Rob

Lester's camp right now: http://i.imgur.com/Lb5v5.jpg

That's promising.

I liked Meija, but the upgrade is worth it. And some do that cost will be offset if we trade Castillo to one of the front offices that doesn't buy into pitch-framing numbers. More importantly, it's really nice to see us start pushing in some of these chips we've been acquiring for the last three years.

Nightengale is the worst. He's actually so bad I'm starting to doubt we get Montero.

http://i.imgur.com/U5zFdCz.gif

And pretty much everything they let Harold Reynolds do.

http://i.imgur.com/k8xVJsI.gif

Has everybody picked out their reaction gifs yet? (Presumably one positive and one negative -- just in case)

Brandon Moss to the Indians is supposedly done.

Parra is what people hope Ryan Sweeney can do.

Value signing at that price.

That's probably accurate.

Bringing Dempster in is probably a non-move. Just a little solid PR. But despite the goofiness, he always seemed to have a solid head on him. I wouldn't be surprised if he actually ends up a mildly successful front office type.

http://i.imgur.com/Gwu3WxM.png

You're just trying to suppress our free speech.

Doesn't get much more random than this. I'm currently sitting in an investment property workshop being hosted by former Cubs backup catcher Tom Lundstedt. He's pretty good, if anybody was wondering.

Is it a swing and a miss if we opt to sign Scherzer instead of Lester? How about if Theo gets Amaro drunk enough to deal Hamels for something reasonable? Of course it's not. So relax and wait to see how it all plays out. It's not a swing and a miss unless we go into Opening Day without having made the upgrades. Resist the urge to feel like our offseason hinges on one guy, because it doesn't.

That's the kind of logic that led to letting go of Ramirez because adding 4 guys' WAR together could replace him. But with a five-man rotation, I think I'd rather have Arrieta, Liriano, McCarthy, Hendricks and No. 5 spot then Lester, Arrieta, Hendricks, Turner and Straily or other No. 5 spot. (Yes, I realize we should be able to get Lester AND one of them, but still). That, and I'm just not interested in giving a non-Clayton Kershaw $25 million per for that many years. If there is a great offensive option at that price, sure, but I'd rather have two quality pitchers than one really good one for that cost and the years. So you're not interested in ever signing a TOR pitcher. Fair enough I guess. Even Samardzija types are going to be getting that kind of money. I think that's fair to say. I would want Clayton Kershaw for that much at his age. But for the most part, just not interested in giving one pitcher that much money and that many years. Because whether we like it or not, that $25 million per season during those seven or eight years will prevent us from doing a lot of other things. I'm just not sure Lester is the guy to go all in on like that. Average cost of a win is now in the $7M range. So for $25M a year, you'd be looking for an average of about 3.5 fWAR per year. That's basically what guys like Kazmir, Kuroda, and Buehrle did last year. It doesn't take much anymore to justify it... just stay healthy and be 10% better than league average. (Obviously, significantly better pitchers don't need to stay quite so healthy to justify it.) I know it seems like a stupid amount of money (and it is), but these sorts of deals are perfectly reasonable in the current landscape.

Kennedy's career FIP is 3.91. His xFIP is 3.96. His ERA is 3.93. I'm not overly worried about him being the type to underperform his peripherals.

Kaplan is a despicable racist and one of the biggest tools in the universe. That said, I trust his sources over Gordo's.

It's a Boras thing, probably. He loves to wait on the market for the top guys.

Not Pearl Jam, but this Nirvana mashup is pretty fantastic.

I've seen a lot of places suggesting Hanley will be playing in LF and Cespedes is the one on the move, not Bogaerts. I'm not sure how much I believe it, but I can't believe a team would sign Hanley to play SS and sign another big money guy to block him from being able to move over to 3B.

If he doesn't cost much, I'd be all for it. Fowler's numbers are awesome. He's a platoon player who is slightly above-average at best. And he really isn't much of a CF. I have to imagine his market value is probably out of whack with his production. He's probably not worth what it'll cost to bring him in.

01001000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101111 01101100 00100000 01100111 01110101 01111001 I like that you bothered to make sure that actually says something.