Transmogrified Tiger
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Everything posted by Transmogrified Tiger
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Honestly the Hosmer thing is the only part that has me at all fazed. There's a lot of people yelling 'that's it??' who are not thinking very hard about the actual value Soto is going to put up(thanks to his position/defense) and I'm also wondering where else you're gonna find a willing partner to give up as much pedigree and production as what is in that deal.
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Hosmer vetoing the trade is the entertainment we all deserve
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I've fallen madly in love with James Wood over the last month, but even still this still feels very light. I was expecting something like this with Corbin, with someone like Bell it feels kind of silly. Nats were clearly tasked with dumping Soto now so that it wasn't a PR hit for the new owners.
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He makes a lot of sense. I don't personally like him because he's outrageously fragile, but him plus some arms in a Happ deal would be very much in the spirit of "threading the needle." I keep forgetting about Jansen, I'm kinda into that as an option in a combo deal. But Jansen can't be the headliner, it's more or less Tiedemann or bust if you're doing Happ + RP.
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Would Bell’s inclusion in some of these rumors indicate that Hosmer is on the move? Maybe? But that begs further questions because no team is going to give value for Hosmer, and you're already giving so much value in the Nats deal you almost run low on reasonable options to convince someone to take Hosmer's deal. Plus their history so far has been not very willing to pay much of a prospect price to unload him, hence why he's still there.
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I haven't seen much discussion of the LT when it comes to Soto and the Padres, is it just assumed Washington is willing to chuck in 10+ million for this year because they like the Padres package so much? I haven't seen any indication Hosmer or even Myers would be going the other direction to mitigate the contract.
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Other than being a LHH true CF, can you sell me on Phillips? 40% strikeout rate, not a ton of power, not a ton of speed. He's elite in CF(UZR says +11, Statcast says +15), and he has pop in his bat(.160 IsoP that was even higher before this year). He hasn't shown the hit tool to be a regular but you don't even have to hit .250 with those skills and this run environment to be a borderline starter. Plus he fits the current and likely future roster well that is heavy on RH OF but light on LH OF and has no surefire CF. But ultimately this is appealing in a similar way that Dom Smith is appealing, if you can get him for nearly free then you can see a path to it working out well, but it's a flyer that you don't change your plans around.
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Sobering return in comparison to the value Robertson/Givens have, all the more reason to do at least one combo deal now.
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I was going to post pretty much the same...LHH too fwtw
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I'm not sure Toronto has enough interesting stuff they'd be willing to give to get Happ + Robertson, never mind Smyly too(though he isn't worth much). Contreras + Robertson would be an exciting combo to head to Tampa given their farm, and if Toronto is willing to get there on Happ adding on Smyly could help get over the top on a preferred target.
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If the Mets are as bad at understanding leverage as their beat writers, I wonder if this might be a pop-up landing for Willson. I'd much rather be dealing with "lesser" prospects from the Rays org, and there's a few guys even at 50 FV I could see potentially being available due to their various flaws/performance issues(e.g. Mead or Jones). Plus further downstream you can probably shake loose someone like Colby White for instant impact.
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No, the likely outcome of a Soto to the Cards deal is 1-2 MLB pieces(Carlson, Gorman), and 2-4 of those Top 100 prospects(almost certainly including their one elite prospect in Walker). The positive outcome is Soto replaces Carlson(muting the marginal improvement since Carlson is playing at a 3-4 win pace this year), and the farm system is diluted enough that the combination of Soto's FA and Arenado/Goldschmidt's age creates the clearest window end they've had in a number of years.
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Brett Phillips got DFA'd as a roster casualty of the Mancini deal, I kinda wouldn't mind giving him a shot at some OF PA. He can play a legitimate CF(unlike basically everyone on the current roster) and if the bat doesn't work in a new org then you can non-tender him if you like.
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If we're doing tea leaves the Cards passing on Montas plus the Hader deal would make you wonder if the Cards are getting Soto Their athletic beat writer was asked to guess and only had them getting a smallish SP pickup like Wacha or Eovaldi. Feels like unless things develop late with a new SP target(Rodon?) they're about in Soto or bust territory for the deadline, unless they add another reliever on top of Romero. Maybe they could talk the Marlins into a SP? They've worked with them in the past.
