KeithStone53151

My guess is still 1/8 with an option of sorts. Hopefully he can rebuild his value for next offseason.

Looks like the A's might be getting Lucroy. I'm guessing a 1 year deal with a vesting option. I'll go 1/8.

According to this, the A's plan to either sign lucroy or acquire Wieters. If the A's were getting Wieters, it makes me wonder if the nats are either signing lucroy or have a trade lined up for Realmuto.

Agreed, I don't understand why people think Gallardo is going to make the rotation. His odds are probably in line with Drake's odds of making the bullpen.

Suter or Woodruff. With Guerra as AAA depth along with our other prospects, it's not as important having Woodruff in AAA for depth.

I saw that too. That's a game changer in my opinion, I'd go as far as to say it's likely that Guerra opens in AAA rotation now.

Villar goes. No brainer. Walker >>>>> Villar You could keep Villar and Sogard, and jettison Perez. His contract is not fully guaranteed as an arb guy. Sogard is better defensively and can cover most of what Perez could cover except CF, and we'll have 2 guys capable of CF on the roster(Cain/Yelich) with Villar as an emergency option. And in all fairness, I don't really care about wasting 2 million on Sogard if we sign Walker. It's highly likely someone else picks up sogard either on a waiver claim(paying his full salary) or after he is cut...in which case I believe they'd have to pay a portion. Regardless, the upgrade to walker on the roster vs sogard is well worth 2 million of wasted money.

This is absolutely a fact. Moustakas was projected to get 5/85 at the beginning of the offseason and got almost 80 million less than his projection. Nobody except the pitchers were even within range of that. And every team needs pitching, those starters and Holland aren't going to go for pennies on the dollar like Moustakas. My guess is lucroy/walker take a 1 year deals and try to reset for next year. But even if they sign similar deals to Moustakas, they weren't expected to get the gobs of money Moustakas was projected for. Going from 3/36 or 2/24 to 1/6 isn't all that drastic, and neither player has a QO attached which shoudl help them a bit.

It depends a bit on how far you go obviously. 9-10 home games with double or triple normal ticket prices that will guaranteed sell out with a lot of standing room tickets is a ton of revenue. You can't really plan for making the world series though. I would like to think a team would justify adding some of that revenue to a future payroll though.

If he makes it over a guy like Taylor Williams, just .... ugh! He's shown flashes of really good stuff but no consistency and he probably knows he's on the outside looking in this Spring and that could be contributing to his bad results because he's pressing. When has there been a flash of really good stuff? He's a 31 year old journeyman that throws 2 pitches, a 91-92 mph fastball and a splitter. The fastball is below average at best, the splitter is probably an above average pitch...maybe it flashes plus. 1 below average pitch and 1 above average-plus pitch is not good stuff by any measure. You're point about the writing being on the wall is a good one. I suspect we are keeping Drake with hopes of getting him through to AAA. Odds of him making the team are virtually zero, barring about 4 bullpen injuries.

I can understand the concern. I wouldn't be as concerned about 2020 though as you would 2019. Chacin, Logan, Albers all fall off in 2020. And a number of fringy arbitration guys like Perez, Aguilar, Broxton, Bandy, Vogt, etc will probably be replaced by league minimum options by then. Even Villar will probably be gone in favor of Hiura by 2020. And Braun likely falls off the books after 2020. My point in all this, the biggest payroll concern year out of the next 4 years is probably 2019 by far. They could probably easily structure a Cobb 4/50 contract with 15, 8, 15, 12 and ease some of the burden in 2019.

I think Stras/Stanton absolutely fall into "too early to tell" category, the others I mostly agree with. But look at the damage done by the majority of the contracts which have been bad...those are crippling contracts if you are wrong about a guy.

Comment of the day...couldn't agree more.

I was just about to say the same thing. He's been great so far. That is surprising and, frankly, somewhat concerning. But his biggest problem the last few years is the lack of command. If he's got that back, maybe he can be useful. Just add him to the heap of what's been a weird offseason. I've been very anti-Miley. I really didn't care for his comments, which were something along the lines of him getting lazy in the offseasons prior to 2017...but with his poor results that year it was time to start trying and he worked hard this offseason. I don't like a lazy ball player...even if he really did put in the effort this year. That said, it's hard to ignore the results...even if it's spring training. If this continues throughout spring...he's going to make the decision pretty tough on us. As of now, I'd open with Miley/Woodruff in the rotation and Suter/Williams in the bullpen for those last 4 spots. Adios Guerra/Gallardo.

Not many dominoes left to fall. Haven't seen numbers yet, expecting a $4-5 million deal for 1 year.

I think Medeiros gets bumped to AA whether he truly deserves it or not. He was much better last year, and this would be his 3rd year in high A if he opens there. Wouldn't want him to get stuck in a rut at that level, I think it's better to move him up for that reason. The other surprising one to me was putting Grisham a level ahead of Ray. I could see them moving up both or neither, but if it's one or the other...I'd expect Ray to move up.

