David

Apparently this guy was his agent And he liked this Tweet:

Already being discussed in another thread /locked -outshinedone

this offseason is horsefeathering crazy the astros went from being the model of a modern day innovative and progressive organization to being outed as a bunch of dirty cheaters and hiring dusty horsefeathering baker to manage

even with castellanos, meh? they'll be a pain in the ass tho Isn't replacement level wins roughly 52? That would put this projection at 87.6 wins before Castellanos (though he probably adds like 1 win at most replacing other production) This article is damn near 7 years old from when they tried to align fWAR more closely with bWAR, so take it with a bit of a grain of salt, but it's all I could find from Fangraphs... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/unifying-replacement-level/

Lol wut? I dont think its the union thats holding on to the DH. I mean, look how much the union has given up already.

Lol wut Lol wut?

no Counter-point: yes they're two very different skills with very little overlap in terms of the traits that enable you to be MLB caliber at them. the guys who can do either one are exceedingly rare. the ones who can do both are almost by definition considerably more rare (they practically don't exist).

Pitchers don't suck at hitting because they don't work on it enough, they suck at it because hitting his hard and pitching gets better and better. Scrappy McJunkball could scratch out a hit or two against the scrubs that pitched in yesteryear, not because he put in the time and effort. Except that in high school (and travel ball), the pitchers are often also the best hitters, because they're the best athletes on the team. So pitchers don't inherently suck at hitting, they just get asked to stop doing it the second they turn pro no

Right, and pitchers are the only guys on the field who are there almost entirely for their extremely valuable contribution to run prevention. Just about everyone else advanced in the game because of what they can do for run scoring primarily. The dudes who have both the natural talent to hit MLB pitching well and pitch well to MLB hitters are beyond absurdly rare. Out of curiosity, would you be in favor of adding a DH for the catcher spot as well? Not to be flippant, but if catchers ever get to the point where their triple slash numbers all start with a .1, sure.

Pitchers don't suck at hitting because they don't work on it enough, they suck at it because hitting his hard and pitching gets better and better. Scrappy McJunkball could scratch out a hit or two against the scrubs that pitched in yesteryear, not because he put in the time and effort. Right, and pitchers are the only guys on the field who are there almost entirely for their extremely valuable contribution to run prevention. Just about everyone else advanced in the game because of what they can do for run scoring primarily. The dudes who have both the natural talent to hit MLB pitching well and pitch well to MLB hitters are beyond absurdly rare.

Yeah, I'm under no illusions. It's coming sooner rather than later. Honestly, the writing was on the wall as soon as the AL adopted it. Both leagues couldn't keep different rules forever, and the union would never agree to give up a well-paying job like the DH. And once interleague play became a thing, that really speed up the process. Still, I'm allowed not to be happy about this. It's a dumb change. Huh? I'd say that's some terrible speeding up considering it's been 23 years. And it's damn near 50 since the AL did it. If anything, it's long overdue (based on the things you said). There's been nothing even a little fast about it, whether you like the DH or not. It's been so insanely and illogically long that I am still in believe it when I see it mode. Also - the NL would've adopted it in like 1981 if some guy (the owner of the Phillies) hadn't been out on a fishing trip and unreachable at the time of the vote.

give me georgie instead

like how about the strategy involved with a pitcher having to get an actual hitter out instead of being able to sleep walk through an at bat

interesting strategic decisions? come on whatever is remotely "interesting" or "strategic" about those decisions is vastly outweighed by the fact that you have to watch pitchers putz around at the plate 10 times instead of actual major league hitters

I hope Ralph is right on this one...

even with castellanos, meh? they'll be a pain in the ass tho

Pretty much where I stand. He isn't a particularly good fit for this roster unless significant changes were made, and I'd rather keep Schwarber.

Wasn't Ortiz only listed on the 2003 "anonymous" test that has been picked apart and legitimacy questioned? ARod was suspended twice and admitted to taking PEDs so he was a blatant violator. But yeah if Ortiz avoids getting dinged for only being on that 2003 report and strongly denying it, why isn't Sammy afforded the same courtesy? Sosa's career WAR is slightly higher, played a position his entire career and all his HOF markers are higher than Ortiz's. And if Ortiz really was juicing in 2003, that coincides with his career taking off. Who knows when Sosa might have started taking PEDs but he was an All Star and finished in the top 20 of MVP voting 3 times before the 1998 season. I guess the biggest differences are 1) the corked bat establishes a pattern of cheating for Sosa, 2) By being part of the peak steroid era and one of the people involved in the 98 HR race Sosa will always be looked at as one of the main faces of that era and 3) Ortiz is widely considered a good guy that sportswriters love. also uh ortiz is known as like the most clutch postseason hitter of his era and one of the best of all time and has a seemingly endless highlight reel of huge playoff (and regular season) hits. whether clutch is real or not, that matters.

