Bertz

I'd be going nuts right now if I was an M's fan. They're a fringey wild card team as is, but add Ohtani and another big move (Lorenzo Cain?) and suddenly they look as good as anybody. Same with the Giants. Stanton doesn't get them to the Dodgers level, but Stanton+Ohtani plus a decent 3B like Todd Frazier and they're right there.

[tweet] [/tweet] !!!!

Also. my understanding is that Spring Training in Florida is WAY worse than ST in Arizona from the players' point of view. In Florida apparently everything is stupidly far apart, you spend half your day in the car/bus.

This is why I expected both to be tendered. I figured ~1.5 million was a worthwhile gamble, considering how much payroll we presumably have. Either Rondon's arm is seriously horsefeathered, or we've got less money to play with than I thought. If the latter, I wonder if it means we plan on spending a ton or if we're going to tighten the belt a little in preparation for next winter.

Sounds like that is not allowed. Standard minor league contract plus however much bonus you can offer. They could probably hire his pick of translator or something but thats about it.

ZiPS has Cobb worth 3/39. It's not gospel obviously, but you generally see signings in its projected neighborhood. I could see a 4th year to help with the luxury tax, but he's not getting 18 million a year.

I have a really hard time believing a guy described like this Is someone we should be so sure is choosing between New York, Chicago, and LA. There's a very good chance that this is a guy who would easily play in a third-tier city like San Diego or Milwaukee if they checked enough of his other boxes.

Yeah I don't think we have a prayer unless there's some soft factor we haven't considered, like Michael Jordan is his icon or he horsefeathering loves Joe Maddon's whole schtick. With money not being a factor, there are four things that IMO are likely to influence his decision: 1. Competitive Outlook 2. Geography 3. Willingness to utilize him how he'd like 4. Fame We match up with anybody on #1, though it's not a huge advantage. We're one of five or six teams that looks great in the short to medium term. But in the long term you'd take the Dodgers or Yankees purely because of money. For 2 through 4, we don't look so hot. Geographically, it'd be an a shock if he didn't prefer the west coast. For #3, maybe Joe's outsized reputation for creativity helps us, but I think pretty clearly favors every AL team over any NL team. #4, if it matters, strongly suggests the Yankees or Dodgers. I just can't see him coming here at all. I think it ultimately comes down to two things. First, does he care more about fame or geography? Second, would he rather be "THE Guy" on a good team, or "A Guy" on a great team. Framing it that way, I think I think it comes down between the Yankees and Mariners. Based on this article from Jeff Passan, he doesn't sound like he's interested in the spotlight: I really think he's going to end up a Mariner, but honestly it sounds like no one, even the industry folks, actually has any idea.

