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MLB Offseason 2017/18 - Yu Broke My Heart, Ain't That A Shame


Bronn Stone

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19 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I don't see Moose tacos taking a one year deal, especially considering he rejected the QO.  The only other FA infielder left I'm interested in is Neil Walker.

I don't think Moustakas is going to even get the qualifying offer, guys like him, Hosmer and J.D. Martinez are shit out of luck unless their demands come down to Earth.

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4 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I don't think Moustakas is going to even get the qualifying offer, guys like him, Hosmer and J.D. Martinez are shit out of luck unless their demands come down to Earth.

Not in annual value, no, but I wouldn't be surprised if he gets three years or so.  If Jay Bruce got 3/39, one would think Moustakas can too.

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My buddy had a Bronx Bombers 2.0 shirt on the other day and I must say that I'm getting pretty damn excited for the season.

Gonna be interesting to see the opening day lineup. I think you gotta separate Judge and Stanton. Gary or Bird between them? Or even Didi?

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Is it too early for predictions? This is what I'm thinking:

AL

East- NYY

Central- CLE

West- HOU

WC 1- BOS

WC 2- LAA

Knocking on the door- MIN + SEA

NL

East- WAS

Central- CHI

West- LAD

WC 1- ARI

WC 2- STL

Knocking on the door- MIL, SF, COL, NYM and possibly, at a very long shot, PHI.

Not a whole lot of movement when compared to last year. I hope some teams in the AL are able to make it interesting cause right now the only divisional race I see being competitive is NYY vs BOS. As a Red Sox fan I was hoping Dombrowski would open the bank and sign JD AND Hosmer. Right now it wouldn't surprise me if they do win the division, but I don't see them going too deep into the playoffs unfortunately. I think the Astros remain the team to beat (heck they might have even got better) and as of right now I am going to predict a rematch of last year's ALCS. The NL looks to be a bit more competitive. One of my friends was making the case to me that the Mets aren't as lowly as they might first appear, he even went as far as to compare them to the Indians, and I have to say I will be watching their season with interest. The Phillies are another team that am curious about. They have a lot of youth coming up; what will Alfaro and Crawford do? I think Aaron Nola is also an outside CY candidate. I can't wait for the season to begin and for all my predictions to unravel!

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3 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

My buddy had a Bronx Bombers 2.0 shirt on the other day and I must say that I'm getting pretty damn excited for the season.

Gonna be interesting to see the opening day lineup. I think you gotta separate Judge and Stanton. Gary or Bird between them? Or even Didi?

Yeah I'm very pumped as well.  Even pumped for ST to start.

As for the lineup, who knows what Boone prefers, but I don't see any reason to split up Judge/Stanton/Sanchez.  Even against righties, they are their three best hitters by basically any metric.  Bird is capable of putting up similar numbers, but I think he's gotta prove that first.  Didi didn't match the production of the Big 3 last season, and I expect some regression for him.  Even if your concern with Judge/Stanton is strikeouts, Stanton's rate was similar to Sanchez and Bird's last year, and Didi's walk rate limits his on-base ability.  My top seven would be Gardner, Judge, Stanton, Sanchez, Didi, Bird, Hicks regardless of pitcher - with both Bird and Hicks having the opportunity to move up on merit.  

2 hours ago, Ghjhero said:

Is it too early for predictions? This is what I'm thinking:

Yeah I agree with pretty much all of your predictions.  I like the moves the Angels made, and you can never count out the Cards, but there seems to be a distinct top tier of Astros/Yanks/Indians/Red Sox in the AL and Dodgers/Cubs/Nats/Dbacks in the NL.  Can't see many other clubs breaking through right now - which of course means all eight of the above will miss the playoffs.

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All eight missing the playoffs would be fantastic just because of how much shit would have to hit the fan for that to occur. 

On another note, is anyone concerned about the possibility of there being a strike at all given the rhetoric coming from some of the agents and MLBPA?

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Right now it's the Cubs/Astros in the 2018 World Series...that being said, it could also be the Dodgers or Nats, though the Brewers, Giants, or Cardinals could make things interesting in the NL, and the Yankees, Indians, or even the Twins could make things weird in the AL...

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1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Right now it's the Cubs/Astros in the 2018 World Series...that being said, it could also be the Dodgers or Nats, though the Brewers, Giants, or Cardinals could make things interesting in the NL, and the Yankees, Indians, or even the Twins could make things weird in the AL...

The Yankees don't have the starting pitching to get them over the top and they're going to live or die by the homerun.  

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1 hour ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

The Yankees don't have the starting pitching to get them over the top and they're going to live or die by the homerun.  

I don’t mean to hate on the Yankees here, but I think that is a very big Achilles heel. Imo Home Runs are vastly overrated with the record amount that are being hit these days. Better to have hitters who will put the ball in play rather than just swing for the fences. 

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1 hour ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

The Yankees don't have the starting pitching to get them over the top and they're going to live or die by the homerun.  

