Hot Stove 2023-2024

this rumoured deal between the brewers and Jackson Chourio are crazy. 8 years/$80M (and options) for a guy who's never seen the majors!

Why would you not do this? Very good chance the extension costs a lot more if they do it two years from now, and if it doesn't work, it's... $10m a year? That's what you pay for a 3rd starter these days. What would you rather have for the next eight years, Aaron Nola starting from age 30 or two Jackson Chourios starting now?

The White Sox did a similar deal for Luis Robert, who is supposedly the only guy they want to rebuild around

Ya, fair enough.

Why would you not do this? Very good chance the extension costs a lot more if they do it two years from now, and if it doesn't work, it's... $10m a year? That's what you pay for a 3rd starter these days. What would you rather have for the next eight years, Aaron Nola starting from age 30 or two Jackson Chourios starting now?

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, November 30, 2023 11:56 AM (two hours ago)

exactly. the downside of 10/80 is pretty minimal compared to the upside of him becoming julio rodriguez and commanding 12/210, which itself is still a massive discount

I always love deals like that, I think they're so much more unquestionably smart than similar length deals at three times the price for 29 or 30 year olds.

I mean the latter point is kind of obvious I suppose...

What the fuck!!!

Braves acquire Jarred Kelenic, Evan White and Marco Gonzales from Mariners for young righties Jackson Kowar and Cole Phillips, via @RyanDivish Mariners shed more salary in trade. Presumably loading up to add a big stick or two.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 4, 2023

the classic sam miller 'love this trade for the rays! who'd they get' tweet is being pre-empted by atlanta

(and/or whomever jerry dipoto trades with)

I can only wonder if they are clearing payroll space for a big bat but it’s the Mariners

Ohtani met with Blue Jays management at the team's spring training complex in Florida.

I am still skeptical that anything will come out of this, but it is interesting.

i guess roberts spilled the beans Ohtani had met with the dodgers before that as well.
literally everyday i have at least two friends checking in with me about this "Ohtani guy"

so this mariners deal

marco gonzales is bad, and they got out of spending $12m on him
kelenic (still possibly not-terrible) and white (terrible) are pre-arb

jackson kowar is 27 and has never been good
cole phillips is a high school pitcher who, at 20, has yet to pitch professionally

i don't think saving $12m suddenly means they can splash out on ohtani? phillips is a stab in the dark. and for whatever one thinks of kelenic, he put up 2 bwar as a 24yo this past season, which is infinitely more than everyone else in this trade combined

i rate this trade: ffs

SF to Tokyo is 11hours there, 9.5 back. It's an absolute grind even in biz/1st.
Seattle & LA (and SD lol) are a little longer but all within the realm of "geographical proximity".

ATL/NYC/BOS/PHI are more 14+/12+, bordering on soultheft.

I take that back about PHI, there's no direct flights which I think would be a dealbreaker at close to 18-20h per leg.

*huge caveat: assuming Shohei flies commercial.

He’ll be able to buy his own airline soon enough.

don't think the flight time matters -- it's not like he's not going to be an all-star, he's stuck here all summer

what *might* matter is how time zones and television play out in japan?

steve shasta: bring the knowledge

it's not so much him, it's his lifeline (family, friends, colleagues, seniors/juniors, medical staff, cultural staff, etc.)

east coast daygames are dreadful (usually starting ~midnight) but all night games line up with the workday with west coast night games ending around 4pm.

lol verdugo to the yankees

i want him to refuse to shave

I feel like the autonomy really matters for Ohtani; you see it on this tour now. Literally the only reason I thought he might not sign with the Dodgers is because they’d want him to do things off the field. Buster Olney posted that there was a chance he could go back to the Angels, which would undoubtedly pay a ton of money for him to make them money, and to never do media for months if he doesn’t feel like it. But ultimately I still think he’s a Dodger for a million reasons, I think that would be the only sticking point.

