Offseason 2022-23 MLB Thread
- Thread starter DeadlySplitter
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This is hideous. Worse than the Sox MassMutual one.
View: https://twitter.com/AZSports/status/1621157883500179456?s=20&t=F5-KLtGsIHXoGhYL7mAHVQ
View: https://twitter.com/AZSports/status/1621157883500179456?s=20&t=F5-KLtGsIHXoGhYL7mAHVQ
Fernando Valenzuela’s number to be retired by the Dodgers
https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2023-02-04/dodgers-retiring-fernando-valenzuela-jersey-number
https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2023-02-04/dodgers-retiring-fernando-valenzuela-jersey-number
LioninTexas has been 0-for-the-offseason, but if he's right about this one ...
View: https://twitter.com/LionInTexas10/status/1620944414318407681
View: https://twitter.com/LionInTexas10/status/1620944414318407681
Posting an embarrassing in-joke on the Internet involving a public figure, when the in-joke wouldn't be understood by the majority of people reading it seems ill-advised at best
Yep, I did, because some have been posting his transaction rumors as though he might be a legit follow ... and a post such as that, in my view, makes it time to reconsider his legitimacy.
I have no doubt he is incredibly knowledgable about baseball details, but I'm not sure I've ever heard a worse announcer. He seems unable to shift out of superstar 'say nothing even slightly controversial or interesting in public', a la Derek Jeter, plus his English is not perfect and hampered him a bit.
So, very glad he will not be at YES anymore, too bad they couldn't keep him in the front office but they did hire both Sabean and Minaya, so it's hard to complain.
So, very glad he will not be at YES anymore, too bad they couldn't keep him in the front office but they did hire both Sabean and Minaya, so it's hard to complain.
Or, to put it in 5 words from the new Yankee writer for The Athletic:
View: https://twitter.com/ChrisKirschner/status/1622356966205964290
View: https://twitter.com/ChrisKirschner/status/1622356966205964290
Good for Carlos. His struggles in the booth were painful to listen to and while I haven't been a fan of his for a long time, I'm glad he got a better opportunity elsewhere.
Maybe with a little extra emphasis on "elsewhere".
Maybe with a little extra emphasis on "elsewhere".
Like the Red Sox and Clemens #21, the Dodgers hadn’t given out #34 to any player since Valenzuela retired. Long overdue is an understatement.
This is wild, Darvish is 36!
View: https://twitter.com/ajcassavell/status/1623738165168328706?s=46&t=KbM8lG1Jb8gYbHUfWfR2eA
View: https://twitter.com/ajcassavell/status/1623738165168328706?s=46&t=KbM8lG1Jb8gYbHUfWfR2eA
Those feel like tack-on years for luxury tax reasons though. $18/yr is lower than I'd expect him to get on a shorter deal.
He doesn't really seem to be slowing down at all, does he? 194.2 IP last year - 11th in baseball - with a 3.10 ERA to boot.
IDK, I remember Darvish’s effectiveness collapsing after the sticky stuff crackdown in the second half of 2021 roughly the same way Barnes did. Going five extra for that guy along with the age, injury history and the fact that he was effectively a salary dump two years ago…that is some Prellerism.
He was a 4.2 fWAR pitcher last year & this seems to save them $5m this year + tax savings...so as far as Prellering goes, I think this is fairly harmless.
Well, if those are true facts, that would put them in the 62% tax bracket, so saving $5m of salary would save them an additional $3.1m in luxury tax, for a total cash savings of $8.1m.
It has to be pretty common for someone to be pretty good at 35 and pretty bad at 38 or 39 though, right?
Toronto signed Bo Bichette to a 3-year $33.6M deal. This doesn't change his timetable for free agency, it simply avoids any future arbitration by locking in the numbers for his last three years of team control.
Minor trade with the Guardians dealing Will Benson to the Reds for minor league center fielder Justin Boyd, but significant to me as I watched Benson climb up the ladder. This is about putting him in a situation where he might have a chance to succeed in exchange for a younger prospect who doesn't need that spot on the 40-man roster.
Benson was the 14th overall pick in the 2016 draft and over his first 2½ seasons looked like a complete bust who was never going to make it out of A-ball. Things clicked for him in AAA last year and he got a cup of coffee and a little playoff experience. He's got the whole toolbox plus patience at the plate and seems like a great kid – I doubt a lot of 18-year-old first-rounders have put the time and money into charity work he has, so I hope he has success in Cincinnati. That said, I don't think he's ever going to make enough contact to stick. If he does, it will be because he gets regular at-bats in Cincinnati, which was almost certainly not happening in Cleveland. He was looking to be the 5th outfielder there with three of the guys ahead of him only months older, plus a younger one on the way later this year.
Boyd was a 2nd round pick just last year out of the Oregon State baseball factory and ranked top 20 in the Cincinnati system but enters Cleveland's at #29 according to MLB. He's a serious base-stealing threat who plays well in bother center and right but really struggled at the plate (.547 OPS) in his first 22 pro games.
Benson was the 14th overall pick in the 2016 draft and over his first 2½ seasons looked like a complete bust who was never going to make it out of A-ball. Things clicked for him in AAA last year and he got a cup of coffee and a little playoff experience. He's got the whole toolbox plus patience at the plate and seems like a great kid – I doubt a lot of 18-year-old first-rounders have put the time and money into charity work he has, so I hope he has success in Cincinnati. That said, I don't think he's ever going to make enough contact to stick. If he does, it will be because he gets regular at-bats in Cincinnati, which was almost certainly not happening in Cleveland. He was looking to be the 5th outfielder there with three of the guys ahead of him only months older, plus a younger one on the way later this year.
