MLB 2020/2021 Off-Season Thread

[The Buscher]

21 minutes ago, damshow said:

At this point I'd just wish they'd get Universal DH over with. It's an inevitability and I'm tired of the back and forth over whether they're permanently adding it or not and the arguments/discussions among fans about it. 

I have to say I agree.  I mean I love old school NL style baseball, but the Mets as currently constructed are far better served having the DH available.  It'd be weird to go back to one more year of pitchers hitting when everyone knows it's gonna go back to the DH soon.

Feel like they could've implemented leaguewide DH the day after Bartolo Colon's home run.  It was only gonna go downhill from there.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Just saw that the AL & NL Central non-tendered 29 players while the other 4 divisions non-tendered 30 players. The value of the players they non-tendered was almost $20M more than everyone else.

[Meacon Keaton]

Middle America poor yo

[gunnar hendershow]

I give the Orioles flack for crying that they can't financially compete with the Yankees and Red Sox all the time while refusing to invest in player development and analytics (until very recently), but man the Angelos family is nowhere near as cheap as the ownership in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and such. Just farcical how much they pretend to not have money.

[The Buscher]

Former pitcher Chris Young hired by the Rangers as Executive Vice President and GM.

Tallest GM in MLB history presumably, dude is 6’10”.

[gunnar hendershow]

We sure have gone from "guys in their primes when I was kid becoming Hall of Famers and managers" to "guys who I was able to see the entire career of becoming Hall of Famers and managers" to "guys I was an adult for the entire career of becoming, well, GMs at least".

[The Buscher]

Phillies already said they didn't have the financial resources to even consider re-signing JT Realmuto, and now they're already trying to trade Zack Wheeler almost a year to the day after signing him to a 5-year, $118 million contract.

[GhostMachine]

I wonder just how many Phillies fans are rethinking that Bryce Harper signing now?

[Meacon Keaton]

Why would they be? He’s been playing great. The Phillies aren’t cashstrapped they’re just cheap and the previous general manager handed out bad contracts while failing to develop prospects. Get off Harper’s dick. Your pettiness doesn’t take away from the fact he’s one of the best players in baseball.

[gunnar hendershow]

Yeah Harper, and having him for the bulk of his prime, is the least of Philadelphia's worries. Their prospects that came up didn't reach their potential, they traded away the best ones they had, and brought on a lot of bad contracts. It was a bad rebuild and Harper is just going to waste most his career there unless the Yanks or someone with deep pockets wants to take on the contract.

[The Buscher]

Harper’s got a full no-trade clause so he’d have to be willing to waive it.  He’s still only 28 so maybe he wants a team built around him from scratch, but if he wants to win now I’m sure the Phils would try to move him.

Universal DH would only open up the possibilities of teams interested in him since he’s signed til 39.  That sweet swing is gonna play for a long time.

[The Buscher]

Phillies owner John Middleton has essentially called the Wheeler rumors fake news and said he hasn’t authorized trade discussions.

That said, where there’s smoke there’s usually fire with stuff like this.  He might just be covering his ass. If everyone knows you’re desperate to shed payroll, you will get lowball offers for your players.

[Meacon Keaton]

He actually went too extreme saying he wouldn’t trade Wheeler for Babe Ruth. He did not clarify if he went dead and buried for decades Babe Ruth or prime Babe Ruth, but either way seems like a dolt.  

[The Buscher]

MLB sends a memo to teams telling them not to expect universal DH in 2021, and from all indications the hold up is that owners want expanded playoffs back.  Probably will be the same stalemate in the next CBA, and most expect that by 2022 both of those things will be permanent.

Baseball's pretty much ruined if they go to 16 team playoffs.  No real intrigue in the regular season at all anymore.  The closest thing you'll get to a playoff race is mediocre teams hovering around .500 fighting for the last spot or two.  For the obviously good teams, the regular season becomes a 6-month preseason, just like the NBA.

[Meacon Keaton]

Lance Lynn has been traded to the White Sox. 

[gunnar hendershow]

57 minutes ago, B-li Manning said:

MLB sends a memo to teams telling them not to expect universal DH in 2021, and from all indications the hold up is that owners want expanded playoffs back.  Probably will be the same stalemate in the next CBA, and most expect that by 2022 both of those things will be permanent.

Baseball's pretty much ruined if they go to 16 team playoffs.  No real intrigue in the regular season at all anymore.  The closest thing you'll get to a playoff race is mediocre teams hovering around .500 fighting for the last spot or two.  For the obviously good teams, the regular season becomes a 6-month preseason, just like the NBA.

Yeah expanded playoffs make the long regular season actually meaningless. A huge appeal (and I think in our current sports environment the biggest justification) is that there's a tight margin of error due to so few playoff spots. That expands more and suddenly if you have a bad stretch you don't panic. Baseball will purely be a "thing to do on a nice day" activity until the real drama kicks in during September.

That is basically what we get with the NBA. NHL avoids it by virtue of that neat quirk where you get only 2 pts for a regulation win, keeping standings artificially close. NFL has such a short season and a week off between  games that every game feels important.

I reluctantly accept that all sports just exist to make money for their billionaire owners, but they're so upfront about it sometimes that it gets super annoying. The playoff drama might "improve" by having 8 teams per league in a sport with so much randomness as baseball, but the long regular season is worthless since it doesn't matter how good you are when mediocrity means you're playing in October.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yup. That was my stance when they implemented the two wildcard system. If you can’t separate yourself from the pack after 162 games, you don’t deserve a chance to win the title. It should be that simple, were money not the main catalyst for everything.

[The Buscher]

Mets said to be finalizing a four-year deal with James McCann.

Just about every Mets fan, myself included, has been dreaming of Realmuto as a Met from the moment Steve Cohen jumped back into the Mets ownership bidding.  So to end up with James McCann while Realmuto is still on the board would be pretty damn disappointing, to say the least.

Cohen hired Sandy as his baseball guy to make sure he's not, in his own words, spending like a drunken sailor.  No matter how good Realmuto is, Sandy was never going to advocate signing a 30-year old catcher to a five-year, $125 million deal or whatever Realmuto is asking for.  It's just not his style.

But McCann has sucked every year of his career except for the last two.  Feels like they're signing a generic backup catcher to a big deal because he got hot for 140 games.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yeah, why sign the best catcher in the league for a five year deal when you can sign a slightly above average catcher for four years.

[The Buscher]

The only thing I can think of is that Cohen has set a budget (cause every team has one, no matter how loaded the owner is) and they've prioritized Springer and Bauer over Realmuto.  You get Springer and Bauer and I'd say it's still a damn good offseason.  But man.....James McCann?