“Throw to first, Bregman” - Hot Stove 2025/26

With a lockout pending you’d have to think this is the last best chance for some of these free agents to make serious $ on long term contracts.

Notable dates

November 6: contract option decisions
November 6: Deadline to make the qualifying offer
Same day: free agency begins
November 18: qualifying offer decisions
November 21: non tender deadline
December 7-10: winter meetings

is there a thread for the awards? some people in Toronto are a little salty about the gold glove outcomes.

Search “2025 awards”

i suppose that would have done it, yes

Opt outs so far:

Alex Bregman
Robert Suarez
Lucas Giolito (apparently the Sox declined their side of the mutual option first?)
Ha-Seong Kim
Brandon Woodruff
Cody Bellinger
Michael King
Edwin Diaz
Pete Alonso
Danny Jansen

Options declined by team

Shota Imanaga
Jorge Mateo

Opt ins

Tyler O’Neill
Lourdes Gurriel Jr
AJ Minter
Wandy Peralta

Club options picked up

Luis Robert Jr
Freddy Peralta

Walt Weiss is the new ATL manager.

that's a name i haven't seen in a while!

didn't realize he'd ended his career there

enjoying the riff on the ILH thread title

I had to differentiate it a little cos it would annoy me if I was clicking into the Bregman one when I was after Bigman. Shout out to ILH guys

i guess $20m is no longer a great deal of money but that still seems like a lot to keep a 28yo luis robert and his career .313 OBP around

I'm in Toronto today, so caught some of the FAN. I was shaking my head as they went through all the reasons they believe Bo will stay. Didn't disagree with any of them--of course it makes sense for him to stay, and of course it makes sense for the Jays to keep him here. But it's like they'd never gone through this before: logic, loyalty, friendships, park factors, position, it all goes out the window (or at least it does with the great majority of players). If the Blue Jays offer him more money than anyone else is willing to, he'll stay. If they don't, he won't.

― clemenza, Tuesday, November 4, 2025 5:06 PM (three hours ago)

Maybe we should take this discussion to the Hot Stove thread ... IMO, Bo is as good as gone. He's a valuable player but I think he wants Devers/Bogaerts money and starting pitching is a more pressing need. If Santander and Giminez bounce back, and we get a full season from Barger (including some expected improvement), Bo's offense can be replaced rather easily within the current roster. There aren't any premium starting pitchers on the market, which means someone is going to overpay for a Dylan Cease or Ranger Suarez, and that someone probably should be us.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Tuesday, November 4, 2025 5:34 PM (two hours ago)

What about Imanaga--is he worth pursuing? Some of his peripherals are good, but he took a step back this year, is 32, and gives up a lot of HR.

i'd have no issue with them resigning Biebs

bieber opting in!

Holy shit

Did not expect

Salvador Perez back to the Royals on a two year deal. No big surprise.

Glad to hear that Bieber opted in!

https://www.nbcsports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/mlb-free-agent-rankings-2025-26-kyle-tucker-dylan-cease-bo-bichette-alex-bregman-headline-top-100-list

craig stammen is the new padres manager
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6784440/2025/11/06/padres-name-craig-stammen-manager/

Woah! Feels like he just a reliever for them a few weeks ago!!

i’m wondering if adam ottavino will get some sort of coaching or f/o job. he’s been doing a ton of content for his youtube and been vocal about wanting to be a coach

Paul DePodesta returns as head of baseball ops for the Rockies!

He interviewed with the Rockies for the POBO job recently

Peter Brand in the house

Referring to Bichette: "He's been important," Atkins said. "We will be in his market."

That's about as half-assed as it gets, isn't it?

Pretty on brand for these guys.

"I, for one, would welcome the return of our SS/2B overlord."

Wow can’t wait for an entire offseason of posts like the last three

Sarcasm hurts my feelings.

anyways... Kyle Hendricks is retiring. figured he'd still have a market as #5 inning eater kind of guy so was kind of surprised.

Oh, I guess he announced this at the start of the season

At the risk of raising Michael Gill's ire: Jon Morosi tweets that "Early in free agency, the majority of interest in Bo Bichette is at shortstop. Other teams with incumbent shortstops have expressed interest in him at second base or third base." The idea that Bo could play third for anyone seems far-fetched, to say the least--the idea of moving him to second is based on his arm, no?

I watched a lot of Hendricks' starts this past year and he really had to be just about perfect to pull off a good game.

"teams are interested in bo playing third" sounds like something an agent tells a reporter to expand the perception of the market for bo's services

dads for sale?

we gonna try and pool our resources for this opportunity?!

also, 6 hours left to get your picks in for the MLB Trade Rumors free agent contest, for those whom celebrate

I’m only investing in a Padres purchase if they bring back those City Connects

https://a.espncdn.com/photo/2022/0701/r1031129_1296x729_16-9.jpg

i second the motion. i have about 10k in an education fund for my soon-to-be-uneducated children to put towards this venture

Your children can be educated in the NL West

I would also like to put some money into this: there's a few interdivisional trades I'd like to pursue but we can get to that when we get to that

I think we could get a lot of value trading Tatis and I like the look of the Dodger's farm system

Josh Naylor - Mariners 5 years.

canadian excellence

Makes me 1-for-1 in the MLBTR contest. Mariners made it sound like they were really going to make resigning him a priority. Tho 5 years feels on the long side for a guy that’s best season before 2025 resulted in a 2.3 WAR.

War doesn't account for vibes though

Big Naylor fan. Intangibles are strong

Isn’t that what VORP is? Vibes over replacement… um…person?

Big Naylor fan. Intangibles are strong

u troll

The Orioles trade Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels for Taylor Ward.

really?

Weird. Grayson has looked fine when healthy and still has lots of control left. One year of Ward is such a low sell.

O's undoubtedly didn't like what they saw in the imaging.

Grayson's only pitched 43 games in <2 seasons and is still in the midst of a 20 month injury recovery.

idk, maybe he's cooked? but also he's a former top-ten prospect with clear talent and taylor ward is just a (good) guy

well the angels get to see the medicals too so

High upside play for the Angels for a guy they weren’t going to keep idk

maybe they’re just dumping a lemon but i continue to be extremely puzzled by how the orioles run their team. they never draft pitching in the first two rounds, they barely spend money in FA and yet their big free agent expenditure last year was an OF, and now they’re trading away more pitching for another OF. they operate as if there is only one part of baseball that matters and yet somehow aren’t even able to keep that aspect of their roster up to speed

Orioles traded Cedric Mullins, Laureano last year iirc, Austin Hays is gone, Tyler O’Neill is Tyler O’Neill, Heston Kjerstad hasn’t looked the same since his concussion, Dylan Carlson non tendered. They traded Kyle Stowers to Miami for Rogers as we all know. Possible the medicals don’t look good. He never pitched at all last year and had red flags on both his shoulder and elbow. IIRC he is a guy who throws very hard. I agree it’s a strange trade but I guess I could squint and see the Angels going “fuck it let’s roll the dice on this guy” because getting a young controllable SP who throws hard is a huge win if it works out.

i totally get why the angles did it! they’ve also prob fielded like 50 different trade offers for ward over the last two years so you have to assume that in their minds they’re getting great value for him. i just find the orioles system of investing tons of high draft picks in outfielders while still needing to constantly acquire outfielders in trades and free agency to be bizarre. not a well run baseball team

angels…

angels are like "i can fix him... or kill him"

"...at any rate, he'll be flying ~high~"

I'm exactly where Posnanski is on this: "... to the California Angels for 32-year-old outfielder Taylor Ward, who banged 36 home runs last year despite me calling him Turner Ward at least 500 times."

Astros and barves just swapped utility infielders for some reason

Sorry what? Per Passan:

BREAKING: The New York Mets and Texas Rangers are finalizing a trade that would send second baseman Marcus Semien to the Mets and outfielder Brandon Nimmo to the Rangers, sources tell ESPN

Huh.

i’m shook

nimmo’s contract was kind of an albatross though. he had a no trade clause! but now he gets to be closer to wyoming. and trump and anti vaxxers. i guess it makes sense

And pay no taxes

Not sure about this one.

lol it just occurred to me that he may be afraid of living under a moooooozzzlllliiiiimmmmmmm mayor

Supposedly he consulted with DeGrom before waiving the no trade and you know DeGrom absolutely mentioned that lol

Sonny Gray to Boston, cardinals sending $20m, Boston sending Dick Fitts (RHP) & Brandon Clarke (LHP in high A, #5 prospect with a 70 grade slider who can throw 100).

i'm sorry, Dick Fitts?!

Ah, I see you have taken some liberty there lol

my guess is that the Mets are dropping one albatross contract in order to take on at least 2 more

xp that’s his canonical nickname

The two dicks this year: fitts and lovelady

My definition of a slow news day on mlb.com: "5 takeaways from the Sonny Gray trade."

takeaway 6: his name is a contranym

“What’s next for (team) after (trade/injury” feels like the most common mlb headline

These are the hard yards of beat reporting but at least they have full time jobs

a former colleague does columns on 'reasons each organization has to feel thankful' this week each year; it's v. corny

I totally understand this from the writer's point of view--just making fun of the need to feed the machine when there's nothing really there. It'd be like coming across "Seventeen Thoughts on the new Little River Band album" in Rolling Stone 40 years ago.

oddly specific analogy there

holy shit

Dylan Cease to the Jays! 7 yrs $210M according to Heyman

My friend just messaged...Why did he have such a bad season last year? Was he working through an injury?

Strange season for him. Led both leagues in k/9, FIP a run under ERA, ERA+ of 94, but also a guy you can pencil in for 150 innings easily every year and 3rd on the BR career k/9 leaderboard.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/strikeouts_per_nine_career.shtml

That's good about the FIP, much better indicator for the season ahead.

I'm going to assume that won't be their biggest off-season acquisition, so I think they do understand that they owe a gratified but badly shaken fan base another serious run (and have a lot of extra cash on hand to do so).

Grateful, I mean--not gratified, not yet.

Apparently a bunch is deferred so the avg is about $26M, and the total about $182M. which is pretty much bang on with the mlbtr guess

Someone should tell the blue jays fans that it’s not about the W, but about the fun you have along the way. Grow up blue jay nation

I like this signing, and the Jays have had success with FA pitchers in the past few years. And FINALLY they're spending money in the off-season like a real contending team with money.

The blue jays are the new ruining the baseball

No complaining allowed: the 2026 blue jays optimism thread

Flash-forward to September, 2026:

No Complaining Allowed: The 2026 Blue Jays Optimism Thread

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (3 of them)

I posted a few months ago when the Braves picked up Manoah; on to the Angels now.

https://www.mlb.com/news/angels-alek-manoah-free-agent-contract

Ricky Romero, Aaron Sanchez, Alek Manoah; stay healthy, Trey Yesavage.

The jays signed Cody ponce? They have a 6 man rotation now?!

You can never have too much pitching! The Dodgers seem to break camp with a seven man rotation each year and half of them end up injured at some point.