Here is my attempt. Luckily for me there's still been no movement so I still have free reign. Generally, I went into this assuming that the club can't go much beyond the luxury tax limit until the new TV deal kicks in, and also being mindful that I REALLY want Bryce Harper (and am willing to 'settle' for Machado :-) ). So this plan leaves us ~$40 million under the cap in 2019 with only a few lower leverage spots in the bullpen and two spots on the bench left to be filled. For FA contracts, I went with what Jon Heyman predicted they'd get where possible. I found that the best way to get through the offseason was to throw money at the bullpen, and then use trades to fix the rotation. There are no super-relievers out there this year (I don't trust Davis at all going forward) but there's a lot of B+ guys and intriguing bounce-back candidates. I went with these three guys, but there's about a thousand permutations with this money and these years that adequately fix the bullpen. Brandon Morrow 3 Yrs, $24 Mil Jake McGee 2 Yrs, $14 Mil Luke Gregerson 1 Yr, $7 Mil Morrow was a monster last year, so he's signed with the hope taht he keeps it up, but priced with the reality that he's a living medical red flag, and may miss time or quickly lose effectiveness. Jake McGee is a quality set-up guy, there's not much to say beyond that except that maybe Hickey and/or normal altitude can get him back into dominant closer territory, so there's a little bit of upside there. Luke Gregerson I really like. He's been a good-but-boring set-up guy for like a decade. He lost velocity and some ground balls along with it last year, but still looks like he was very good and just the victim of some flukey homeruns. Speaking of flukey homeruns, I don't cut Rondon in this scenario. He's not the guy he was a few years ago, but at minimum he's a decent 7th innning guy with upside, I'm not sure there's actually a better way to spend ~$6 million. For the rotation, I use up our major league trade assets, but generally keep from dipping too much into the minors. There is probably a little bit more needed to make these deals work from the minor leagues, but no one too painful should have to go in addition to the major league assets. I think in general on the trade front this offseason, even outside of this exercise, I'd try to use our closer to the majors position players and further from the majors pitchers. e.g. I'd rather deal Albertos than Alzolay, and Charcer Burkes more than DJ Wilson. Anyways, here are my trades to fill the rotation Vic Caratini+ to Oakland for Kendall Graveman Javy Baez and Mike Montgomery for Chris Archer and Adeinny Hechevarria I'm a big Graveman fan. I think there's more in there, but even if there's not he's a league average-ish starter today. Oakland desperately needs position players, and they've got a lot of interesting pitching at both the major and minor league level, so I think they match up really well with us. In the Archer deal, giving up Javy sucks, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't. But there are enough issues with him that I think I'd rather trade him and backfill with Hechevarria than trade Happ. Finally, I bring back Rene Rivera for 1 Yr, $3 Mil. This gives us a roster of C - Contreras/Rivera 1b - Rizzo 2b - Happ/La Stella/Zobrist SS - Russell/Hechevarria 3b - Bryant LF - Schwarber CF - Almora RF - Heyward SP - Quintana/Archer/Lester/Hendricks/Graveman BP - Morrow/McGee/CJ/Wilson/Strop/Rondon/Gregerson/Grimm(?) Payroll ends up right around $180 million after insurance/40 man/etc., so there's still room to do some work at the deadline. I think the one thing this team is kind of missing is a long man/swing guy after the trade of Montgomery, so I would probably look for someone in the Trevor Cahill mold who is jobless in February and give them Grimm's roster spot. But I think this team rocks, is still pretty deep on the position player side, and I've generally "kept the powder dry" at least in terms of $$.

Did we know about Benedict before today? He's a pretty big deal. He's responsible for a sizeable amount of the Ray Searage devil-magic during the Pirates' recent run of success.

In that same vein, in a deal where we send them Baez or Russell for Archer, I could see us taking back Hechavarria.

[tweet] [/tweet]

Happ is weird. More than any of our players except maybe Javy, it’s a case of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Pro’s - He played nearly a full year in the majors at 22, and did quite well for himself - He was actually well above average in sprint speed, which probably means that in the medium to long term he should be fine (or maybe even good) in CF. - With the rise in shifts, the bar is getting lower for defensive acumen at 2b. With his aforementioned speed and good positioning, his odds of being acceptable at 2b are higher than they were 10 years ago Con’s - He probably didn’t hit as well as his line indicated - The strikeouts, my god the strikeouts - He’s an awkward and clumsy defender If you think the contact ability will improve with age (maybe not go full KB, but he gets them down to 23-25%), he looks like Jason Kipnis with more power. If you think the strikeouts and defensive awkwardness are here to stay and his line this year was juiced by a few wall-scraping homeruns, then he’s probably more of a second division starter. But even on the latter end of the spectrum, doing what he did at 22 and with six more years of team control should make him fairly valuable. I would guess that, even if the Orioles specifically wouldn’t do such a deal, Happ’s value is in the Gausman + Britton range.

I love Jake and wish him the best but I'd avoid him like the plague in FA. His peripherals were pretty mediocre even in his strong second half. He's done enough for long enough that we can comfortably say he's a FIP beater, but Matt Cain and many others have shown that's a skill with an expiration date. Maybe that date is not til like 2020 but there's just as good of a chance it's next year. Honestly i don't want Wade back either, as he's a very similar case except worse since you don't have durability to fall back on.

He didn't make the list, and he shouldn't have, but I'm really bullish on DJ Wilson. The athleticism is obviously there, and the performance was fantastic after he came back from injury. .255/.339/.516 with a 10.0% walk rate and 19.1% k-rate, and he'll still only be 21 next season.

I love all of this, pending who the one or two guys are. McGee's my favorite reliever target and assuming Morrow's medicals look good he's even better. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Cobb signs this weekend. It seems so inevitable on both his side and ours that I wonder if they're just waiting for the qualifying offer period to end before making it official.

