Trov

Baseball is and has always been a game of adjustments. Many players when they come up without much scouting will get fastballs. Then as they show they can hit them breaking balls will start to come more often until they show they can either hit them, or stay off of them. At-bats are like mini chess matches. Pro hitters can hit just about any pitch if they know it is coming. Pitchers will always try to keep them off balance and not let them know what is coming. If he can either learn to stay off off the non-fastballs or have a better mind of how to attack non-fastballs that are in the zone. Really much of it is figuring out how he is being pitched and try to sit on a pitch you expect. It took Buck several years to reach his offense potential, give Larnach some time.

The big question is what will Rondon be looking for. A big red flag for me is that he was not given a QO. To me that means Sox were worried he would take it and they would have to pay him 18 mil for 1 year. Why would Sox be worried about 18 mil for 1 year on a guy that was on way to possible Cy Young Award? I think there is a lot more to the injury than we all know, else he would have been no brainer for QO.

Sabato has been someone I was following. I was not a fan of the pick when we made it, mainly because I am not a fan of bat only guys in first round unless they are super elite. When Sabato started off so poor, I wanted to know more about his numbers. His OBP was high but average and slugging low. Numbers do not tell the full story. I wondered is it FGL issue, which is know for sapping power, was it not being aggressive, was it not getting much to swing at? Then they moved him up and he had a great stint. Is that who we should be expecting or was it short sample in new league without facing him before? The walk rate is encouraging and hopefully he is not taking good pitches to swing at just to work the count. I am hoping he does break out and forces the Twins to move him up to AA quickly and maybe even end year in St. Paul.

SS is a position similar to catcher. Very rarely will you have a top defense guy that can also hit elite. You normally need to find the balance between offense and defense. Personally, I would let Martin and Lewis fight it out for SS in whatever spring training looks like.

I agree with this. First, I have not heard much on a floor, and I cannot see the owners agree to a floor without a cap of some kind. In other leagues the floor has a cap and both are established based on revenue. First, I know the writer just threw out 100 for a number, but I agree it would be no where near that, at least not out the gate. That would force some teams to spend a ton on lower level FA as many higher ones have signed and the teams with that low of payroll are not going to be signing correa just because they have to spend the money, unless he 100% going after most money. I agree most lower teams would then lock up their younger guys to front loaded contracts to comply if they needed to act right away, and not take on bad vet contracts, unless the offers were good enough. Second, I would take Padres off list, because I do not think they are over the tax number yet. Sure would they love to save some money and dump those bad contracts yes, but they are not giving up their top prospects to do it. Unless they had plans to sign a top FA by cutting those contracts, but I doubt that is their idea. The Mets may want to cut some money for the Tax but if they really had that in mind they would not have signed who they did this year already. Sure, if Twins came and said we will take Cano off your hands, maybe throw in Bonilla, Mets may give up a mid-level guy but not top prospects. I like the outside the box thinking on this, but I highly doubt any team will give up a top prospect or good young players just to dump some bad contracts. Unless the CBA forces their hand to do so for some reason, but again, I highly doubt any major changes to a floor, cap, or tax level would go into full affect but would go in slowly over the next couple of years.

When he was traded to Giants I said he will have problems there. When he went to Sox, I said dang he will do well there. The Giants were a team of old school vets lead by an old school manager that was all about business. For the most part, none of them like each other, I remember hearing Bonds was terrible teammate and Jeff Kent was hard to get along with too. A.J. was the type of guy that liked to push buttons of people, and so when he is on a business team and not a lets have fun team, he could not be himself. When he went to Sox, they were much more be yourself, have fun, team kind of set up. At least that is how I saw them compared to Giants. I have long said in baseball chemistry and getting along with your team is very important for success. I say this because in a normal year, you hope to spend every day with your team from mid-February to November. When about half your off-days are on the road even then you have little time away from team. If you do not like your team, you will start to hate working every day, and then you head is not in the game. I feel that may have been what happened with AJ in San Fran.

I feel just about every team that has huge success there is always a couple of guys that surprise with output. Sometimes it is a rookie, or a breakout year from someone, or a vet that has a career year. Maybe Megill will become one of those guys.

When I first saw headline I thought no way, but when you lay out his career and everything, I think he very well does deserve it. He will not make it for a couple of reasons though. One, he is not know to be a likable guy, which gives voters a negative view of him. The other reason, is he never was considered the best during his time, but he was always very good. He held up at catcher much longer than many do, and despite not being a huge threat on offense due to not high power numbers he was still never a fun guy to face. In the era of pitch counts he would have double digit pitch at-bats from time to time. He was always just steady but never wowed anyone. If you compare his numbers to many catchers he is better than most. I am not sure if he will make past year 1, unless people really take time to look at him.

