Bertz

That's just not at all true. 2016 - 140 IP (make sure you count his MiLB innings) 2017 - 155.1 IP (ditto) 2018 - 111.2 IP (worked as a reliever in Pitt because they were too dumb to figure him out) 2019 - 60.2 IP (forearm strain) 2020 - 57.1 IP (pandemic, this was actually a full set of starts) 2021 - 88 IP (TJ) 2022 - 13.2 IP (TJ) 2023 - 120 IP (hamstring) Again he's not Old Ross Hadbourn but more or less he's had 3 injuries of note in his career, with 2 of those tied to his elbow.

Midway through 2021 his elbow popped and he had that Tommy John, and in late 2022 he made his way back from it in a pretty normal 15ish month timeline. Dragging him for his innings totals in both years is a bit of a double-jeopardy deal. And his injury in 2019 was a forearm strain. Those are usually precursors to a guy's elbow giving out. Like he's not Tom Glavine by any stretch of the imagination, but most of his missed time in the majors was due to his elbow which has now been successfully reconstructed.

The complicating factor to him for 2024 is innings. He's got a cap of what, 120 innings tops? Even if he's shoving prodigiously, I'm not sure how to bring him up before July-ish. Like he will need to be in a situation where he can have starts skipped, extra days added, etc. unless we want to either A) do him dirty and send him to the minors even though he's performing in MLB or B) have a Strasburg situation where he's got to be shut down prematurely.

Yeah I think my only concern with Glasnow is that at his salary doing him + Soto or especially him + Ohtani doesn’t look super realistic. And yeah, I think the durability stuff with Glasnow is way overblown. That said he's certainly you definitely want to have that full complement of young starters (or at least most of it) in tact to buttress him. I'm not sure what to think about Bieber though. The velo is way down from his prime, but still right in line with his 5ish win 2022. He had a Barry elbow last year, so maybe that impacted the performance? Though clearly a compromised elbow increases injury risk. I think I would need a 2nd SP with Bieber. Bieber and Imanaga or something like that.

Do it do it do it do it

Oh man I looooooveeeee Bregman. If he's really available that would be amazing. That said I'mpretty skeptical? The Astros are currently on Fangraphs tied for the 2nd best team in baseball. They're really going to dump their 2nd or 3rd best player? I know their farm system is in shambles but this still feels exceedingly unlikely.

Brown+change for Glasnow feels right. That said I wonder if with the litany of injuries the Rays have had at SP the higher floor/lower ceiling of Assad might be preferable. Assad and a stronger 2nd piece might be a win/win from both the Rays and Jed's perspective?

Heyward played in 124 games last year, batted 377 times, and only 28 of those were against lefties. That is a level of platoon protection I've never seen before. Dave Roberts gets slept on as a manager but that's some really optimal usage to get the most out of a guy.

I was actually just looking at Stephenson this weekend when Hader got brought up. This feels like the type of guy who is out of Jed's comfort zone to acquire but now with Counsell aboard he might stretch to do it?

This might be an overcorrection, but after Madrigal I'll never doubt someone can play 3rd on the basis of arm-strength again. I think the offense is what has me most excited. A lot of what he did last summer was just beat up on guys he should have. But even at Tenn where he got challenged a bit he had a 6.7% swinging strike rate, which for MLB reference is tied with Jose Ramirez, and had a 17.6% HR/FB rate, which again for an MLB equivalent was tied with Nick Castellanos. Obviously doing that at AA =/= doing it at MLB, but even giving ground as he moves up the ladder we're legitimately looking at a guy who has 20+ HR power and will strike out ~15% of the time. We haven't had one of those since Rizzo, and we haven't had a RHH one since Aramis. So like even if Shaw doesn't walk at all that's an exciting wrinkle to add to our lineup. I'm a *huge* believer in lineup diversity. I firmly believe there are some add on effects to having e.g. Matt Shaw and Owen Caissie back-to-back in a lineup. Jed's baseball aesthetic clearly tends towards guys on the Caissie end of the spectrum, which makes guys in the org like Shaw that much more valuable.

On the one hand, it's objectively hilarious that the Cardinals were like "we need more power arms" and then did this. On the other hand it's not a bad rotation? And Mozeliak handed out very few year. And that's never stopped being a strong group of position players to go with it. There's some age related risk on both sides of the ball, but they look like a wildcard team. And they're the division favorites until Jed adds 10ish WAR.

