MLB 2020/2021 Off-Season Thread

[Maxx]

And then once their guard is down...

[gunnar hendershow]

By bringing in known quantities to his front office he's making it harder for too many of the other owners to say no. Basically "you'll be costing a good baseball man like Sandy a great job" is a negotiation tactic. Thus far I think 2 owners are opposed to Cohen buying the team? I believe 7 or less and he still gets approval, and by building a front office of "baseball guys" in advance is really savvy to convince the guys on the fence.

But, yes, once they let him into the hallowed halls of team ownership he'll gleefully outspend all of them.

[gunnar hendershow]

 

[Meacon Keaton]

11 hours ago, damsher hatfield said:

 

Yet you still have buttmonkeys who say no salary cap has killed parity in the league.

[gunnar hendershow]

Since 2001 I want to say the team with the highest payroll has only won the World Series twice. And that may be wrong. I know the 2009 Yankees, but I'm not sure about the 2018 Red Sox.

[Meacon Keaton]

The Red Sox were up there in at least the top 3 for their last couple championships.

[The Buscher]

2018 Red Sox:  first
2013 Red Sox:  fourth
2008 Red Sox:  fourth
2004 Red Sox:  second

So yeah, they've spent.

Statistically, about 60% of teams in the top five of payroll have made the playoffs in the past decade.  I imagine those numbers go up higher as you go further back.

So spending money helps for sure, being able to go out and land some missing pieces without having to give up anything other than cash is a benefit.  But it's not a lock for October baseball.  Injuries, underperformance, and other weird shit can always still happen.

Everybody needs to invest in scouting and analytics.  For cheap teams like the Rays it's about the only hope they have, but for a team with money it makes them that more dangerous.  The Dodgers and Yankees can always go out and spend when they need to but they're also constantly churning out minor leaguers.  Every damn year the Dodgers are calling up multiple top ranked prospects, it doesn't end.

[gunnar hendershow]

The richer teams are statistically going to always be in a better position to compete, with or without a salary cap, because they'll have more resources to pool outside of player salaries. And if you ditched the playoffs format, and basically went back to a scenario where the best team in each league met for the World Series you'd have a whole lot less parity. But the postseason serves as a great equalizer. If you expand it more (they shouldn't) there'd be even more parity.

[The Buscher]

Yeah for as much as Mets fans are clamoring for Cohen to immediately make a big free agent splash in a winter where a lot of teams are going to try to cut spending (and I'm not exempt from this, I would LOVE to come away with Realmuto and Bauer and/or Stroman or something) I'm more excited at the prospect that Sandy will advocate for the importance on spending a ton of money on the scouting and analytics and making sure those departments are functional.  Sandy is a stats guy but the Wilpons never believed in spending money on that stuff.

Given their farm system is largely depleted it will take time for it all to start bearing fruit but it's your best bet for sustained success.

[gunnar hendershow]

5 minutes ago, B-li Manning said:

Yeah for as much as Mets fans are clamoring for Cohen to immediately make a big free agent splash in a winter where a lot of teams are going to try to cut spending (and I'm not exempt from this, I would LOVE to come away with Realmuto and Bauer and/or Stroman or something) I'm more excited at the prospect that Sandy will advocate for the importance on spending a ton of money on the scouting and analytics and making sure those departments are functional.  Sandy is a stats guy but the Wilpons never believed in spending money on that stuff.

Given their farm system is largely depleted it will take time for it all to start bearing fruit but it's your best bet for sustained success.

A farm system takes 4-5 years to start regularly yielding consistently good prospects. The Dodgers had a couple years where they had to make some big splashes (Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, etc) because they just didn't have enough in the farm system. That's changed now and they'll likely be competitors every year since they can keep payroll low enough where sliding under the luxury tax doesn't require blowing it all up.

As an O's fan we basically observed what was the league's best farm system for decades get decimated under a wave of owners who didn't really want to spend money on it after the advent of free agency. McPhail got some of it moving but even then the team had to be bad and had to make some savvy trades. Duquette tore it apart but the team was competitive so I still support the multiple moves they made in trading away their prospects. Fortunately now with Elias and Mejdal we have both a proper analytics department as well as a heavy focus on building up and maintaining a strong farm system. The only problem is the team is finally doing it at a time when everyone else has gone the same route.

