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MLB Offseason 2018: Harper, Your Herald Boras Sings


PyroclasticFlow

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1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

There were plenty of guys on the ballot that could have used the votes. The fact that some guys who had good careers are one and done, is kind of silly. Lance Berkman and Roy Oswald are the two that jump out at me as guys who you can kind of make a case for, and then there is the guys who could use some momentum for next year, like Larry Walker or Scott Rolan.

I agree that Walker and Rolen deserve to be in.  The writers get ten votes, and Walker was eighth this time around, so hard to argue he was affected by Mo.  Rolen, OTOH, only got 17% of the votes, which I agree is way too low - but because it's so low I don't see how leaving Mo off would have changed much for him either.  Not sure Berkman or Oswalt have much of a case, and they both got ~1 percent.  Could maybe see Oswalt gaining traction with the Veterans Committee (or whatever it's called) - and hell, maybe even Berkman if Harold Baines can get in that way - but that's where they belong I think.

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Happy we finally got a unanimous HoFer, unhappy that it’s Mariano Rivera. Nothing against the guy or his Hall worthiness, but come on, Mo don’t deserve the label of first ever unanimous HoFer. Shoulda been Rickey.

 

ETA: Also agree with that Jason 1947 guy re: DHs and the HoF. The DH is gross and stupid.

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4 hours ago, Myshkin said:

Happy we finally got a unanimous HoFer, unhappy that it’s Mariano Rivera. Nothing against the guy or his Hall worthiness, but come on, Mo don’t deserve the label of first ever unanimous HoFer. Shoulda been Rickey.

I mean, if we're gonna go that route, then Ruth shoulda been the first.  But some baseball writers were confused about the rules of the first HoF ballot.  Kinda tells you something about baseball writers.

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I think if the current crop of baseball writers were the ones voting for Ken Griffrey Jr. (99.32%), Tom Seaver (98.84%), Nolan Ryan (98.79%), Cal Ripken Jr. (98.53%), and so on down the line, then there probably would've been a lot more unanimous entries to the Hall of Fame before Mo.

The BBWAA has made a series of changes since 2007, most dramatically the ones in 2015, to both expand eligibility (to include writers who only write online) and limit it (to start removing writers who don't actually cover the sport anymore; and, side note, likely are older and have extremely outdated views). They also made changes to the voting processes since they didn't want a repeat of 2013, when no one got inducted besides the Veterans' Committee selections.

Griffrey Jr. was voted in in 2016, when the changes were still underway. I suspect if this was his first year of eligibility he'd be unanimous; even as was, he was the closest to ever reach it before Mo.

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Wow, every day I expect to see one of the two big FAs signed for a megadeal, and every day passes with no news on the signings front. Surely one of them will go soon?! I can't believe we heard hype about these two all last year and their incoming record-setting deals, and now we see the Yankees signing Pollock, the Cubs spending as much money as I have on free agents, and nary a peep about these 350, 400 million dollar deals that were supposed to be offered by half the league.

I don't really want either guy on my Cardinals for those prices, but good gosh, surely a team will give Harper 275m? Or are they all like me saying "you know he really only had the one absurd season, the rest of the time he's been, well, pretty darn good?"

Perhaps the next CBA, we will see sweeping changes, with young phenoms getting far larger deals than the current absurd and failing system of team control and arbitration is allowing.

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2 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I can't believe we heard hype about these two all last year and their incoming record-setting deals, and now we see the Yankees signing Pollock

Confused me with the Yankees signing Pollock there for a second, til I remembered the Dodgers signed him.  But yeah, the hype hasn't been just this year - the media and geeky fans have been hyping up this year's class for 3-4 years now.  Instead, Machado's market appears to only be two teams unwilling to give him more than ~$200 million, and Harper (and Boras) are waiting for Machado to sign first.  As I said earlier, I've never been more pro-strike than when the CBA expires after 2021.  That's about the only chance the players have at getting any substantive changes to ensure there's a more equitable distribution of revenue.  Even then it's not likely because so many casual fans are more apt to complain about players' salaries than the owners clearly manipulating the system so they have to pay less and less in salary as a percentage of revenue.  Talk about collusion...

