MLB 2022

[gunnar hendershow]

 

[The Buscher]

On 11/12/2022 at 09:52, Justin Buschlander said:

Me:  Billionaires shouldn’t exist

Steve Cohen:  *spends lots of money dollars on my favorite baseball team*

Me:  Okay, maybe just this one

We said no billionaireS....we're allowed to have one.

[Draevyn]

I was looking through an article on those that The Mets added to their roster this off-season in order to compete and saw the name Jose Quintana. Isn't he like 107? I feel like I've been seeing his name forever. 

Edit: He's younger than I am  

[Meacon Keaton]

Half of the Mets rotation are eligible for AARP.

[The Buscher]

Yeah, the age of the staff would probably be a decent reason to explore a 6-man rotation.

Time to phone up the Angels and ask them if they're really sure they don't want to trade Ohtani this year.  Teams are giving up less for rentals than ever and the Mets now happen to have the best 3B prospect in baseball along with a SS who just won LIDOM MVP.  Two guys who are now blocked for a decade.

The fact that I can say that and only half be joking is absurd.  You really can't rule anything out with this guy at the helm anymore.

[gunnar hendershow]

There's always the chance they'll move some of the prospects around to new positions just to get the bats in the lineup. Mets having done all of this without hitting the farm is impressive.

[The Buscher]

Brett Baty was getting some LF work last season.  That's presumably his long-term future now if he remains with the team, as Mark Canha's hitting free agency.  Ronny Mauricio I guess will get reps at 2B as Jeff McNeil's versatility allows him to move around wherever if an injury strikes.

Happy they've kept their minor league depth.  Plenty of fans would actually be against trading anything for a rental but if (big if) Ohtani actually became available that's an exception you have to make just because he adds absurd value immediately.

Actually could see the Angels keeping him for all of 2023 because owners are so convinced Cohen will get him that they really do view him as a pure rental and not someone they could even begin to extend.

[Meacon Keaton]

Angels need to trade poor Mike Trout somewhere too. Between Houston, Seattle, the soon-ready-to-compete Rangers, and the ultimate wildcard Athletics, he's going to continue to be wasted on that team. LAA should ship him and Ohtani off to the two highest bidders and try again in five to seven years. 

[gunnar hendershow]

The Angels wound up with two generational players and have zero playoff appearances to show for it. An incredibly mismanaged franchise that is in dire need of a top to bottom cleaning. New ownership will probably help with that.

[Gabriel]

The New York Mets currently have a payroll over $100 million higher than the second highest payroll in the league.

[gunnar hendershow]

I saw a calculation factoring in the luxury tax penalties and they're fast approaching $500 million.

Good.

Make all the cheap ass owners quake in their boots. Spend the league into oblivion. I've lived my whole life with Peter Angelos whining about the Yankees and Red Sox spending money, it's a farce they put on to not put a competitive product out there for you the paying fans.

[The Buscher]

Chris Russo went on MLB Network and claimed that he’s spoken to “a lot” of Mets fans who are unhappy with the team just buying players and would rather the team win by developing their own talent.

That’s even more delusional that normal for him.

[DYSI]

What was even the issue with Correa's physical? I'd imagine Cohen being a Mets fan saw this being another Vlad Guerrero situation and didn't want it to back fire like how it did back then with the Angels.

[gunnar hendershow]

Allegedly something from before his big league career. He's not been the guy who plays all 162 at any point in his career, so Giants may have gotten a little panicked about a sunk cost in just a few years.

[Meacon Keaton]

1 hour ago, Justin Buschlander said:

Chris Russo went on MLB Network and claimed that he’s spoken to “a lot” of Mets fans who are unhappy with the team just buying players and would rather the team win by developing their own talent.

That’s even more delusional that normal for him.

I hate Chris Russo. He's the only person that makes me turn off MLB TV/Radio. He's baseball's version of Skip Bayless. 

[The Buscher]

46 minutes ago, Meacon Keaton said:

I hate Chris Russo. He's the only person that makes me turn off MLB TV/Radio. He's baseball's version of Skip Bayless. 

ESPN puts him live on TV with Stephen A. Smith.  I genuinely cannot imagine how anybody could listen to that show without taking an Excedrin.

[Gabriel]

The Jays finally traded a catcher, sending Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr to Arizona for Daulton Varsho.

It's a really close deal, so it's hard to be angry about it. Varsho provides better anticipated value than Moreno and Gurriel combined, and had a better WAR than any Jay last season. He's a left-handed power bat that has risen through the ranks in the outfield, but can also play catcher.

It just stings because it feels like we're losing more than we are. Gurriel's power is replaced in the lineup with Varsho... but they hit more than 0.060 apart last year. I think Varsho hit .231 and Lourdes was at .297... defensively though, it's a massive upgrade.

Moreno, on the other hand, is a top prospect that's proven his capability at the major league level. It's really tough to project prospects in baseball. He could go on to have a killer career as the Diamondbacks number one catcher, or he could fail miserably and this might look like a genius deal in five years.

Personally, I would have done Moreno+ or Gurriel+ for Varsho, but I would have dipped into the farm system for those additional players or at the very least, I might have tried to tie a bad contract to Moreno. You want our top prospect? You gotta take Kikuchi too.

[gunnar hendershow]

I think Arizona won that deal but if you're Toronto and are starting to see that clock really begin to tick you need to make some aggressive moves.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yeah, Arizona got a good deal. And they were going to, because they had the surplus and none of that surplus had expiring contracts, so they could take their time. They weren't going to take a bad contract. They got what they wanted: someone to help them now and someone to help in a few years. 

[Gabriel]

I think both teams got exactly what they were looking for out of the trade. No argument there. As a numbers guy, it's almost a no-brainer for Toronto to make that deal. You don't move your most veteran of the catchers in a year that you want to be a World Series contender. You also cannot move All-Star Alejandro Kirk. It was always going to be Moreno on the outside-looking-in.

Varsho instantly upgrades the team's ability to keep runs off the board. In fact, Atkins has done a great job at focusing on run prevention. I know everyone wanted more bullpen upgrades, but the arms we had at the end of the year were better than what we started with, Erik Swanson was a huge upgrade there, and it's likely that one of the bounce-back candidates who fell out of the rotation will do so in the bullpen. Kikuchi, White, whoever. I think Kikuchi as a two-inning guy out of the pen is the best use of him. Don't let batters see him more than once a game.

The subtraction of offense is hard to see happen, but it's not like Atkins gutted the team. Hernandez and Gurriel will be missed, but Varsho hasn't hit his ceiling yet as a hitter, so he may climb up above that .250 mark while providing exceptional defense. Kiermaier is what he is at the plate, but not everyone needs to be having multi-hit games, driving in runs. Someone's gotta stop runs, and someone's gotta be on base for those dingers to really sting.

I think there's probably a desire for another impact bat in the lineup, but where do you slot them in? Biggio can be a super-utility guy, so maybe at second base? If there's a short-stop available, maybe move Bichette to second and see if it helps improve his defense. I'm just not sure what kind of impact bat, from the middle-infield, would be available in trade right now for an affordable cost.