As someone who had an ACL repair, after about 6 months of rehab you can do just about anything you did before physically, it is the mental side that you need to overcome. If he has been rehabbing well he should be good to go by time season starts. As long as he is willing to go all out physically he should be fine.

I think fans need to remember that catcher is a position that you normally do not get a lot of offense from. The catchers that are good on offense normally lack defense and do not stay at catcher by time they get to MLB level. Only the few do both well. What will be interesting to see is if an electronic zone starts being used, if that will change how people look at catchers. The framing part will no longer be a thing, and really you should just need someone who can throw out runners and call a good game. However some catchers still look to dugout for pitch calls sometimes. That being said, I hope Jeffers can hold his own at the plate for a few years.

Oliva should have been in long before. He was knocked for his counting numbers being low. However, other guys made it in despite their counting numbers being low. I would point to Sandy Koufax and Kirby Puckett as a guy that Oliva should have been compared, despite the difference of position. Koufax had bad early career and retired at his peak at age of 30 due to health issues. He had a stretch of the best pitcher in baseball and retired during that time. Similar to Puckett to. Puckett's production really was not dropping off and showed top player for long stretch before health ended his career short too. Where Oliva tried to play through his injury and he retired on a down note. I strongly believe had his injury ended his career completely he would have been in much earlier. However, he tried to keep playing and was a decent player, but not the same as before. If you take his last few seasons off and the injury would have been what ended his career he would have got the what if push, like Puckett and Koufax, but Olivia ended on a low note, where the others ended on high notes. I am glad both finally got in, as I think both deserved it. I truely feel if Twins would have beat Dodgers in 65 Kaat gets labeled as one of best in game at the time and that would have pushed him over the edge, but Koufax was unhitabble and Kaat pitched great, just not as good.

I could write a ton on this subject but I will try to keep short. Both sides are to blame for this, and they should stop trying to 'win' the public on this, because they both look dumb doing it. That being said, addressing the main issues Manfred brought up I do agree will hurt the game. We saw in the late 90's Yankees, Red Sox, and a few other huge market teams signing crazy large contracts, pricing so many out of the market. You would see some teams dipping toe in, the Rangers, or Mariners from time to time, but mostly just the top 6 or so teams would sign all the big names. Teams like the Twins were being talked about contracting the league. The league said we need to reign this in a little bit, and convinced the players of the tax. The gap in payrolls is still crazy from the top to the bottom. If you take away revenue sharing small market teams will in now way ever be able to keep home grown players. Not that Oakland or Rays do now. However, if you add in reducing years of control, this will make the issue larger. Small market teams will have to either keep top talents in minor longer to have them during peak years, or lose them prior to peak years. The writer talks about how they are all billionaire owners, which is true, but that does not mean as business owners they should be expected to lose money to keep fans happy, they will not be billionaires for long if they start losing 50 to 100 mil a year because they try to keep up with Yankees and Dodgers in terms of contracts. The NFL and NBA CBA's will not work in MLB. For a few reasons, one NFL all the money is from national media contracts, and NBA has huge national media contracts. Much of the money from media contracts for MLB are local, and some teams have their own network. You would then require the Yes network to share money with Rays which Yankees would never agree to do. That would make NFL style no workable. NBA style is not workable either because they have 15 man rosters, and single players make huge differences, so doing a max contract based on salery cap is workable, but in baseball, guys come up and down all the time, more than 35 guys get used in a normal year. That being said, you can take parts of either to try and make a working cap/floor system. The players have been against the cap always because they have never wanted to cap what they could earn, but in both NFL and NBA the cap brings a floor. Meaning teams have to spend above a certain amount no matter what. This leads to more vets getting contracts. One of the main issues the MLB players have had is teams going with young cheap guys and "tanking" and not offering the young to mid 30 vets that are just above replacement value contracts. If you impose a floor then those guys will start to get those contracts again, because a teams will need to pay more to players. If you then added the first FA period being a restricted FA time, like both leagues have, where team leaving can match the contract, this could lead to teams willing to shorten the initial 6 years service time for FA. I bet they could work out a situation where there is max years on that first FA contract based on say MVP voting, or something like that. Say 4 years of play equals FA now. Then if they had got MVP award or certain other rewards and ranking on the voting will affect how long the contract can be. The cost will never be capped. This will be a huge change in the CBA and I doubt it will at all happen because of how the players have always wanted to get back at the owners from the start of baseball where the owners made a ton of the players and the players had a take or leave it option for contracts and could not take services elsewhere. The players and owners need to understand the bigger the pie to share is better for all, but if you fight over the pie you have, the people making it will take their money to other entertainment.