Boyd was a 2nd round pick just last year out of the Oregon State baseball factory and ranked top 20 in the Cincinnati system but enters Cleveland's at #29 according to MLB. He's a serious base-stealing threat who plays well in bother center and right but really struggled at the plate (.547 OPS) in his first 22 pro games.
I'm curious if you saw Benson much in AAA? His story coming up was really Joey Gallo-esque; big guy with big time athleticism, big time power, lots of walks...but not a lot of contact. Then he went out and put up a 23% K rate in AAA, cutting his swinging strike rate nearly in half from his previous career average, and keeping most of those gains in his small MLB sample. The Guardians really did him no favors there, he stuck on the roster but got incredibly sporadic playing time, and I have no idea what to make of his defense and baserunning yet...I feel like he should be good in those aspects, certainly has the tools, but he needs to get some run to know for sure. It is certainly interesting that he returned a guy who went in the Top 100 picks with a Top 100 bonus from last year; far away, yes, but the Guardians have a cluttered high minors and a lot of 40 man decisions to make and they don't need to worry about that with Boyd for quite a while. It's not nothing, that's an asset. It's one of those interesting little offseason trades that could end up being absolutely nothing with both guys being total washouts, or Benson could go out next year and seize the Reds' CF job and put up a 20-20 season and be the guy everyone thought Senzel would be. I mean, probably not, but it's not off the table.
I mean Bloom has to have already made a call right?
Edit: Never mind. Didn't realize that Tweet came from a bogus source.
Edit: Never mind. Didn't realize that Tweet came from a bogus source.
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It buys out two FA years for 2/42 plus maybe more if he finishes high in the Cy Young voting, that's maybe a bit cheap but it is years in advance for a pitcher so seems pretty fair both ways.
I was just watching TikToks this morning about Acuna & his beef with Alex Gonzalez, all of Venezuela, & the Braves.
Google translation:
Google translation:
This was Will Middlebrooks's response:Alex Gonzalez, life must be difficult after retirement. When talking about the best SS in Venezuela nobody mentions you, your numbers are not impressive and now you want to use my name to appear. I keep playing making history and you keep criticizing from the sofa at home
I will offer Verdugo and Houck. Get it done Bloom. Oh wait. It's that guy Lincoln Texas. Maybe ,but every thing he said that was a rumor never happened.
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I'm with you on this one. This isn't a rumors thread and that account has been nearly anything but right this winter. Not sure their tweets belong in here.
Pretty sure being wrong about everything all off season confirms that he is in fact an Angels employee.
I usually go to a game or two each year at Lake County, which was where I first saw Benson play back when he looked like a disaster and when it was their lower A-ball team (it was swapped to Hi-A with the restructuring on the minors a couple of years ago). Then I get a better look at the guys who reach AA in Akron, where I see anywhere from 6-12 games. Benson's power came to life there in 2021, but he still wasn't putting the ball in play often enough. I haven't made it to AAA Columbus in several years, although it's one of the best parks in the country and I plan to go this year. However, when the minors are stacked as they have been for the past couple of years, I check the AA & AAA boxes on a daily basis.
I think it comes down to who they came to trust more going forward between Benson and Oscar Gonzalez and certainly which one was a better fit for the roster going forward. It's interesting that the two were so completely different in their development. Gonzalez had no hype coming up through the minors (Fangraphs didn't even consider him one of Cleveland's top 50 prospects), but he always performed well. It just took until the last two seasons for his raw power to translate to game power. When Cleveland needed another outfielder midseason last year, Gonzalez was clearly first in line and ran with it. I suspect they're still leery of Benson's career strikeout rates and three of the four Cleveland outfielders ahead of him (Straw, Kwan and Brennan) are likewise left-handed. Then they have George Valera, probably their highest regarded outfield prospect since Grady Sizemore – and another left-hander – hopefully arriving before the end of the year. They'll make the exception for Valera, but it seems the organization has also been placing more emphasis on contact. Gonzalez is never going to develop a strong walk rate, but he puts the ball in play well for a big guy. Valera will have a walk rate at least similar to Benson and I think they're optimistic he'll also improve the bat-to-ball skills over time like Carlos Santana did.
Benson is easy to root for though, and I'll have no problem cheering for his success, especially since I just don't see a situation where it would have happened in Cleveland (I felt similarly about Jesus Aguilar, who needed a few hundred MLB at-bats while Cleveland was trying to win with Napoli & Encarnacion).
Here are the new bases. The difference is significant:
View: https://twitter.com/bnightengale/status/1625588277461008384?s=46&t=QRBYFf8lSPlme9gQcS9vMw
View: https://twitter.com/bnightengale/status/1625588277461008384?s=46&t=QRBYFf8lSPlme9gQcS9vMw
Franmil Reyes' status has fallen from 30 home run guy to minor league deal with the Royals in one year.
It was disappointing he didn't work out in Cleveland. He seemed like a great clubhouse guy and he was very happy here with his wife being from the Cleveland area (they met while he was a Pad's farmhand playing against Cleveland's suburban A-ball team). However, I prefer having a roster where Josh Naylor, Josh Bell and Oscar Gonzalez can all cover it while also being completely capable of playing in the field. I'm pretty sure this experience was also why Cleveland never showed any interest in JD Martinez... it really wrecks a spot in the heart of your lineup if things go wrong with these guys.
It was disappointing he didn't work out in Cleveland. He seemed like a great clubhouse guy and he was very happy here with his wife being from the Cleveland area (they met while he was a Pad's farmhand playing against Cleveland's suburban A-ball team). However, I prefer having a roster where Josh Naylor, Josh Bell and Oscar Gonzalez can all cover it while also being completely capable of playing in the field. I'm pretty sure this experience was also why Cleveland never showed any interest in JD Martinez... it really wrecks a spot in the heart of your lineup if things go wrong with these guys.