so this mariners deal

marco gonzales is bad, and they got out of spending $12m on him
kelenic (still possibly not-terrible) and white (terrible) are pre-arb

jackson kowar is 27 and has never been good
cole phillips is a high school pitcher who, at 20, has yet to pitch professionally

i don't think saving $12m suddenly means they can splash out on ohtani? phillips is a stab in the dark. and for whatever one thinks of kelenic, he put up 2 bwar as a 24yo this past season, which is infinitely more than everyone else in this trade combined

i rate this trade: ffs

classic bucco

i want him to refuse to shave

Welcome to the Bronx, Alex Verdugo 💪#YANKSonYES pic.twitter.com/crFSLHmfvs

— YES Network (@YESNetwork) December 6, 2023

I really wish someone would call their bluff

Lots of chatter suggesting Juan "Childish Bambino" Soto is heading to The Bronx... pending physicals of course.

Soto with that RF porch 😵‍💫

They’re not a Soto away tbh

Craig Kimbrel is a deal now with O’s. $13M. @Joelsherman1 and @Ken_Rosenthal on it

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 6, 2023

damn and i was rooting for the O's to go further this season

lol

Kimbrel-pitching-stance-with-a-pitch-of-Orioles-perched-on-his-wonky-arm.jpg

Finalized:

NYY: JuanSoto + Trent Grisham

SDP: Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Jhony Brito, Randy Vásquez + Kyle Higashioka

so not exactly a bustling trade market for his services huh...

For a 1 year rental, I'd rate it 60% NYY/40% SDP

Finalized:

NYY: JuanSoto + Trent Grisham

SDP: Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Jhony Brito, Randy Vásquez + Kyle Higashioka

The proposed Soto/Yankees trade has not yet advanced to the point where the teams have told each other they have a deal , and no players have yet been informed that they are on the move.

— Andy Martino (@martinonyc) December 6, 2023

padres trying to gauge public reaction to getting back next to nothing for a guy they unloaded their farm system for?

soto home vs away in 2023:

home: .240/.398/.429 (12 HR)
away: .307/.422/.604 (23 HR)

xp they’ve got no money cos their tv deal collapsed, they decided to pay Xander Bogaerts a ton of money to play first base next year and their owner just died, I doubt they give a fuck about the opinions of the fans. The bigger fuckup was signing Bogaerts and not prioritising Soto.

The proposed return btw:

King, a SP the Yankees decided to use from being a reliever, good performance in a small sample size
Brito: potentially a SP, will be better than Rich Hill was for the Padres
Thorpe: iirc their best pitching prospect not too far off the major leagues
Vasquez: nfi
Higgy: lol at least he’s not Austin Nola????

The Yankees rotation before this was:

- Cole, Cortes, Rodón, King, Schmidt. I think? So they have probably at least two SP to fill given that Cortes and Rodón are both crocked. And I don’t think any other team was going to give them two putative SP for a rental.

Cashman is rumored to be in Japan courting Yoshinobu Yamamoto 👀👀👀

Seidler was a maniac, clearly. RIP to the Padres' spendiest owner ever, and good luck to Greupner and Kutsenda if they try to move Bogaerts or Tatis next.

xp you mean Steve Cohen

Yankees GM Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone just left the winter meetings hotel and are headed to the Nashville airport with no Soto deal finalized yet

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 6, 2023

Juan Soto trade agreement is being finalized now, source confirms.

The deal, as @JackCurryYES and @Joelsherman1 reported, sends Soto and Trent Grisham to New York for Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Jhony Brito, Randy Vásquez, and Kyle Higashioka.

Thorpe and Vasquez are the Yankees 5th- and 13th-best prospects according to MLB.

Cashman en route to Japan! 👀👀👀

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=yamamo004yos

I'm glad Soto is out of the NL West

very strange to see a player as statistically good as Soto being traded twice before he hits free agency. wonder if there is anything to that.

More to do with extending him. He wouldn’t extend with the Nationals even though they offered him $440m for 15 years so they traded him and went into rebuild rather than walk for free. The Padres don’t have the money to extend him so they traded him to get some money off the books as they wanted to bring payroll down to $200m and he hits free agency next year - all their other expensive contracts (Tatis Jr, Machado, Darvish, Bogaerts) are locked up for years.