With the recent signings of SS, do people really think Story signs a 5 year 125 contract? I think not. The price per year may be close, but with Seager getting his 10 years 325, Story will be holding out for something similar I bet. When you compare the two Seager is only 1 year younger, but both have played 6 seasons basically, Seager had a 27 game season his first taste. Story is known to be a much better defender than Seager. There overall war is better for Story. I have been low on Story as his home road splits are bad and suggest he gets a bit of a boost from Coores. Seager home road splits are pretty much even. Regardless, I see Story looking to get something much closer to Seager deal than 5 for 125. I bet he is seeking something like 8 at 240. Teams may not look there, but when you compare his overall numbers and that he is considered better defender than Seager and others that have signed, I bet he is looking closer to a Seager deal than a Seimian or Baez deal, who both have played a lot at 2b and not just SS over the years.

I am sick of both the players and the MLB trying to get the fans on their side. They did this during 2020 too. They are asking generally people that make on average 31K a year to care about how much money they give each other. They are fighting over the money that comes from us. Even if you are not buying tickets, merch, you are still paying the increased cost of watching on TV, or the cost of the products that pay to advertise. One way or the other you are paying. Personally, I do not care who gets what and how they split it up. I would love to see some type of cap or at least incentives to allow the mid and small market teams to actually keep many of their players and not just 1 once in awhile. Mid markets can keep 1 or 2 bigger names, but the small markets can almost never have a full career guy stay. Personally, I think that is bad for game. The players want to maximize what they make and do not care about balance. Owners do not care so much about balance they care about making money how ever they can, so they put in the luxury tax to help keep contracts down. I believe if the two sides keep trying to get the fans on their side in the media with letters to fans and press conferences, they will start to get more fans upset. Then it could lead to a fans strike. I mean it is like a fan gives the team $250 (average cost for family of 4 to go to a game 2021) and then the owners and players hold a debate with the fan to decide who should get how much of the money. We just want to watch good baseball, and we really do not care how the money gets split up. If fans decided to strike and boycott games then they will have no money to split up between each other. Both owners and fans are acting like they are entitled to have us pay hard earned money to entertain us. We have so many options for entertainment in our lives the costs keep going up. NFL and NBA have it right with revenue sharing. They understand that making fans happy will get more money for both groups, but making us upset will take money from them. MLB and players think money will always come in and neither side really cares about the fans. They claim they do, but if they did, they would work together at making the game the best it can be and not fight over our money, but be happy we are willing to give it to them. The league better hope this does not go too deep into spring and start to lose games, because they will start to lose fans and then they will both lose money. Both sides need to understand how bad they look to fans trying to get us on their side.

How do we know Twins did not make a similar offer? The deadline of the CBA made things interesting for players not calling different teams. Maybe they made a similar offer and Stroman said I want to stay in NL. Maybe we were not in on him at all because he has low K numbers.

Rondon concerns me the most. I would be willing to do like a 2 year with 3rd year option or something like that at most. The fact White Sox feared him accepting a 1 year 18 mil contract gives me pause. He spent his whole career with them and was one of better pitchers but 18 mil was too much for him?

It is not a big splash move, and maybe it is a waste of 5 mil. However, this is the type of signing that if he has a bounce back year he could surprise everyone and be a huge part of our team. I know many felt similar when we brought in Pineda and he was worth it. Both where guys that were big prospects with big expectations. Pineda had a little more success when younger than Bundy, but both had several injuries that set them back. Maybe the FO has seen something they can unlock in Bundy. If this is the only starter signing then I will not be happy, but I think he is worth the flier.

Of the players mentioned, Garver I always feel has the greatest value due to the position he plays. I was on board with trading him after 2019. I know most were thinking I was crazy, but he was at peak value and I knew he would never get back to it. Offensive catchers that are adequate on defense are very valued and just about any team would have wanted him, expect the ones that saw what I did. He was older catcher that had a breakout year in a season where everyone had higher HR numbers. He was not going to carry that offense for years. I was hoping he could have held it together for a second season to hold some value but that did not happen. That being said, I still expect some teams will be willing to bring him on the hope he bounces back for a season or two, but his value is much lower now than 2 seasons ago. In terms of the other guys listed, prospects will always hold value, but for mid payroll teams they need to hold onto most of the prospects and get that cheap years of control. Kepler has little value at this time. He is hitting the end of normal prime years and has only gotten worse. His defense is still good, but he will not be a middle of line up guy like we hoped and is more a supplemental piece, which will not bring much in return. Arraez is an interesting one because he can hit and still young. However, as pointed out the league has trended to high HR rates and he will never have that. Personally, I think he should fit in most lineups because a guy that can work the count and put ball in play should always have a home somewhere. Again he will not be someone that carries a team, but he will be a great piece on most teams.