I don't think they had the pitching last year, and now their offense is even better...though, as noted above, they probably should have looked to keep Frazier...

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2 hours ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

The Yankees don't have the starting pitching to get them over the top and they're going to live or die by the homerun.  

Oh ye of little faith.  Nobody knows who has the starting pitching at this juncture, and I like the Yanks' ability to go out and get more.  Not to mention their rotation right now matches up just fine against anyone other than the Astros and Dodgers.

49 minutes ago, Ghjhero said:

I don’t mean to hate on the Yankees here, but I think that is a very big Achilles heel. Imo Home Runs are vastly overrated with the record amount that are being hit these days. Better to have hitters who will put the ball in play rather than just swing for the fences.

Well, they were second in runs, third in OBP, and seventh in average last year.  I don't think they necessarily live and die by the homerun.  Gonna be a lot of strikeouts though, sure.

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45 minutes ago, Triskele said:

You know, there was a time...when no one would have DARED! predict it this way.  There was a time...

Back before the dark days. Before the Empire...

34 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Oh ye of little faith.  Nobody knows who has the starting pitching at this juncture, and I like the Yanks' ability to go out and get more.  Not to mention their rotation right now matches up just fine against anyone other than the Astros and Dodgers.

Well, they were second in runs, third in OBP, and seventh in average last year.  I don't think they necessarily live and die by the homerun.  Gonna be a lot of strikeouts though, sure.

That’s true. As long as they’re scoring runs in the end it’s hard to complain. 

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9 hours ago, Ghjhero said:

I don’t mean to hate on the Yankees here, but I think that is a very big Achilles heel. Imo Home Runs are vastly overrated with the record amount that are being hit these days. Better to have hitters who will put the ball in play rather than just swing for the fences. 

Oh I wouldn't call that hating on them at all, I'm pumped they have Stanton in the lineup with Judge, Sanchez and a hopefully healthy Bird but that could go sideways fast if they are all cold at once.

 

8 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Oh ye of little faith.  Nobody knows who has the starting pitching at this juncture, and I like the Yanks' ability to go out and get more.  Not to mention their rotation right now matches up just fine against anyone other than the Astros and Dodgers.

 

But the Astros have made theirs better, the Yankees big moves as far as starting pitching were Tanka not opting out and re-signing CC. They can go out and get more but it will cost way more than it would now. You can take what the Pirates were asking for Cole and add one or two more guys the Yankees weren't willing to part with before but now Cashman's nuts are in a vice so he's going to have to pull the trigger. Or they are going to go the Jaime Garcia bargain basement route.

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7 hours ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

Oh I wouldn't call that hating on them at all, I'm pumped they have Stanton in the lineup with Judge, Sanchez and a hopefully healthy Bird but that could go sideways fast if they are all cold at once.

Pretty sure this could be said about any team's top four hitters going cold at once.

7 hours ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

But the Astros have made theirs better, the Yankees big moves as far as starting pitching were Tanka not opting out and re-signing CC. They can go out and get more but it will cost way more than it would now. You can take what the Pirates were asking for Cole and add one or two more guys the Yankees weren't willing to part with before but now Cashman's nuts are in a vice so he's going to have to pull the trigger. Or they are going to go the Jaime Garcia bargain basement route.

There's no way for any of us to know if it will cost more later than it would now.  As teams realize they aren't going to compete this coming year, many more starting pitchers may become available, which changes the market.  In such a market it's entirely possible the Yanks may find a match with a prospect package they're willing to trade that they can't find now.

Anyway, I really don't like the tit-for-tat game with the Astros.  Seems like Yanks fans did this for a decade's worth of offseasons with the Red Sox, and there was little correlation between "who won the offseason" and who won the actual season.  It also can get really tedious really fast.

For instance:  if we're talking about adding Cole, does that mean improving their playoff rotation?  Because he's at best a marginal improvement over Morton or McCullers.  If we're talking the regular season, then the Yanks should be improved by a full season of Gray replacing Pineda, along with a full season of Robertson, Kahnle, and even Chad Green who didn't start pitching in high leverage situations til after the all-star break.  But then Astros fans could counter that they're getting a full season of Verlander and Cole to replace Fiers, Musgrove, and Peacock.  Then Yanks fans can counter with Stanton replacing Holliday and hopefully a healthy Bird replacing Chris Carter.  But the Astros also should hopefully have a healthier Keuchel and McCullers.  And on and on it goes.

I like the Yanks going young.  And for now, I'm fine with them having a Triple A rotation of Adams/German/Acevedo/Cessa as their rotation backup.  Also, it's prospect list time, and I've been reading/hearing from a lot of evaluators that think Sheffield could be ready by midseason.  Pretty excited to see what he does.  They have a ton of pitching depth in the minors.  Frankly, I'm still more concerned going with rookies at two infield spots.  Say what you want about them, but Headley/Castro/Frazier accounted for over 5 WAR with the Yankees last season.  That's a lot to ask of Torres, Andujar, and probably some of Wade/Torreyes over a full season.

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