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Post by fenwaythehardway on Feb 2, 2020 13:08:16 GMT -5
When I'm logging on to see if there is any Mookie news, what I most like to see is haggling over the meaning of the words "snag" and "imminent." That's when you know it's about to pop off. This seems less and less like a bidding WAR and more like two teams that won't quite meet the Red Sox asking price.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Feb 1, 2020 12:45:31 GMT -5
Verdugo's playing time wasn't limited just because the Dodgers had a crowded outfield, they were platooning him. You can't just pro-rate his numbers out when they were hiding him from all the pitchers he'd likely struggle the most against. He got over 100 AB’s against lefties last year and hit better against them than against rightiesPerhaps you’re talking about a different Alex Verdugo? Better results, worse from a skills perspective. The only thing that was better against lefties was his BABIP. Also I don't know if was a straight platoon or what, but they definitely weren't giving him full playing time for long stretches even when he was healthy. It's pretty clear that the Dodgers don't consider him a future star who's just waiting for playing time.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Feb 1, 2020 6:48:08 GMT -5
If Verdugo got a full slate of at bats last year he would have had a decent shot at being a 5 WAR player. He finished as a 3.1 guy. He’s probably only going to get better. He’s a very valuable piece to get back and in my opinion if they can get 2-3 pieces on top of him they almost have to do it. Just from an organization building standpoint it would be the smart thing to do I do love me Mookie though. I will never not root for him. Verdugo's playing time wasn't limited just because the Dodgers had a crowded outfield, they were platooning him. You can't just pro-rate his numbers out when they were hiding him from all the pitchers he'd likely struggle the most against.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 31, 2020 18:06:23 GMT -5
Hey here's a question... why does anyone care about the 2032 payroll, like, at all?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 31, 2020 14:06:39 GMT -5
Barry Bonds' record-setting contract with the Giants covered 1993 to 1998 (so, the period before when he is accused of using), and is probably the best, most team-friendly contract in baseball history. He was worth enough during that period that if it were a 12 year deal and he decided to do nothing but eat bonbons from years seven through twelve the Giants still would've come out way ahead. I would agree that it's not a good idea to give out 10 year contracts to players who are 32, as Rodriguez was after opting out and signing the new deal. But he stayed quite good on the front of that, putting up 21.3 bWAR in years one through five, helping the Yankees win the Series in 2009 and into the playoffs each of those next three years. The problem with giving players into their 30s long term deals is that it isn't balanced the same by prime seasons. I'm willing to pay for a star player's decline phase if I'm getting years 27 to 29 out of it. I just don't know that the logic of "underpay for the first half of the contract and overpay for the decline" works as well when you're talking about 12 year deals. Maybe Mookie is Barry Bonds and it's fine, or maybe he's Andrew McCutchen and you're paying crazy money for an average player for a decade. I would rather sign three Xander Bogaerts for 6 years each and spread that risk around.Ok, well... I'd love that too but the Red Sox only have one and they already signed him. The problem with "spreading the money" is that it eventually spreads to players like Eovaldi and Sandoval. Cheaper free agents are even more likely to collapse than expensive ones, otherwise they wouldn't be cheap. A busted $15m AAV starter here, a bad $10m outfielder there, all of a sudden we've got the equivalent AAV of a Betts contract with nothing to show for it. And it only took us two years to get there instead of six or whatever people are worried about with Betts.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 31, 2020 11:33:24 GMT -5
Those two things are not mutually exclusive. And if anyone has a formula that can predict championships, 30 teams in baseball want to hire you. Or please let me know who will win next year so I can place a bet. I bet no one thought the Nationals were going to win last year when they were 10 games under .500 at the end of May. The dummies didn't even trade Rendon. That's really the point I'm trying to make! There's a lot of uncertainty here, and I think it's a really tough call. If they trade Betts, everybody else performs, and they miss the playoffs by a game, they'll be kicking themselves for handicapping themselves. If they keep Betts, finish 8 games out of the wild card, and he walks, they'll have wasted an opportunity to improve their chances over the next few years. I'd like them to compete if they think they can, but if the team is more bearish on their chances this year and bullish on their ability to quickly re-tool than I am, then they should go in the other direction. If they're anywhere close to on pace to finish eight games out of the wildcard, Betts gets traded.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 31, 2020 11:07:01 GMT -5