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I swear I typed out the Dodgers there, hah! Yeah, Yankees are a bit confusing on their end as well.

I am not sure how to get players performing very well in their mid 20s years to be paid fairly, if we aren't going to see big money for guys past 30 any more. I've always been a proponent of large incentives on play, but it's a very flawed system, and players want guarantees. 2021 will definitely see some big changes, won't it?

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3 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

Yeah, Yankees are a bit confusing on their end as well.

As a Yankee fan, I've never been more angry at my sports team's ownership (and I'm also a Niners fan, whose ownership has had..quite a few difficulties over the last quarter century).  George's children have greatly enhanced his legacy by being entirely cheap-ass.

6 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

2021 will definitely see some big changes, won't it?

Hopefully, but I'm not very optimistic.  The owners can just sit there with an intractable position for the status quo, and the longer a strike lasts the more likely the public is just gonna blame those greedy players.  As opposed to the infinitely more greedy owners.

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I feel like the White Sox have the best chance of signing Manny Machado. He visited Guaranteed Rate Field last month, they acquired his brother in law Yonder Alonso along with their friend Jon Jay. 

They also strengthened their pitching depth Ivan Nova, Alex Colome, and Kelvin Herrera. Signing Machado in his prime would really accelerate the rebuild.

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On ‎1‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 5:58 PM, DMC said:

As a Yankee fan, I've never been more angry at my sports team's ownership (and I'm also a Niners fan, whose ownership has had..quite a few difficulties over the last quarter century).  George's children have greatly enhanced his legacy by being entirely cheap-ass.

Hopefully, but I'm not very optimistic.  The owners can just sit there with an intractable position for the status quo, and the longer a strike lasts the more likely the public is just gonna blame those greedy players.  As opposed to the infinitely more greedy owners.

Hal Steinbrenner is the worst, my main beef with him isn't even him not making a splash on Harper or Machado. He lowered the bar from anything but the World Series is a failure to we expect to be competitive. And replacing Didi with someone from the bargain bin is a total Wilpon.

There is no way the players aren't striking. It is part of the dark side of analytics I guess. The union has to work on these guys getting paid younger.

 

16 hours ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

I feel like the White Sox have the best chance of signing Manny Machado. He visited Guaranteed Rate Field last month, they acquired his brother in law Yonder Alonso along with their friend Jon Jay. 

They also strengthened their pitching depth Ivan Nova, Alex Colome, and Kelvin Herrera. Signing Machado in his prime would really accelerate the rebuild.

They are the only team at this point who appear to be interested at this point.

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45 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

Hal Steinbrenner is the worst, my main beef with him isn't even him not making a splash on Harper or Machado. He lowered the bar from anything but the World Series is a failure to we expect to be competitive. And replacing Didi with someone from the bargain bin is a total Wilpon.

Didi should be back by the end of August at the latest -- Tulo and Gleyber should be fully capable of carrying the load at SS for a few months. They have a lot of options to mix and match 3B/2B/SS with Andujar (3B/DH), DJ (2B/3B), Gleyber (2B/SS), and Tulo (SS). Wade is also available at 2B/3B. That's a solid core to cover for 4-5 months until Didi is back.

I don't agree that Tulo should be labeled as a bargain bin player -- his contract is so tiny because he is already guaranteed (IIRC) $19M from the Blue Jays. Any new contract that he signed only changed WHO paid him as opposed to how much he was going to be paid.

Consider the Red Sox cutting corners at 2B and in the bullpen (assuming they don't bring back Kimbrel and/or add another high-leverage arm) -- it's a little ridiculous to complain about the Yankees' plans for a 4-5 month stop-gap.

45 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

There is no way the players aren't striking. It is part of the dark side of analytics I guess. The union has to work on these guys getting paid younger.

I agree with this.

45 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

They are the only team at this point who appear to be interested at this point.

Padres? Phillies?