They actually have eight legit starters: Barrios, Gausman, Yesavage, Bieber, Ponce, Cease, Francis, and Lauer. I figure that Yesavage's workload will be limited, and Lauer was too good last year to be relegated to garbage duty. Nobody knows what version of Francis will show up. Anyway, depth is good.

Devin Williams to NYNL yesterday 3/51

i'm so happy about this contract, god it's going to be so funny. thank you steve cohen

i was listening to eno sarris talk about how the blue jays were the most splitter heavy team last season and that dylan cease started experimenting w/ throwing kevin gausman's splitter throughout the year. i'm pretty intrigued by the idea that they're going to switch up his pitch mix and unlock a new ceiling for him

Sheehan mentions him also experimenting w a sweeper -

He had a 3.56 FIP last year, and has had a FIP of 3.72 or lower for five years running. FIP is more predictive of next year’s performance than ERA is. Cease misses bats, striking out at least 200 men in each of the last five years. With 1106 total, he leads baseball in strikeouts since 2021 and is third in strikeout rate (29.7%, min. 500 innings). The Blue Jays surely know these numbers.

Here’s what they also know, though. Last year, Cease’s four-seam fastball averaged 97.1 mph, tenth among MLB starters. His slider velo, 89.1 mph, was eighth among starters, and when batters offered at it, they missed it more than 40% of the time. Even when they hit it, they didn’t get much: batted balls at 87 mph with an expected slugging of .314. Toronto's front office knows that he’s toyed with a sweeper the last two years that, in limited usage, has been almost unhittable. They know he held his velocity from April to September, actually throwing a little harder late in the year than he did at the start.

Posnanski had some numbers the other day on what's fluctuated and what's been steady:

Here are Dylan Cease’s won-loss and ERA records for the last five years:

2021 — 13-7, 3.91 ERA
2022 — 14-8, 2.20 ERA
2023 — 7-9, 4.58 ERA
2024 — 14-11, 3.47 ERA
2025 — 8-12, 4.55 ERA

Here are Dylan Cease’s FIPs for the last five years.

2021: 3.41 FIP
2022: 3.10 FIP
2023: 3.72 FIP
2024: 3.10 FIP
2025: 3.56 FIP

So, where does the wide difference in earned and unearned runs allowed come from? Well, as Tom Tango explains, it comes almost entirely from his roller-coaster batting average on balls in play:

2021: .309
2022: .260
2023: .330
2024: .263
2025: .320

so, how does toronto rank defensively vs the pads?

fielding bible had blue jays 4th and the pads 14th, fangraphs has jays 1 and pads 20. defensive numbers obv kinda change depending on where you're looking but it seems like he's going from an average-ish defense to one of the better ones in baseball, if things mostly stay the same

fielding bible had the jays ranked no 1 in catcher, 2B and CF defense, and second in 1B defense. were second to last in SS defense with a guy who prob won't be back so maybe they even get a bit better

seems like a smart pickup for the jays then

were second to last in SS defence with a guy who prob won't be back

How *dare* you!

gyac pls give me a scouting report on jhostynxon 'the password' garcia

I messaged you about this guy on WhatsApp but you didn’t reply!

Has pop, will probably get to play everyday in Pittsburgh, blocked in Boston. He’s playing winter ball in December so you’ll probably see new footage of him soon.

https://soxprospects.com/players/garcia-jhostynxon.htm

https://bsky.app/profile/justinklugh.bsky.social/post/3m7c2gbfsek2s

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bEYAAOSwdqRiYfgE/s-l1200.jpg

Dragon: [Hemlock has walked in while Dragon is hooked up to a transfusion device] Forgive me, Dr. Hemlock. Twice a year I have to have my blood completely replaced.
Jonathan Hemlock: [through gritted teeth] With what?

that helps. i was rather lost on the reference

oh wait. it's about bryce harper?!

lol yes, I take it you haven’t seen the post?

https://bsky.app/profile/baumann.bsky.social/post/3m7bqjzegk22x

Apparently the Pirates made a 4 year offer to Schwarber. I’m assuming they are hoping he doesn’t take it

Also, my partner and I are already so baseball starved, that we are watching random KBO games.

lol that's the sort of offer that means nothing but to tell fans 'look, we tried!'

Feels very much like when you put a bid on a player in an auction draft for the sole purpose of driving up the price - while silently praying “please don’t let this be the winning bid, I have no idea what I’m going to do with this guy”

we've already had an article about how the pirates (and marlins) 'are willing to spend more' and then in the tenth paragraph it was revealed that they didn't even make an offer to naylor

iirc it was from ken rosenthal? who seems to be increasingly carrying water for ownership

I do not care for that individual

This Lewin Díaz guy is pretty good

Slugger Kyle Schwarber and the Phils are finalizing a five-year, $150MM deal, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Schwarber is represented by Excel Sports Management.

and edwin diaz to the doyers, it appears

Pirates breathe a sigh of relief

pirates have a good chance (16.81%) of landing the #1 pick in the draft, too! the order for the draft will be announced later today

The Chicago White Sox (27.73%), Minnesota Twins (22.18%) are the teams the best chance at the top pick

fucking hell

i am going to become the joker

Steve cohen could have matched that but I bet he just wanted to ring chase on the Dodgers

Starting to feel like Cohen's Mets purchase was just a vehicle to the development around Citi Field.

furiously googling robert suarez

Several reports out there now saying that Diaz didn’t give the Mets the chance to match the Dodgers offer fwiw ie he was using the Mets as leverage and likely always intended to be a Dodger

From Anthony DiComo & Joel Sherman among others

that sounds like classic team issued spin, frankly

According to league sources, the Mets had offered the 31-year-old Díaz a three-year, $66 million deal with modest deferrals. New York expressed a willingness to go higher before Díaz decided to sign with Los Angeles.

"we are offering you less money and we want to defer it but if you force us to do better i guess we can!" is not a winning argument and i don't know why anyone would think that this is a serious position for a team w/ the mets' finances. put up or shut up. the dodgers understand this and thus keep signing good players in free agency

the mets were clearly lowballing him w/ the expectation that they could just up their offer at the final minute, they obviously were using the devin williams signing as further leverage for why they could just walk away if they needed to. sounds like a fuck around and find out situation to me, or like stearns didn't really care that much whether he resigned which given diaz's age and position isn't unreasonable. but the idea that the mets got betrayed by diaz or something just strikes me as total bunk

eh if it was purely about money diaz would have brought the dodgers offer back to the mets to see if they'd come over the top

i'm not discounting that his bro alexis gave him some personal insight on what the dodgers organization is like which was probably confirmatory (best-run org in baseball)

it's also 77 degrees in LA right now compared to 28 degrees in NYC

people are pointing out this is like yamamoto/mets which i think is not unfair

prob the more legit criticism is to not have gone 4 or 5 years and overpay, like phils just did with schwarber

i don't think it was purely about money either but i don't think it was just "well it's warm in LA and they're a great org" he probably rightly felt disrespected by the mets during the process. it's a burden the retaining team carries but not one the mets shouldn't have been able to figure out

if they wanted him, of course, which i'm not really convinced they did

mets probably didn't think LA would be willing to take the draft pick hits since he had a QO attached

mets radio booth guy on twitter is making cryptic tweets suggesting more bad news is coming, i'm guessing pete is going to walk as well

well, they didn't sign him to a longterm deal last winter and now he's a year older, the only reason he came back was so that he could get better offers the mets prob won't want to match. he had a great year so maybe that makes the mets more compelled but it's also going to raise his price so i don't know if that really shakes out in their favor. to me all signs would point to him leaving

doesn't feel great

going back to diaz, seems like a given that 2027 will be a season lost to lockouts, and he'll be 34 in 2028. his fastball has already been losing velo and obv he doesn't have good secondary stuff that's independent of the fastball

wonder if he thinks the 2026 may be his best chance to win a ring as a dominant closer

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Pitcher_Curves_Relievers.png

Diaz wants to close out a WS, I don’t think it’s more complicated than that.

there is no reason for him to think he couldn't do that with the mets

It’s not that, it’s “what’s the easiest path forward to do that”

we missed the playoffs and our pitching situation may look worse than last year after the dust settles lol

guys, the mets lowballed him the entire process and wanted him to take deferrals on a $65m contract

As opposed to the notoriously friendly to paying upfront Dodgers

if i wanted a ring, i feel like the dodger were a better bet for sure. and if i'm the mets, or any baseball club, i would be reluctant to dish out $65-70M for any reliever.

As opposed to the notoriously friendly to paying upfront Dodgers

― colonic interrogation (gyac), Tuesday, December 9, 2025 3:15 PM (thirty-four seconds ago)

i guess we'll find out but i'm pretty sure we'd know by now if there were deferrals in the deal

hot take stove is burning right now

end of this Mets season sure made me want to forget about baseball until at least opening day

Joel Sherman
@Joelsherman1
1h
Source: deferrals on Diaz deal with the Dodgers is $4.5M annually for the 3 years. For luxury tax purposes will calculate at roughly $21.1M

Diaz isn't the most consistent guy, he's had eye-popping seasons mixed in with replacement level ones, basically going every other year in terms of dominance.

I mean, that’s all relievers tbf.

and bret saberhagen

So first pick will be going to white sox, with Rockies all the way down at 10 lol

Game 7 wpa king Miggy Ro back for another year too

Looks like the Pirates got their man.
Their man being Gregory Soto

guys we really tried so hard, i swear!

The Pirates, looking to spend money to boost a roster with high-end starting pitching after carrying a lowly $84 million payroll in 2025, have explored signing several players this offseason.

Other targets have included outfielder Trent Grisham before he accepted the qualifying offer from the New York Yankees and designated hitter Kyle Schwarber before he re-signed with the Phillies.

it is wild how baseball media completely accepts 'The Pirates, looking to spend money' with no proof whatsoever

I mean tbf Ken Rosenthal reported the Pirates offer to Schwarber was $120m for 4 years which isn’t where the Phillies offer was but it’s not, like, laughable.

Players always want the security of the extra year(s) (or an opt-out). A 32-year old DH isn't looking to re-enter the market any time soon, he wants to get paid now and everyone in the industry knew he'd want five years.. So the Pirates' offer is kind of laughable.

Once the Mets signed Williams then Diaz's days with the team were numbered, no? No team needs to spend $150M on closers, not even the Mets.

I mean if you assume that Devin Williams wasn’t going to set up, when the Mets had already let Helsley and Rogers walk and are missing other back end guys with injury, sure. Like as soon as Williams was signed the word was that he was the eighth inning guy. He couldn’t close for the Yankees and hadn’t done so since…May, so it made total sense he was recruited to set up. The contract reflects that too.

Also I’m not sure where you get $150m for closers? The Diaz contract that he signed is $69m, so if the Mets matched that and Williams signed for $51m, that’s $120m. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of the Dodgers?

