Tim

So, currently on the roster we have: No Options Remaining: Happ Heyward Ortega Frazier Ramirez Hermosillo Options Remaining: Deichmann Davis Velazquez Canario Can Also Play OF: Wisdom Rivas Hoerner Morel That's a lot of outfielders. I guess we have a couple months to figure out what they're going for here.

Never mind - apparently Hermosillo signed a major league contract. I guess Chicago is going to have a lot of outfielders next year

Nice. Iowa is going to have a lot of outfielders.

That is a much better deal than I was anticipating. Fantastic.

I think it is within the realm of possibility, but I wouldn't feel comfortable placing money on that bet. I suddenly feel much more confident.

They can get away with one more starter. Stroman Hendricks Miley XXXXX Alzolay/Steele/Mills/Thompson/Kilian But they could also really use three bats.

I think MLBTR had him at 5/$110, iirc

Stroman wasn't my first choice, but I'm excited. They obviously intend to spend money and compete. The gloom and doom of the past few days was clearly premature.

I chuckle every time I see it described as "multiple" years. Sure, two is more than one. But it's just being dramatic to describe it as a "multiple" year commitment.

I think it is within the realm of possibility, but I wouldn't feel comfortable placing money on that bet.

If we're going big (but semi-reasonable), let's go big (but semi-reasonable). Correa scares me at that level of commitment. Let's switch to Story and save $10M/year and four years or so on the deal. Let's add on a HOF first baseman in Freeman. The longer he doesn't sign with Atlanta opens the door that much wider to sign elsewhere. Let's make it happen here. Yes, we'll get the decline phase. But he's aged spectacularly so far. Let's also add in Kyle Seager instead of Pham + Miller. Still sign Stroman + another guy 2B - Madrigal 1B - Freeman SS - Story 3B - Seager DH - Schwindel LF - Happ C - Contreras CF - Ortega RF - Heyward BN - Hoerner, Gomes, Wisdom, one of (Ramirez, Frazier) Adding Freeman + Seager helps the L/R balance of the lineup. It also creates a very solid top/middle of the lineup whether that's Schwindel at #5 hitting something like he did last year or Contreras moving up when he's in the lineup. Also, someone tell Happ that we start the season in August. If we're lucky, both Davis and Velazquez come out of the gate hitting missiles at Iowa and displace Ortega & Heyward in short order. Or we add another $11M to the budget and sign Suzuki.

Braves non-tendered Rich Rod. Might be an interesting pickup as the "vet" for the pen.

I get why it would be done, but I hate that we did it.

Notre Dame beat two of the best 3 teams in the B1G West this very year and would be locked into the playoff right now if they hadn't turned the ball over 3 times against Cincinnati. They have a top-10 recruiting class (for now) for next year and the start of what could be an even better one the year after. "Just join a conference" is easy to say but it really has nothing to do with anything at this point and it certainly wouldn't have changed anything about the first 2 sentences I wrote. I also cannot believe after the crap we've seen in college football the past decade and especially the past few months that people still think conference affiliation means anything at all. We are closer to a world where Ohio State and USC and Alabama start asking themselves why they're sharing money with the likes of Purdue and Oregon State and Vanderbilt than we are to one where anyone cares about the Big Ten or the Pac-12 or whoever else. Notre Dame's record is a fraud like usual. Their garbage schedule this year was highlighted by a loss to Cincinnati and wins against Purdue 8-4, Wisconsin 8-4 and Toledo 7-5. All other teams were .500 or worse. Had they managed to beat Cincinnati they would have been granted the opportunity to get curb stomped by a real team in the playoff. I don't know that playing a B10 west schedule would have been much tougher this year. But if they go through that unbeaten and win the champ game, they get to play for a national title. Essentially, each year they just have to beat Iowa, Wisconsin and whichever other teams are decent that year, then win in the title game. Even if they have a loss, they still have a great chance to get into the CFP if they just win the B10 title. That's a much more straightforward path than they have now.

Are you assuming they'd just lose to OSU every year?

So I guess he was out with vertigo for most of last year? I wonder how that will impact him going forward. Do we know if this is a guaranteed deal yet?

Because he’s getting paid a metric ton and wants to win a title. He wasn’t accomplishing either by staying at ND. The sucky thing about all this is that it's going to give credence to the idea that ND can't win a title at all. I agree, and have for years, that ND was never winning a title with Brian Kelly. I do think there's a difference. Just to name one very recent example, Michigan just straight-up punked Ohio State with a roster that isn't appreciably more talented than Notre Dame's is, at least by recruiting rankings. If they want a better chance to win a championship, they should join a conference. Like, for reals this time. If they joined the big 10 with a condition being that they get put in the west, they'd have a good shot to be in the title game nearly every year. I know, I know...traditions, blah blah blah.

Good depth guy, but pretty redundant and doesn't move the needle much at this point.

Rex Brothers signs with Milwaukee.

That's why the team still only projects at ~85 wins. That said, Steamer thinks those latter three are all better than league average hitters, and the former two would have Hoerner and Davis breathing pretty hard down their necks. Even with adding Correa the middle of the order is a little light, but on the flip side you're not giving many PAs to bad hitters. It's a very Oakland-y lineup. I don't have a ton of confidence in Ortega or Wisdom for next year. I am unrealistically confident Schwindel will be a better than average hitter, but I don't know that he'll be enough above average to justify being a full-time 1B. I think all those guys were at their 90-95th percentiles of performance last year and I doubt they come near repeating that in 2022. Hoerner is needed to rotate in elsewhere. Heyward does give us additional depth in the OF, but I'm not sure Davis is really ready yet. That 30% strikeout rate in AA still worries me. Getting back down to 22% in his 68 AAA PA helps mitigate that, but he might still need some seasoning.

Stars & Scrubs has the advantage of being easier to upgrade in the future. But I would hate to spend that much money and still go into next season with Wisdom, Ortega, Schwindel, Miller and Pham as 5/9ths of the starting lineup.

so you're saying there's a chance...

Yeah, I like the move itself. It's the implications of the move I'm trying to sort through. Like - what does this do to the negotiations between Willson & the team on an extension?

They could also be serious about the conversation that they need a better backup so that they don't run Willson into the ground. But it probably means that they'll trade Willson to further restock the farm while trying to stay competitive (or competitive-adjacent) this year.

Bye Willson. :(