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On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2019 at 10:17 AM, Week said:

Didi should be back by the end of August at the latest -- Tulo and Gleyber should be fully capable of carrying the load at SS for a few months. They have a lot of options to mix and match 3B/2B/SS with Andujar (3B/DH), DJ (2B/3B), Gleyber (2B/SS), and Tulo (SS). Wade is also available at 2B/3B. That's a solid core to cover for 4-5 months until Didi is back.

I don't agree that Tulo should be labeled as a bargain bin player -- his contract is so tiny because he is already guaranteed (IIRC) $19M from the Blue Jays. Any new contract that he signed only changed WHO paid him as opposed to how much he was going to be paid.

Consider the Red Sox cutting corners at 2B and in the bullpen (assuming they don't bring back Kimbrel and/or add another high-leverage arm) -- it's a little ridiculous to complain about the Yankees' plans for a 4-5 month stop-gap.

I agree with this.

Padres? Phillies?

Is Didi going to be back with the Yankees by the end of August at the latest or is he going to begin  a rehab assignment by the end of August?  I don't see Tulo making it out of spring training before picking up a season ending injury. They could have shifted Torres to short and signed LaMehieu to play second right out of the gate. Signing Tulo and hoping you get something out of him is just silly. Why bother in the first place when you already have a shortstop?  The Mets signed Adrian Gonzalez on a similar deal last offseason or the offseason before.

 

Have the Padres made a bonafide offer? And have the Phillies? For a team who boasted they had "stupid money" the Phillies have been awful stingy with it.

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1 hour ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

They could have shifted Torres to short and signed LaMehieu to play second right out of the gate. Signing Tulo and hoping you get something out of him is just silly. Why bother in the first place when you already have a shortstop?

Pretty much agree but I don't really have a problem with it.  If - and much more likely when - Tulo goes down, they can just revert to Torres at short and LaMahieu at second, which is quite clearly their best defensive alignment.  And if Tulo surprises and is both productive and healthy, then you have that horrible problem of too many good players.  Also, if Didi is still on a rehab assignment by the end of August something went really wrong with his recovery.

On 1/29/2019 at 9:18 AM, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

There is no way the players aren't striking.

I agree they are almost certainly strike (thought that was clear), my point is I'm not optimistic about the union's ability to extract (m)any meaningful concessions.

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3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Pretty much agree but I don't really have a problem with it.  If - and much more likely when - Tulo goes down, they can just revert to Torres at short and LaMahieu at second, which is quite clearly their best defensive alignment.  And if Tulo surprises and is both productive and healthy, then you have that horrible problem of too many good players.  Also, if Didi is still on a rehab assignment by the end of August something went really wrong with his recovery.

I agree they are almost certainly strike (thought that was clear), my point is I'm not optimistic about the union's ability to extract (m)any meaningful concessions.

 

I was agreeing on the strike point, apologies for lack of clarity on my end. Tony Clark did a shit job with the last CBA, I hope the owners see that it is in their best interests to give a fair deal to the players.

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47 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I was agreeing on the strike point, apologies for lack of clarity on my end. Tony Clark did a shit job with the last CBA,

No worries.  And yeah, Clark is not equipped for such a battle.  Was encouraged that the union hired Jerry Crasnick as a PR guy last week.  He should be able to help control their message with the baseball media.

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Hopefully the MLBPA will focus less on personal locker room chefs during the next CBA negotiations and more on a) drastically raising (or completely eliminating) the luxury tax, and  b) adding a spending floor (ideally tied to profit sharing revenue). 

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5 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

Hopefully the MLBPA will focus less on personal locker room chefs during the next CBA negotiations and more on a) drastically raising (or completely eliminating) the luxury tax, and  b) adding a spending floor (ideally tied to profit sharing revenue). 

That should be an absolute no brainer, if you get x you have to put x back into payroll. Also who wanted the Luxury Tax to begin with? It has been so long I have forgotten.

 

1 hour ago, DMC said:

No worries.  And yeah, Clark is not equipped for such a battle.  Was encouraged that the union hired Jerry Crasnick as a PR guy last week.  He should be able to help control their message with the baseball media.

An ex-player as the head of the union was a huge mistake. I hope they have an army of labor lawyers lined up for this go around.

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