Edwin Diaz - $69m
Tanner Scott - $72m

That’s a lot closer to $150m than the Mets figure?

mets have a long history of picking up yankee scraps

O’s sign Pete Alonso, 5/155

Has anyone told them they will also need pitchers?!
This feels like the yahoo auto draft AI is running the team

seems like a solid deal for everyone, i think Schwarber is more likely to be worth his amount over the same five years period and he's the better bat now, but pretty good for the O's anyway for the next couple years even if they need pitching more.

the O's were maybe also understandably in a bit of panic mode after last season's collective power outage.

cut my life into pieces

mets radio booth guy on twitter is making cryptic tweets suggesting more bad news is coming, i'm guessing pete is going to walk as well

― 龜, Tuesday, December 9, 2025 2:15 PM (yesterday)

right on

if pete had these kinda offers on the table, which he obviously did, there was no way the mets were gonna match them, given how they operated last offseason

It would have been nice for Alonso to be a lifetime Met, but that contract might not be the best in years 4-5. When you're a small market franchise like the Mets are, you need to save money wherever you can.

Trying to think of anyone that was a LL met?

ed kranepool

david wright

Thank you. Knew there was an obvious one I was missing.

Duh. I feel dumb

^^Crowdsourcing the grid.

THE METS DIDN’T MAKE ALONSO AN OFFER?????

mets best offer was prob like 3/75 i could see both sides just being like, why bother

Yes iirc there was a report the Mets didn’t want to go beyond 3 years. Still though, why sign Soto to a huge contract and then do this? Even if you don’t rate Alonso that production is not easy to replace. Are they going to sign Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette on top of whatever pitching they need?

https://i.postimg.cc/631rmmxx/yol.jpg

Chris Davis... Chris Davis... Chris Davis...

gyac — i question whether stearns thought the soto contract was a good idea. i think as with any case of a contract that large it was ultimately an ownership decision & negotiation. the “didn’t want to go beyond three years” thing is supposedly the stearns worldview, but if steve cohen wanted to sign alonso to a 5/160 contract to bring him back he would have. so i guess my question is why cohen didn’t want to bring alonso back? i guess he buys into stearns’ vision w/ this one but you’re right that the worldviews re the lengths of the soto & alonso offers are incompatible, which to me means that the owner is driving the big decisions and not always acting rationally while doing so. the mets are always kinda good in spite of themselves but that dynamic does not typically lead to championship level winning in any sport

re what they do next — if they believe that soto was as bad on defense last year as the numbers (and often the eye test) say, then i wouldn’t be shocked if they take the alonso money and sign tucker or bellinger or another OF and start shifting some of soto’s ABs to DH and maybe even 1B. they could make a reasonable argument that they’d be better overall if they improved their OF defense via a player who could also potentially come close to or surpass alonso’s output as a hitter

also while it's difficult to see how exactly the mets plan to replace the production they've recently lost . . . they won 83 games this year, which isn't a strong argument for running it back/extending dudes in their 30s

on the athletic baseball pod ken rosenthal basically implies that the orioles made the same 5/150 offer to schwarber as the phillies and when schwarber chose to stay the orioles went right to alonso and he took that deal with a smidge tacked on

respect to the orioles for actually spending money, even if i think it's not ultimately a great move. and to pete for Getting Fucking Paid

supposedly the reds offered roughly what the phillies did to schwarber, but only because he's from ohio and could therefore presumably boost ticket sales -- they shan't go big for anyone else. which is an astonishing way to run a baseball team

i suspect stearns thinks the team's long-term championship potential is better without alonso. the diaz one is a different matter.

what are the odds Soto would be better at 1B? i could potentially see him causing a lot of damage there!

well alonso has always rated as really bad so maybe not that much worse and potentially you get a lot better in RF which is the more important defensive position anyway

to be clear i’m not saying they’re gonna move him to 1B this season but there have been people in the media speculating that part of the reason why the mets aren’t that interested in retaining alonso is because soto is going to have to transition to a 1B/DH role sooner rather than later. he’s also young and an incredible athlete so i wouldn’t be shocked if he’s suddenly good in RF next year. but he was pretty bad out there last season

He’s been bad his entire career from what I understand. I don’t see that changing. Maybe the plan is to get a 1B and CF that are so good Soto never has to use his glove again! (I kid)
His bat has more than made up for it, but feels like an easy way to make up a few wins is to move Soto out of right field. I’m just wondering if a move to 1b would alleviate him of the issues he’s having in right - or if his problems on defence will follow him there. If it’s the latter they’ll have to swallow some pride and make him a full time DH i guess.

Soto was at -1.1 dWAR in 2020 when he played only 47 games, that's really quite something.

astonishing disrespect for a player who led the NL in stolen bases this year

gyac — i question whether stearns thought the soto contract was a good idea. i think as with any case of a contract that large it was ultimately an ownership decision & negotiation. the “didn’t want to go beyond three years” thing is supposedly the stearns worldview, but if steve cohen wanted to sign alonso to a 5/160 contract to bring him back he would have. so i guess my question is why cohen didn’t want to bring alonso back? i guess he buys into stearns’ vision w/ this one but you’re right that the worldviews re the lengths of the soto & alonso offers are incompatible, which to me means that the owner is driving the big decisions and not always acting rationally while doing so. the mets are always kinda good in spite of themselves but that dynamic does not typically lead to championship level winning in any sport

This is accurate I think from what I recall about the Soto signing. Ofc Soto is a generational hitting talent whose floor is always going to be a high obp guy who’s a reliable run producer and he’s been really durable.

The thing about Stearns though, good as he is for what he’s shown he can do with limited resources, is he is just a hired hand and he’s working with an owner who’s shown that he’s willing to cut bait and move on fast if things aren’t working. Remember them signing both Verlander and Scherzer and then getting rid of both in the middle of the same year? Like those guys were something like $80m between them for one year deals. Ultimately as you say they (Stearns and Cohen) need a more cohesive worldview because right now this looks terrible.

Soto could play 1B at some point but he’s making like $46.5m actual cash next year ($51m aav iirc) and that would make him the highest paid 1B in the game by quite some distance. I guess the difficulty is that you want to transition Alonso to DHing more if you’re the Mets, and Soto will eventually end up there, but I feel they could have tread water with Alonso solely DHing last two years of a deal? Idk. They could drop a load of cash on Tucker Murakami and Imai tomorrow and this looks very different. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

respect to the orioles for actually spending money, even if i think it's not ultimately a great move. and to pete for Getting Fucking Paid

supposedly the reds offered roughly what the phillies did to schwarber, but only because he's from ohio and could therefore presumably boost ticket sales -- they shan't go big for anyone else. which is an astonishing way to run a baseball team

Schwarber might break the Bonds single season record hitting it out of great American small park, there are way worse ideas

oh it was only crazy because the reds' owners thought that splashing out for an ohio native was the best/only good use of their money

simply trying to make their team *good* seems to have been an afterthought

then i wouldn’t be shocked if they take the alonso money and sign tucker or bellinger or another OF and start shifting some of soto’s ABs to DH and maybe even 1B.

I assume that's exactly what they're doing, if so, it's a smart use of their money. OTOH, if they lose out on Tucker then LOL Mets but them's the breaks.

yeah everybody here otm about soto/alonso, the basic contradiction is that both are bad defensively and only going to decline as they age and both are destined for the DH spot. i guess maybe there's a world in which soto is at 1B and alonso is at DH but i dunno it feels to me not so much a matter of the mets swallowing their pride as much as it is soto swallowing his pride. i think soto honestly thinks he's a good RFer!

the other rumors i've seen are 1) weird report that they'd platoon mcneil and goldschmidt (weird because mcneil has never playe 1B and is rumored to be a trade piece + goldschmidt does not actually play for the mets yet and 2) training vientos to be 1B (this one i like because it's a path to keeping swaggy V on the team)

i wonder what the sabrmetrics show for the mets 2025 season if their defense was better. what's the stat for that - batting average on balls in play? like is the feeling that 'the pitching was fine actually it's our defense that got us into trouble' that's making us let nimmo and alonso good?

How do yall feel about having good ol Wilson Contreras at first?

i saw he's at like 6 OAA (good!) but hit 18 fewer home runs than pete (bad!)

6 OAA in his first season playing first, too! pretty good. for hitting, pete's wRC+ from 2023-2025 was 128. willson's wRC+ over the same time period was 129.

more power from alonso, better obp from contreras

Suarez has signed with the Braves. I think it's good not to get fished into overrpaying for closers, but curious what Toronto's plan is. I sincerely hope it's not Plan H.

looks like Barves will use suarez as their set-up guy; which i'm surprised he'd agree to.

for the jays, i assume they are going to go for pete fairbanks

Pretty steady 85% save percentage the last three seasons--I guess that'd be a marginal improvement on Hoffman.

he's pitched against the jays like they killed his puppy.

aaaand the Jays sign Tyler Rogers. 3 years $37M.

Between him and Yesavage that’s the niche armslot market locked up

gyac what can you tell me about jorge polanco?

He’s a nice pickup. I saw the Passan report that he will “play 1B and DH” but honestly he’ll get most of his reps at DH. He got 89 games there for the Mariners last year. His 2024 was pretty bad because he played through a knee injury, had surgery in the offseason to repair his pulled pork knee, and then bounced back last year. He came through with some big playoff hits. The Mariners really wanted to bring him back but there’s no chance they were meeting that price. He’ll make up some production but isn’t by any means a bopper. Can play in the field in a pinch but I’d be very surprised if he isn’t mainly DH. Didn’t strike out a lot despite playing half his games in Seattle. Good fastball hitter iirc. Had fantastic numbers with runners in scoring position last season. Really a good addition to any lineup, not a Pete replacement.

i think he was also a victim of the change in scenery to seattle specifically, guys have talked about how difficult it is to hit there so it made some sense even putting the injuries aside that he bounced back a bit last year

surprised he's not going to be playing SS/2b.

Adolis Garcia to the Phillies

https://i.postimg.cc/1tHs3L4r/IMG-6223.jpg

has he been taking brain and nerve tonic?

I don’t know what you mean, that’s a perfectly normal sized head

that might be one of the most unflattering angles i've ever seen of a ball player.
i am assuming that's an angle thing and not something... uh, else.

measure me the head of adolis garcia

The photo is not entirely real, but he does have a massive head
https://i.postimg.cc/cJ5Nzpyg/IMG-6240.jpg

He's breaking news by snapping it over his dome.

harsh

https://i.postimg.cc/SQ6h8W6p/pta.jpg

Living in the past, but I still view SI as a reputable source...

https://www.si.com/mlb/bluejays/onsi/news/blue-jays-projected-lose-top-free-agent-target-kyle-tucker-hated-rival

I was trying not to get too caught up in all the positive stuff I was reading yesterday--Shohei, part II--so I won't be blindsided or anything. They will, I hope, go all-out for Bo if they miss Tucker.

I mean that’s better than MLB posting a “what’s next for (team) after (literally anything)” headline every day for the entire offseason

Braves re-sign Ha-Seong Kim, 1 year, $20M

Between him and Yesavage that’s the niche armslot market locked up
― colonic interrogation (gyac), Saturday, 13 December 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJamQx2Gtnw

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/47359322/orioles-acquire-shane-baz-rays-prospects-draft-pick

seems like a substantial haul --

The Baltimore Orioles acquired right-hander Shane Baz in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday, sending a four-prospect package and a draft pick in a rare intradivision deal.