i'm just waiting for logan to come in here and lose his horsefeathers over the mcrae inclusions

I imagine most of ours will look pretty similar, at least on a few key seasons. That said, here goes... I'm gonna go 26 man too. I'm not going to pick a bunch of relievers. horsefeathers that. Starting position players become bench players and starting pitchers can be relievers just like in the All Star game. 1994 - Glenallen Hill 1995 - Mark Grace 1996 - Brian McRae 1997 - Terry Mulholland 1998 - Mickey Morandini 1999 - Henry Rodriguez 2000 - Jon Lieber 2001 - Sammy Sosa 2002 - Kerry Wood 2003 - Mark Prior 2004 - Carlos Zambrano 2005 - Derrek Lee 2006 - Michael Barrett 2007 - Ted Lilly 2008 - Ryan Dempster 2009 - Randy Wells 2010 - Carlos Marmol 2011 - Starlin Castro 2012 - David DeJesus 2013 - Travis Wood 2014 - Anthony Rizzo 2015 - Jake Arrieta 2016 - Kris Bryant 2017 - Willson Contreras 2018 - Javier Baez 2019 - Kyle Hendricks SP - Jake Arrieta 2015 SP - Mark Prior 2003 SP - Carlos Zambrano 2004 SP - Kerry Wood 2002 SP - Ryan Dempster 2008 RP - Carlos Marmol 2010 RP - Kyle Hendricks 2019 RP - Travis Wood 2013 RP - Ted Lilly 2007 RP - Randy Wells 2009 RP - Terry Mulholland 1997 C - Willson Contreras 2017 1B - Derrek Lee 2005 2B - Mickey Morandini 1998 3B - Kris Bryant 2016 SS - Javier Baez 2018 LF - Henry Rodriguez 1999 CF - Brian McRae 1996 RF - Sammy Sosa 2001 Bench - Mark Grace 1995 Bench - Anthony Rizzo 2014 Bench - Starlin Castro 2011 Bench - David DeJesus 2012 Bench - Glenallen Hill 1994 Bench - Michael Barrett 2006 Mannnnn it hurt picking someone from the 97 team lol And yeah, I have two guys who can only play 1B on the bench. That's fine. As much as I kinda hate Mark Grace, having two guys like that who always had/have good PAs on the bench is pretty great. 2012 Darwin Barney had to go for someone who could at least sorta play CF in DeJesus.

in light of them even considering trading him like 6 months after he signed the deal, it kinda seems like they threw that player opt out (which he didn't even want) in in hopes of him actually taking it. get the positive PR of extending him and then he's the bad guy when he opts out after he continues to be awesome for a couple years.

Not saying he should’ve taken less or it’s on players to take less to win. But when signing a deal of that size, if winning is still a very important thing, I think the player should do (or agents on their behalf) some basic due diligence to asses if the team they’re signing with really can compete or add as much or as soon as they want to be whatever they think “competitive” is. It’s not hard to see “oh they’re paying these bad players almost $60 million this year, a declining Charlie Blackmon is also owed $70+ million over the next 4 years (and $60+ in next 3), Trevor Strory is a pending FA so maybe they’re holding out money to re-sign him. If I sign up for almost $40 million a year maybe they won’t spend a lot more over the next few years and if competing at a high level is still important to me maybe I should go to FA and see where else I can go to be in a better spot to do that. Where I’ll still have a 9 figure contact available to me.” at the very least, that sort of thing should be a very big part of his agent's job

I'll expand my point then. If we've only got a couple million to spend, I'd prioritize the bullpen instead of the bench at this point. Obviously, if we've got more to spend, then let's go nuts. Who is or was a bullpen arm to spend on that would’ve made you feel good? This FA bullpen class sucked. I’m fine going with the cheap, volume approach and still maybe bringing Strop or some cheap vet in closer to ST. yeah i'd rather go with a bunch of cheap plays on upside than pay up for the type of "proven" reliever you get by spending a couple million. that's how you get dudes like kintzler and duensing.

damn it's kind of amazing how spot on consistent that "a cycle is about as rare as a no-hitter" thing seems to be.