KeithStone53151

Yeah I have no idea what they are doing. As strong as the division is they should be selling off and rebuilding. I really can understand them trying to compete for a few years. Votto is still basically prime Votto, but that won't last forever. Theoretically, DJ should help their pitching staff. They have some once highly regarded prospect not doing well at the MLB level, maybe DJ can help. They also have a pretty strong farm headlined by Senzel likely to make his debut in 2019. Senzel is right up there with Hiura, possibly even ahead of Hiura as a prospect...he's a future stud. I get that the NL Central is crazy good this year, but I'm really not sure waiting is a better option considering their roster construction. Putting all brewer fan bias aside, I love what they are doing and think they'll be a good team next year. I can also tell you that Votto is probably pretty happy that the team is making competitive moves. That guy has been stuck raking with a mediocre to bad team for quite a while.

You certainly cannot accuse this owner of beating around the bush. Love it

It actually does a lot for your fan base and ticket sales to be more competitive than a 67 win team. Also, I wouldn't dismiss the Reds chances as quickly as you seem to be. If DJ truly is an outstanding pitching coach, he might be able to craft their pitching into a successful enough group. Their offense is as good as any in the NL.

Shed Long and a comp pick has been the rumored package for the Yankees. Looks like the Reds are also getting a LHP back. I don't know much about either of these guys.

Sonny Gray reached an extension as part of he deal. 3/30.5 with a club option and escalators. This extension starts after his current 2019 agreement.

This is officially happening, per Passan

Nah, KC fans are just happy to be relevant for once. It’s like us last year...hard for us to get mad at anyone no matter what mistake they make. I’m surprised that wasn’t be talked about more after the end of the game etc...they literally won the game on an INT for something irrelevant to the play to pull it right away. At least in this case it was a legit and correct call. He was definitely lined up offsides. Not calling that PI against the Rams is just awful. Despite this specific call being correct, the Patriots had probably 5 or 6 truly headscratching calls go their way. And in the surprise of the year, the big markets get all the critical calls and the officials basically hand them victories they don't deserve. This happens time and time again in all major sports, yet nobody is supposed to see a consistent pattern and wonder why?

The Dbacks owe $95.5M over the next 3 years to Greinke, there are also $62.5M in deferrals over the life of the contract to be paid out from 2022-2026. Not an argument either way, just information to add to the discussion. I edited the $65.5M to $95.5M, even CPA's can make simple math errors.....

This guy will earn a follow from me if we get Greinke in the next 48 hours and he's sorta kinda close on the package. I'd put odds of about 95% that this guy is full of it, would have been 99.9% except that Brett guy nailed the Moustakas trade out of nowhere.

Regarding the texting and driving, I wouldn't necessarily assume that anyone you see with a phone in hand is texting. Often I try to figure out directions at a stop light or have google maps up trying to figure something out. I'll tend to agree though, I see a lot of older people with phone in hand while driving...it is absolutely not solely or primarily 16-35 age range. Also to merge the headphones/driving topics together...anyone ever notice people listening to music on their headphones while driving? I find this incredibly dangerous and unacceptable, if is isn't illegal...it should be.

It is harsh, I understand his reasons for wanting to stay, and he's certainly earned the right. For me it just says a lot about how much winning and success matters to him at this point. I'll add that not traveling for work at an office type job is a bit different than this situation, especially considering it's a 2-3 month situation at most. It's absolutely fine that he values his family/personal situations highly, but to be blunt...winning and success then aren't his top priorities(kinda like Pujols top priorities became donuts and not working out), and if I'm a GM...I want a player that values winning and personal success. I will add it would be slightly different if he was still a fringe all-star caliber player, but he isn't anymore. He's mediocre at the plate and is getting worse and worse in CF. Fangraphs has him at 0.5 WAR last year and 1.7 the prior year and he's 33. One additional edit I'll add, being an MLB player isn't for people that want to coast at a cushy job and come home everyday after a 9-5. The select few get the priviledge of getting paid millions and millions of dollars to play a kid's game. If he wants to put family first, good for him. He can step aside and there will be 100 other guys similarly talented and ready to take his place...all of whom will put winning and being the very best at their craft first and foremost. I'll also add, I know I'm more harsh on stuff like this than most. I prefer players that want to win, want to put in the work, want to be the best. That's why I'm so high on guys like Nelson and Nottingham, and less high on guys like Miley and Jones. I'm sure I'll be wrong on some guys for reasons like these, but that's just my opinion.

I weirdly think the under is a very good bet here. The Rams front 4 will probably beat the Patriots o-line more often than not, which should neutralize the running game much moreso than against KC...and frankly you can't beat Brady if you need to rush more than 4 to get consistent pressure. So again, Rams front 4 could make this look like Patriots vs Giants in 2007. As for the Patriots defense, I think their complex schemes and Goff not being as good a QB lets the Patriots slow the Rams passing game down significantly. I think the key will be the Patriots stopping the run, CJ and Gurley have been quite the 1-2 punch. The Patriots also tend to struggle covering RB out of the backfield, you might see Gurley with a 7-8 catch day. If I were to bet, I'd take the Rams +3 and the under. I would feel much better about the under than about the Rams though. Frankly, it's a close matchup and I'd simply prefer to grab the points if I had to pick. Also, I'd be all over Gurley if anybody does Draftkings/Fanduel. Please take all this with a grain of salt, football is very secondary for me...I'm much more baseball.

I personally have less than 0 interest in Adam Jones, and I would think no contender should want him either. I was very turned off last trade deadline that he wasn't willing to approve a trade to a contender. Any true competitor that values winning should want to be traded to a team that thinks said player will help their chances of winning the World Series. He comes off to me as a guy that wants to comfortably grind out a couple more years worth of paychecks before retiring, and winning/success comes second. Hardest of passes, I don't even want that type of player on a minor league deal.

