2019 2020 (non-Twins) off season

[Diesel]

I'm wondering why Ozuna took a one year contract and Castellanos with his 90 Xbh is unsigned if the owners are slowing down with the multiyear big contracts?

 

Poor Padres with Hosmer and Machado.

Nick Castellanos just got signed to the Reds for $64 million over 4 years. Eddie Rosario is gonna get PAID

[TFRazor]

 

Nick Castellanos just got signed to the Reds for $64 million over 4 years. Eddie Rosario is gonna get PAID

He's got an opt out after year 1 so it could just end up being 1yr/16mil.

[Mike Sixel]

 

I'm wondering why Ozuna took a one year contract and Castellanos with his 90 Xbh is unsigned if the owners are slowing down with the multiyear big contracts?

Poor Padres with Hosmer and Machado.

 

Hosmser=bad......Machado? Hard to say. He was 26 when signed......so I am still baffled by all the "he didn't get them to the playoffs in year one of an 8 year deal, so it sucked" takes.....

[Danchat]

 

Hosmser=bad......Machado? Hard to say. He was 26 when signed......so I am still baffled by all the "he didn't get them to the playoffs in year one of an 8 year deal, so it sucked" takes.....

Machado isn't bad, it's just really disappointing when you ink a guy to a $300M deal and he can't even post a .800 OPS in year 1 when the league is going nuts with the juiced ball. The threesome of Machado, Myers, and Hosmer are under contract for $75M total in 2020, which simply a blatant waste of money.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Machado isn't bad, it's just really disappointing when you ink a guy to a $300M deal and he can't even post a .800 OPS in year 1 when the league is going nuts with the juiced ball. The threesome of Machado, Myers, and Hosmer are under contract for $75M total in 2020, which simply a blatant waste of money.

 

I'm certainly not going to argue the Myers and Hosmer deals being bad.....

[Mike Sixel]

Pirates starting their rebuild, trading Marte. I imagine Archer is available, but at a price that considers him a two or three, not what he was last year.

[ashbury]

Machado isn't bad, it's just really disappointing when you ink a guy to a $300M deal and he can't even post a .800 OPS in year 1 when the league is going nuts with the juiced ball.

He OPS'ed .882.

 

In his away games.

 

Petco is a known offense suppressor, but this is kind of extreme (.703 OPS at home). Sometimes splits can be anomalous, such as when a batter for one season becomes Superman on Tuesdays only. Or maybe he let the park get to him, and he'll reset during the off-season.

 

Too soon to make a declaration about the signing. As he enters his age-27 season, I wouldn't bet against a bounceback.

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Nick Castellanos just got signed to the Reds for $64 million over 4 years. Eddie Rosario is gonna get PAID

I'm not so sure. Castellanos is actually younger than Rosario, so Eddie will be hitting FA entering his age-30 season, as opposed to age-28 for Castellanos.

 

And beyond that, Castellanos looks like he might have a standout skill -- the past 2 years he has been worth 30 and 21 batting runs above average. By comparison, Rosario has been worth only 11 batting runs for his entire career. Castellanos is obviously much worse on defense, but I think it might be easier for a team to bet on Castellanos's bat and fixing/hiding him defensively, as opposed to betting on a more thoroughly average guy like Rosario.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Machado isn't bad, it's just really disappointing when you ink a guy to a $300M deal and he can't even post a .800 OPS in year 1 when the league is going nuts with the juiced ball.

FWIW, Machado's .796 OPS with the 2019 Padres was probably the equivalent of an .815 OPS on the 2019 Twins.

[cardsfan]

He OPS'ed .882.

 

In his away games.

 

Petco is a known offense suppressor, but this is kind of extreme (.703 OPS at home). Sometimes splits can be anomalous, such as when a batter for one season becomes Superman on Tuesdays only. Or maybe he let the park get to him, and he'll reset during the off-season.

 

Too soon to make a declaration about the signing. As he enters his age-27 season, I wouldn't bet against a bounceback.

 

He hit .256 and led league in hitting into DPs. OPS+ 109. Seriously.

[Mike Sixel]

Machado did not earn his money last year......but that doesn't excuse people here saying it was a bad deal (which plenty have)....or should we judge 26 year olds on one year, and not the next 7?

[Vanimal46]

 

Wasn’t sure where to put this. This is.... Wow. Not sure what to say about it. Elitist? God forbid a prospect has nice things...

[Squirrel]

Wasn’t sure where to put this. This is.... Wow. Not sure what to say about it. Elitist? God forbid a prospect has nice things...

Wow. Unbelievable ...

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Wasn’t sure where to put this. This is.... Wow. Not sure what to say about it. Elitist? God forbid a prospect has nice things...

 

I heard the Mets aren't alone in having separate clubhouses for spring training and their regular season minor league team.

But my goodness, it is stupid to publicly give that reason for it.

[jkcarew]

"The Mets are only using it for Spring Training, not for the St. Lucie regular season."

