General Baseball Chit-Chat Thread

[weis21]

http://baseballcontinuum.com/2016/01/30/blogathon-16-jake-mintz-and-jordan-shusterman-nellys-batter-up/

 

I found this humorous. Stumbled onto it from the Cespedes Family BBQ twitter account

[Tim]

Trey McNutt is alive?!? And throwing 95?!?

That was my reaction as well

CCR is the new EPDs

Credence?

[Sammy Sofa]

http://baseballcontinuum.com/2016/01/30/blogathon-16-jake-mintz-and-jordan-shusterman-nellys-batter-up/

 

I found this humorous. Stumbled onto it from the Cespedes Family BBQ twitter account

 

[expletive] St. Louis.

[weis21]

That was my reaction as well

CCR is the new EPDs

Credence?

yes. the first several minutes of that video he is listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival while he threw.

[David]

http://i.imgur.com/J1i31uB.png

[jersey cubs fan]

#therightway

[Banedon]

SF and STL with that draft WAR.

[David]

Theo killing the trade game

[Andy]

Theo killing the trade game

It shouldn't be a surprise given Lester and Heyward especially, but to see us so far ahead in the free agent listing is not something I expected.

 

Also, 4.7 WAR higher than anyone else in baseball, so there's that

[David]

[SouthSideRyan]

I'm pretty sure they should be in jail.

[Northsider]

Theo killing the trade game

 

We're also tops in Rule 5

[Bull]

Very interesting. For all the talk of the Cubs tanking for high draft picks, there's surprisingly little from draft picks there. Although Cubs draftees were involved in some of those trades (cashner and samardszija) and some of the players recieved in trades wouldn't have been acquired by a team actually trying to win (Arrieta)

[Tim]

Very interesting. For all the talk of the Cubs tanking for high draft picks, there's surprisingly little from draft picks there. Although Cubs draftees were involved in some of those trades (cashner and samardszija) and some of the players recieved in trades wouldn't have been acquired by a team actually trying to win (Arrieta)

That actually reflects how few players from the system there are left that were produced from the draft by the previous regime. Only the exceptional players from the Epstein drafts have had time to make the majors. That number will go up as additional players in the system make the roster in the next couple years.

[David]

i mean, as far as cubs draftees, i might be missing someone, but it's just bryant, schwarber, and baez right? so it's not really that surprising where that number sits.

 

we've obviously had a ton of guys come up as rookies over the last few years, but that's where the trades (Rizzo, Hendricks, Russell) and IFA (Soler) come in.

[NonProfitCow]

Just remembered the Nationals hired Dusty Baker.

[David]

[tweet]

[/tweet]

[Cubswin11]

He's the #1 non Harper FA I want over the next few years

[Tim]

He's the #1 non Harper FA I want over the next few years

Trout?

[Cubswin11]

He's the #1 non Harper FA I want over the next few years

Trout?

He's not a FA until after 2020, Harper (definitely) and Otani (probably) are FAs before then. That's why I mentioned those 2 before Trout. But obviously, yes, Trout could be included as well with Harper in my above statement.

[Clem Fandango]

Brett out out an article recently pointing out how the Yankees have been playing the FA game down a lot because it's possible that they are likely building up to make a massive offer for Harper when he's available. Sabathia, Teixeira, A-Rod, McCann, Gardner, Headley, and Miller's salaries will be off the books by then. They currently only have $57mm committed for 2019. Assuming that, between now and 2019, those that leave before 2019 will be replaced with more cost effective or in house options, they'll have plenty of scratch to outbid anyone for Harper's services. They'll be tough to beat if Harper is a target for the Cubs even if they didn't have a lot of wiggle room. If they keep this trend up and keep their salary around $120mm for those years leading up to his FA year, they'll be particularly hard to beat in FA.

[SouthSideRyan]

The Yankees won't, nor do they need to, keep their payroll around 120M leading up to Harper becoming FA.

[Clem Fandango]

The Yankees won't, nor do they need to, keep their payroll around 120M leading up to Harper becoming FA.

 

$120mm was admittedly low on my part as I was quickly typing that out, but to think they'll be breezing past the luxury tax from here on out it's probably a safe bet they won't. They've got nearly $80 million in guaranteed money coming off the books next season. Their rotation next season will consist of Tanaka, Severino, Pineda, Nova, and Eovaldi. They could add another big FA arm, but they don't need to go crazy like they've been known to. They've been relatively quiet over the last couple of years, and are setting themselves up nicely to make big FA runs in the future, but I can't see them going balls out on multiple FA's over the next couple of years. Maybe attempting to get one big name or a few mid tier guys, but it feels like they're content with going into the next few years with what they have and supplementing it with solid, but not expensive talent in the interim before Harper hits the market.

 

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to see a few $150-$170 million Yankee payrolls over the next couple of years instead of the $200 million payrolls they've been having for the last decade or so, which is more or less because of the big contracts doled out to aging talent which they are probably going to shy away from from here on out considering it hasn't exactly worked out so great for them while perennial cellar dwellers like the Jays and Orioles are surpassing them with substantially cheaper payrolls by acquiring underrated and undervalued talent vs. obvious big ticket guys. I don't think it'll stop the Yankees from spending big on certain free agents, but I think they'll stop "paying for past performance" as Theo likes to put it which has pretty much been their M.O. since the cap was lifted.

 

Either way, the Yankees are going to have a lot of money to play with and if they choose to go all in on some guys they'll be tough to beat and can probably outbid anyone as a result without having to worry about the luxury tax.

[David]

baseball had a salary cap?

[Clem Fandango]

baseball had a salary cap?

 

Well now it's been so long I'm questioning my own knowledge. Didn't they have a salary cap back in the 90's? I'm losing it.

 

Either way, point still stands.