hot stove 2019-20

mets and cespedes reach an agreement to 'significantly' cut his 2020 salary (in lieu of the mets trying to void his contract entirely)

nice

looks like he can make most that money back through incentives. really curious what he did that could have almost voided his contract like that.

I recall some rumors about his injury which I now suppose must be true, whatever they were

The Milwaukee Brewers have filled the glaring Anderson-sized hole in their rotation with a 1-year deal with Brett Anderson, who is somehow only 31 years old. Brett Anderson has suffered over 114 injuries during his major league career so far

Lol

Anthony Rendon says that he couldn't sign with the Dodgers because the "Hollywood lifestyle" didn't appeal to him.

So that's why he signed with the ... LA Angels??

the Disney lifestyle

Yeah no, Anaheim/Santa Ana is like a good 2+ hours from downtown LA/Hollywood by auto. It's very well a different city, economy, demographics, politics (well... until recently, but it's still pretty right-wing for California).

Yes, I know it's a huge city but it's not like he has to live down the street from the stadium and adopt the lifestyle of the fans. It seemed like a silly thing to say when he'll still be living and playing in LA.

BREAKING: The Texas Rangers are in the final stages of completing a trade to acquire two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber from the Cleveland Indians, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 15, 2019

Best Indians pitcher I’ve ever seen. I like the move, though. It was time to move on. I just really wish they had won it all back in 2016.

two-time cy winner for a reliever and a bad outfielder. pathetic

two-time cy winner on the downside of his career!

Coming off an injury and being paid slightly more than a qualifying offer. A steal in my books.

steamer projection has him at 3.4 fWAR this season; clase and deshields combine for 1.1. this is a team that won 93 games last year -- this deal makes absolutely no sense beyond dumping salary.

you could argue that the cleveland rotation is pretty good even without him, and maybe they'll use the $17m to extend lindor or sign someone at a position of greater need, but i'll believe that when i see it.

also hard to believe they couldn't have gotten a better deal. kluber's 2020 projection is slightly better than zack wheeler's, ffs -- were there really no teams willing to give up more than a reliever and fifth outfielder for that?

either they're super high on Deshields and/or it never occurred to other teams to just offer them random things.

I could see Kluber just continuing to decline but his stuff is so good and his track record was basically Scherzer-like coming into last season, so I imagine there might be some teams who would have offered more. But maybe they know something we don’t.

bumgarner to arizona, apparently

!

That's kind of out of the blue

saw somewhere Kluber deal is not complete

apparently Bumgarner just really wanted to be in Arizona.
huh.

horses

A source close to Bumgarner says the Diamondbacks were his No. 1 choice, provided they could pay him at an appropriate level. As The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly recently noted, Bumgarner has horses in the Phoenix area and loves it there. For Bumgarner, an individualist who cares little about public perception, that and the solid five-year offer were enough.

an individualist

an individual-plus-several-horses-ist.

what a weird ass trade. a relief prospect (albeit a 102 mph-throwing one) and an all-defense fringe player.

almost any team could match or top that offer for one year of kluber, and there are a ton of teams that you'd think would be willing to do it.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/nobody-really-wanted-corey-kluber

avisail garcia to milwaukee, 2/$20m

luke maile to pittsburgh, threatening to eclipse last year's big offseason acquisition, lonnie chisenhall

What's the best site to see who the front-runners for FAs like Ryu Puig, Donaldson might be?

wtf, OF is like the one thing Milwaukee doesn't need

xp

mlbtraderumors is the best site for all of this IMO

it probably goes w/o saying but avoid the comments here^ at all costs

they're not bad. i've seen WAAAAAY worse.

Asked at Winter Meetings about adding veteran leadership, Ben Cherington said FA catcher could fill that bill, but “Role should be legitimate; You’re not going to get a guy who hits .150 just because he’s funny.” Yesterday, Pirates signed Luke Maile... who batted .151 last year.

— David Laurila (@DavidLaurilaQA) December 17, 2019

wtf, OF is like the one thing Milwaukee doesn't need

― frogbs, Tuesday, December 17, 2019 8:05 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

sounds like this lets them move braun to 1b

as of last night, it seems the cardinals are about to sign 31-year old lefty Kwang-hyun Kim, who has pitched 7 years in the KBO

err, oops, he's been pitching longer than that! he debuted in the KBO as a SP at age 18, it looks like.

sounds like this lets them move braun to 1b

that's probably what's gonna happen but they don't have to, he's still as mediocre defensively as he's been his whole career, plus you know he's gonna miss 20-30 games with various injuries. you'd think you could just sign some aging slugger on the cheap to play there.

i think y'all are forgetting Blue Jays legend Eric Sogard is still available.

to the brewers!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMF3iNpW4AA82uF?format=png&name=large

I like the Sogard signing, dude was pretty good last year

Justin Smoak to the Brewers, 1 yr/$5m

so I guess Brauny not going to 1B after all?

the Kwang-hyun Kim deal got finalized with STL: 2 years, $8M (plus up ot $3M in incentives). i'm pretty hopeful about it! upside would be something approaching the sweet deal they got with miles mikolas coming out of japan a couple years ago.

gio gonzalez to the white sox
julio teheran to the angels

feels like the brewers now have 50 position players

white sox also signing cheslor cuthbert

Reds did their bi-annual "living the Burt Reynolds lifestyle on the Mac Davis salary" signing of lefty Wade Miley a few days ago. It is possibly work out well. The contract is only 2 years and not crazy money. All depends on health and being able to throw up ground ball outs and not home runs.

Great American Ballpark does get into some pitchers heads. Kyle Lohse years back was a free agent signee that totally got lost pitching for the Reds. Miley might work out ok and having a lefty and gives the Reds some rotation depth.

I'm guessing the Reds might take a page out of the Cardnails book and move a couple of the top prospects to work out the pen and be starter #6.

The White Sox have reached agreement on a deal with free agent lefthander Dallas Keuchel, according to a tweet from ESPN’s Jeff Passan (link). It’s a three-year deal for $55.5MM, with a vesting fourth year that could take it to 4/$74MM, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (link).

i did not expect this, but the Jays just won the bidding for Ryu!
4 years, $80 mil

also they signed Travis Shaw.

with them also adding Roark, Anderson, Yamaguchi and getting their first full seasons out of Guerrero, Biggio and Bichette (and possibly Pearson making his debut) – this teams looks like they could make a run at the wild card.