Following a search all winter for starting pitching, the Orioles targeted Baz and paid a heavy price, giving up outfielder Slater de Brun and catcher Caden Bodine -- both first-round picks this year -- breakout right-hander Michael Forret, outfielder Austin Overn and a competitive-balance Round A pick that comes with more than $2.5 million in slot money, sources said.

In Baz, the Orioles landed a 26-year-old coming off his best major league season. Over 166⅓ innings, Baz struck out 176, walked 64 and posted a 4.87 ERA. With just shy of four years of major league service, Baz will not be a free agent until after the 2028 season.

His “best season” in terms of innings - but that’s about it. 0.4 WAR in a full season in ‘25, 2.2 WAR in ‘24. Still young, but def feels like an overpay.

Rays also shipped Lowe off to Pittsburg in a three way deal.

Huge haul for the Rays but Baz was a subject of interest by several teams so the Orioles needed to overpay according to Ken Rosenthal

incredible steal by the pirates in landing mason m.!

at some point the entire rays roster will ultimately stem from their trade of chris archer to the pirates (which netted glasnow/baz/etc)

Murakami going to the white Sox was not on my bingo card, as the kids say

It makes sense for him, he gets two years to prove he can handle MLB pitching, rebuilding White Sox have the ABs to give him to work through same, short contract is low risk for them. If he’s good, they can flip him for a haul.

Just surprised a team with deeper pockets wasn’t willing to commit more money. I know they aren’t the same type of hitter, but I figure Yoshida‘s below average performance must have affected things a little.

It’s because of the risk of the profile. If he takes four months to adjust that’s a contending team with a hole in the lineup for that length of time.

Yoshida definitely an overpay but also superior bat to ball skills, which this guy doesn’t have so the floor is much higher.

yeah apparently his K rate in japan when translated to MLB is alarming. however it seems like a no brainer for the white sox at this price, what do they have to lose

not be the first guy with a high K rate in Japan coming over here, but this guy having had some success despite that means it's def a no brainer --

His swing, however, is where the disagreements arise. I’ve seen video of Ohtani, never having seen him live because of his ankle injury, and the swing looked long to me, to the point where I’d expect him to have a big hole on the inner third. The majority of scouts I asked said something along the same lines -- although one strongly disagreed about the swing’s length -- and thought that MLB pitchers who could run something in on a left-handed hitter would force him to make a major adjustment. He struck out at a high rate for an NPB hitter; he ranked fifth in the Pacific League in strikeout rate the past two years, surrounded on the lists by MLB refugees who didn’t hit enough here to stick in the majors. He sells out for power, because he has so much of it, and thus doesn’t show much of a two-strike approach.

Ohtani was signed as a guy who could pitch if his bat didn’t work out and he’s a freak who spends all his waking hours working on his craft. Most hitters don’t even do that, let alone have a starting pitching career to fall back on. From the espn article on the day he signed with the Angels:

Ohtani was 3-2 with a 3.20 ERA this year while slowed by thigh and ankle injuries, but those numbers don't indicate the potential seen in a pitcher whose fastball has been clocked above 100 mph. While he has occasionally struggled with control, Ohtani is widely thought to be a surefire big-league pitching prospect.

Scouts are more divided on Ohtani's ability to hit big-league pitching consistently, but the Angels intend to find out. He hit .332 in 65 games with eight homers and 31 RBIs last season, occasionally unleashing the tape-measure blasts that had teams salivating.

Ohtani was also far cheaper because he was posted before he turned 25.

Also from mlb.com on the day he did his introductory presser:

Eppler also said Ohtani will not be used in the outfield, which he has not played since 2014 in Japan. The Angels expect to use Ohtani as a part-time designated hitter, an arrangement that would ostensibly require Albert Pujols to play more first base next season. Though Pujols played the field only six times in 2017, he is in the midst of his first surgery-free winter in two years, which the Angels believe will allow him to improve his conditioning for next season.

the other major difference with ohtani is that he has historic raw power, basically. so if ohtani was a .220-.240 hitter instead of .280-.300 he’d still be really valuable because he causes so much damage when he connects with the ball. his floor would have been kyle schwarber or something. if murakami is a .220-.240 hitting 1B/DH with good but not great power, that’s enough to be part of an MLB 1B rotation but it’s not gonna get you a ton of money. i’m thinking of someone like rhys hopkins, who got 2/34 from the brewers a few seasons ago

** i think teams knew ohtani had elite raw power bcuz of his BPs but obv you need to see it in MLB games to confirm that he is indeed a stanton, mcgwire, reggie jackson type power hitter

Willson!

Yeah he’s an interesting get for sure, 34 next year so who knows how he’s going to age but 2 years you don’t care about it. Also allows Casas to not rush back and get more reps DHing after his injury.

jeff mcneil traded to the A's for a pitching prospect

Ryan O’Hearn to the Pirates. This might be the best their lineup has been in years.

gyac are you psyched for refsnyder?

The lefty killer!

i’m happy for him. what a mensch. wouldn’t be surprised to see him managing some day.

Tatsuya Imai, the Japanese pitcher, signed with the Astros. $63m over 3 years, opt outs every year. There’s quite a few teams who could easily have done that.

Passan saying the Jays signed Kazuma Okamoto.
i feel like this brings the team closer to not bringing back Bo.

I was just coming to post about that. Interested to see the money. But Okamoto plays 1B/3B and Will Sammon, who knows his shit, hinted like two days ago the Jays could be interested in putting him in the OF some. I don’t think this takes them out of Bo fwiw.

huh. the Jays OF tho, while not loaded with superstars, is pretty packed. Lukes/Loperfido/Santander/Schneider in LF, Varsho/Straw in CF and Springer/Barger in right.
but if the trend holds with the salaries these guys coming over from Japan are getting, then maybe they like the math there better than relying on Lukes/Santander/Barger/Schneider and can live with a bit of an overpay for a bench/part-time player?

I mean I assume he’d move around a bit, can play 1B to get Vlad off his feet, can back up numerous positions. That is not a scary LF, sorry. I thought Springer was largely a DH now anyway? I would assume Rogers having more money than God and finally getting free agents to accept it so they can win next year is the only factor that matters here.

Springer was DH more with Santander out - but was still pretty good out there. he was just getting more rest due to his injury history. they tried playing Santander in LF a couple times during the playoffs and it wasn't pretty. not even convinced that Ohamoto will perform better than Lukes/Schnider did out there; but if he's cheap enough - why not find out i guess. might not affect the Bo situation at all. possible they think Santander is a dud too? which is too bad if that's the case because they did spend a good chunk on him.

Quite honestly Santander was not a good signing, not because he got injured but because he’s basically a two true outcomes guy whose obp has been falling off a cliff for a while. His floor is a lot lower than Okamoto’s.

totes agree. but you know how teams are when they spend money on a guy.
i think after missing out on Ohtani and Soto and doing so bad in '24, they were desperate to get whatever bat they could manage.

I get that but the size of the Cease contract and how much they’ve spent makes me think that subsidising or DFAing Santander might not be out of the question? They are a desirable destination and they’re definitely going all out.

Kazuma Okamoto’s Jays deal: $60M, 4 years - that is a good deal if he’s half the player he’s cracked up to be

https://i.postimg.cc/Y0KJ2TGQ/IMG-7160.jpg

I'm still bullish on Santander. He's never been an OBP guy. Their lack of a true power bat other than Vlad became a weak spot in the playoffs. Everybody crushed the ball in the ALDS vs the Yankees, but they were outhomered by Seattle and LA. They had about five chances to win or tie G6 or G7 if somebody could have hit a deep fly ball. I heard that Okamoto probably won't be a 30-HR guy in MLB, but Bichette may not be back and Springer will certainly decline, this signing definitely helps offset that.

after how little Murakami (2yr/$34M) and Imai (3yr/$54M) went for, I am pretty surprised the Jays committed this much.

Welcome new Blue Jay I'd never heard of till today.

edward cabrera to the cubs for three prospects (including owen caissie)

caissie swings and misses a lot so it's possible he's a bust, but to get a top 50 hitting prospect for a pitcher w/ an extremely minimal track record of real success and a very long history of injuries feels like a pretty great swap

cabrera is nasty tho and it was really fun to watch him last season

Cabrera also adds some youth to the Cubs rotation but higher risk as Jordan says

a bullpen catcher did an AMA and this is amazing

https://i.postimg.cc/4xRmyMqb/Screenshot-2026-01-08-at-3-40-40-PM.png

Anyone want guess who the strategic pooper is?!
I would put money on Bauer if he was still pitching

Could be literally any SP, most of them have “quirks”.

Maybe it wasn't a starter????

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-use-reason-to-deduce-when-archie-bradley-pooped-himself/

Bradley always gets me thinking of what the DH took from us :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wlhu2U5EXk

I know people who do that before meetings

Passan: Two-time AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal filed for a $32 million salary this year while the Detroit Tigers countered at $19 million, sources tell ESPN. The $13 million spread is by far the largest in salary-arbitration history and sets up for a fascinating hearing in February.

this is his last year of arb? $19 feels crazy low.

it’s apparently the largest number ever offered to a pitcher in arbitration so i’m sure that will be the tigers’ defense but why you would risk fracturing your relationship with a player of skubal’s character over what like $5 or $6 million i don’t really understand

i meant caliber* tho character works too

Two-time AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal filed for a $32 million salary this year while the Detroit Tigers countered at $19 million

if the arbitrator actually chooses $19m over $32m for a guy who's won the last two cy youngs . . . that will have CBA repercussions

not that skubal getting fully paid should be the focus of those negotiations, of course

mark feinsand makes the point that the real number to focus on is the midpoint $25.5m - if either side can prove he's worth $1 either above or below that, then they win

yeah seems like an extreme example of one side deliberately underbidding and the other overbidding

if this is his last year of arb, Ohtani and Soto both got $30+M and i would think that is the comp; as opposed to just sticking to SPs. i'd think Detroit is going to lose this one.

Juan Soto settled on a $31 million deal with the Yankees in his final arb year before free agency. Shohei Ohtani and the Angels agreed to a $30 million when he was in Skubal's place. After them comes Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays who landed at $28.5 million.

$32m may or may not be slightly too high, but $19m is absurd (as would $25.49m be). he is, at *worst*, the second-best pitcher in the game!

hey what about my friernd hank you works at the general store? he’s never missed a day of work in 34 years and he makes minimum wage and never complains!

The Dodgers will pay you Skubal!!!

Posnanski:

I mean, you have already gotten TWO CY YOUNG SEASONS from the guy for a grand total of $12.8 million. He has been the bargain of the century. Fangraphs has estimated his open-market value over the last two years at a touch over $100 million.

Apparently, an 87% off sale is not enough for these Tigers.