Yeah, it's seriously ridiculous. They'll probably have 11-12 in the top 100, and it won't be a Cubs/Yankees situation...all will truly be deserving. Add that to a number of young guys already at the MLB level. I'm honestly a bit surprised they didn't find a way to make a big FA add, they could crank up and start working towards legit contending as soon as this year.

I was expecting Urias to rank ahead of him, nice to see Hiura bypass him.

Villar career | 256/325/394 (93 OPS+) 2,288 PAs Marwin career | 264/319/418 (103 OPS+) 2,706 PAs If you narrow it down to just the last two years the difference is more stark... Villar 2017-18 | 251/310/379 (83 OPS+) 951 PAs Marwin 2017-18 | 279/349/467 (124 OPS+) 1,067 PAs Right, and factor in Marwin positional flexibility, I can understand why his asking price is so high. Positional flexibility is so important. If Perez could only play say SS and 2b, he wouldn't be a major league player. Being able to play 7 spots solidly and be the emergency catcher is the primary reason he's on an mlb roster right now.

Don't be so certain of Bryant being a bounceback certainty...his shoulder is a big ? mark healthwise until he proves it isn't a lingering concern. I suppose that's fair. I guess I'd call him as close as a certainty as it gets pending his shoulder health. I definitely wouldn't bet against him though, he's a special player.

I'm pretty sure my magic 8 ball is more likely to be right about something baseball related than you...

LOL that is some kind of arrogance. We should add a section to the forums called "ask true blue crew"...and you can give us all the answers since you know everything. Did you learn it all from Vinny Rottino? I never said fielding percentage matters more than shifting. I simply said it matters and is absolutely relevant to a players defensive value. A team's overall defense is going to be better based on how well the team aligns their players, but frankly that has 0 to do with how valuable a specific defender is. The shifting positions are going to be the same whether it's Simmons or Yuni B playing SS. Houston or Milwaukee or whichever team that you think is an excellent shifting team, their overall defense will be better with surehanded fielders that record high fielding percentages than crappy defenders that record low fielding percentages.

You might want to take another crack at thinking that one through. Those 2 statistics say exactly what the numbers indicate. And that is that fielding percentage plays very little role in the ability to prevent runs from scoring. I can't dictate where the Brewers rank on either. I can point out that they rank well on the one that carries a direct correlation to the scoreboard though. So basically what you are saying is...it doesn't matter how good someone is at actually fielding the baseball? All that matters is shifting and range right? Being surehanded and being able to make routine-moderately difficult plays a high percentage of the time is completely irrelevant to a teams defense? This argument is so ridiculous...it's like saying batting average is irrelevant. Fielding percentage is a useful stat and a piece of the puzzle in determining how good a defender is. Simply looking at 1 or 2 stats like UZR and/or DRS is simply insufficient when trying to determine a players value as a defender.

It's hilarious to me that the Cubs are one of the biggest adders of payroll, yet they didn't really improve their team at all from the outside. They exercised Hamels option and paid for some steep increases. Those increases only get steeper next year as Bryant/Baez move up in arbitration. They definitely have a ton of bounceback candidates and one bounceback certainty(Bryant), but those are probably offset by older guys that are growing less and less likely to maintain performance. It would be tough to argue that the Cubs look better on paper now than they did at the start of 2018...meanwhile 3 divisional teams have gotten a lot better.

We should add Hiura to that group considering what his fall numbers look like. I got the impression he clearly sacrificed contact for power in Arizona, as his power numbers surged but so did his K numbers. His 2018 numbers between high A and AA were 464 slugging with 19% k rate, that bumped to 563 slugging with 26% k rate in the fall league. I hope it was part of working on things and he'll come in to 2019 closer to complete. Regarding your 3 examples, I want to add a note about how impressive Ray's HR totals were. 20 of his HR came at home, and I've been to Biloxi park...the wind is almost always blowing in off the ocean from RF. He must have caught some calm days or have really been hammering baseballs to hit that many out, I suppose he could have been going oppo as well but that would be equally as impressive as pulling balls out into the wind.

The problem with platooning Shaw is, what do you do when the other team brings in a LH relief pitcher? Are you going to pinch hit him every time? If he rarely sees LHP for the first 2 months of the season, do you think he'll still be a 600 OPS guy against LHP? Probably far worse, and you'll basically be forced to PH for him or take a virtually guaranteed out. September and October baseball, yes absolutely try to protect him against LHP. In september you have basically unlimited PH options. In October, the games matter more and each at bat is critical. I think Shaw should be starting 5-6 days a week and against lefties...at least for the first few months of the season.

I generally agree with you on overutilizing platoons/splits being a bad strategy over the course of a season. SP generally aren't as tough on same handed hitters as relief pithcers. And you don't want to hide Shaw from all lefties or Perez from all righties...as they'll have to see them at least some of the time when relief pitchers come in. They only get worse in those situations if you try to hide them. With our current roster, Yelich/Cain/Braun/Aguilar/Shaw/Grandal/Arcia should be playing almost every day. The occasional off days for Braun/Aguilar/Shaw/Grandal should generally come against same handed SP, but I wouldn't at all call it a platoon and look at as simply planning the occasional offday. Shaw and Grandal should see plenty of LHP, Braun and Aguilar will obviously see plenty of RHP.

This type of tweet is a bad look for owners/GM's. Revenues should not be increasing while player salaries are decreasing. I get that quite a few big contracts will still be signed, but it's hard to imagine overall player salaries not decreasing from 2018 to 2019 a this point...based on those numbers.