sveumrules

From the reporting on the Ohtani contract it sounds like MLB has proposed deferral limits in the past, but the union has rejected them. The easy fix would seem to be to continue to allow deferrals, but ditch the practice of applying the "present day value" towards the CBT. Maybe the owners will present something similar in the next round of negotiations if this kind of thing continues to happen beyond singular talents such as Shohei.

Because if they weren't allowed to defer the overwhelming majority of the salary, they wouldn't have signed him for $700 million in the first place. If all the money were required to be paid over the life of the contract, it would have come in much closer to the CBT hit of $460 million over ten years than the $700 million it was announced as with all the deferrals included.

It's all perfectly legal, just dirty and in bad faith, but hey, that's Capitalism in a nutshell.

Feliciano can't field the position and hasn't hit since A+ in 2019.

He was an 18th round pick in 2019 and didn't get his pro career underway until 2021 so definitely flew under the radar until he hit the ground raking. FanGraphs did have him #18 on their 2022 Twins list with this capsule summation to close his report... Patient bordering on passive, Julien’s bat is what will carry him to the big leagues. He could end up tracking like Josh Rojas, who was also not a good defender but ended up playing several positions, kind of like a blunt Swiss Army Knife. Julien has played first, second, third, and in left field, and projects as a bat-first platoon role player. They then bumped him to #3 on their Twins list and #82 overall with a 50 FV entering 2023 before graduating. Looks like they were the high outlet on him though as BRef doesn't list him making any other Top 100 lists.

Kind of funny that Taylor at 2/30 and Muncy at 2/24 are currently the Dodgers 4th/5th largest contracts on the books after Ohtani/Betts/Freeman and their remaining $1.1B in guaranteed cash. Don’t think they’d trade Max though because he just signed another under market extension. Mookie moving to 2B also bumps Taylor up a spot on the OF depth chart with Outman and Heyward their only other proven 40 Man options on the grass. I’d guess their priorities on offense the rest of the offseason will be to acquire an OF better than Taylor (moving him down to the 4th spot) and a SS better than Lux (who only has 500 MLB innings at the six and is coming off an ACL).

With the looming collapse of the RSN model the haves and have nots of MLB are only going to keep getting farther apart in the short term. Long term it could end up being a good thing though if it leads to more of a centralization of broadcast and associated revenues by MLB along with finally putting an end to the arcane blackout restrictions.

Yeah, not quite a 50/50 split, but Judge got 9/360 being two years older, so let’s say something like $425M for ten years of Shohei the hitter. Rodon just got 6/162 being one year older, but also not hurt at the time of signing, so maybe something like $175M for pitcher Ohtani. Then it sounds like deferrals will knock at least $100M if not more off the present day value. Believe Soto turned down $440M, and will be hitting FA five years younger than Judge, so gotta think he’ll be shooting for something like 14/600. To hit a billion it would pretty much need to be a perfect storm of a two way kid drafted out of HS or developed from LA as a teenager who hit free agency at like 26 to get an extra three four years tacked on Ohtani’s deal.

Saw on MLBTR that Roki Sasaki has asked to be posted too. Sounds like it won’t happen this winter, but if he does get posted before turning 25 (just turned 22) he would only be eligible to sign as a minor league FA under the international bonus pool versus signing as an MLB free agent by waiting three years.

Lotta money for a guy with a .000 batting average in the postseason. Guess that means he has a 0.00 ERA though too.

Deferrals help from a cash flow perspective, but it’s still a $70M yearly hit towards their CBT number. Dodgers are 1-7 in their last 8 playoff games, guess they needed to do something desperate.

Hopefully Blue Jays or Giants land him but Dodgers feel like an inevitability.

Pass on Eloy. Too much money plus too many injuries equals too much inconsistency to tie up DH for three years. Plus give up valuable prospect capital to acquire him? No thanks. Just sign one of Hoskins, Garver, Belt, Turner or Santana for less money and no subtraction from the farm. If they’re gonna invest big in DH I’d rather go after JDM (126 wRC+ and 5.9 WAR over 1,709 PAs from 2021-23) than Eloy (116 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR over 1,047 PAs from 2021-23).

Garver games caught by month in 2023... April (3 games, only played 6 total) May (0 games, hurt) June (5 games) July (6 games) August (12 games) September (1 game) Caratini started 54 games at catcher last year, not sure Garver could be counted on for that kind of workload. Last time he clocked that many games behind the dish was back in 2021. He only started 41 games combined at catcher over 2022/23.

Yeah, I mean other than 46 points of OBP and 105 points of slugging, there's not much difference.

The Hader trade also brought back Esteury Ruiz, who was traded for William Contreras and Joel Payamps. We also took on the salary of Rogers, Norris and Rosenthal at that same deadline so its not like they even saved a ton of money trading Hader in the first place.

King is good (70 ERA- | 73 FIP- last three years), but with only 219 IP over 90 relief appearances and 15 starts during that same stretch it will be a big risk trying to stretch him out to start full time if that is the Pads intention. Steamer has him projected at 17 relief appearances and 23 starts totaling 144 IP and 2.1 WAR. Peralta is already an established starter so Steamer projects hm for 29 GS totaling 165 IP and 3.3 WAR. With that extra year of control Freddy projects for about 9 to 10 WAR versus about 4, maybe 5 or 6 WAR if he takes to bring a full time starter for two years of King. Three cheap years of Freddy for one really expensive year of Soto would have been a huge overpay.