So, yes, lowballing Tarik Skubal because you can is a statement — a statement that you do not particularly value the player, a statement that you do not intend to compete for him when he becomes a free agent at the end of the year, a statement that you do not care if he feels resentful toward the team.

chill out pos

I don’t think anything he’s saying is wrong. I know players have held grudges over WAY smaller amounts.

yeah but he’s being unnecessarily dramatic for content purposes

I can't imagine that this actually goes to arbitration, I don't see any way the Tigers can win this considering what Vlad, Soto, and Ohtani got paid in their arb. years. They'll probably come to a settlement, and soon.

he’s being unnecessarily dramatic for content purposes

Not to be confused with being unnecessarily pernickety for message-board purposes...If that Fangraphs calculation is at all close, I'd say a 100-million-dollar return on a 13-million-dollar investement is pretty dramatic.

You can add an 's' in there.

Just anywhere we want?

Yes; differentiated learning--I'm a teacher.

i mean we'll see how skubal reacts, maybe he's a "hey it's business" guy. but it's also entirely possible that what posnanski wrote is accurate

Skubal is one of the 8 main player reps on the MLBPA btw

bregman to cubs

Lmao

ruined a relationship with Devers for one year of Bregman where he was injured two months lmao

$35M avg for 5 years. Good chunk of change.
And also lol Red Sox and lol Shaw.
Tho I worry this might spur the Sox to panic and throw an uncalled for amount of dough at Bichette.

do you actually think bichette will return to the jays?

It's been a consistent comedy of errors for these sox post-Mook

one could say the same of my exes

https://i.postimg.cc/6qsDkdSY/IMG-7683.jpg

Lols

Upgrading to a third baseman who has voiced very non-Shaw like opinions in the past is a good thing, I hope Matt goes the Gary Scott route career wise in terms of Cub third basemen.

arenado to the dbacks

Mets have offered Tucker $150m for 3 years

So arenado now has three teams paying his salary?!

Primary third basemen with 350 HR/400 doubles. I tried to guess before looking at the list--was surprised that Matthews and Brett weren't there, ditto that Ramirez and Gaetti were.

https://i.postimg.cc/XvyHvF2J/nolan.jpg

xp https://i.postimg.cc/j5MZgX2k/IMG-7914.jpg

Wasn't he thought of as a good guy during his Rockies tenure? What happened?

he wanted to win in colorado and the rockies were not interested in that, so he sought a trade, eventually going to the cardinals.

he played well with the cardinals, for a bit! a couple years ago he got mvp votes! but then he got older. the cardinals are not a "win now" team (not until 2029, when they win the world series, guaranteed). arenado is a typical professional athlete in that he heavily believes in himself and believes he should be starting. but in stl he's not a good fit anymore - getting him off the roster clears up space for younger players to get reps in, rather than watching arenado do the last two years of the "march to 400 HRs while being a replacement level player" campaign in STL

he seems like a good guy, but i didn't like when he and goldschmidt refused to get vaccinated. but kinda low on the list of dumb decisions by mlb players i guess

his defense is still a tad above average but it's no longer an elite skill of his, and his power is gone. he also hits infield pop-ups at an incredible rate, which is noticeable because 99.9% of those are outs, and even those outs aren't productive outs, like a deep outfield flyball which advances the runner might be

I remember Goldschmidt being anti-vax--forgot, or didn't know, about Arenado. But I guess it does seem mostly about diminishing skills. He's not Josh Donaldson or anything like that, right?

you know how it goes, it's tough to tell! so much of it is about injuries, and athletes/teams are so opaque about it. athletes will play for months, hurt, without telling anyone including their teams. other players just play hurt. here's arenado's injury history over the last 2 years

8/1/25
Shoulder
7/11/25
Finger
7/5/25
Shoulder
7/1/25
Finger
5/7/25
Back
4/7/25
Illness

6/22/24
Forearm
6/19/24
Elbow
6/13/24
Hand

the shoulder injury last year was particularly bad. and arenado is known for playing through injury and wanting to be "durable". so yeah, i don't know! i don't know what his injury status is for real - if he's super healthy again it would be a surprise if he hits 30 HRs for the dbacks and he's still able to do that one signature move where he catches groundballs in foul territory and whips it over across his chest to first base. if his body feels anything like mine does, every single day, i don't know how he is a baseball man

if he's super healthy again it would be ^NOT^a surprise if he hits 30 HRs for the dbacks

so to put it clearly, ^would^ be NOT surprises, homerun baseball story, injuries plus luck

may god have mercy on all of our souls

8/1/25
Shoulder
7/11/25
Finger
7/5/25
Shoulder
7/1/25
Finger
5/7/25
Back
4/7/25
Illness

In Toronto, we call that KGS (Kelly Gruber Syndrome).

maybe it was due to his shoulder and he's healthy now, but last year his exit velocity was in the bottom 10%

ranger suarez to the red sox

(xpost) Josh Donaldson's exit velocity improved with age, though it was him leaving cities rather than baseballs leaving bats.

ha!

Suarez is getting $130M for 5 years.

Make It Rain-ger

Random Facebook thing that I thought was pretty accurate ("Deep down we all know this is what’s going to happen"):

METS: Here's a ton of money for three years.
BLUE JAYS: Here's a lot of money for seven years.
DODGERS:
KYLE TUCKER: This is so hard.
DODGERS:
KYLE TUCKER: But I'm gonna have to go with the Dodgers.

Prophetic.

I’m having difficulty believing the numbers being put out there

Can’t wait for the lockout

Big fucking surprise.

wtf

lol

4yrs/240mil......................

https://i.postimg.cc/X7Jt6K2G/bafkreigorvbmqhhc5zvnrihxjppcevsa6spezhu7h7lusdrhfrg6udawse.jpg

This all started because the Red Sox decided to trade Mook + 48 million dollars in cold hard cash for Alex Verdugo

you needn't preen

Fair

What's the point?

Tucker gets like a $60M signing bonus , most of it paid upfront, so if he opts out after two years then he'll make around $150M. Insane. This kind of contract is so out of character for the Dodgers, but they're made of money and will field one of the greatest lineups ever, so there.

they are the only team trying

oh they’re certainly “trying”

Just wait until they "try" to sign Bichette too.

L.A. Dodgers, scrappy underdogs.

they are certainly trying harder than the new york yankees

tucker turns 29 tomorrow which makes him the youth movement in that dodgers lineup

bo bichette to the mets?!

As 3B?

what's my beautiful boy brett baty gonna do :(

Mets got Bichette

Sorry already stated

scooped him from the Phillies apparently! they though they had a done deal. i don't think his arm (accuracy-wise) is going to work out so hot. Vlad was saving his ass a lot at 1b - and the mets have (check notes)... Polanco there?!

getting jason bay flashbacks

they have a lot of flexibility with their infield now, bo can play three positions, polanco can play three, baty plays two, vientos plays two, mauricio can move around a bit… i feel like getting the mix right won’t be that hard based on the pitcher, injury, guys getting time off etc. i see the vision, i think the question is just whether polanco and bichette can stay healthy and be effective because they’ve both had periods of not being able to do those things

what's my beautiful boy brett baty gonna do :(

Welcome to utility (or the Cubs probably after they get a haul for a Nico rental)

they have a lot of flexibility with their infield now, bo can play three positions, polanco can play three, baty plays two, vientos plays two, mauricio can move around a bit… i feel like getting the mix right won’t be that hard based on the pitcher, injury, guys getting time off etc. i see the vision, i think the question is just whether polanco and bichette can stay healthy and be effective because they’ve both had periods of not being able to do those things

I was just discussing this with my Mets pal and this sounds broadly correct. Vientos had a bad year, doesn’t make much sense to move him rn. He can split time with Polanco at 1B (they are having him take reps at 1B this offseason) and DH some. Polanco got most of his reps last season coming off serious knee surgery (and probably the whole year if Raleigh didn’t need days off), he’s not an everyday guy in the field anymore. Lindor is at short. Semien at 2B. Bo at 3B but can slide to 2B if Semien needs a day. I feel like either Acuña or Baty might lose out though and get moved.

Not convinced by that noodle arm at 3B either fwiw, medicals should be fun. As always, worry about what Dombrowski will do now.

well what are they going to do with semien?

realmuto back to the phils

he's got a decent arm (Bo), just bad accuracy (and poor range for a SS)

good thing we replaced our first baseman who led the league in scoops last year with ???

realmuto back to the phils

were they seriously waiting on this Bo signing to do that

probably tossed a few of those Bo bucks his way to get it done

the number of opt outs in these contracts make them all feel like 1 year deals. perhaps we will get to a point where they are multiple opt outs available to the player per season.

I guess bo feels at home going from one tortured fanbase to another

I continue to feel torn about all this in a head vs. heart way.

1) When the Jays had the highest payroll in baseball in the early '90s, I loved it; if they were to have the highest right now, I'd be cheering them on again.

2) There's lots of evidence throughout the history of sports that having one easily identifiable villian is not a bad thing in terms of fan engagement.

3) You can't buy a WS--a playoff spot maybe, but not a title. The Dodgers got outplayed and outscored in the WS, but they won because of one starting pitcher, one historic game by Ohtani, and a lot of freakish luck. So there are never any guarantees.

Having said all that, something still feels wrong. Maybe it's all the deferred money, maybe it's the way other teams--the Jays number-one on that list, making it even worse for me--are getting played as negotiating tools. (See that post yesterday that predicted everything.) Perversely, I was kind of hoping the Dodgers would get Bo too, creating a tipping point that might have prompted some kind of intervention. But again, I don't know what that would be.

assume for a moment LAD and your random small market team (Pirates. Rockies. whatever.) have the same access to ready cash and could afford to offer Tucker or Bichette or Player X the same sort of contract with a high AAV. Why would those players sign with the pirates when they don't have the development/training infrastructure in place to either a) make you better b) allow you to work thru mid-season hiccups or c) keep you on the field.

Along those lines, owners like Monfort has been on record as saying MLB should consider capping the amount teams can spend on off field resources which is something the GOOD small market teams do! It's feckless ownership all the way down who have forgotten that the whole point of the enterprise is to play to win the games.

Turn your hypothetical billions into real billions and GTFO as far as I'm concerned.

I mean that is entirely correct re Montfort and all the cheap owners (or the wasters - see Yusei Kikuchi complaining that the Angels didn’t have functional air conditioning in their weight room, for example). The White Sox losing a record number of games is bad for the game, so is whatever the fuck the Rockies have going on. I’ve spent time at PNC Park which is a beautiful place that deserves a team worthy of the fans that were showing up loyally even when they didn’t have Skenes to watch.

It’s also true that players getting paid is good for players, and fans should want that. However it is puzzling that there seem to be no strong disincentives from essentially assembling a superteam and it’s kind of disingenuous to say “yeah I’m so SURE the Rockies/Reds/Pirates could have snagged Tucker, all things being equal.” It’s more that it’s boring. For me personally, anyway, it’s like sliding to the “easiest” option on a simulator because you don’t like that the game occasionally throws you a curveball. I respect I may be the only person who watches pretty much all 30 teams during the season, timezone allowing, and recognisable and/or star players spread out through the league is a good thing for the game.

