biggentleben

Absolutely. That's why many have said that you penalize their next two drafts - give the Astros picks this year, and remove picks next year.

Interesting to come here on this as I've not heard the AL/NL thing until I got here with fans of an AL team. Nationally, the outrage is more that the Cardinals are not losing a Competitive Balance A pick or a first rounder.

In all seriousness, folks, I hope others add to this and we can keep it going to have positivity in the world going on right at the moment - because we all need that!!

Thanks, but more than anything, for me, when I told someone my "that's why I..." this morning in church, I realized that this was a perfect anti-negativity type of thread to have somewhere like here to keep our sanity for sure in the next few months, and possibly in the next few years, just to remind one another that there are good things going on in the world!

So, this is something I think may be a needed thread over the next few years. The premise is that you lead off something fun, awesome, touching, whatever it may be in your life with a premise of, "that's why I..." For instance, this won't be my first one, but in my email yesterday, I got notification from Amazon that I had received a $50 gift card from the site that I write for as a reward for being one of their contributors of the year. I did not realize anything of monetary value came with the award, as the increased exposure (the award went out on the website and I got something like 50 new Twitter followers just from that award, which has also driven more traffic to every story I post, in turn bringing in more cash to me). That's why I stay with my current site rather than jumping to other similar sites that would pay in basically the same way but might have a better base readership. The one I will use... My wife and I became certified as foster parents last year. Due to a number of other reasons, this is how we intend to have our family, through fostering-to-adoption. We were certified in June, and we were placed with a 4-month old little boy at the end of July. He will be leaving our home in February, which will be tough, but we have known from the get-go that he was a foster-only case. However, we did get a group of three siblings placed with us, ranging in age from 2 to 5. These three will have the option of adoption after the legal process takes its route. They moved in at the beginning of the month, and there have been plenty of rough patches along the way, especially for me, as they have had no solid male role model before, so listening to me has been an adjustment. Last night, the youngest of that trio hopped up in my lap and called me daddy. When corrected by a sibling, she turned quickly and snapped back, "Ben is MY daddy!!" Needless to say, I walked to the kitchen soon thereafter and had to wipe away a bit of dust in the eye. That's why I do foster care...

The flipped call on Curry's charge was really a turning point at the end of the game, though. A more experienced team recovers from that, but the Gophers emotionally just couldn't come back from it.

Um...slim fit jeans? Yeah.... And, I remember size 11s. 5th grade was a helluva year. I kid, I kid!!

No idea, honestly. The team could make use of him at AAA, but that would block a guy they really like in Dustin Peterson, so I'm not sure exactly where he fits, even at AAA

Sadly, that won't happen in Atlanta. He'll be in Gwinnett unless everyone and their monkey's uncle is hurt. One of the few areas the Braves have some depth at is corner outfield options.

He'll keep the guys in Gwinnett company. I don't understand this move actually, from the Braves POV.

Thanks for this, Seth!

Pedro's reports that Ventura's vehicle and person may have been looted and then a still-alive Ventura left for dead (as he expired just before crews got there) is extremely disturbing. His WS ring is missing, and there are conflicting reports about a BOLO being out for it at local pawn shops in the DR.

Gamblers in the NFL have known this for a long time, which is why the phrase "west coast team traveling east" is so oft-repeated in NFL preview shows. It often skews what would be the normal behavior of teams on a neutral field otherwise. Especially so if it's for an early game on Sunday.

I think you have a very different view of Cesar Hernandez than...well...anyone else I know, including Phillies scouts and fans. Hernandez is a utility guy who played over his head in 2016 (which happened a lot in Philly - Freddy flipping Galvis hit 24 home runs!), but he's not in their long-term plans. From all I've seen, read, heard, etc. the intention is that Crawford is at SS in 2017 with Galvis at 2B. If they got offered De Leon for Hernandez, you can bet they'd jump on that faster than the Dodgers could finish the sentence.

Only Eaton was traded without a MLB pitcher also part of the deal...

There are essentially two catchers in the game right now that I would trust to provide both offensive and defensive value each season, Posey and Lucroy. That's a HUGE deal and makes him incredibly value. Here's yet another point where WAR misses the mark. Catching is incredibly valuable.

As a Braves fan, I was a huge fan of Marte as a Braves prospect. I know this will sound trite, but I've owned Ventura since he was a minor leaguer in a dynasty league, so I've followed his career closely. This really, really sucks...

Marte's final game in the bigs was in August 2014 for Arizona. The Diamondbacks' opponent that day was the Royals. The starting pitcher? Ventura...

I completely understand and respect that position, but he'll also be 35 in June and for all the talk about Dozier's career year in 2016, 2016 was Kinsler's second best offensive season by OPS+ as well, as well as his first year ever striking out 100+ times in a season as well as hitting less than 30 doubles in a season that he was healthy for the first time in a decade. From the eye view, the bat speed has taken a noticeable step back, but he gets by on incredible baseball smarts on the field and on the bases to provide value to his team. I could understand reasoning on both ends - the argument for why Kinsler's track record says he's the more valuable guy and the argument for why Dozier's youth and relative cost savings ($16M guaranteed to Kinsler - $11M 2017 salary and $12M 2018 option with $5M buyout, $15M to Dozier - $6M 2017 and $9M 2018).

True, but the comments have been that they want to shed money from the current roster. Those were misinterpreted as "tear this MFer down!" for some reason by some reporters, but the true quotes all talked about finding ways to wisely trim salary. That could be a way to chop off a big chunk.

i think it depends on what angle the Tigers are going for...they could load someone like Anibal Sanchez or Mike Pelfrey onto Kinsler and take a lesser deal in order to drain off cash, or they could go straight up and harvest more prospects. All depends on what they want. The Dodgers could lead an offer for Kinsler with Trayce Thompson or Andrew Toles and make a big dent in the price. Heck, if the Tigers are attaching an expensive arm to Kinsler, that may be all it took.

Thing is, they could do just that. They have the players near the major leagues that could play in center for the Tigers.

They don't necessarily need to rebuild to move Kinsler. They could simply be retooling. There are guys in their system right now that could do well to cover certain positions that would allow them to consider offers on guys like Kinsler, JD, Upton, and Victor without it being a full scale rebuild. Heck, they could still compete while moving Kinsler, depending on what it is that they're looking to get in return.

While I can agree with most of this, the defensive part goes to where I struggle with defensive stats. Just watching Dozier, he has to cover a lot of ground to his right that most second basemen don't cover, which means he often misses plays to his left that many second basemen make, hurting his overall rating. I don't view Dozier as Andrelton Simmons at 2B, but he's a very solid defender at the position and a good example of how metrics don't take into the account arguably the worst SS play in the entire league being next to him as part of his defensive numbers.

Except that moving JD would have made some sense with Moya, Stewart, etc. able to handle the role in his stead. Kinsler could make sense in the same vein depending on their view of JaCoby Jones at 2B (I personally think he'd be below average there, but he wouldn't be dreadful by any means).