[The Buscher]

I'm actually fascinated to see what happens to Bauer this offseason.  He's said for years now that once he becomes eligible for free agency that he will only sign one-year contracts for the rest of his career.  He likes the idea of being able to pick his ideal situation every year and not be tied down to one place.

Now he's hitting the market after a potential Cy Young campaign and even with teams looking to reduce spending, he will get nine-figure offers from someone.  Very few players would be able to turn that down.

I've always wondered if we'd see a player take this approach, where he just floats around on one year deals and rakes in a very high annual wage because teams aren't as afraid to throw out the big bucks on someone they don't have on the books for more than a season.  On the other hand, he's a pitcher and is one injury away from basically killing his value for the next season.  It's the ultimate "bet on yourself" move.

[The Buscher]

The Mariners still have not made the playoffs since 2001, and the Marlins clinching today means every team has gone to the playoffs at least twice since then.

[GhostMachine]

Plus the Mariners are the only team left that has not been to the World Series. They've existed 16 years longer than the Marlins and Rockies, and 21 years longer than the Diamondbacks and Rays. All of those have been, and the Marlins and Diamondbacks actually won. Marlins twice.

Adding to that fire, the Washington Nationals won the title last year, and they used to be the Montreal Expos.   The Expos started up 8 years before the Mariners. Hopefully it doesn't take the Mariners 8 more years just to make it to the WS. But I won't be surprised if they still don't go.

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by GhostMachine

[Lowerdeck]

Ron Roenicke will not return as Red Sox manager next year.

We're all just assuming Alex Cora is coming back.

[Gabriel]

If the Jays win and Yankees lose today, the Jays will finish second in the AL East. Either way, the Jays will be playing post season baseball and that's a huge positive for the franchise.

I feel like, with the off-season moves they made and the performance of the team this year, it will only help to better tempt free agents in the coming off-season. I'm not sure that I would do a whole lot, but if they can add another legitimate starter and a replacement for Ken Giles, I will consider this off-season successful.

Of course, it would also be nice to add an impact bat with good defensive skills, but I think the major focus should be on the pitching front.

[The Buscher]

Angels fire GM Billy Eppler

[gunnar hendershow]

He had 5 years to put a winner around Trout and failed miserably.

[The Buscher]

I really thought the season was going to be dead within a week after the Marlins outbreak just days into the season.  And when they kept pressing on I thought the Cardinals outbreak would do them in.  Never imagined they'd actually get through the regular season.  It took a lot of gimmicky double headers but they managed to play 898 of a possible 900 games, with up to two Cardinals/Tigers games that would've had to be made up tomorrow if it mattered for playoff implications.

That said, I really hope that by April 1st we're starting Opening Day on time with a full season ahead.  Even six months away I'm not optimistic that fans will be back by then, at least not in full capacity...so it remains to be seen if there will be another big fight between the owners and players that results in games being lost again.

Tough to speculate since news on COVID and the vaccine change basically daily, but my best guess would be most/all teams have a limited number of fans in the building to start 2021 and it'll gradually increase as a vaccine progresses through its rollout and becomes widely available to the public.  The owners might moan but honestly, April attendance numbers tend to not be great anyway, especially in cold weather cities.

[GhostMachine]

9 hours ago, Lowerdeck said:

Ron Roenicke will not return as Red Sox manager next year.

We're all just assuming Alex Cora is coming back.

Bringing back Cora would be a bad idea. He got off light, and should have been banned for being involved in both the Astros and Red Sox cheating. The suspension was a joke.

 

 

[The Buscher]

Looking at the playoff schedule and it's kinda odd.  The Wild Card series will be done by Thursday at the latest for the AL but the ALDS is not starting until Monday.  No baseball at all Saturday or Sunday.

I suppose the problem with starting the ALDS on Saturday is that you'd be opening a series with a bunch of #3 and #4 starters.