I hated the Ohtani contract at the time. I still hate it now. That and the Dodgers TV deal make what they are doing now out of reach of even of the likes of Steve Cohen. Like I’m sorry but the argument that “yOuR tEaM cOuLd Do It ToO” is so fucking false when Steve fucking Cohen just got outbid, on a free agent he offered a $75m signing bonus to, with no deferred money. That’s $75m with no income tax because Tucker is in Florida. It’s mad.

I am sick atm so probably not formulating the most coherent thoughts but it feels like it’s a farce in terms of competition, that Tucker wanted the Dodgers all along. That’s his right, as a free agent, but the leaking of the Mets offer by his camp to encourage the Dodgers to bid up their offer reminds me very much of the Yamamoto cross country dog and pony show, the Sasaki nonsense. It’s just fucking tedious. If you’re so upfront about your preference, sign with the Dodgers on day 1 and spare the illusion of competition, and the following comments of “aNy TeAm cAn dO iT”. Because many can’t, those that won’t are already cunts as mentioned, and those that can are sideshows to the ring chasing factory.

I expect we’ll be asked to respect how good it is for the game when the Dodgers trade some of their fraudulent prospects for Tarik Skubal, or when the lockout happens next year. But just remember, your team could do it too. Even when the traditional means to attract a free agent to your organisation when it’s fallen out of favour(drastically overpaying) is no longer available to even the richest teams if the Dodgers decide they want them first.

Joe Sheehan says the problem isn't the Dodgers, not sure I agree but you can see where he's coming from

The Dodgers probably share about $100 million a year, every year, with other teams. The Dodgers paid $169 million in tax -- just tax -- on last year’s payroll. Eighty million of that goes into a slush fund that gets kicked back to teams that get revenue sharing. So the Dodgers paid $180 million last year to the teams they’re trying to beat. It was about $140-150 million in 2024. How much is enough? The Yankees, the Mets, the Cubs are all sending around $100 million or more a season to the Pirates, the Marlins, the Royals, the Reds, the Brewers, but we don’t have the hard numbers. That’s to MLB’s advantage.

If we had hard information on this, if we could see that since 2016, the Pirates have collected more just in local revenue sharing and luxury-tax kickbacks than they have spent on players, it would change the conversation. If we could see that the Dodgers have shared a billion dollars in revenue since 2018, it would change the conversation. MLB guards that information jealously because it knows that making it publicly available would shift the focus from the teams that spend to the teams that don’t. They benefit from fan and media ignorance when it comes time to press for favorable terms in the next CBA.

As I wrote a few years back, there’s also hidden revenue sharing. Those teams with the biggest fan bases, the ones on TV for much of October, get the same 1/30th slice of the national-TV money that the teams who never appear in those games do. Who is driving the $900 million a year in those deals? Who collects $30 million a year just for existing?

So no, the Dodgers aren’t a problem. The Dodgers are doing what 30 teams should be doing, trying to win. They’re doing it while sending $180 million to teams that, in many cases, aren’t. Don’t let MLB’s success at keeping the latter part a secret fool you.

Everybody knows that part because it comes up as often as “your team could do it too” and Sheehan either elides the mention of the Dodgers local TV revenue which dwarfs those of even the biggest markets. Meanwhile, what, nine teams had to end their deals with a RSN that’s facing bankruptcy. We saw that the Rangers had to cut spending due to revenue from their own RSN drying up. And revenue sharing is almost half of what the Dodgers get from one single income stream, their TV deal.

Sorry, “elides the mention of…” or maybe he simply doesn’t know it. Either way it’s a pretty big omission, clocking in at an estimated $334m a year.

dodgers apologists sure have their talking points down

aren't you a mets fan?

not sure anyone has to 'apologize' for the dodgers (apart from HP of course, and endlessly)

they win, they pay, they have tight connections with japan. why wouldn't someone want to play there? (also great uniforms)

evidently they can still make money despite the revenue sharing and luxury taxes that keep bob nutting happy

as ezra klein might say, they're doing baseball the right way

i'm a braves fan and it feels like a bunch of major market fans being butthurt their teams aren't doing the same thing. meanwhile, i sit back and relax knowing that ronald acuna jr. is (wrongly) getting paid $17 mil for the next 3 years.

I do like the location of the player’s numbers on their jerseys.

Xpost

I do like the location of the player’s numbers on their jerseys.

otm!

I also don’t begrudge how they operate. They could easily hang onto more of their profits and field a competitive team. They are getting absolutely rolled with luxury tax right now and these deferrals will catch up to them down the road (somewhat) (right?).
I feel like, with what we know about some of the smaller market teams, they could never spend like the Yankees or dodgers, but they definitely could do better.

Ftr I've given up apologising

On the score that there's no reasons with which to placate non-dodgers fans. The Sheehan point is as close as you can get but you know... it's still an inequitable game and a small balance on one side of the weight doesnt counter balance 2 billion dollars in guaranteed contracts. I'd be pissed on the other side of this too! But I don't run the team so I'm not going to claim any responsibility for the woes bestowed on the rest of baseball by yet another bonkers contracts bringing yet another star to LA. I am also, personally, not interested in letting too much ineffectual empathy get in the way of enjoying what is a FANTASTIC product for myself and a million other lowlife LA supporters. It's my team: I'm not going to not enjoy this while it lasts. That's the extent of my apologisms! Sorry ILB 🤷🏼‍♂️

these deferrals will catch up to them down the road (somewhat) (right?)

why would they? the contracts come off the books at the same time regardless of deferrals or not

just hoping this is the outcome for the dodgers

https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/2/22/660x290/b_502x220x82/finale-of-the-simpsons-episode-homer-at-the-bat-note-homer-prone-at-center-photo-from-mic-mic-com_1162781.jpg

I don’t have a problem either. There should be more parity, small team owners should not be so cheap, but no one needs to go hard defending LA.

this might be out of date, but i saw a chart a while back showing that 2/3 of teams put less than 50% of their profits back on the field.

Didn’t the league invent the Steve Cohen tax the last time a team was spending “too much”? Huh.

I mostly agree with Sheehan -- the cheapskate teams are more of a problem than the big spending ones. Also, this is baseball, where you can buy all the stars you want but you still need the light hitting utility infielder to save your ass in the ninth inning of Game 7, and you have to put your trust the baserunning skills of a different utility infielder to score the run that could win the WS in the ninth inning of Game 7. It's never been all about who spends the most money.

Not to mention the 9th-place hitting CF who does absolutely nothing all series until he saves it at the last second with a preposterously fluky catch.

No lingering bitterness here, just to make that clear.

I mean maybe if you are the jays you do invest an extra million in playoff baserunner skills and how to not hit into game ending double plays, just to be sure

if i'm a Dodger fan, i *might* have concerns about more than half that lineup being possible candidates for a swift decline (and for some it's already started), and of course the fact that every other week one of their pitchers hits the IL. no doubt they're very good of course.

their line up was pretty top heavy last year and still will be this year. they haven’t had a great track record recently of adding young contributors out of the minors, pages is about as close as they’ve gotten. we’ll see about rushing this year, he was only okay last year. they have trended towards using prospects as trade bait and the current model they’re following will always leave them somewhat susceptible to injury, age & depth related issues. but with the expanded playoffs it would take something cataclysmic for a team spending at their levels to not at least get into the WC round. they also have babe ruth on their team so that definitely helps

https://www.totalprosports.com/mlb/mookie-betts-announces-shocking-retirement-news/

retirement tour begins now

Ha, I got suckered in...I mean, the URL's not fake; "shocking" maybe a tad overstated.

More time to go on antisemitic streams I guess

after last season, if the decline is real, seven more years is...a lot.

yeah show me a current baseball player who actively wants to/can play to 40, let alone play past that

although I guess people still want Verlander and Scherzer for as long as they will be around

If Tim Wakefield was still alive I'd still trust him to get three outs

Jamie Moyer could probably still eat some innings

buster olney said on a podcast that talks have intensified around skubal b/c of the arbitration demand

of course a lot of clickbait articles got written about how the dodgers might be in the mix without any sourcing

but maybe they are?

They’ve got the prospects

so what's the deal with luis robert jr?

he's been bad the last couple years, mostly due to injuries, but probably him being constantly on the trade bubble didn't help either. i'd be concerned about him being hurt all the time but if he can stay healthy he could definitely benefit from a change of scenery. he's still only 28.

It’s a great get for the Mets imo, ceiling is really high, he’s been injured and likely demotivated. Still young and a pretty good CFer so should hopefully have some space to develop in a lineup where he isn’t The Guy. Acuña is going to play every day in Chicago.

apparently the white sox also have an infielder glut but i'll be pretty happy if acuna plays every day there

Ah they do and they don’t. Colson Montgomery is everyday shortstop but I could see Acuña getting reps at 2B and 1B and as the first guy off the bench.

yeah Robert has a vv high ceiling, i think there are some flaws that a great hitting coach could fix, primarily the fact that he never walks and also lately hasn't made up for it in other areas. his best season was 2021, which was kinda eye-popping despite playing less than half the year. he never achieved those heights again but he had a really good 2023. it's not like he's never unlocked the potential before, he just needs to get back to that level and there's still time to go beyond it. i can't imagine playing w/Soto would do anything but help him, maybe Juan would be a good influence in terms of hitting approach.

he's also, i think, a pretty good defensive player.

Re: LRJr.

I dont mean this as being/sounding accusatory but i can also imagine him playing on a go-nowhere sox team being mentally exhausting and ur desire to ‘play thru it’ declining

somebody got traded from the white sox last year and started mashing right?

Yeah both Gavin Sheets for a while and Andrew Vaughn

Bellinger back to NYY. 5/162, opt outs after years 2 & 3, $20m signing bonus, full no trade

the thing i’ve consistently heard about why robert’s play declined — and why he languished on the trade market for a long time — is that he chases pitches at an extremely high rate, and the historical data shows that making contact out of the zone is a skillset that peaks very early in a player’s career and can lead to star level years until the bottom suddenly begins to fall out of the batting line. the prototypical example here is javy baez… PCA is another one where there are doubts about his long term value because of how often he swings at pitches outside of the zone. robert in i.e. 2022 was running chase rates at the very top of the league — that year he swung at pitches out of the zone 44% of the time; by comparison, soto and nimmo were at the top of the league at rates in the 15-20% range. it’s just a really tough way to try and approach hitting for the entirety of a career. his adjustment as of recently has been to reduce the amount of swinging he does altogether (in or out of the zone) but it hasn’t led to better hitting.

maybe a hitting coach or new environment unlocks something but the amount of time he’s been in trade rumors and the eventual return suggests the rest of the league is skeptical of that happening. i don’t personally buy the “oh he’ll just be better now that he’s not on a bad team” — he rated as a plus in centerfield last year and ran faster by sprint speed than he has in any season since 2020. so if he was disinterested/unmotivated by being on the white sox it only showed up when he was at the plate.

now i don’t think it’s a bad trade or anything bcuz he still is a really good fielder and hasn’t lost his athleticism, so there is some value floor there even if he stinks at hitting again, and of course there is the theoretical upside of him figuring out how to hit. but idk, he hasn’t shown the ability to effectively change his hitting approach to this point after two bad seasons and i doubt that any singular hitting coach can basically re-teach a guy to hit. this isn’t a minor mechanical adjustment or something. he’ll prob help them i’d just understand the warts going in and the relative unlikelihood of him returning to his batting lines from 3+ years ago bcuz he was utilizing a skill that erodes quickly with age

i figured that was next after Roberts went to the Mets

xpost

bellinger was always gonna go back to the yanks, he fits them too well

xp I’ll need to find the link but Red Sox Stats pulled some data that showed that chase rate is relatively stable over a batter’s career. It’s really interesting that his has actually improved over time. From the 44% you cite in 2022 he ended up chasing 32.5% last year. That’s not great but it’s really far bigger than the changes Stats outlines for various players over their careers:

https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FG9wgeWYWkAAT4TD.png

https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FG9wg_m7WAAASg6s.png

Commentary:

I read some articles on plate discipline. Metrics for batters like O-Swing (Chase Rate) rarely vary by more than 3% during a player’s career. Only 2% of batters move their plate discipline decisions by 4%, less than 1% move it by 5%.