Not that I want to jump to 2025, but if those guys progress the way they have potential to, that will be a lot of decent guys at or near prime years. A couple just past prime or just before. Might be an exciting year, if we have some pitching to go along with them.

I think all of the three named will get invites to spring training from someone. The Boyd situation shows how not selling a player at their peak can come back to haunt you. Boyd a few years ago could have been dealt for huge return. Now, he is sent packing for nothing. The Rays are masters at selling guys at peak value to reload their system. They have been doing it for years. They get the cheap high production years from a guy, trade them a year or two before they will be a FA and most of the time the guy never does as well when gone. A few guys have helped team that was traded to, but Rays seem to get the best out of the trades. Cleveland has made similar trades of pitchers lately as well. This is one reason why I was not upset with trading of Berrios. Maybe Berrios continues on and has good career, never been great, but it is also possible he regresses or starts to have injury issues. I believe you should trade a guy a year too early, than hang onto them and trade them a year too late. Remember Willingham? His first year he did will and a lot of teams had interest. Sure the deals may not have been great, but we held onto him and that was huge mistake. Of course if you are looking to compete you face hard decision. KC years ago had several guys ready to hit FA and they had to decide one more shot at the ship or start trading off guys to restock. They held onto them and let them walk, leading to several years of bad ball. Rays never do it that way, they always trade guys away, knowing they need to keep cupboard stocked. Two different ways to do it, I personally like the keeping things stocked. Having a deep system helps in the long run.

Now all the fans that were upset about signing Cave and calm down. He is off the 40 man roster. Many comments were that he could be removed from 40 man roster without an issue, but some fans figured he would be on 40 man all year.

I personally am surprised with some of the big signings before lockout. I was expecting most to hold out until after, but with the huge contracts I can see why they signed now. I have no issue with Twins not offering long term deals on top FA pitchers. Outside of a few, most long term contracts for pitchers end up being terrible deals for team and great for pitcher. Many pitchers never live up to the contract and are shells of their former self by the 3rd year of contract. Of course some pitchers do live up to it, but the track record is not good. Teams like the Twins cannot gamble on too many long term deals on poor performance. Of the pitchers Ray was one the Twins were reported to be in on, along with about 4 other teams. We do not know the numbers discussed so hard to fault the Twins if they were in talks but Ray picked someone else. For all we know Twins offered more, but Ray wanted to go where he did for reasons other than just money. I am wondering how the SS class will shake out now. With Seager and Baez off the board, Siemian as well, but he was signed to be second baseman. Leaving only Story and Correa left. Correa will be seeking bigger deal than Seagar, Story will be seeking better than Baez I think but less than Seager. Who will be in on them? Yankess have been reported linked, but there is also stories they plan to get stop gap year until their top prospect is ready. Houston will be in, and Dodgers most likely too. Beyond that I am not too sure on who will be willing to agree to a 300 mil plus deal for Correa, or nearly 200 mil for Story. I doubt it will affect what either will get, but they have limited the teams that will be willing to pay huge money, and then when only one team bidding, hard to get them to up offers. Of course if you drop down other teams will get involved but then not getting full value. If Yankees drop out of any bidding that will make it really interesting on what kind of deals are made.

This is the exact type of deal I proposed in comments weeks ago. Wish I could go back and find it now. I was saying I would offer 15 year with huge incentives allowing him to earn fair market value if he plays full year at level he has shown. I have little faith he will stay healthy, but at 15 a year you are not handicapped payroll wise. Here is to hoping he earns his full value of his contract.

He is not MLB HOF. He could have been had concussions not hurt him. He was a top hitter for years for us when we were doing well, but too short of career with too low of overall numbers.

It is both the players and owners fault the labor stoppage is about to happen. Really it goes back to when baseball had the reserve clause not allowing FA. Since then, the players have always wanted no salary cap, and have fought a long time for no cap and have players earn as much as they could. The fact that owners are not wanting to share in the wealth, like in other leagues that affects things too. Main area of contention is the service time, and QO. Until the last few years, neither was a huge deal for players, but mid-level players are no longer getting the deals they used to, and it is making the majority upset. I have advocated the players should agree to a cap with a floor. Players have been against the cap because teams used to throw crazy money at them, but as teams stopped doing that, the service time and QO has prevented players from earning larger sums of money. Also, without a floor spending, many teams are stocking roster with young guys if they are not looking to compete to keep money low. The rules that Manfred has been looking into is not a huge issue for either side. It all comes down to fact players have felt owners and GM's have not been paying out contracts like they used to and believe the owners are basically agreeing not to bid against each other, keeping contracts lower. Of course the mega deals will always be there, this is more about the mid-level guys.