Rob

Yeah, I sincerely doubt we hear much movement on this until at least late January. The owners are motivated to cut off paychecks and wait for players to get antsy and put pressure on the union. The union is motivated to use the threat of missing games to force the owners' hands. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this drag out til March or April, even. I hope we all enjoyed the hot stove season we got, as it's going to be a while before it picks back up.

Precisely. There's really no such thing as an absolutely terrible short-term contract. Worst case scenario is a minor wound.

Interesting to see the deal frontloaded -- even if only marginally so. It may signal they're thinking about adding significant payroll in 2024.

On the topic of how to fix these series and resolve some of the draw-happiness of them, I saw a suggestion I kinda liked. Namely, you play the tiebreakers first. That way the onus is clearly on one of the players to push a bit harder for wins. If, for instance, Magnus had won the tiebreakers, I imagine we'd see Nemo pushing a bit harder. Could be interesting. Of course, the downside in that situation is that Magnus would really only want and need draws. So he would never need to push offensively very hard. But still, I think it might be preferable to the status quo. I just feel like the classical chess championship should be decided while playing classical chess rather than rapid or blitz.

Jed - “We are targeting velocity this off-season.” Also Jed - “We claimed Wade Miley and are targeting Marcus Stroman.” It’s not like Stroman is bad. But his velocity is nothing to write home about, and if we do manage to grab him it’s not like teams are getting a big difference in looks from our front three.

I don't think so, because I do think the DH is a certainty in some form. Gomes can start 60-80 games and get more PT than the average backup, Willson can start 80 and DH another ~50 times to give him 500 PA, and you still have lots of DH at bats that need to be taken by someone. Plus Frazier is a 1 year/1.5 million dollar upside pickup, his utility doesn't live or die with him getting a full time workload. Also, best laid plans always go awry, someone will get hurt or be surprisingly good/bad, this level of redundancy is far from overkill with as much as is still to be sorted out on the position player side. Also, maybe they'll trade Willson! That possibility existed before Gomes and still exists now. I just don't think it clearly points the arrow in that direction(or the opposite). I think it shifted the needle slightly simply because they marginally increased Willson's value by taking the best remaining FA option off the board. Trading for Willson is doubtlessly more appetizing when you're staring at the spectre of Robinson Chirinos being possibly your next best bet as a starting catcher next season. That said, I agree with your assessment that on this team, as currently constructed, there's certainly room for both. So this move doesn't exert a lot of pressure for subsequent moves.

I don't understand how he's as bad afield as he is. Is he just taking esoteric routes, a la Gary Sheffield?

I am sure they are fine with that, given the production they got out of that contract. Quite possibly the best result from a mega-deal in MLB history.

If half the teams in baseball are making the playoffs, lots and lots of owners [notably the Ricketts] will settle for trying to be just good enough to squeak in and never put up a top-tier payroll even if they can support one. Because once you have that many teams in playing short series, it's just a crapshoot who advances. If I'm the players union, I'd be fighting that like hell. No reason to disincentivize spending.

Daniel Descalso, your seat is ready.

Meh, Semien was probably always more of a long-term 2B and Seager a 3B. But they've got time to figure it out.

Chapman too, I imagine. Unless he already got moved when I wasn't looking.

The Rangers, who started this offseason in a similar position to us, have now committed more than $550M so far to rebuilding their team.

Semien never seems to stick at SS long...

We are literally floating a lower payroll this year than Tampa Bay or Oakland right now. JFC...

I prefer that style as well, but I don't think that incentivizes wins as much as making the less patient player lose his mind. I’m sure, but it still moves the needle somewhat. And absent making all tournaments go with Armageddon games, I don’t know what else to do.

I’m of the mindset it needs to be something like first to 5 wins. Get people to actually go for the jugular and take away the incentive for draws.

No, that's all very helpful. I had understood the third big advantage. But while I saw the knight having significant value, I undersold just how significant. And that's partly due to not thinking about the e5 pawn. And since I missed that pawn, I think you can guess how much I was lacking as to the importance of the pawn structure. That was all excellent and I think I've learned a lot. Thanks.

Fair enough. I know my grasp on positional play is weak, so it makes sense I'd underestimate that advantage. [Or I'm secretly as good as the supercomputers. Either one.]

