2013 MLB Season Thread

[The Buscher]

Way too much for Ellsbury.

[gunnar hendershow]

Ellsbury is known for stealing, makes sense he just robbed the Yankees.

[Meacon Keaton]

Nevermind

[Berober]

Cano has gone to the Mariners and Granderson has gone to the Mets

[GoGo Yubari]

People are talking about baseball a lot in Seattle now and it's not 2001. This is weird.

[DYSI]

Did not expect someone to go out and give Cano a 10 year deal in all honesty. I'm sad to see him go but the back end of that contract is going to be beyond ridiculous.

If the Yankees can somehow work the money they were going to give Robby to get some quality pitching this offseason I'll have high hopes for next year, but as of now we don't have a good enough rotation to be a Wildcard.

[Meacon Keaton]

He'll spend three years in Seattle and end up getting traded back to the Bronx, kind of like what happened with Soriano.

Hope you enjoyed playing in October, Cano.

[The Buscher]

Thrilled with the Granderson signing. He's not a perfect player by any means, but the Mets went have been without a legitimate cleanup hitter for years and Granderson has the power to fill that void. With him and Young together in the lineup, the BA and K's will probably be horrendous, but the Mets will get a lot more power production from their outfield than they they have in recent years. A Granderson-Lagares-Young outfield should also be markedly better defensively than what the Mets are used to.

[Toe]

Granderson is good, but his power numbers are going to come down a bit.

[Meacon Keaton]

And don't expect him to hit better than .240-ish. I'm not too upset about Granderson leaving, honestly.

[The Buscher]

I see Granderson's XBH numbers being more around where they were in his Detroit days, as Citi Field has plenty of space in the outfield. The doubles and stuff went down in Yankee Stadium since doubles tend to fly over the wall there. The HRs will come down certainly but he does have raw power that could probably still get him around 30 or so dingers. I believe I read that like 40% of his HRs with the Yankees were on the road.

If he gets around .240 with 30 HR and 90 or so RBI that's a hell of a lot better than the Mets have without him. At least gives the Mets a power bat to protect Wright.

Also Beltran signed with the Yankees for 3 years, $45 million. Nice move for them. They're definitely going to have to move an outfielder with Beltran and Ellsbury joining Wells, Soriano, Ichiro, and Gardner. I'd say Gardner is the most likely to get dealt. Read a few people suggest a crosstown swap of Gardner for Daniel Murphy but I think that would actually be a downgrade for the Mets, they like Lagares in center and Murphy is under team control through 2015.

[Meacon Keaton]

I love Gardner. I love his ability to get on, his speed on the bases, and his defense. I hope he goes nowhere.

I like the Beltran signing. Nothing too extravagant (for us). I think he brings a better every day bat to the line-up than Granderson.

It's a shame because we've had a decent off-season, considering there was just no way we were going to be able to give Cano the deal he wanted. Aside from agreeing to a one-year extension with Kuroda, though, we've not addressed pitching and that scares the bejesus out of me.

[The Buscher]

Roy Halladay is retiring. . Bad news. Not terribly surprising but I hoped maybe he'd be able to make a comeback with somebody.

[Meacon Keaton]

Bartolo Colon, 40, signs a two-year $20 million with the Mets.

[OGpistolpete]

So the MLB is planning on banning home-plate collisions, one of the classic images of the sport itself.

Don't really like this, just because there are a few freak incidents doesn't mean the entire idea has to be eliminated. Apparently catchers won't be allowed to block the plate and runners aren't allowed to target the catcher. Always thought it was an exciting play when it happens. If Buster Posey was a nobody this would be a non-issue. I bet San Francisco's front office was a leader in this movement.

[Meacon Keaton]

It doesn't happen often, but I can see this being a problem along the lines of a new rule in college football.

In college football (may be the case in the NFL, I can't remember) if a player's helmet comes off during the play, he has to stop and can't participate in the rest of the play. During the year I saw more than a few kids continue to try for a tackle or an extra yard after losing their helmet and receive penalties for it. But that's their nature. They're conditioned to do that from the first moment they put a helmet on as a child. If someone runs by you with the ball, you tackle them. You don't have the time to think "Shoot, I lost my helmet, let me grab that first."

Now I can understand MLB wanting to get rid of baserunners "targetting" the catcher. It's obvious when a guy is going for the head. But I just don't see how you can tell a professional catcher not to block the plate when there is a possibility of a run crossing. I mean, is a catcher seriously expected to just let a guy cross the plate in the bottom of the ninth to win? Of course not, like the football player, it's ingrained in them to stand their ground and not let that runner score. What are they going to do if the catcher does stand his ground? Suspend him? Fine him? Give me a break.

I'm all for player safety, and I'm not too fussed about it being such an exciting play, but I don't like that they're pretty much asking the defensive team to just let that run score if it's a close play.

[OGpistolpete]

I think there is a big difference between collisions where the runner violently targets the catch, and collisions where the base runner goes shoulder to shoulder with the catcher. Buster's position was why he shattered his leg. The whole point of knocking the catcher is to prop the ball out, not to injure the catcher. There should be fines for head to head intentions or results, but I'm sick of victimizing there guys that literally play a sport for a living and make millions of dollars. Oh you took a hard hit and injured yourself? Boo hoo.

[The Buscher]

I like the Colon signing. He was great last year and has been good or at least serviceable most other years. With a guy in his 40s I'd prefer to go with a 1-year deal, but with the market the way it is damn near every pitcher is getting a multiyear deal this offseason, so you're going to have to pony up the extra year if you want somebody good. I'd certainly rather have Colon for 2 years than Bronson Arroyo for 3.

Hopefully he can provide some quality innings this year and help make the transition to Harvey's return in 2015 a bit easier. Then by next year he'd likely be no more than the #5 starter. Right now the 2014 rotation is looking like:

Zack Wheeler
Jon Niese
Bartolo Colon
Dillon Gee
Jenry Mejia

Plus Rafael Montero and/or Noah Syndergaard should be candidates to be called up by June or July.

That's not bad at all, really. Not a top rotation by any means but it beats the shit out of having Daisuke Matsuzaka or Aaron Laffey.

[Meacon Keaton]

So hopefully in a month's time, the Yanks will have an upgraded rotation.

Tanaka was officially posted today.

[gunnar hendershow]

Only 2 or 3 teams could possibly wind up with Tanaka instead of the Yankees.