 

So they lock it up April through January? Can't make it up. If you're concerned your low-level employees aren't grasping the concept of making $10M a year instead of $10K, dangle a really nice locker in front of them...then pull it away. It'd work for me. I'd be super motivated to get to the bigs. Especially Atlanta, Philly, Pittsburgh, or Miami. 

[Diesel]

Indians pitcher Clevinger out with a meniscus tear. Should be back mid April to May but you never know with knee injuries. Tough break for Cleveland.

[biggentleben]

 

"The Mets are only using it for Spring Training, not for the St. Lucie regular season."

 

So they lock it up April through January? Can't make it up. If you're concerned your low-level employees aren't grasping the concept of making $10M a year instead of $10K, dangle a really nice locker in front of them...then pull it away. It'd work for me. I'd be super motivated to get to the bigs. Especially Atlanta, Philly, Pittsburgh, or Miami. 

Washington is in the NL East, not Pittsburgh.

[Vanimal46]

[bird]

 

 

Luhnow: "You DO understand, Francis, that you're not going to get better listening to the trash can bangs, right? So here, try this stuff."

[biggentleben]

At some point, MLB will realize they have a major issue in Latin America with tainted supplements and even prescriptions that are sold to players during the offseason. It's led to an abundance of Latin players receiving PED suspensions. MLBPA attempted to make supplementation certification by the league part of the last CBA, but the owners wouldn't do it without the MLBPA footing the entire bill, and that led to the issue being dropped.

 

I personally don't think certification will be effective, as there are way too many loopholes around it. The NFL has certification and sees players skirt around punishment due to using "certified" suppliers on legal diuretics. Ross Tucker had a discussion with a few former players last season that discussed how much better it would be with the NFL if the league actually was the source of supplements for players. Hard to claim any issue with supplements if the league had supplied them and can test the supply that you received.

 

Instead, Latin America has significant issues with tainted supplements and prescriptions. However, continued efforts by MLBPA to work with MLB to put together a better system has consistently been put back on the MLBPA to pay for the system themselves. Once again, despite plenty of evidence of the league having an opportunity to work with the MLBPA to confront the PED issue, they'd rather hang players out to string them up for any issues and attempt to claim no knowledge. Meanwhile, players who say "I had no idea this was in anything I took" could be fully honest and are painted as pure liars over and over by a league actively avoiding ways to sort out the opportunity for tainted supplementation.

[nicksaviking]

The Brewers signed Brock Holt. I'm sure he was a popular name on Twins fans' buy-low list, though the Twins probably have little use for a utility player with Gonzalez and Adrianza on the roster.

 

But I was interested in the guy the Brewers DFA'd. Bear with me, there's a lot of Small Sample Size nonsense here and I'm not flying a flag for this guy or anything, it's just been slow since the Maeda signing so I got nothing better to do than do a bit more of a deep dive on guys I'd otherwise never care about.

 

Taylor Williams looks like a righty that sits 95-96 with his FB, but his slider looks like it might be a wipeout pitch, and I love wipeout sliders. Again SSS, but he threw a slider 96 times in the majors last year and gave up only 3 hits on that pitch. It also looks like his poor 2019 was due to two terrible outings, both of which saw him throw his slider only 19% of the time, which contrasts the rest of his outings that saw him throw it 35-45% of the time.

 

Of course, that might mean his 96 MPH FB is prohibitively terrible too.

 

Anyway, did I mention the SSS bit? In case I didn't, this here stuff is totally SSS. Just thought I'd share what I found on a guy I'd never otherwise research if the roster wasn't looking set and ready to roll.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

A fascinating story in the Athletic about the rodeo career of Mason Saunders, a free agent pitcher the Twins took a brief look at this offseason.

 

https://theathletic.com/1629527/2020/02/23/meet-mason-saunders-the-secret-rodeo-identity-of-madison-bumgarner/?amp#click=https://t.co/6QrefhUO6G

sub req

 

Also, WTF

 

Yes, that was him in the photo and another one showing him competing on horseback, [saunders] confirmed after throwing a live bullpen session Sunday at Salt River Fields. It was taken Dec. 3, a little less than two weeks before he signed his five-year, $85 million contract with the Diamondbacks. “They don’t always take pictures,” he added. “That was a bigger one.” A few days later, “Mason Saunders” earned a second-place finish in another event alongside a different partner, Ranger Hill.

...

In a video interview on the Wrangler Network ... the left-hander responded affirmatively to a question about whether he ropes right-handed. “We want to make that clear in case there are any Giants fans out there watching,” he added.

[Diesel]

Luis Severino of the Yankees needs Tommy John Surgery. The gap between the Twins and the Yankees continues to shorten.

[Vanimal46]

 

Really unfortunate news.

[Danchat]

 

Really unfortunate news.

Probably good we didn't trade Buxton + prospects / Lewis & Kiriloff for him!

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Probably good we didn't trade Buxton + prospects / Lewis & Kiriloff for him!

ahem, its not like he would have missed any games for us...

[Shaitan]

Felix Jorge cut by Cincinnatti

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/04/reds-release-junichi-tazawa-chris-volstad-felix-jorge.html