That was a great example of a game that the engine evals may love the position but it was always going to be extremely difficult for a human to convert to a win against a high-level opponent. 12 more draws until the real world championship starts Yeah, that was a "Magnus position" if there ever was one. Nepo's advantage was never close to "huge." You two are undoubtedly better at chess than I am. What was I missing that made it look so close to you? I'm not a great chess player, but I'm capable of counting up point values. My read was that Nepo was +3, and aside from Magnus's knight squishing Nepo a bit and threatening a couple pawns, there wasn't a clear threat on the board for Magnus. The evals are saying that Nepo was up something like 1.5, which felt about right to me. Is there some other factor I should have been looking more closely at? Some key piece of a standard eval I was missing? I'd really like to learn.

The World Chess Championships are going on right now. Currently in the midst of game two, where the challenger and underdog, Ian Nepomniachtchi, is currently in the midst of trying to blow a huge advantage against Magnus Carlsen, who has held the world championship since 2013. After managing to trade his knights for a bishop and a rook while already up a pawn, he has somehow pissed away his whole advantage and brought the position back to even in most evaluations. Half an hour ago I thought he might win the championship. Now I think it's clear he's going to get blown out.

I have a hard time imagining he'd have much interest in a deal before the CBA is settled. The game has moved heavily away from paying older players for past performance and instead investing in young guys getting below-market. I have to imagine the players union is looking to increase the cost of young guys. Franco could be a big benefactor. Well, holy horsefeathers, he just signed for 12/225.I am shocked. It's not that it's a bad deal, per se. But waiting just a few months might have made a big impact on his bottom line. Though I concede he is better positioned to know what the union is thinking the eventual deal will look like.

I have a hard time imagining he'd have much interest in a deal before the CBA is settled. The game has moved heavily away from paying older players for past performance and instead investing in young guys getting below-market. I have to imagine the players union is looking to increase the cost of young guys. Franco could be a big benefactor.

Are we thinking about the same Alec Mills? Two turns through the lineup if you're lucky, has only cleared 100 IP at the ML level once, ERA should be the 4.50-5.00 range? Pitching lots of mediocre innings is worth something. I wont debate you there. Steve Trachsel, Jason Marquis, etc... Perfectly fine careers and a great guy to have in the #4 or #5 spot. But those guys had long track records of performing at that level while eating lots of innings. Mills averaged, what, four and a half innings per start? And there's no real indication as to how his arm will hold up trying to toss a full season's worth of pitches. I can't imagine any team valuing him for stability purposes unless your only other option is to try to bring back Rich Harden. I almost didn't use the word stability because I didn't want to give the impression I was considering Mills some mid-rotation workhorse in the Lackey/Hammel mold, but rather that he gives you more certainty than the player you're trading away in the upcoming year, and that could matter a lot to a team trying to compete now. In this case it's guys coming off major surgery, but for other teams it could be adding Mills to a deal for a SP prospect stalled at AAA/MLB to hedge against the loss of depth. I can kinda see what you're saying if I squint, but Mills' value (and his upside) seems just so marginal that I feel like most teams would honestly rather take a chance with a random quad A guy than give up anything of any value whatsoever for Mills.

Both Turnbull and Boyd could have more value to the Cubs than a team dead set on competing if you like their profile. Unfortunately the one thing the Tigers seem to have decent options for is LH OF with Baddoo and Grossman, so I'm not sure how direct a match there is in trade unless they want to exchange upside for immediacy/stability and trade for Mills. Are we thinking about the same Alec Mills? Two turns through the lineup if you're lucky, has only cleared 100 IP at the ML level once, ERA should be the 4.50-5.00 range? Pitching lots of mediocre innings is worth something. I wont debate you there. Steve Trachsel, Jason Marquis, etc... Perfectly fine careers and a great guy to have in the #4 or #5 spot. But those guys had long track records of performing at that level while eating lots of innings. Mills averaged, what, four and a half innings per start? And there's no real indication as to how his arm will hold up trying to toss a full season's worth of pitches. I can't imagine any team valuing him for stability purposes unless your only other option is to try to bring back Rich Harden.