bill hAll Star

This is completely anecdotal but a lot of Twins fans I know were wowed by his defense last year. But that likely is due to him making some great scoops that wowed the average fan. I'm sure he evened that out by missing some gettable grounders by being a slightly lumbering guy. Either way, I agree, he's not bad.

I've gotta think we still bring in a lefty 1B option.

Miley - yes Gio - maybe Chacin - will be a garbage man and take over a rotation spot for a tanking team at some point Nelson - no

Yes we will trade Lorenzo Cain to satisfy fans and slash a "bad" contract. Then we will dream of signing a player as good as Lorenzo Cain on a "bad" contract with the saved cash.

It's actually a pretty brilliant move IMO. They are basically signing Bumgarner to replace Ray, and in doing so, created/increased the nice trade market for Ray with all the teams that were interested in Bumgarner and missed out. They can keep their farm system stocked by trading Ray, while staying competitive but signing Bumgarner to fill his void. On a side note, I believe the Dbacks really fleeced the Marlins by acquiring P Zac Gallen for SS prospect Jazz Chisholm last year. I realize that the D-Backs are already a team that runs the mediocrity treadmill but do they get to hang some sort of banner for "stocked farm system" while their expensive signing, MadBum, helps carry them to 82 wins? To me, the signing means they are going to try to win, even if the attempt is feeble under direction from management. I could see trading Ray to fill a different position of need, but why trade away a good player if you're trying to win this year?

One of the most baffling things to me right now is that the Diamondbacks just made a move to at least suggest they want to be semi-competitive. And now their volatile, yet sometimes very good starting pitcher, Robbie Ray, is available to most fans for some reason. I'm very confused.

Why would signing MadBum make Ray available?

I’d be pretty surprised/shocked if they didn’t grab a LH 1B, unless Avisail is somehow moving there. With the 26 man roster it doesn’t hurt to have a great bat off the bench in Avisail and he’ll get plenty of starts.

Both of those pitchers were miles and miles worse than Anderson last year.

We were a diving Chris Taylor catch away from a good shot at the World Series with, who, maybe Jhoulys Chacin as technically our "#2 starter" that year? Miley once he got going maybe?

If you think this rotation is unacceptable, you should see the one (with preseason expectations) that we trotted out in 2018 before nearly making the World Series.

Two things that I like/can understand with Tom: 1. People call him a company man but I really do think people that watch baseball and have reasonable expectations also agree that Stearns/Counsell run the team well and Attanasio spends well enough for the market. It's true and I'm always glad when writers convey that. 2. Twitter is the worst in the sense of replies. Counsell makes the right move to a reliever and that particular time the reliever gives up a homer, there are 100 replies on Haudricourt's update about the event of stupid/angry fans. So that is understandable/good with Haudricourt. Now here's the bad part: You're a professional writer that has to understand there are a bunch of angry yahoos with little actual analytic/baseball sense in them. Ignore 98% of them. He just feeds the trolls every day and comes off as smug.

Why would that philosophy apply to Hader and not Lindor? Has offense really been the issue that has kept the Dodgers from a WS title? Again, I'm somewhat with you here but I guess Lindor just makes you a better team for those games. He bats 4-5 times/game in a playoff series and is able to add his excellent defense. I guess I'd rather make a really good offense a really, really, really good offense instead of make an okay/good bullpen a better bullpen.

Anyone can point to the 2016 Cubs that you could trade for a reliever (or some other need) to "get you over the top" but imagine if Cleveland won game 7. Their window has closed and they traded away useful pieces. I prefer to use the Nats as my example. "Lol, what a bunch of chokers" that finally got themselves enough chances that the playoff random generation came up with their number in 2019. They didn't trade all of their prospects for a reliever to do it, either. They made the Eaton trade a few years ago but that was more "***" than anything. So I think the Dodgers can and should just stick with the plan. I'm serious that unless the Padres get something real interesting going here, the Dodgers will probably win 9 of the next 10 NL West titles if they stick with their current formula. Eventually they'll win a title or three. I'd rather do that than trade for Josh Hader in hopes that he finishes the 5 innings you messed up in previous years. Lindor, I kinda get. Especially if maybe they don't think Lux is really that good.

Yes. Rhetorical question, and debatable. That said ... looks like those special prospects perhaps aren't untradable after all Adding here from before: I don't think they'd trade their high-end prospects for a reliever. I will admit to being somewhat surprised that they are even doing this for another superstar, to be honest. I'll give you that.

Yes. I don't think they'd trade their high-end prospects for a reliever. I will admit to being somewhat surprised that they are even doing this for another superstar, to be honest. I'll give you that.

Don't understand why they'd be looking at Calhoun and not Corey Dickerson. Dickerson had some nice power years with the Rays, hits for a decent average, and has a good OBP. I'm one that is a Dickerson fan, but I'm assuming 2 things: 1. Defense appears to be a big negative. Calhoun is just an average/below average defender. I think he has a great arm. 2. I'm assuming like the "1 year for Didi could be a sneaky move," other teams are in on the "Dickerson is an undervalued asset" and then he'll end up getting that Gausman contract. Calhoun is more under the radar. I'm assuming we're also in on Dickerson but maybe we will once again lose the bidding.

