Cubswin11

Maybe they said we'l give you $40,000,000 per year while you wait for the young core to gel. Well yeah, that’s kinda my point. If they think the young core is a major selling point they aren’t getting him. They’re going to have to probably give him the most money (likely significantly more than anyone else).

Yeah that’s my guess or the Nats and it sounds like he’s getting more than Darvish and maybe close to Lester money.

I wonder how they pitched waiting on Kopech’s arm to heal, Cease being a relief pitcher, hoping none of their other pitchers die, Eloy likely being a 2-3 win DH and Moncada being a 2-3 win 2B as being a great young core

Man, I dunno. Oklahoma has a terrific offense, but Bama can really strangle teams at times. Ole Miss, bad as they were, were a Top 10 offense and only scored one touchdown (on the first play of the game) and LSU and Mississippi State were shutout. Then you factor in the fact that Oklahoma has one of the worst defenses in the entire country....that’s not a receipe for success. I doubt they cover if Tua is healthy. If Tua can't go I still believe there's real good chance Bama scores on nearly every possession. Yeah if Hurts has to play I don’t think that affects them much vs Oklahoma’s defense. It would vs Clemson in the championship though.

Must have found out we set up KB, his wife and Nelly/Florida Georgia Line last weekend and figured why bother competing with that sales pitch. [tweet] [/tweet]

The semifinals have been mostly ass in the playoff era (last year's Rose Bowl a huge exception). I'd take the points in both these games, though. OU's defense is bad, but Bama just gave up 28 points in 3 quarters to Georgia before the Bulldogs collapsed, so the Sooners should be able to score enough to at least cover. The games might be close for a while and not blowouts like recent years in the semis but I think Clemson and Bama both end up winning by double digits and likely covering in the end.

I’m happy to hear we might be targeting a veteran backup C, I’m also happy to hear it won’t be McCann [tweet] [/tweet]

I’ve always been very skeptical of Loxas, but I think this is likely true. I mean it’s almost negligence for a team in contention to not check in with any reliever on the market. Granted I know he just seems to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks. This could be that. I will say maybe he is somewhat connected. Loxas actually posted about the Cubs being interested in Realmuto possibly at the expense of Contreras and then Craig Mish reported the same thing a day or two later. I’m still surprised. Yeah I definitely don’t doubt we are interested in and have likely had talks about Miller. There’s connections/familiarity to Theo and the FO of having him on the Red Sox in the past and we were in on him in 2016 and a lefty RP like him makes a lot of sense to target. I agree that I doubt Loxas has any serious sources or connections though. It’s connecting dots at best by him and making educated guesses.

Something like a prospect and Thames for Gray makes sense. IMO

It’s Loxas.... [tweet] [/tweet]

We are mentioned as a team that will “check in.” [tweet]https://twitter.com/jeffpassan/status/1069819898484920322[/tweet]

Very true. But if they view Gordon and Seager as pure dead weight and are willing to attach Haniger like it’s rumored we could maybe find some common ground there. They should just maximize Haniger by himself because Gordon and Seager aren’t crippling but they didn’t do that with Diaz. Maybe they view Amaya as a plus guy at a premium spot? Hell maybe even include Marquez? My main idea is to just get the Mariners trade done now then sort out the roster from there. At worst you have Haniger, which is a nice upgrade and can sell off on some other guys (Happ, Schwarber, Almora) to fill out the roster. Plus Gordon and Seager as bench/platoon options (Seager at 3B and KB in OF vs RHP, Gordon in the LaStella last bench spot role and backup SS aren’t bad at all) and we could maybe eventually use Haniger and/or others to clear Heyward if needed to make room for Bryce.

The Mariners are apparently trying to attach Seager to Haniger to dump salary. Their Segura move today was a pure salary dump. Maybe there's a way to dump both Chatwood and Heyward to clear room for Bryce...... First trade: Chatwood, Kintzler, Zack Short and Adbert (and/or some other non Amaya prospects, include Amaya if you must) to the Mariners for Kyle Seager, Dee Gordon and Mitch Haniger. The money works out with us sending out $30.5 million and taking back $82.5 (plus whatever Haniger's salary is this year but that doesn't matter after the next trade and he won't make a lot anyways as he's still team controlled or just in to arbitration) so it nets us to taking on $52 million and adds about $8 mil to our LT. Second trade: Heyward (maybe we pay a little, say $15-20 million netting us $85-90 million or so in savings) and Haniger to the Braves for a pitcher, let's say Fried to throw in the bullpen mix. We'd come out around $30 million in real money in savings and lower our LT hit for the year by ~$13 million. We could then go sign Bryce and trade off 1-2 of Almora/Happ/Schwarber/Gordon/Seager for either some more savings/prospect/relief pitcher. Opening day position players could be something like (12): 1. Willy C 2. Vic/Backup FA C 3. Rizzo 1B 4. Zobrist 2B/OF 5. Javy SS/3B/2B 6. KB 3B/OF 7. Bryce OF 8-11. 4 of Almora OF, Gordon 2B/SS/OF, Seager 3B/maybe OF or 2B, Happ OF/3B/2B, Schwarber OF 12. FA who can play CF (most likely) This is all likely nonsense and a waste of but there could be something there with the Mariners to set this series of events off. Even if we don't get Bryce that first trade leaves us with Haniger as a consolation prize and then we can trade off still from the Happ/Schwarber/Gordon/Seager group for either savings or other needs.

Pazos and Nicasio would’ve been two intriguing trade targets for us. Idk what the hell the Mariners are doing here. I would’ve given up Happ or decent things for that segura+RP package and it looks like they just took a salary dump deal and it would have cost us very little. Too bad we’re poors.

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Heyman or Nightengale (forget which one) continues to bat .000 from that article from August or September talking about all the managers who were gonna get fired. They’ve either all been retained or signed extensions.

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Edit: tweet from yesterday regarding this move and Machado

I agree the top button thing is a dumb and stupid look be it seems to be a thing a lot of guys have been doing for a while now. I don’t like it but whatever

What did Rizzo and Schwarber do?

That's not the point of Cubswin11's post at all. The rest of my post pointed out that Albies is pretty valuable even though he slumped during the 2nd half. Again a 21 yr. old playing regularly on a division winning team with 5 years of control left is a really valuable asset. Cubswin11 thinks that Albies is going to digress and they ought to sell high on him and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. I'm just pointing out that they might be giving up a star (plus other prospects) for another star. He slumped once the calander hit May. It was a far longer period than just the 2nd half and like I said his minor numbers don’t jump out like crazy to think he won’t just be a similar version of that May on player vs the 1.000 OPS guy in Mar/Apr moving forward. Which is still a somewhat useful and okay player but nothing overly special and certainly not a star. I don’t think him and a pitching prospect for Realmuto is a ridiculous ask by the Marlins and I don’t think it’s something the Braves should turn down right away. It could very likely be the highest value Albies ever has and I think he’s more a 1.5-3 win player moving forward and there’s like 10 FAs they can sign that can play the MIF to replace him for not a ton of years/money.