Stats
@redsoxstats
Jan 3
To tack on to this out of my own curiosity, since 2007, here are the only players that have moved their chase rates by more than 4% in either direction after their age 24 seasons. Among extreme chasers, only Nolan Arenado and Jonathan Schoop were able to improve >3%.

(End Stats quote)

What I’m wondering is if injuries have his mechanics out of whack and the White Sox don’t have the necessary help to sort him out at the plate? He’s missed about 100 games the last few years and that’s going to prevent getting into a rhythm too.

the thing w/ robert is that his out of zone swing rates and his in zone swing rates have fallen by the same margin. so he doesn't seem to have a plan as to how to swing at fewer bad pitches -- i.e. improving pitch recognition -- as much as he's just overall retreated from the concept of swinging. but if you look not at out of zone/in zone swing rates but instead contact rates you can see why relying on out of zone contact can be fraught

robert out of zone contact %

2021 - 50.3%
2022 - 54.4%
2023 - 44.1%
2024 - 39.3%
2025 - 46.1%

robert in zone contact %

2021 - 84.7%
2022 - 86.8%
2023 - 81.2%
2024 - 81.8%
2025 - 80.9%

even as his in zone swing rates have continued to fall, his rate of hitting pitches in the zone has, while down from his peak, pretty much stabilized. but his ability to make contact out of the zone has both fallen and is pinging around from season to season. and in zone contact rates of ~80% and out of zone contact rates of ~45 are both not very good, overall

but! you *can* succeed w/ this kinda profile -- aaron judge and kyle schwarber, for instance, both made contact in the zone 80% of the time last year and made contact out of the zone 45% of the time. it's a power hitter's profile. the difference between the two of those guys and robert is twofold: one, they swing outside of the zone far less than robert does (judge and schwarber were both swung outside of the zone only 25% of the time last year, robert has cratered his number but was still at 32%); secondly, when they do make contact in the zone it's of far greater impact than robert.

if you look at robert's bat speed, it's still near top of the league -- statcast has him in the 92% percentile last year. but his average exit velo, hard hit & barrel rates were all below the 50th percentile. so he's basically trying to hit like judge or schwarber -- swinging very hard and accepting that you're going to miss a lot -- but without a. the plate discipline to swing at the right pitches or b. the ability to hit the ball very hard when he does make contact (schwarber and judge are both in the 98+ percentile in hard hit, barrel etc)

so the mets are looking at a guy who makes contact at rates that are acceptable if you utterly smash the ball and who swings super hard and are hoping that, basically, 1 + 1 will equal 2 instead of 3. again, i'm personally skeptical that at age 28/29 a guy is, essentially, going to learn how to recognize bad pitches from good ones. his problems seem to me w/ his eyes & brain and not the rest of his body, and i think if hitting coaches could fix that kind of thing it would be a lot easier to turn guys from bad hitters into good ones. but the ceiling if he does fix it is that he's a no doubt all star, and if they don't he'll still prob be valuable in other ways, so again i don't think it's a bad trade

Peralta to the Mets for a couple of top 50ish prospects

Jett Williams seemed pretty good in the minors

Short porch will continue till be abused: Belli-back

Thanks for doing the deep dive into Robert’s numbers, Jordan. Agreed mostly but I think like most teams they bought low and are betting on the ceiling. Agree re plate approach, with that many plate appearances he likely is who he is but let’s see what they try with him.

yeah again i don’t think it’s a bad gamble, and he should be a 2-3 WAR player just off defense and base running. my point was just that there are real structural issues to the way he approaches hitting that i think transcend “you just need to get him in the right environment”

That’s fair.

Mackenzie Gore to Rangers. Five prospects going to Washington.

Posnaski writes that with his new extension, Ramirez will likely end up as the most underpaid player in history.

And let’s not undersell just how much money Ramírez will have left on the table. According to Fangraphs’ estimates, he has already put up $461 million in baseball value. When this contract ends and, presumably, Ramírez retires, he will have been paid $272 million. There is every chance that he will be paid $300 million less than his value over a career.

The only caveat I'd throw up is that we have no idea (I don't, anyway) how underpaid players like Mays, Aaron, Spahn, etc. were. Not sure how reliable the bookkeeping was back then, for starters.

I can’t normalize stuff like that. would be funny to analyze where that hypothetical extra 300 million dollars is actually going to over the term of the contract.

how much is judge leaving on the table by outperforming his contract?

Concrete example of how badly players were screwed over from the early '60s: every November, after the World Series, Dodgers (not quite the candy store there that it is today) were expected to go on a goodwill tour of Japan, playing games and doing events for free. I think O'Malley covered their expenses.

Cleveland needs to build the biggest statue of him. He’s a stud and he’s their stud.

We have no idea how underpaid players were pre-free agency because there was never a market for their services. Mays and Aaron were probably the highest (or close to the highest) paid players in the game for many years, but how much were they really *worth*? We'll never know.

Judge, OTOH, was a FA and signed a deal that's looking like one of the all-time great steals, based on how good he's been.

Ramirez is great, probably the best guy to hold down the 3B position in the post-Beltre era.

Harrison Bader to SF is a low key signing I like a lot

bader is all-time for the way he tosses the ball into the infield after a routine flyout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSxDx0jXu_U

(the video is about the ‘crab’ which is pretty funny too, but it’s the throw back in that always got me

i think he might have the best hair in baseball. flowing golden locks

He’s always great value on the mic

https://streamable.com/zhbs8w

And on the walk to the clubhouse ofc

While the team was in Arizona, a relative of a member of the Phillies coaching staff with a hairy stomach wore one of Bader’s crop tops. Another member of the coaching staff took him to the weight room to show Bader his new look.

“What a fucking gift! That’s how you wear that shit,” Bader screamed.

xp I saw a video where they asked a bunch of Yankees back in 2023 how they preferred to wear their hair and he was like “I like it short like this” which was belied by the fact he grew it back as soon as he left. Fantastic outfielder, so-so bat, impeccable vibes guy, rare MLB player who will wear a Pride shirt.
https://i.postimg.cc/ydwJXBZJ/IMG-8481.jpg

Also found out yesterday he is half Sicilian to which I’m like, lmao, where

https://i.postimg.cc/RZjMg1MN/MLB-Player-Partisanship.jpg

The Political Lean of Pro Sports

(i do wonder if canadian hockey players break down along similar lines, as this is only american citizens)

Luis “bloop merchant” Arraez to the Giants on a one year deal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ he’ll be blooping them into right field you hope

He reminds me of some patter on Neil Young's Time Fades Away: "This is a song without a home." Bill Madlock (lifetime BA of .305) went through the same thing in the '70s, though not at quite the same pace.

second base? really?

My thoughts exactly. Ron Washington is going to have his work cut out for him.

Jordan Hicks and David Sandlin (prospect) to the White Sox for a minor league arm and players to be named later. Red Sox are eating $8m of the $24m remaining on the Hicks contract.

Eugenio Suarez to the Reds on 1/$15m.

The Mariners, Rays and Cardinals officially announced a three-team deal that sends infielder/outfielder Brendan Donovan to Seattle. The full breakdown is as follows:

The Mariners send infielder Ben Williamson to the Rays, as well as prospects Jurrangelo Cijntje and Tai Peete and a competitive balance round B pick (#68 overall) to the Cardinals, receiving infielder/outfielder Brendan Donovan from the Cardinals.

The Cardinals send infielder/outfielder Brendan Donovan to the Mariners, getting prospects Jurrangelo Cijntje and Tai Peete plus a competitive balance round B pick (#68 overall) from the Mariners, as well as receiving outfield prospect Colton Ledbetter and a competitive balance round B pick (#72 overall) from the Rays.

The Rays send outfield prospect Colton Ledbetter and a competitive balance round B pick (#72 overall) to the Cardinals, receiving infielder Ben Williamson from the Mariners.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/02/mariners-close-to-acquiring-brendan-donovan.html

*reaches for bag of doritos*

let’s see how we did here boys

i understand there are probably way more mariners fans on this thread, and i’ll say that brendan donovan is fun! great addition to any team, and more than competent at any position. i think he got a gold glove a few years ago as a utility defender and it was kinda bullshit because he’s really outstanding at any position, but he solidly average or above and makes for a convenient/solid building block in a lineup over a long season. not that much power but he has great contact skills - very few pop-ups or weak grounders, much more frequently solid contact.

it was fun to watch him play and i think seattle fans will like him a lot. his leaving opens up a spot for jj wetherholt, a prospect that seems kind of like a lock to be a great hitter (?!?!), although i guess that was true of jordan walker (rip, and yes, i’m trying to reverse-curse him by rip’ing him before the season, devil magic online), but wetherholt has not only the minor degree track record but also a great college hitter as well

arrrrrrg my typos, i’m sorry. i had dorito dust on my fingers.

i meant to say his gold glove was a little bogus because he _NOT_ really outstanding at any position, but that he _IS_ solidly average or above at all of them, infield and corner outfield

He’s a great get for the Mariners. Can solve a lot of problems. I’m just laughing at how the Rays somehow got involved in this deal though!

Btw you know that pitching prospect you got is a switch pitcher?

2026 MLB season thread: best ever season for the Dodgers (I am bored)

2026 MLB season thread: Let’s get excited for 29 of these teams

2026 MLB season thread: daily updates on Cal Raleigh’s home run count and other things to distract us from the inevitable

2026 MLB season thread: 50% Jays/Dodgers, 100% Fear Uncertainty and Doubt

When will Manfred Die: The 2026 MLB season thread (Including Jays hangover and sad attempts to thwart the ‘27 lockout, baseball is the best)

Never Bet Against the Field: The 2026 MLB season thread etc

Should I give the 2026 MLB Season a Chance?