I agree on the surface, but it's a little more complicated than that. If the Brewers truly believe that 2016 Villar can be recaptured, that is better than anything Walker is going to give you at this point in his career. But if the 2017 version of Villar is who he is, then it makes sense to cut bait and move on. What Walker provides is consistency ... basically a low ceiling and high floor. Villar obviously has a much lower floor, but that ceiling is much higher, even if the chances of getting to that level aren't that great. Starting him is a calculated risk. But I agree that if Walker is signed, it means that the team is giving up on Villar, and one way or another, he'll be gone. I guess Villar could come back to 2016 but the team doesn't really want even that Villar based on their moves. They seem to want professional hitters and Villar even at his limited best is the type of guy to pop up on the first pitch after their starter just loaded the bases. Walker does have a bad back or at least it was last year. If it can last one year though that's not that big a deal because Hiura is on the way. Villar has his shortcomings, no doubt...but that's an odd argument. Villar was one of the better players in baseball at working counts and seeing pitches. Last year, he averaged over 4 pitchers per PA...and was in the top 20% in all of baseball in that category. This is like arguing that Chris Carter is a bad 1b because he lacks power...

If the only offers Walker is getting are minor league deals with an invitation to camp, I agree that making a one-year, low value deal seems to be a no-brainer. Agreed, though I don't think Walker is seriously going to sign for something that low. Such a crazy offseason.

I'm curious if anyone thinks Drake has a snowballs chance in hell of making the opening day roster. Also, has anyone noticed they Yelich has been leading off with Cain hitting 2nd more often than not? I know it's early yet, but the lineup today(Swap Perez/Braun, clear the DH) is about what I'd expect to see opening day. The other option would be Santana hitting 5th with Braun at 1b and Yelich in LF. I think most of us expected Yelich and Cain to be flipped, do you all think I'm reading into this too much or might they go with Yelich leading off and Cain 2nd regularly?

Getting paid 162 times a year? Yea maybe not... I could have swore I heard that before. Maybe that's NFL. That's definitely NFL. 16 game checks. Even at 162 checks, the Kershaws and Trouts would get more in one paycheck than most people get in a year.

lol, and just created our short stop problem unless... [sarcasm]OF, 1B, 2B, SS - ryan braun[/sarcasm] We will need someone to play SS innings 7-9 sometimes, he's also going to be our RH Andrew Miller arm out of the pen.

Disagree. Hard to call this peak value when he would have been worth a lot more at this time last year. Didn't have a good year in '17 and the OF trade and FA market sucks. If the offers suck you can just burn his last option in 2018, and if he puts up a .850 or .900 OPS in AAA which is very possible in Colorado Springs maybe you find a better offer this time next year. I'm not saying he won't be traded, but I wouldn't trade just to trade now. Stearns should stay disciplined like he has with Santana. I'm sure he was referring to peak value going forward, Broxton definitely had more value after the 2016 season...that was probably his peak. But even if he posts huge OPS numbers in AAA, I doubt his value goes up from here. A 28 year old putting up big number in the minors means little to anyone, especially in Colorado Springs. We need to decide if whatever offers we are getting are more valuable to us than the depth. We at minimum can expect solid defense/speed from a reserve outfielder if he's brought up...that has value.

Gamel is missing a couple of weeks. Playing Ichiro for a few weeks will be great marketing for them. Right, Gamel is missing 4-6 weeks from time of injury...which will only be maybe 2 weeks of the season. I also don't think Ichiro will play everyday, they have other OF options that will probably split time with him out there. I wouldn't doubt if Ichiro gets cut once Gamel returns, hence why they didn't go with someone like Jay or Cargo.

Thanks. Geez. The reason people like to play keeper leagues is so they can enjoy the fruits of their labor by keeping players that they built their teams around. If I spend a few years building a team up, I certainly don't want to re-draft at any time. Keeper leagues are in it for the long haul, not to please those with no attention span, or that mess up their rosters. The league is strong throughout except for that one team, and that owner is finally gone. The team above was owned by a bad owner for the past few years. He was bad at drafting, bad at evaluating talent, and has routinely finished at the bottom. I was actually relieved that he was leaving so I can try to get someone who might enjoy the challenge to build that team, practically from scratch. There may only be 4 players worth keeping, but building a pitching staff around Nola and Urina is a pretty good start. I did mention that it would be a "project" team, and whether you realize it or not, there are people out there who play fantasy sports that like the challenge of building a team, and enjoying the success down the road. I've done it before, and it is satisfying for the fantasy enthusiast. By the way, the league has been running since 2008, has had almost no turn-over, and is a lot of fun. This isn't a fly by night league where people show up to draft, don't like their draft, and leave. I have had to replace probably 2 or 3 teams in that span, which is pretty damn good. I'm not sure if you were expecting the guy with Kershaw and Trout to simply hand his team over otherwise you won't play, but that's what it sounds like. When you take over a dynasty team, you aren't taking over a team that finished at the top of standings. Usually it's a guy who got sick of being bad and quit. I took over a deep dynasty league team last year and will probably be bad again this year. I'm slowly shaping the team though, with players that I like. I grabbed a couple really nice prospects that got dropped by contending teams that had squeezed rosters. It won't happen overnight but hopefully my guys pan out and a top team develops. That's how it goes when you take over a dynasty team...

I find this fairly spot on. Every team brings in castoffs, but sometimes you will find a guy that impresses in spring and has a big year. Look at what we got from Aguilar last year, I bet nobody expected him to make the 25 man to open the year...not before spring training anyway. I've said it before, but for me...I think it will be a huge mistake to open Williams in AAA. That handful of weeks of him in AAA over some Gallardo or Guerra could decide a couple games and make a huge difference down the line. I think Williams is THAT much better than those guys...that you have to throw the options/depth/service time argument out the window. The argument is better with Houser/Woodruff...with Williams though, he's too good to put back in AAA.