bounce back year for him as he not only toed the slab 27 times but also looked to be one of those guys who adjusted to being a pitcher rather than a thrower now that the only '97' readout he sees is the one following the '2' on his bathroom scale. Now it just remains to be seen if the to-be 38 y/o (July) can do the same in '18 ... but since Ohtani didn't go running to them as was thought to be preordained this was likely their fall-back move.

Depends, I suppose, on whether one feels his [Cozart's] 2017 offensive uptick is real. His 933 OPS / 141 OPS+ was his best ever by a long shot (769 / 108 back in 2015) and now for his age 31 - 33 seasons (turns 32 in August of next year) and no longer a SS where he at least used to have the advantage of being a plus defender. 3 years @ $12.67 per

Centerfield wrote: This winter, if the beat writers are right, that same pitching staff will add Anthony Swarzak then go to battle. Well, Swarzak plus the pick of the crop from the bevy of relievers he added late last summer. Plus a theoretical full season from Familia & Ramos.

Reliever Joe Smith to join the WS champs in Houston.

Not official yet but it looks like Kinsler is headed to the Angels even though they were on his no-trade list too. Just as an aside on those partial NT clauses; players who get them don't necessarily choose those teams they don't want to play for but instead will choose the teams they think [u:24e9dfhq]might want to try and trade for them[/u:24e9dfhq] at some point during the length of the contract. That's why it's often the big market clubs on their lists rather than small ones since small market clubs generally don't make deals for players with big contracts. Thus the partial N-T turns into more of a complete N-T if you pick the right teams.

Yeah, I wish I had some memory of this guy other than his name ... but I don't. I even have zero memory of him as a Yank and that was only a year ago when he made 26 appearances and 31 innings of very undistinguished pitching between June & August of 2016. Two of his rare good outings that year came against the Mets; scoreless innings two days apart although both were during mop-up time. The only other time we faced him was one inning as a Twin in 2013

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Marlins fans must be just loving Derek Jeter and the new ownership so much. If you listen to the new ownership -- just St. Jeets really since he's the closest thing they have to a spokesman for the group -- the purge is necessary considering the financial seaworthiness of the the S.S. Marlins (slightly better than the S.S. Minnow, perhaps, but not by much). Loria essentially used the pump and dump method, first to get his new stadium and then to get out. Similar to how Hyzinga (sp?) did years ago after his '97 WS win although at least he stuck around for the tear-down part of it before selling. The back to back Cubs & Astros wins have made the tear-down in order to build up model popular these days but it easy to say that that's the way to go after it works. Now one might wonder why the group would want to buy into something so precarious, particularly seeing as how the asking & selling prices were a lot higher than the pre-sale Forbes value had it, but that question has been posed for years and no one seems to go broke running top level sports franchises whether they wind up winning the whole enchilada or not. 32 y/o; 6' 4" / 215; originally a 2nd round draft pick by the Twins out of Nova HS in Ft. Lauderdale (there's a Nova University around that area too)

G-Fafif wrote: Sheldon Ocker, from Akron, gets the Spink. I think there's a cure for that now.

The Yanx apparently didn't think they had enough very large/high-K bashers so they added former SD Padre Jabari Blash [6' 5" / 235 -- 100 Ks in 235 ML ABs] in exchange for once and future Padre Chase Headley along with pitcher Bryan [crossout]Stokes[/crossout] Mitchell The 28 y/o Blash has spent most of his career in the minor league since being signed out of the US Virgin Islands in 2010. If he makes the big league club in 2018 (not particularly likely), he'll join the rest of the offensive line of Judge [6' 7" / 282], Stanton [6' 6" / 245], and Sanchez [6' 2" / 230] who will all certainly hit the ball a long ways ... on those occasions when they make contact [491 Ks in a combined 1,610 ABs in 2017] or a 30.4% K rate. Getting rid of Headly saves the Yanx $13 million for the final year of his contract

Nymr83 wrote: The hall is not "cheapened" in any way, shape, or form by the non-inclusion of someone who never swung the bat or threw the ball. There are numerous owners, executive, commissioners, etc. in the HoF and Miller's impact on the game is as big or bigger than many of them. And if the HoF, to you, is players and nothing else then feel free to ignore whatever tribute is given to Miller as I'm sure you do now towards already inducted non-players.