It's rarely about the money though. It's about the allocation of resources and the understanding that there is a limit to those resources (known or not) that enable you to build your team. On balance would everyone rather have Mookie than not? Absolutely. Is having Mookie on your team at 12/$425M the best use of your resources for building a competitive team? Debatable. Exactly. Chaim Bloom was the Assistant GM of a team that won 96 games last year with a payroll under $65 million. There's every chance that he's looking at this and thinking, "Yeah, we can spend $35 million/year on one player, but I think I can find a better way to spend that money."Doesn't mean they don't like Mookie. Doesn't even mean they think Mookie will end up being overpaid. Just that they think they can get a better return for that $35 million. This is so perfectly wrong. You can't scale up the Rays spending strategy to $200m dollars because you only have 25 roster spots. The Rays are great at finding good relievers for the league minimum but it's not like you can use Betts's money to sign 100 of those guys. Like it or not, the Red Sox are going to sign other big free agents and their contracts are not going to be particularly less risky than Mookie's. Think about it like this: you run the Rays payroll for roster spots 6-26. That's $60m out of your $208m budget, and you now have $148m a year to spend on your five best guys.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 31, 2020 10:55:43 GMT -5
This obsession with someone else's money needs to stop. People in this thread seem almost excited we're trading Mookie. This is a catastrophe and this team deserves a decade of losing seasons if they go ahead with it anyway. It's rarely about the money though. It's about the allocation of resources and the understanding that there is a limit to those resources (known or not) that enable you to build your team. On balance would everyone rather have Mookie than not? Absolutely. Is having Mookie on your team at 12/$425M the best use of your resources for building a competitive team? Debatable. What exactly are "resources" here, other than money?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 31, 2020 9:31:47 GMT -5
Please get Price off this team. He’ll have another Fortnite related injury this season for sure. This team needs young talent. If it means keeping Price so be it. Seriously, what part of David Price being a good pitcher do people not understand?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 31, 2020 9:28:46 GMT -5
To trade Price or not? Well, on the one hand by including Price, they make the team worse. On the other hand they also get less in return. Hmm. Sounds like a real dilemma for ol' Chaim. And since Mookie's AAV alone takes them under 208, so unless they're going to go trade for Arenado, getting Price saves a bunch of money that they probably can't spend any earlier than next offseason.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 30, 2020 16:26:37 GMT -5
Buster Olney, on WEEI this afternoon, said he's heard that the league is asking "very specific questions" in regard to the Sox investigation, and that that implies that "there's something there" on the Sox. He thinks it's one specific piece of evidence that they're using to try to break the case open. I don't know what he means by "one specific piece of evidence" but nothing it suggests seems good to me.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 30, 2020 11:30:11 GMT -5
My basic stance is no Betts trade unless the return is completely unreasonable and I can only hope the Red Sox feel the same way. I hope so too, but I don't think that's the case now. I think it's more of they're going to take the best deal they can get. Doubt they fleece the Dodgers or Padres. Eh. The Red Sox hold all the cards here because they hold all the Mookie Bettses. I don't see why they can't afford to slow play their hand here, it's not like the Padres or Dodgers are going to find alternatives on the market.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 30, 2020 11:20:50 GMT -5
I think some of these Verdugo + 3/4 legit pieces seem a little too rich. Honestly, any package w/ Verdugo at all would be pretty nice. Verdugo, Gonsolin, + 1 prospect seems about the max value to me. My basic stance is no Betts trade unless the return is completely unreasonable and I can only hope the Red Sox feel the same way.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 30, 2020 11:04:09 GMT -5
