Transmogrified Tiger

Rondon continues to look mostly dead Schwarber looks worse behind the plate than I remember, I don't think he was in a proper crouch for a single pitch

Anderson does not look sharp.

He was my first guess, but I was still surprised that he had that many when I looked it up.

Mojo hates white players vol. 35

With Jay's defense, along with neutralish splits I could see him getting some early starts vs LHP for Schwarber and even Heyward to ease both in. No need to start Jay against a LHP when you can use Baez via Bryant/Zobrist to the OF.

I don't have a good feel for how they'll handle Jay/Almora, but my guess is they'll start with Almora playing against all LHP and then split time against RHP to start. Once they have a little data on how those two are handling RHP they can customize the 'platoon' a bit more. They don't have opposite strengths as hitters though, so it might simply be a matter of giving Almora as much RHP exposure as his production will allow.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/startkyleorton/status/847453713237032960[/tweet]

Break up the Twins!

The 2nd one was Wahl making a joke on Twitter, but still. Not a great look.

If you can't build the best team by inheriting the best pitcher in baseball and lapping the field in spending, why bother? Where's the honor?

If you believe ZiPS, about 75.

I mean, I know this will change once you have pitchers gameplanning for the lineup and it's not in Arizona, but the left fielder didn't even bother with that bomb.

Have yourself a spring, Almora. Sheesh

(i hate doing this) until he plays everyday vs righties and is striking out in 30% of his ABs and literally never walking (/i really hate doing this) I mean, you aren't going to get an argument from me on skepticism that Baez makes the leap v. RHP. The point I'm making is that Happ had a 22% K rate and mediocre OPS at AA last year, he has even more to prove before he's playing every day in MLB, even with the platoon advantage. And if he isn't playing every day, then it makes more sense to have someone like Zagunis on the roster instead, especially if the injury isn't one opening a roster spot for months.

It's probably gonna take 2 injuries to get Happ to Chicago, because for all his charms he's not going to leapfrog Baez for playing time, and unless the one injury is a pretty long term one, calling him up to play infrequently probably isn't a great idea considering he put up a .733 OPS in AA last year.

If that is the eventual outcome I certainly won't be upset, but I continue to think it's a mistake to not give him starts from Day 1. The 2018 rotation is currently Lester, Hendricks, and mystery, and by hamstringing Montgomery with relief appearances you lower the certainty that you know 2018 Montgomery 1) is a guy you want in the rotation and 2) can handle a SP workload. There might come a point where they need to prioritize 2017 success over that 2018 certainty, but Opening Day certainly isn't that time. The fact that there's only one lefty isn't a big deal, it's that it's Montgomery. Like David said, Uehara has reverse splits(especially last year), plus Davis, Strop, and Edwards are all quite good against LH hitters. With only one LHRP you'd want to use them in a specific situation, which means Montgomery's multi-inning ability isn't a great match(plus he should be starting anyway). I forget exactly where I read it, but apparently MLB has told teams they're going to require increased documentation on injuries for DL stints, to avoid such shenanigans with the 10 day DL. No idea how strict they might be on that front though.

[tweet] [/tweet] Having Montgomery as your only LHRP to start the season seems silly, but I guess with a 10 day DL if there's legit injuries they can play the juggling game.

The format takes a minute to get into, but this is great: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/18961336/how-keep-mlb-being-boring-50-year-plan A fictionalized future illustrating the unintended consequences of rule changes.

2008 Fukudome at the plate with Heyward's baserunning and defense is a 3-4 win player.

I'm not saying it is, purely on a $/win standpoint. I just don't think it's some automatic laughable disaster. $18M is not a ton of money in today's game, and it's for 3 years. They're likely to get some negative value out of it but it's not something that will hamstring them in any significant way unless they choose for that to be the case. And there's at least some value (I have no idea how to quantify it) in avoiding pissing off the vast majority of your fanbase by letting him walk. If they had some readily available replacement coming up in the minors, I might feel differently...but vs replacing him with Montero or Hundley or whatever after 17...meh. If they actually were to replace him with Lucroy, then, well, yeah. I don't think a player like Molina needs to be worth it to an extreme mathematical degree, but if you have to squint to see an above average player, then paying someone 18 million(which by AAV is still a top 40 salary in MLB) is a hard bridge for me to cross. The also have a future catcher in Carson Kelly, a consensus Top 100 prospect, starting this season at AAA. And really, those facts underscore why it's silly to make that decision now instead of after the season. Molina isn't going to be such a hot commodity that you wouldn't have the inside track to sign him, and the odds of his value going up instead of down are very low. Take the year to see how gracefully he's aging, and how loudly Kelly is knocking on the doorstep. The consequences from waiting are much less than the consequences of acting now.

Molina is already signed for '17, so a 3 year deal covers the years he turns 36-38. Even for a catcher he has a ton of miles on his legs, he's caught at least 130 games 7 of the last 8 years, and the one that he didn't he missed 7 weeks with an injury. He's only one season removed from a 1.3 fWAR season, although that probably undersells his defensive contributions. He did bounce back last year, but it was largely BABIP fueled, as he's not at all likely to repeat a .335 BABIP. Going back down to his career average of .300 puts him below average again, and that's before we get into any age-specific decline, like how his CS% fell off a cliff to below average last year. Again, framing and other defensive abilities are probably undersold, so you probably aren't paying upwards of 20 million for a well below average catcher, but when you have to squint a bit to get to an outcome where Molina gives you 6-7 wins over those 3 years, then giving him 55+ million for those years is not a good decision.

did that guy just roll Nagbe from behind at 20 yards out and not even get called for a foul

Cameron is hurt. Klejstan probably isn't a better option than Jones for a midfielder whose role is mostly defensive.