HahnSolo wrote: [Morris] can't possibly be implying that ERA wasn't emphasized when judging pitchers back during his day, can he? That's pretty much what it sounded like he was saying, like he was going with the MLB version of the old Junior High School complaint of 'nobody told us this was going to be on the test'. Between that and the writers claiming that he could have pitched better but situationally chose not to, there are more than a few credibility tendons being strained here.

The highest ERA in the Hall of Fame belongs to Red Ruffing at 3.80. Morris will advance that record a full tenth of a run to 3.90. I'm a little uncomfortable with that. But he only had an ERA that high because -- wait for it -- he pitched to the score. Or so his supporters claim. And tonight during an interview with Morris himself (he's conveniently shown up at the winter meetings) even he said that if he knew back when he was playing that there'd be as much emphasis on ERA then he could have done something about it. I don't even know how to parse either of those claims. And I don't mean to sound insulted that he's in the Hall or anything as he was a very good pitcher over a lengthy career. I just think he falls short in the final analysis and find the arguments otherwise to be lacking and filled with empty sounding platitudes which basically come down to: he's better than his record/numbers show because I say he was and the fact that I can't prove it is proof of how good he was. Or something like that.

During our first series this past year with Miami I remember posing the question about whether you'd want Yelich or Stanton going forward if given the choice. I don't recall specifically how I dealt with the 800-lb gorilla of Stanton's contract situation but my point in bringing it up was that I saw a better future in Yelich. Well it turned out to be a bad year to vote that way as Stanton had his best -- and healthiest -- season of his career while Yelich backslid somewhat [859 OPS / 135 OPS+ in 2016 down to 807 / 117] but maybe that just means that this would be a good time to 'buy low' on him. Just turned 26 a few days ago, he has two seasons to go before hitting FA-gency and he can play CF Ozuna, one year older and with the same ML service time as Yelich, had a big step-up year in '17 but he's always been so erratic that I'd have no idea what to expect from him. Either way we're left with the question of what type of young player/prospects you'd give up for either/or and whether or not they'd be good enough to get the job done. And of course without the monster contract as part of the deal there's the possibility that either of those guys would cost more in live bodies than did Stanton.

Morris has certainly been the favorite over the years among those all-purpose type sports writers/yakkers who also occasionally dabble in baseball coverage (He was a winner!!!") so I suspect they'll be trumpeting his induction while scratching their heads over Trammel's. While on the other side of the fence, I suspect the hardcore baseball guys, particularly the more Sabermetrically inclined, will be more given to touting the Trammel vote.

... even if you are taking on all of the money for Stanton. I think you're dismissing the value of 1/4 Billion dollars of future obligation rather cavalierly. Or, as Virgil Sollozzo once said to Vito C.: 'If you consider a million dollars in cash as mere finance, Te Salut Don Corleone' Let's look at it this way: - the Yanx essentially just signed Giancarlo Stanton to a 10-year deal FA at about $29 mil per running through his age 37 season. Except in this case he can opt out after three years -- remember it was the second ARod contract, the one he forced by opting-out, which caused all the problems, not the one the Yanx inherited. AND it's also going to cost them more than that as this prevents them from getting under the lux tax level as they had supposedly planned to do, AND they also had to pay with their starting 2nd baseman (a 27 y/o 4-time All-Star coming off maybe his best season) plus two prospects, far away ones, yes, but also potentially high ceiling guys. Now they obviously consider that a good deal and maybe it will be, but they're in a very different situation than the Marlins. - the Marlins, meanwhile, despite painting themselves into a corner by essentially pre-announcing (probably Jeter et al's biggest crime here) their inability to keep GS all while knowing that their options were limited due to his no-trade clause, came away with an above average starting middle infielder plus two prospects, or those two prospects plus whatever they can flip Castro into, AND they pay almost none of the remaining contract. All of which means that they got what they were looking for too. Now you obviously think this was a bad deal, which is fine, but it not like the Fish were swimming in better ones (and even if they could they had to get his permission to act on it/them) and they just as obviously preferred this deal to no deal at all which might have been the case once the Dodgers declared no interest and the player himself rejected the SF and StL options. Manfred is not only NOT going to halt this deal, he's barely going to give it a second thought.