So, what exactly are the Padres thinking here? They won 70 games last year, and now they're pushing chips in for an (incredibly talented) one-year rental? Even if everything breaks right, there's no way they're favorites in their own division, so this feels pretty foolish on their part. They won't be the favorites in their division, but -They've already upgraded left field in a significant way by adding Tommy Pham. -The pitching, with guys like Lucchesi and Quantrill having a year of experience, and Mackenzie Gore likely ready at midseason, should be much improved. -The Garrett Richards signing (was actually last offseason, but they knew he would be out for most of the season after surgery) should give them some starting depth they lacked. Not a star, but he can give solid innings on a team that will need them. -Fernando Tatis, Jr. was just a 4.2 WAR player in his age 20 season -They've made upgrades at other positions (Jurickson Profar being average or so at second base, for example) With those upgrades, STEAMER has them as the 14th best team in baseball. So, figure about 82 wins. In the National League where you can probably get a wild card spot with 89, acquiring Betts would be right in the wheelhouse. That doesn't mean they should empty the farm to do it, but that's the thing with the Padres system. They can trade a ton of talent without even sniffing their top guys, if they are so inclined to do so. More broadly, I think people are too conservative about teams transitioning from rebuilding to going for it. Once your top talent starts hitting the majors, you need to get aggressive fast because you really just don't know when that breakthrough year could come (or for that matter when you might have a couple pitcher injuries that screw up your whole plan). And then specific to life in the NL West, the Dodgers aren't going away at any point in the foreseeable future. The Dodgers are no more likely to have a down year two or three years from now than they are this year.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 29, 2020 15:12:23 GMT -5
The modern equivalent of this trade would be like Campusano and Morejon for Hunter Strickland. I can't emphasis enough how crazy it was. Might as well have happened in the 1800s for all the relevance it has to the way teams are run now.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 28, 2020 23:47:44 GMT -5
The problem with a Mookie valuation is that there’s no comp for a player his size with his power. You have no idea how’s he’s going to age. I think he loses some of the power and defense, retains his plate discipline, and settles into a 3-5 WAR role by his early 30s, declining to a 2-3 WAR player by his mid 30s. This whole game of pick the guy who's going to age well is ridiculous. Our ability to predict anyone more than a few years out sucks. He's athletic, he's got a broad base of skills, he's roughly as good a bet as anyone.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 28, 2020 19:48:22 GMT -5
You might not be scared of those large numbers but I bet the Sox are. And one could make a good case for them being correct for being so. And I'm sure one could make a good case for Mookie being the guy to invest that money into. I would, but it's not my money. Easy for me to say. I've said it a million times, but the Red Sox aren't going to start spending $90m a year or something. At the absolute worst they're going to stay right under the cap. Ok, so two hundred million and some odd dollars are going somewhere. Does Anthony Rendon seem safer to you? Does Gerrit Cole? You have to look a potential Mookie contract in the context of those deals.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 28, 2020 19:34:29 GMT -5
I think you're most likely correct about it. Would you have given him 12 years $420 million, which is 35 million per year? I mean the number is staggering. Do you love the player that much that you think you can get a big chunk of that value with those terms? Yes. I'm not scared of large numbers.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 28, 2020 8:10:40 GMT -5
But you would have to ignore a lot. Rolen finished top-10 in adjusted OPS+ 2 times. Cabrera: 11. Cabrera’s career OPS+ is higher than every season but one in Rolen’s career. Cabrera will end with nearly 50% more hits at a significantly higher average and OPS. He was a hitting machine. Was he a bad defender? Yes, but not so bad in his prime that it dramatically undercut his insane value. Of course it undercut his value. That's like saying if you make $1000 a week, and I steal $200 of that every week, I'm not really stealing because you're still coming out of the deal with $800. The only way you can make this argument is with these absolutely tortured interpretations of defensive value, where somehow Rolen's defense doesn't count for anything because he was a third baseman, or a couple other guys might have been a little better, or because we can't account for every single run he ever saved with absolute certainty, or because some other player was HOF worthy despite having a bad glove. None of that stuff matters! It's plain as day that he was a great defender and equally obvious that elite defense is valuable. You'd rather undermine the bedrock concepts of baseball -- the idea that defense has value --- than just admit that you underrated Rolen a little bit. And once again, you ignore the butcher Cabrera is/was on defense. Doesn't count! His team didn't lose every game because of his glove so it's not important!