It's less the $12M and more the 2nd guaranteed year. Though Gibson was 1 and a club option so maybe Maeda isn't a sign everyone in this tier will get multi-year deals.

Maeda is super underrated, but if that's what guys of his ilk are getting then scenarios where Jed trades a bunch of young pitching away and needs to backfill the #5 starter spot with a vet get that much less attractive.

I think this is true, but the trap a lot of fans fall into is treating stars like superstars. Regular stars are very much guys who you should be really mindful of when and which you sign. I think the fanbase is falling into this trap with Bellinger now and was doing it with Stroman back in June. But like Ohtani is the super-est of superstars. He is a unicorn and not particularly close to being an edge case. He is absolutely a "sign him and figure the rest out later" guy, and if he's not I'm not sure who is.

Nah this is unusually chilly. Only having Nola signed amongst the big boys is normal, but having so little done amongst the mid and lower tiers of FA by Thanksgiving is very abnormal

It's not crazy that a lot of stuff is being held up by Ohtani, but I'm surprised things have been *this* dead. But yeah at this point seems pretty clear that position player stuff won't move until Ohtani signs, and I wonder if pitching is going to wait for Yamamoto and Imanaga?

He looks pretty done. Fastball barely over 90, low spin rates, not a crazy release point. I think the world of Hottovy but doesn't look like a lot of raw material to work with there.

Eno Sarris laid a good case out for something in the $450M range I do expect something north of $500M because of marketing and because $/WAR isn't quite linear, but I don't think it's a slam dunk.

Counterpoint to the "start with command and add stuff" plan is a guy like Caleb Kilian. He had pinpoint command of 91-92 and now at 95 his command is more or less unplayable. That's not to say it can't work, as 1908 pointed out Cleveland has been *extremely* successful running that exact playbook over the last 10 years, but mostly to say there's no free lunch with this stuff.

I really doubt it, but the Athletic did report that with Counsell on board Jed is softening his "no multi-year deals for relievers" stance. I would still tend to think that maxes out at something like what the Braves gave Reynaldo Lopez though.

Mets Radio play by play guy I believe. So like not a rumor guy but very much not a rando.

It wouldn't be that hard to pivot to something a little more pitching and defense-forward. Like you could do something like Bichette, Bellinger, Glasnow, and one of the second tier SPs (Imanaga?) for $80M. You wouldn't have that monster bat we all want but that's a similar lineup to last year, an even better defense, and a hell of a rotation. That said, I am all in on Ohtani or Soto, and will be pretty disappointed with an offseason that doesn't include one of them even if it's comparable on paper.

It was hard not to think about Caissie every time Evan Carter came up to the plate this October. For the past two years any time I've looked at Caissies performance in the context of his age Carter was the only guy ahead. Caissie looks like about as safe a bet to be an impact hitter as there is, not just in the org but in the minors. You mention 70 grade power, but it might be 80 grade by maturity. He hit, IIRC, 117 MPH last season. Only 26 guys have crossed that line in the last three years. And at 20 years old that aspect of his game should be improving still. The patience too looks pretty elite. Tbe contact draws a lot of hand-wringing, but I think those concerns are overstated. We don't have full plate discipline numbers for the minor leagues, so people have to settle for K rate. But K-rate =/= contact rate. A guy running an elite walk rate is going to inherently be in a lot of deep counts, which will lead to a lot of Ks. We do have swinging strike rate for MiLB, and Caissie was 35th out of 64 guys in the Southern League this year. Caissie is not a Joey Gallo or Patrick Wisdom level contact bat. He's more Kyle Schwarber, who has bad but not awful contact rates but runs huge K numbers dye to walks. Schwarber is the cautionary tale for Caissie though. He had only occasionally been an elite bat, and as a bottom of the defensive spectrum guy you need an elite bat to exceed the 2.5 WAR neighborhood. I'd expect Caissie to provide more defense than Schwarber, though not a ton. But there's pressure on the bat to be like a 130 wRC+ or better for him to be an impact player. That's a tall order for any minor league hitter, and so like several others in the system even though I like him a ton if we need to move him so be it.