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Yeah you could maybe see one of them getting done with some of the interesting pitching prospects, but both would be a stretch. That said, while I'm not quite as conspiratorial as Brett, I do agree with him that a lot of this is public posturing on the Mets side, and between the time pressure of the deadline and the possibility that other NL teams make upgrades(Soto, Montas, maybe Rodon, etc), I wouldn't be convinced that their prospect-clutching is a locked in certainty.
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Minor Cubs Deadline Trades
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Rex Buckingham's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Prospects Live is a pretty big fan of Wesneski, combined with the pipeline ranking it makes the more tepid eval from Fangraphs(which even states that he's on an upward trajectory that could continue) seem like the outlier. -
Minor Cubs Deadline Trades
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Rex Buckingham's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Probably noteworthy that we're now 2 for 2 in minor deals that are bringing back expected 2023 contributors. Maybe less so in the Effross case since he would've been one otherwise, but last year you saw these minor deals mostly being for players further away. Joc for Ball, Tepera for Horn, Marisnick for Espinoza, the only exception was Chafin for Deichmann/Palencia. -
Maybe I'm miscalibrated but that doesn't seem like an extreme price for the Padres to pay. Rogers is a 31 y/o FA to be that just pitched himself out of the closer's role, Gasser and Ruiz seem like useful pieces but neither is showing up on any Top 100 lists, plus you get Hader for another year before FA. Lamet is negative value to keep Hader's salary from pushing too hard on the LT.
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Minor Cubs Deadline Trades
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Rex Buckingham's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Yes, Alzolay the starter is done, he's out of options, will be 28 on opening day, and can't stay healthy. He can take up the multi-inning mantle that Thompson was so good in at the start of the season. Effross for Wesneski is fascinating, I guess I should apologize to that Blue Jays blogger for dreaming of getting him. You don't often see a team trading a younger reliever a year early and I think this is a great example. For as sustainable as Effross' profile looks right now, the odds are likely it either blows up, or it regresses to be a Chris Martin/Jesse Chavez profile, and that type of guy is basically free on the market every year. That said, they must really like something in Wesneski to take him on given his pedigree and roster status. It's not a bad return by any means even if you don't count on any developmental improvement, but there's nothing so revelatory about his trajectory so far that he'd be the guy you gravitate to considering Effross would have no shortage of suitors. -
Spot checking some leaderboards: Matt Chapman, Aaron Judge, Fernando Tatis Jr., Ian Happ, Joey Gallo Other than Gallo, these guys didn’t have quite the swing-and-miss that Vientos does. As a an ancillary piece in a deal with the Mets, sure, fine. As a headliner in a trade for any of Willy, Happ, or Robertson? No thanks. They did, you have to remember that K rates have jumped up in recent years. AAA K rates now are nearly 5% higher this year than they were 5 years ago.
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Spot checking some leaderboards: Matt Chapman, Aaron Judge, Fernando Tatis Jr., Ian Happ, Joey Gallo
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I'm not a big Vientos fan, but I don't think we should be quick to be so picky about someone being better than Mervis. For one, there's no real DH firepower on the roster so it's not as if two players couldn't coexist, but also Mervis is a fringe prospect who hasn't yet proved to be productive at AAA, unlike Vientos.
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Minor Cubs Deadline Trades
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Rex Buckingham's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Longenhagen on the deal: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dodgers-and-cubs-make-mutually-beneficial-swap-of-martin-mckinstry/ And an interesting thread: tl;dr McKinstry's strength is his hit tool, and one way to measure that is how consistently good a player's launch angle is. McKinstry rates very well here, and on top of his left handedness and positional flexibility it could be needed help, since the Cubs are last in launch angle standard deviation(the Dodgers are 1st for comparison) -
The 'can't blame them after PCA' rhetoric is gonna drive me to scream into a pillow. You got Javier Baez who put up 2 fWAR in 50 high leverage games! You also got Trevor Williams who has a 3.30 ERA in 90 IP and continues to contribute! That's how deadline trades work, you sacrifice value tomorrow for value today! Having buyer's remorse about this is just admitting you're mad you didn't rip the other team off.