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 27, 2020 16:56:07 GMT -5
Looking deep into Margot's stats, it's strange that his IFFB% has been 17.2% and 18.7% the last two seasons. That's like Nunez bad. Yeah, he's really a flawed hitter. He also strikes out a lot more than it seemed like he would as he was coming up. That's why he's only an average player despite being a plus CF who can throw and put up a .150 Iso in a pitcher's park. Like, if Nunez was a good defender at a premium position I'd have been able to bear the bad hitting. Margot ended up something like his 40h percentile projection, which is in a weird unhappy zone - he's not as good as people reasonably hoped, and the weirdos who get off on calling a prospect a "bust" are also obviously wrong. His contact rates are better than his actual strikeout rates, and his splits on fly balls are horrible but he's been steadily hitting more of them every year. He's good when he hits line drives and very bad when he does anything else. Whit Merrifield has pretty similar base skills as a hitter to Margot, but he's much better because he hits fewer fly balls and way more line drives. Margot could be a tweak away from being the sort of league average bat he always projected as in the first place.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 27, 2020 14:43:28 GMT -5
That's going to take plate appearances away from Chavis most likely, who I cannot see being worse than Myers.Really? Because we for sure saw long stretches of that last year. I like Chavis but he hasn't earned the right to be anything more than depth at this point.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 27, 2020 13:44:19 GMT -5
WAR is not a projection system. Steamer has him hitting .229/.311/.418 and worth .2 WAR in 321 PAs. I will say, if you look at the batted ball profile, you can see something there that might play in Fenway. Crazier comebacks have happened. But Wil Myers is a bad player, full stop. Absolutely, Yet steamer is projecting his numbers to go down across the board and post a .729 OPS, after posting .797, .792, .763 and .739 the last four years. Along with the lowest amount of PA's in four years. Was last year just a bad year or him declining? That is the million dollar question and no one knows. We can just guess because every Baseball player is different. His .739 last year was on the strength of a .344 BABIP. Steamer is actually giving him a little bit of a rebound on some of the underlying numbers (K rate and ISO), but it's not going to give him that BABIP and it's not going to give him a non-terrible K rate when that's steadily gotten worse four years running. And, he's 29. That's two years past peak, and if anything the trends in aging put the genetic peak probably closer to 26 or 25 these days. Why wouldn't he be in decline? He's the picture of a player in decline.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 27, 2020 13:31:18 GMT -5
No trade package will suffice. I'm willing to take on the entire Trout contract.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 27, 2020 12:40:17 GMT -5
I'm certainly not a Wil Myers fan and that is a horrible contract. There is certainly a risk his best days are long gone. Yet how do you basically say the whole contract is negative? Last four years bwar 3.5, 2.0, 2.4, and -.3. fwar 3.5, .9, 1.6, and .5. WAR is not a projection system. Steamer has him hitting .229/.311/.418 and worth .2 WAR in 321 PAs. I will say, if you look at the batted ball profile, you can see something there that might play in Fenway. Crazier comebacks have happened. But Wil Myers is a bad player, full stop.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 27, 2020 9:25:24 GMT -5
Sweet! I love random twitter accounts! Where is that "Jake" kid who "broke" the Jon Lester resigning. Whoever that is probably just deleted all the other accounts they had laying a trail of hints for a Betts/Dodgers trade, a Betts/Mets trade, a Betts/Angels trade, etc.
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