2026 MLB season thread: Let’s get excited for 29 of these teams

^ winner

i was just going through the 2026 Braves promotional giveaways and i was shocked to discover they're on volume 3 of this sereies:

https://www.discogs.com/release/31432871-Lunar-Vacation-Spencer-Striders-Vinyl-Selection-Vol-1
https://www.discogs.com/release/34915019-Honeyknife-Spencer-Striders-Vinyl-Selection-Vol-2

oh my god

Btw you know that pitching prospect you got is a switch pitcher?

i saw a write-up that mentioned it! very cool! i guess it’s possible that adds more development time, overall, but what a cool thing! i hope he makes it to the majors so i can see him do his thing, and having someone in the bullpen who can be effective against both lefties and righties is like a return to the strategic advantage of the constant bullpen changing days (pre 3-hitter minimum) without the annoying delays in the game waiting for pitching changes, and saves a roster spot too!

i am sure a lot of cardinals fans will tune out the next couple years, but i really like watching younger players and prospects, minor league and spring training games, so i’m excited to see what this new batch of players will turn into

supposedly the cardinals referred to him as an RHP in their press release (although he is naturally lefty)? idk if that means they're gonna make him concentrate on one arm or not, but fuck them if they do!

the reports on him have pretty much always been that he’s dramatically better as a righty, that he has the ability to be a no 2/3 starter vs topping out as a situational reliever as a LHP. i think the consensus has always been that he was unlikely to be developed as a true switch pitcher bcuz the juice won’t be worth the squeeze in trying to catch the left side up to the right side

fair, but . . . he's in high A ball. i mean fine, let him throw right-handed until he's tired. why wouldn't you explore the possibility of his left arm providing an advantage? what is there to lose?

to be clear this is not my opinion bcuz i’ve not seen him pitch i’m just synthesizing what i’ve read about him from prospect guys recently — i think the thought is that he can be the kind of RHP SP who is able to get lefties out effectively enough to begin with that there isn’t a ton to be gained by trying to have him learn how to throw major league level pitches with two hands. and that makes sense to me — i’m not sure that there would be a ton to be gained if i.e. kevin gausman or bryan woo or a pitcher like that was also able to throw lefty at, let’s say, a somewhat worse level than they do from the right side.

i think if it’s a situation where he’s a fringe starter/reliever because he can’t get lefties out then it comes into play as a way to potentially elevate him into being a solid starter or better. but the hope is that he’s better than that to begin with just from the right side

that's it, i'm learning his name, brb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wUIavA96AY

Jurrangelo Cijntje

48% of me cares if he's effective or not as a LHP and RHP, but the other 52% just wants to see him switch-pitch

these are going to be rough years. i would approve a trade for a clydesdale that can do tricks at this point

sorry we already have the clydesdale

https://preview.redd.it/i-figured-it-out-2026-edition-v0-aj02skjjesdg1.png?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=ec139ba58bee5f1bb7e07e6bcb90a17ff7978038

looool

Framber to Detroit. $115m for 3 years with deferrals and opt outs.

they're trying so hard but wow the pirates simply can't catch a break : /

Skubal won his arb case!

Tigers ace Tarik Skubal has won his arbitration hearing against the team, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. He’ll be paid a record-shattering $32MM in his final season of arbitration eligibility and, in doing so, radically alter subsequent arbitration earnings for top-tier starting pitchers with five-plus years of big league service. The Tigers had submitted a $19MM figure, which was more in line with traditional arbitration earnings for elite starters. Skubal is represented by the Boras Corporation.

the boras corporation still sounds like the name of some ruthless organization you’d find in a dystopian movie

the boras corporation vs. the boring company

Eat shit illitch

lmao

Not knowing the rules of arbitration--what they're allowed to consider--or the timing (was the decision reached before or after the Valdez signing?), could the latter have influenced the decision?

It’s either/or; the arbitrator cant split the baby. Bc of skubal’s status in the arb year he’s allowed to bring in outside comps to argue his case whereas if he were earlier in the arb seasons he would be limited to comparable players in arb (eg im pretty sure this year he can argue degrom has 2x CY awards and makes 30m/per)

I did know it was either/or, was just wondering if Valdez would have been known and factored in.

As in, the signing happened after Skubal presented his case, but maybe before the decision was made--would they even be allowed to factor it in? If the panel knew about it, it'd be like asking a jury to ignore a piece of evidence that is presented but disallowed.

No it’s the arguments in front of the arb. They typically dont know baseball from their own asshole

it’s all based off past statistical precedents a la case law, they aren’t considering contextual factors like who is on a roster or whatever

Illitchville parking rates are about to double.

https://i.ibb.co/gMWwScCX/Screenshot-2026-02-08-at-4-47-01-PM.png

Otm

i ordered a shirt from mister baseball and it said it was delivered but i never got it :(

Ozuna to the Pirates. Sorry Mookieproof 😕

Caleb Durbin from Brew Crew to Red Sox for Kyle Harrison, David Hamilton and Shane Drohan.

i guess when you're the pirates, for whom no one wants to play, you simply *have* to sign whatever 35yo domestic abusers available

maybe i should just be happy they didn't go after bauer

Justin Verlander to the Tigers?!

Seems like a good move to me. He can be the Tigers' Max Scherzer next year, except he's more durable. His ERA and FIP were identical in 2025, both under 4.00. If he can pick up nine wins, he'll retire with 275--most since the Clemens/Maddux/Johnson/Glavine/Mussina group, and probably the most for a long, long time (or forever, unless the game fundamentally changes or "wins" are redefined, both unlikely).

I love it for him personally, and Comerica can help his numbers and he gets to work with three younger top arms including one he already knows from Houston

Skubal posted the goat emoji on his Instagram story so that’s going to be a fun mentorship

juan soto to play LF

something up with lindor's hamate

Jays aside, I'm already seeing the WS game where Hinch theatrically comes out to remove Verlander in a critical situation, and Verlander scowls/berates him right back to the dugout.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

if verlander is anywhere near a critical moment in the WS he would have turned the clock back at least 5 years

Obviously I'm joking around, but I mean, Max was in 2025, coming off a 5-5/5.19 season. My real point is that I think the strategically staged "Max Meltdown" will become part of every manager's arsenal in the future.

2026 MLB season thread: best ever season for the Dodgers (I am bored)

2026 MLB season thread: Let’s get excited for 29 of these teams

2026 MLB season thread: daily updates on Cal Raleigh’s home run count and other things to distract us from the inevitable

2026 MLB season thread: 50% Jays/Dodgers, 100% Fear Uncertainty and Doubt

When will Manfred Die: The 2026 MLB season thread (Including Jays hangover and sad attempts to thwart the ‘27 lockout, baseball is the best)

I was thinking about this and we had a title like this last year. Instead I would prefer the poignant but accurate “Designed to break your heart: MLB regular season 2026”. Thoughts?

Also, what’s the official cutoff into regular season thread? First official game? Is there a series like the Japan series from last year?

Anthony Santander, who signed a five-year, $92.5 million contract a year ago with the Blue Jays, is undergoing left labral surgery and will be sidelined 5-6 months, Blue Jays manager John Schneider announces.

100% yes on the Giamatti thread title--it's the one thing about the game that never changes.

Not sure what to say about Santander. He wasn't a factor in 2025, but I think there was an expectation he'd contribute 20-30 HR (at least) this year.

It’s shit luck for him for sure. Will take him a while to get his pop back. Shoulder is tough but at least the Jays can weather that.

Geez, I didn't realize labral = hip. I'm getting hip surgery about a year from now--maybe I'll be rehabbing with Anthony!

Oh is it his hip? I know you can have labral tears in your shoulder too, I should have looked that up.

A.I. (sorry), but:

Left labral surgery, or left hip arthroscopy, is a minimally invasive procedure to repair tears in the fibrocartilage gasket of the left hip socket. Using small incisions, cameras, and instruments, surgeons remove damaged tissue, stitch the torn labrum together, or reconstruct it to alleviate pain and restore joint mobility.

I'll be going in for hip-replacement, so would gladly trade.

I looked it up and it is his shoulder apparently but you also have a labrum in the hip as you know. Good luck with the surgery, you’ll be throwing off a mound in no time.

always feels like players schedule their surgeries for the start of spring training

probably a savvy move if you're a vet

I was hoping a resurgent Santander would help make up for the loss of Bichette :/

Could have sworn I read an early report yesterday that it was hip, but you're right, left shoulder. Maybe a Freudian slipped disc on my part.

"Left shoulder" makes me think of Guy Woodhouse in Rosemary's Baby.

I'm still bullish on Santander.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Saturday, 3 January 2026 23:02 (one month ago)

uhhhh

nick castellanos

should we do a spring training thread?? i know it’s a few more days til games start but some of these guys are in the best shape of their livees

I feel like that might quickly get supplanted by the WBC? Joint preseason thread?

Yeah! Forgot about wbc, nice!!

padres really seem to be bargain bin hunting, huh

What have they done now?

I thought of
MLB 2026 regular season: a procedure to deal with some loose bodies
for thraed title

they've signed castellanos griffith canning (coming off achilles tear) german marquez walker buehler and ty france

they spent crazy money while their owner was alive trying to win a title and so now they have a bunch of huge contracts on their books but not a lot of depth because they also traded away basically every decent prospect they had over the last 5-7 years in pursuit of that championship. and so they have a somewhat barren roster outside of their stars while also not having very much money to spend and so they've been picking up all those kinda guys hoping that a few of them can rediscover being legitimate major leaguers for one more year

aka the dave dombrowski playbook tho really it’s a tale as old as time

I love when teams go bargain bin hunting. The majority of sport's attraction is Hope. This is why baseball is the sportiest of all sports. 2 outs, bottom of the 9th, 0-2 count, down by 5 runs: I'm still hoping. Seeing a high ceiling low floor pitcher who had a low floor year get added to a roster just gives me the warm and fuzzies about what could be. Maybe Walker wins a Cy? Could Ty hit 20hrs? Will Casty hit another homerun while the commentator reads an obituary?

I know none of the above will happen (okay maybe the Castellanos one does), but it's the ephemeral, non-mathematical possibility that has me tuning in.

Someone needs to sign Rich Hill

i respect the padres going bargain-bin hunting

i do not respect the angels going bargain-bin hunting

oof, honestly it feels so good to have the radio on with the game on in the background as i do stuff at home this afternoon

Two HR from Judge, Ernie Clement 1-1--proceed a pace.

Looks like Scherzer's coming back.

https://www.mlb.com/news/max-scherzer-blue-jays-2026-contract

They have 7 starters now.

something something too much pitching

ok - but this is genuinely sweet

https://www.mlb.com/news/max-scherzer-s-daughter-wrote-letter-asking-blue-jays-to-re-sign-her-dad

Probably should have posted the Max signing on the intangibles thread. I expect he'll pitch decently in a limited role, but obviously that's what it comes down to: is his roster spot worth what he brings in mentoring the young pitchers and all his Max mythology for everyone?

answer: yes

what is going on with jurickson profar lmao

The Braves didn’t tell him to go to a different supplier, evidently

how many players have been busted twice

god knows i fucking love andrew mccutchen but i think it is, in the words attributed to chuck noll, time to get on with his life's work

i'm surprised he'd take a minor league deal.