Transmogrified Tiger

Or they think one or both of Morel and Busch can at least be a part time 3B. Or they're stacking bats they like to give Counsell as many pieces to deploy as best he can. Also further Bellinger/Hoskins leverage.

I'm surprised that it's Ferris and Hope, the prospect depth is fairly consolidated in the upper levels already, though some of that is mitigated with this year's draft pitchers being unleashed and Mule debuting. The thing I really wanted to see from Jed this offseason was decisiveness. Imanaga with all his contract complexity kinda qualifies, but the discount v. his expected contract mitigates that a bit. THIS is a decisive move, hopefully Busch hits and/or proves capable of manning 3B and it can be the type of move that helps them level up.

I did my best to consolidate the conversation, but there may still be an orphaned post or two somewhere.

There are jokes to make here(Busch and Morel gonna platoon at 3B and commit 84 errors, we will buy a 3B from the Dodgers every year until morale improves), but Busch is a really interesting target. Part of me wonders if there's a challenge trade here with Mervis going the other way. EDIT: Guess not on the Mervis part!

So the Almonte timeline seems to be: Languishes in the Colorado wastelands as an unremarkable reliever Dodgers get him, he immediately pitches lights out in 2022(including a velo bump), then gets shut down with elbow tightness that doesn't require surgery 2023 he's still at least somewhat impacted by the elbow in ST, has a terrible April and a bad May, turns it around afterwards and then runs into a knee injury in August that ends his season So the optimistic case is that if the elbow was what was behind his early 2022 struggles, then the Almonte you get for 2024-2025 is likely to be the better version he was in the other ~55 IP he threw as a dodger.

Tom it's Scott Boras doing his long-established playbook for what he thinks will get his clients the best deal, it's not the hunger games.

I think this is backwards, I think they believe they had a competing team last year that was unlucky, and so they view maintaining that roster's quality in the rotation and lineup and upgrading the bullpen is a step forward, plus they have more impact coming from the farm this year than last. The LT point has been beaten to death so I don't want to relitigate it, but I think Bertz said it best that if they were not planning on going over the LT this year, then it makes little sense for them to not creep over it with their deadline moves last year in maximizing their playoff chances. Maybe they don't do it, I understand skepticism, but unless they strike out with multiple bats(as well as a contingency like pivoting to Montgomery), I believe they're going over this year.

There are worse things than letting a 32+ SP go a year too early, especially since as far as I can tell they'd be allowed to QO him. But in that outcome adding 1 year and ~4M to his LT number is probably not a very big deterrent, and he'd have some trade value too.

If teams and the Boras clients were only a QO value apart, they'd probably have signed by now. 7 players got the QO, 3 of them Boras clients. The 3 Boras clients and the closer are the ones still unsigned. Yes, the QO is designed to suppress FA contracts, but it is not the reason there are this many still unsigned in mid-January.

I would guess they have him wave to the crowd on Friday and introduce him as long as he can be in town, but I doubt they're adding him to the itinerary in any meaningful way.

The money isn't the reason that Bellinger + Chapman isn't a realistic possibility, it's the draft capital.

I'd even settle for something more speculative, expanding a deal for Taylor Scott to try to peel off Cabrera or Rogers would scratch the itch, for example.

This is likely me just rationalizing and the FO likes the current end of rotation pile better than us, but I kinda wonder if there's an implicit 'net' to his comments. Like if Assad or Wesneski go out the door for a bat(Alonso?) or a late inning reliever(Scott?), are they more willing to add further? For my part I don't even need a big name or guaranteed deal, I just would love someone who maybe has a bit more promise than what I currently expect from that group, especially for 2024.

Forgot Wicks.

Yeah, just to put round numbers to it, let's say the contract is 2/30 plus a 2/30 player option with incentives that can make it 2/40, along with a team option that override it at 2/45. If someone offered Imanaga a straight 4/60 that is in fact double the 'guarantee', but meaningfully the Cubs offer is better because Imanaga can't make less than that doubled guarantee unless he chooses to, and he has more paths to exceeding it.

Maybe it’s me but the site has been crawling since the Imanaga news broke, regular ~30 sec page loads across multiple devices.

Jed waited til mid-January to sign someone and apparently decided to throw the kitchen sink of contract weirdness at his target, sicko stuff

The best day to announce a trade for Hunter Harvey was every day before now, the second best day is tomorrow.

It is not, Hernandez's 1/23.5 with the announced deferrals has a PV of 20.43 million, per Fangraphs.

Does Shota Imanaga exist? Is he just a pitcher who "goes to a different school" plays in a different country? Are you Shota Imanaga? Am I?

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm getting at. Even with Hernandez's slight dip in LT value, the Dodgers are now 65 million above the LT line, they'd have to drop at least 5 million more in payroll in order to get under the 60 million threshold that would lower the surcharge. I very much doubt they're going to get there or even attempt to do so, which means the only upshot to deferring Hernandez's 1 year deal is to try to save a couple million in LT penalties. Seems like a lot of complexity to try to save ~2 million when you're paying much more than that in penalties regardless. Hernandez might've just accepted 1/21 straight anyway!

I guess there's no real downside because it's not like the Dodgers are going to struggle with cash flow, but it seems a bit contrived to defer a third of Teoscar's deal for 6-15 years just to save like 2 million in LT penalties when you're not close to any threshold for his one year.

I forget where I read it, and it's likely rationalization, but given how pessimistic local media are for basically every suitor, I kinda wonder how much the 'gonna get 9 figures' messaging is agent-driven and/or includes posting fee. Maybe in practice he's ultimately sitting on Seiya-level offers in terms of total dollars? And given how much other teams have visibly moved on or indicated that even Seiya-dollars might be a stretch, maybe the Cubs are closer to a coin flip? Or maybe a mystery team is about to give him 5/125.

Yep, I know they've been at least superficially linked to the others and they have to get at least one SP in general, but I think the odds of Snell's deal coming down to a place where they'd give up a pick for him(on top of potentially foregoing one for Bellinger/Chapman) are basically nil, and as you illustrate Montgomery seems dead set on 25+ million AAV and has a couple persistent suitors so I don't think he's in the cards either. If they don't get Imanaga, I'd handicap the new SP's origin at roughly 75% trade, 20% lesser FA(maybe paired with Woodruff?), 5% Snell/Montgomery.

In mid-December I thought that the plan looked something along these lines: Since then and especially with the Hottovy radio comments, I think the SP is viewed as a singular role and there's probably a greater emphasis on the bullpen(maybe increased since the Counsell hire?). In that light, I think you can break this into 3 chunks: Most of the good fits for bats are still available, and they're heavily Boras dependent. Was probably always gonna take until January given the weak class unless a good trade presented itself. Most RP options are still available as well, and especially if they aren't sprinting to hand out a 3+ year deal, those always take until January SP has dwindled somewhat but if you're only getting one then a lot of the options that have come off the board you'd prefer to see as contingencies, and even some of the heavier targets have slightly higher risks in that context(e.g. risking Glasnow's health if he's the only SP). I'm dumb enough to keep thinking Lucy won't pull away the football this time, but I do wonder if they don't pull down Imanaga that they don't get very serious about whatever trade irons are in the fire. I think some of those teams have probably been holding a pretty high price until options started dwindling(especially given the lack of worst case scenario so far from the Bally situation), so maybe this is the point where things start getting across the finish line.