This was discussed briefly on another thread but I can't imagine a scenario where the Brewers would pick him up. A. Why give up assets AND pay that huge of money? B. I doubt we have the assets. C. If we really had the assets, we'd end up in the same position as the Rockies. We'd have Arenado and the rest of the roster would not be good enough to win with him.

I don't see the Brewers going with a relative full-time job to a guy like Chad Pinder. Having a .700 OPS against RHP basically precludes him from a full-time role. And they generally shielded Pinder from righties so that number/production could be at a much worse/higher volume if they didn't. I'd rather just pick up Maikel Franco. He's what Chad Pinder would be if he was forced to face 70% righties and it won't cost an asset to pick him up.

I don't really get how this makes any sense at all for the Mets. Hader is perfectly deployed to hold 95% of leads in the toughest situations. After this trade, the Mets may only lead in 75 or 80 games in the next few seasons. I don't know how you figure, because with deGrom, Stroman and Matz at the front of their rotation currently, they'd still have a better rotation then the Brewers currently do, even WITHOUT Thor. They just lost Wheeler, and they will have traded away Thor and Smith...this team won less games than the Brewers last year. I'm all for the idea that they can improve with Stroman for a full year, positive regression for Diaz, etc. but they'd have to do a lot more than this to make Hader be the useful final piece.

I don't really get how this makes any sense at all for the Mets. Hader is perfectly deployed to hold 95% of leads in the toughest situations. After this trade, the Mets may only lead in 75 or 80 games in the next few seasons.

I think MadBum is going the Keuchel/Kimbrel route and this is a better offseason to do it. Ask for some insane number. Maybe you'll strike it rich and get the lucky team with an ownership directive to meet your silly demands (Hosmer). Or maybe you'll settle for something 80% of the way there (Kimbrel) Fall back to signing a 1 year deal to try this all over again (Keuchel)

I know we're talking about further down the roster guys, but I'd only really be interested in Joc and I doubt we'd match up on prices. Pollock is 32, very injury prone, might be a 2 WAR guy and is locked up for 3/$45 plus a player option he likely picks up making it 4 years at a high price tag. Hernandez is a nice utility guy but can only hit lefties. All of those are reasons these guys should come inexpensively. Heck we'd probably get salary relief on Pollock. I also like Joc best of the 3, probably like Kike 2nd best. Joc seems like that type of player/athlete that really figures it out for a couple years in his 26-29 range and puts up borderline MVP type numbers before fallign off a cliff. I think he has 2 really good years in him coming up, though he'd be tougher to platoon with our current OF situation. And Kike is basically a better version of Perez in every way. Again, all depends on cost. Yes, I'd take Pollock for no prospects with the Dodgers paying probably over half of his salary but I'm not even sure about that. Cain was a risk himself but he had 3 or 4 dominant seasons to get the contract that he did. Other than 2015 where he was a BABIP machine, Pollock has been an above average bat and an above average fielder. His defense went down last year and he's probably not going to be the steals/baserunning stalwart he once was. I trust the Dodgers know what they're doing so there has to be something to him as to why they signed that contract for him, but there's a pretty good chance that he's roughly as good as your run-of-the-mill guy that you can just pick up for $4-5 million for 1 year before every season. I'd rather just sign Corey Dickerson. Somewhat ditto on Hernandez in what he equates to. If they were just going for salary relief, they'd have non-tendered him a while ago (they still probably can just chop him in Spring Training, is that how that works?). I'd rather just sign a utility infielder for one year than give anything of value for Hernandez. Somewhat what you're suggesting but the Dodgers may just cut him later. I like Joc simply from the standpoint that he has an elite trait to offer. We can platoon just like the Dodgers can. But once again I'm not sure it's what we're looking for.

I know we're talking about further down the roster guys, but I'd only really be interested in Joc and I doubt we'd match up on prices. Pollock is 32, very injury prone, might be a 2 WAR guy and is locked up for 3/$45 plus a player option he likely picks up making it 4 years at a high price tag. Hernandez is a nice utility guy but can only hit lefties.

The guy I want is 1B Roberto Ramos from the Rockies. He's absolutely mashed throughout his minor league career, but apparently scouts think he's a quad-A player. Didn't they say the same thing about non-prospect Khris Davis who just never stopped hitting? Pro: You can stash a guy like this with your 26th roster spot and we're in need of 1B anyways. Con: Khris Davis is the unicorn. There are hundreds of guys like Garrett Cooper who had this career path as well and while Cooper has an MLB caliber bat, it still is not up to snuff for a good 1B. Nice to have in your organization but you can just go out and get more of a sure thing like Jesus Aguilar for cheap at any point as well.