Rob

Google having some issues...

Is Mike Trout CF eligible? I thought the wiki had him at DH and RF.

I can't see him keeping the BB% up that high when big leaguers realize he can't do any damage to them. For some reason, I see the big league version of him looking like James Loney with more walks and strikeouts.

Drop Francisco Lindor ($100) Add Corey Seager ($75)

I still hope he's traded to San Francisco.

He didn't hit the open market. We don't know what the market would have been. We only know what he actually settled for, whatever his reasons.

There have been more studies than I care to count about lineup construction. They've pretty much all found that conventional lineup construction wasn't optimal. Gone are the days of a speed guy first, a contact hitter next to move him over, and then power guys. The general consensus now is just that you want your best hitters to have the most plate appearances. There's still some tweaks to be made -- it can always make sense to break up lefties if they're vulnerable to lefty relievers. And we're thinking that speed now makes a bigger difference near the bottom of the lineup -- where getting yourself into scoring position matters more because those hitters are less likely to drive you in by hitting home runs. So I see where Counsell is going with this.

PMing bench players shortly.

As a 41 year old adult, I am still just sad at being left out of the fun.

Guessing you posted an unfinished draft instead of the completed article?

Of course, the five teams that are too high are outspending the proposed ceiling by more than the 12 teams that are below the proposed floor are underspending. So if all the teams on the bottom spent up to the floor, and all the teams up top spent down to the ceiling, we'd see a net decline in salaries league-wide. Not exactly appealing to the players union.

Presuming that this deal is as small as we all think it will be, I think this is a fine addition. There's a reason the Dodgers gave him nearly 500 PA last year. His .287 wOBA is a far cry from his xwOBA of .330. Might as well give him a month's worth of spring training plate appearances and see if there's anything left in the tank. I don't think he's a good player anymore, but he's a capable enough backup with at least a sliver of hope for something more.

This explains why the Ricketts family would finally welcome him back into the fold after all these years. Sosa is pedophile rape friends with their best buddy, Donald Trump.

There's a lot of reasons Realmuto's production could crater over the next 3 years. On opening day he'll be a 35 year old catcher who has logged a metric ton of innings behind the plate in his career. He's never really been protected by getting time at 1B or DH. His speed and power have dropped in recent years. Etc... That said, he's put up 2.0, 2.0, and 2.1 fWAR in the last three years -- including one season where he only logged 99 games. Before that, he was routinely putting up 4-6 win seasons. With a little health, a solid sub, and a marginal return to form he could put up a single season that's worth near that whole $45 mil. And even if he doesn't $45 mil isn't what it used to be in this game. He's probably worth nearly that with something approximating standard age-related decline. I think it's a reasonably solid risk, and for a team like the Phillies seeing their window of contention closing -- it's a risk they absolutely had to take.

Is being willing stand up for his beliefs moral if the beliefs themselves are not? It's not just "I support a regime actively engaged in ethnic cleansing (a.k.a. genocide), kidnapping foreign leaders, extrajudicial killings which are 100% illegal under international law, etc..." He's just saying he's unrepentant about his belief in those things. Standing up for those beliefs doesn't show character. Character would be questioning the validity of those beliefs - being willing to admit he was wrong. That would be character. As is, he's just a jackass. And the Cubs are better off without attracting the attention.