Let's assume the Cub's payroll limit is the luxury tax. and that MLBTR's arb estimates are pretty on point. The Cubs have ~65 million in free space this year (before cutting Rondon or Grimm) ~55 million in space next year ~45-50 million in space in 2020 That's a ton of money to spend. I assume the goal is to get one of Harper/Machado next year, which means 2020 will be tight. For that reason I doubt we shop at the tippy top of the pitching market (Darvish, Jake, Wade), but I don't think fitting an Alex Cobb and a Jake McGee into the picture is that hard. There's a lot of ways I imagine we could use our space this year that don't hurt us down the road. A big one would be to fill at least one of our major holes by acquiring an expensive one year commitment. A trade for someone like Brandon McCarthy or JA Happ for the rotation, or Brad Zeigler to fill one of our bullpen spots. We might also see some moves in the name of creative accounting (the luxury tax is based on AAV and not actual salary). The big one would be deals that buy out KB's arb years or Q or Rizzo's option years. Another, unlikely option would be a Heyward deal where we pay his 2018 salary and also most of his 21-23 salary, but not so much in 19-20. And all this is if we have to stay under the tax. In reality, we probably want to stay under for 2018 and then won't care anymore because of the tv money.

This is probably the best way to make a Heyward deal this winter. Shark and Melancon's combined contracts are likely in the red by about as much as Heywards over the next three years. So I imagine moneywise, we wouldn't need to throw anything in until years 4-6, by which time we'll be in our tv deal and better able to absorb that dead money. Even with how bad their outfield is, the Giants are definitely losing out on the talent portion of the deal. So this probably only makes sense if they need to clear money for Stanton or JD Martinez, right? Maybe we take on Span's $ too, to fill our Jon Jay role?

I'm really intrigued by Graveman. I saw a few of his starts early in the year and absolutely loved what I saw, but his numbers are unequivocally 'meh.' I'd like to acquire him with the thought that maybe Hickey and Borzello can help him to miss more bats, knowing that even if they can't he's a pretty good 5th starter as is. Also, given Billy Beane's affinity for safe, low upside guys, I wonder if we can just cash in a couple of Zagunis/Burkes/Bote/Vosler to make a deal happen.

I like Addison Reed a lot, but no way I give him four years, hell maybe not even three. I don't think I'd give four years to any reliever unless they're some sort of Jansen/Chapman caliber super-reliever. I'd be in on McGee at that price. Otherwise I agree eith above that I'd be more interested in the Neshek/Cishek tier of guys. Also, if we end up getting a third guy I'd love Luke Gregerson on a one year deal.. He was a little worse this year, but like 90%of his issue looks like it was just a flukey HR/FB rate.

Any interest in Matt Harvey as our second SP acquisition? He was legit terrible this year, not just a victim of BABIP nonsense, but the velocity is still quite good and he'd be another year further out from his surgeries. Strikes me as a good change of scenery guy, especially entering his walk year. The Mets have needs basically everywhere but 1B, SS, and whichever outfield corner they stick Yoenis, so it should be easy to match up with them.

Oakland makes a lot of sense as a trade partner, even if it's not for something as big as Manaea. They have a lot of pitching at varying levels of pedigree and proximity to the majors, and not much on the positiom player side outside of 1B and 3B. I could see something big like Happ for Manaea, but just as possible is that Beane likes some of our low-ceiling guys in the high minors and we can turn a few of them into a Kendall Graveman.

The media types make it sound like the Yankees are planning to get under the tax this winter so they can go full on Evil Empire next winter. If true, they won't do much except for maybe fight us on Alex Cobb. The Phillies are interesting. They could legitimately do Darvish and Stanton this winter and still leave room for Harper next winter.

I expect this winter to be weird. Last year's class was pretty awful, and yet pretty much everyone except the high-end relievers (And Ian Desmond for some reason) got less than expected. A lot of people think that with the 2018 bonanza on the horizon, teams weren't willing to spend just to spend, and that kind of screwed the middle class of free agents. I could see more of the same this year, perhaps to an even more extreme degree.

I'd love to get one guy near the top of the market (Brandon Morrow?) and then for the other spot(s) I'd wait until after the new year. There are enough set-up type guys who are going to need jobs that I'd bet we can get an impact guy on a good deal, kind of like how the Mets got Addison Reed this past winter.