... you have to be willing to walk. Depends on how desperate the Fish were to get rid of Stanton - or, more accurately, his contract. The type of deal you're proposing is A type of salary dump but it's not the only one and Miami either preferred, or was only able to get, a deal where they took less in order to get out from under virtually all the money (Yanx paying 90 some percent). Insist on too much and you might wind up walking yourself into keeping a player you don't want/can't afford. It's not just "player" plus "prospects", it also the quality of the prospects. I don't know what SF and StL were offering, but from what I can tell what they are getting from the Yankees are middling at best. So, even if the packages from the other two teams were comperable, that may not speak to collusion but it does say quite a bit about Jeter's aptitude as a GM. And, if that is true, that means that now that we have finally found something that the guy is terrible at, it somehow still benefits the Yankees!!! How does that even happen? The proposed deal from SF was an infielder plus two prospects, just like the one they took from NYY. I don't claim the knowledge as to how the prospects compare* but I do know you can't merely go by #2, #8 or whatever. The Yanx have a very deep system right now (more deep than top heavy except for #1 guy Gleyber Torres except that he's recovering from TJ surgery) so #whatever in their stable might be better than a higher prospect in a weaker system. The bottom line is that this was a very open process. Miami made it known, essentially before the season even ended, that GS was available and all 29 teams were free to contact them (or be contacted by them) and make bids. The Marlins, **under the restriction of Stanton's veto power** (a VERY important detail), decided that this one was better than any others and better than the option of hanging onto him. And, if nothing else, we can look at it this way: in the last 24 hours both Dee Gordon & Giancarlo Stanton have disappeared from our division. * here's a John Sickels evaluation of the NYY guys

Mex17 wrote: Ellsbury's $68-ish million comes off the books in 2021 comparted to the $295 million that Stanton is owed through 2028. $68 million is less than $295 million and 2021 is earlier than 2028, so there are your answers. Plus, in my deals, Judge and more were headed back to Miami in addition to Ellsbury. That is how fire sale trades usually work. . .sometimes you take back a bad, albiet shorter term, contact in order to offset some of the cost to the acquiring tean and you almost always get back actual talent which is younger, less expensive, and team controllable that you use to build your own team back up again. Hardly any of that is supposedly happening here, and when you factor in the rather cozy relationship that Miami's pseudo-GM has with the team that is reaping this enormous benefit, and it should not be too hard to understand why this stinks to high heaven. So the Marlins chose a deal where they take on NONE of Ellsbury's $68 million which they obviously preferred since their stated goal going in was to cut payroll as much as possible. It's fine to make up scenarios where they take Ellsbury and therefore get Judge in the process but you're acting as if that was offered and they turned it down. The rumored SFG deal was infielder Joe Panik plus two prospects and it winds up as Castro plus two prospects. And while I'm not sure if we heard what StL was offering, the Marlins would have accepted either but couldn't get past the Stanton veto. So to believe that this was all some kind of set-up we'd have to buy that the SFG & StL deals were 'fake news' and all those teams plus the Yanx, plus Stanton, plus the offices on Park Avenue are all in on this and that Jeter's goal in his new job is to hurt his own team as much as possible.

Side note to all this, a "Met team source" said that the Mets will be contacting the Marlins about Starlin Castro once this rumored deal is complete. THAT would certainly clear up any 2nd base questions for the next two seasons and it certainly wouldn't be unheard of for the Marlins to be looking to "Piazza-Off" Castro right after trading for him.