Bring Maldy home to backup Contreras until Quero is ready.

Pretty rare for contract extensions to pre-Arby players to be split evenly. They typically follow an increasing yearly structure... Wander Franco 1, 2, 2, 8, 15, 22, 25x5 years Luis Robert 1.5, 3.5, 6, 9.5, 12.5, 15 Corbin Carroll 1, 3, 5, 10, 10, 12, 14, 28x2 years Ronald Acuna 1, 1, 5, 15, 17x4 years

Current lineup is a free agent 1B away from being cromulent (2024 Steamer projections)... Yelich (116 wRC+) Chourio (93 wRC+) Contreras (120 wRC+) Hoskins (116 wRC+) Adames (103 wRC+) Black (104 wRC+) Frelick (103 wRC+) Taylor (95 wRC+) Turang (88 wRC+)

I’m not that high on Grissom, but sub him out for one of Spencer Schwellenbach, JR Ritchie or Owen Murphy and that’s in the neighborhood of what I’d be going for.

We'll ultimately see where Arnold & associates draw the line on Burnes valuation, but for me I would need one of the following as a headliner to be convinced, with current MLB Top 100 ranking... Kyle Harrison (SFG | #20), Colt Keith (DET | #25), Coby Mayo (BAL | #27), Andrew Painter (PHI | #28), Cade Horton (CHC | #29), Ricky Tiedemann (TOR | #31), Curtis Mead (TBR | #34), Tink Hence (STL | #42) or Mick Abel (PHI | #45). If the second piece is super intriguing I could maybe be talked into a headliner like... AJ Smith-Shawver (ATL | #53), Dylan Lesko (SDP | #63), Carson Whisenhut (SFG | #70), Gavin Stone (LAD | #79), Ben Brown (CHC | #86) or Emmet Sheehan (LAD | Graduated) So essentially one of the top dozen or so non-Paul Skenes pitching prospects or one of the top few positionally challenged power bats. About 40% of the guys listed above play for teams (DET, CHC, TBR, STL, SDP) that are probably fringe contenders to even deal for Burnes in the first place too.

This would be my preferred route. Sign someone like Hoskins, Garver, JDM, Belt, Turner for 1B/DH. Sign whichever SP the Brewers have the best intel on in that one year ten million or so price range. Explore trading one of Mitchell, Wiemer, Taylor for reinforcements elsewhere.

Over the last 70 years there have been 47 players who got at least 400 MLB PAs in their Age 20 season. Maybe they can offer some insight into what realistic expectations might be for Chourio? First lets start with that ZiPS projection mentioned up thread... 605 PA of 256/299/401 (91 OPS+) with 17 HR / 35 SB and 1.4 WAR Steamer comes in at 525 PA of 253/304/416 (93 wRC+) with 17 HR / 16 SB and 1.4 WAR. Both projections have conservative defensive projections around plus one, if he actually comes in closer to plus ten that would bump him up another win or so. So which past MLB 20 year old came in closest to that range? Looking at the list, probably Cesar Cedeno at 649 PA of 264/293/398 (94 wRC+) with 10 HR / 20 SB and 1.3 WAR. Over his Age 20 to 27 seasons he ended up with a 133 OPS+ and 40.4 WAR, throw in ages 28/29 and he totaled 47.5 WAR before hitting age 30. I think we'd all be happy with that kind of outcome for Jackson. For Chourio's minor league career he has hit 286/347/490, in his Age 20 season Carlos Correa hit 279/345/512 and totaled 3.4 WAR over only 432 PAs. If Jackson put up something like that over 550 PA you start pushing that 4.5 to 5.0 WAR territory depending how the defense shakes out. That would presumably be something like what he needs to do to put himself in the ROY conversation. Ideally, Chourio will come out of the gate smoking and not look back, but that is a low probability outcome. Odds are, he will likely struggle to some extent for some time before making adjustments to MLB pitching and improving his production as he matures into literal actual adulthood. And that's OK. Even guys at the bottom of the Age 20 leaderboard like Roberto Clemente (72 wRC+ | -0.9 WAR), Gary Sheffield (82 wRC+ | -0.4 WAR), Vlad Junior (106 wRC+ | -0.2 WAR), Robin Yount (72 wRC+ | 1.1 WAR), and even Hank Aaron (103 wRC+ | 1.2 WAR) himself weren't instant stars before legal drinking age either. Going back to that Age 20 leaderboard one last time, I think Jackson will beat his projections, but still fall short of his minor league batting line so I will go with something around what Adrian Beltre did with 614 PA of 275/352/428 (100 wRC+) and 15 HR / 18 SB shaking out to 3.4 WAR.

Cooper 2019-23: 111 wRC+ | 4.0 WAR Canha 2019-23: 125 wRC+ | 12.8 WAR Cooper has been about 14% worse than Canha over the last five seasons by wRC+. Cooper 2021-23: 109 wRC+ | 2.2 WAR Canha 2021-23: 118 wRC+ | 7.8 WAR Little closer if we narrow it down to the last three years, but Canha still has an 8 point edge in wRC+. There's also the concerning sign that Cooper went from a 129 wRC+ in 2021, to a 112 wRC+ in 2022, to a 96 wRC+ in 2023 versus Canha remaining more stable at 116, 126 and 111 the last three seasons.