2022-23 Hot Stove thread

Maybe I should have led with a disclaimer: "This is only Joe's Posnanski's opinion. He's only guessing. He'll say that three times, but I want to make sure you know."

maybe i should have bolded indeed

fwiw i have literally met joe posnanski; he was very briefly a colleague and seemed like a nice guy.

anyway i know you feel like i'm picking on you, and i wish you didn't feel that way, because i don't mean it that way and i truly enjoy your posts. (contrast this conversation with basically any interaction i have with user table.) i just think you are being overly protective of pos in a situation in which he doesn't really deserve it

That's great that you've met him. If it's not too personal, what do you mean by colleague? You actually worked together in some fashion? (I know this isn't the right thread...answer that, and we can drop the matter.)

(Yes, I do get defensive with certain writers. I go through the same thing with--obviously--James, also Marcus, Kael, and, to a lesser extent, Christgau.)

he briefly worked for 'sports on earth' (as did emma span, who is now a Major Editor at the athletic, and also jay jaffe's wife) which was at that time under the MLB umbrella

there were so many brief stabs at relevance! at least none of those i was involved with included betting odds, i guess?

Interesting...don't even get me started on professional sports' new love affair with gambling.

Zaidi said SF checked in with Correa when Mets deal fell apart. Said he doesn't feel vindicated by a second failed physical & called whole situation "unfortunate." Zaidi: "I'm happy for Carlos, he's one of the great players in the game. He seems happy with where he's going."

— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) January 12, 2023

Zaidi is playing it close to the vest and won't leak anything, respect that. I do wonder what they offered after the fact.

Interesting...don't even get me started on professional sports' new love affair with gambling.

I agree, I'm not a gambler and hate this trend. MLB Network is almost unwatchable with all its gambling aspects on it.

Whereas for me, trying to watch football matches when like 90% of teams have shirts sponsored by betting companies and there are constant ads - baseball is almost refreshing in comparison.

Whos your football team gyac? You would think mine is the 49ers but I'm in Los Angeles and a Rams fan. I used to live in San Francisco and that was when I fell in love with the Giants. I couldn't become a Dodgers fan tho technically I should be an Angeles fan.

:D

xp sorry I don’t mean nfl, and my only team has been a series of disappointments for a while so I don’t talk on ilx about them :(

I should have known you were taking about soccer.

Smart and measured comments there by Zaidi. Leaking details about the physical could probably get him into legal trouble too.

Here is detailed account from the Giants prospective on the Correa deal. Not a 11th hour pull out...

https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/giants/carlos-correa-giants-full-details-clarified-farhan-zaidi-saga-ends

Andrew McCutchen, a former MVP and one of the most accomplished players in Pirates history, has signed a one-year, $5 million deal -- pending a physical -- a source told MLB.com, to return to Pittsburgh. The club has not confirmed.

i like this move

//PENDING A PHYSICAL//

I demand we strike a tuning fork every time the term pending a physical comes up in honour of Creaky Carlos.

xps to Bee Ok this is all info he should have put out when the deal fell through - like the timing rumour was out there for days and no doubt reputationally damaging - he was right to have concerns about releasing the medical info but they still should have spoken up before.

xp i support this idea, and personally i will also be striking a bass drum in the distance every time the spectre of Dr. James Andrew is invoked

*Andrews

btw i don't think pos is terrible but endlessly rewriting your list of the best baseball players ever and bullshitting with mike schur is kind of up-one's-ass behavior

Haven't read this, but a Boras interview about the whole thing:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2023/01/15/scott-boras-carlos-correa-mlb-free-agency-mets/11054597002/

not sure where to put this, and also, not sure that anyone cares, but it seems like Diamond Sports, the baseball broadcasting branch of the terrible and hated Sinclair Broadcast Group, may be going bankrupt soon. i believe 14 MLB teams have deals with Sinclair.

IDGI -- Boras offered the Mets a way to void the contract if Correa spent more than 120 days on the IL over a two year period (presumably only due to an ankle-related injury). But he wouldn't accept the Mets counteroffer of six years guaranteed, with the next six years pending a physical?

They wanted to avoid the situation where after six years, the Mets find a quack doctor to fail Correa on a physical and give them a way out of the remainder of the contract. But OTOH, Correa could break his leg in Year 1 of the contract and have the whole thing voided almost from the start.

If Boras' side of the story is accurate, then the Mets pulled a bush league move by relying on the opinion of the same specialist that the Giants did. Why not get a second opinion at the very least?

It's almost as if they had buyer's remorse and saw a way out...kidding!

xp not so clear cut as all that

According to Boras, the Giants and the Mets both relied on opinions from the same specialist — Dr. Robert Anderson, a Green Bay Packers associate team physician who operated on Derek Jeter's broken left ankle in 2012. Boras said Giants team orthopedist Dr. Ken Akizuki consulted with Anderson directly, while the Mets team at the Hospital for Special Surgery relied on foot and ankle specialist Dr. Mark Drakos — who also consulted with Anderson.

Who to believe here, Scott Boras or three orthopedic surgeons with nearly seven decades of experience between them?

“It’s not a functionality," Boras said Wednesday at Correa's introductory news conference in Minnesota. "It’s just how long you weather the pain to play, and he has never had complaints. Will he have complaints in the future? And the answer is he hasn’t had complaints after eight years in the major leagues, and the functional fitness orthopedists say it’s unlikely he will going forward.”

Boras cited a split among orthopedists and surgeons, maintaining orthopedists believe “almost a Darwinian concept where you actually grow into a formation of your being able to compete and perform.”

while the Mets team at the Hospital for Special Surgery relied on foot and ankle specialist Dr. Mark Drakos — who also consulted with Anderson

I saw Dr. Mark Drakos (Bond villain name) for an ankle/foot problem I was having last year. HSS are considered the best ortho surgeons in the country.

*stands ready to strike a bass drum in the distance*

Dr Robert Anderson simply striking a tuning fork down the phone every time Boras rings him.

Boras didn't say that these doctors don't know what they're doing. He said that it didn't make sense for the Mets to consult with Anderson if they were serious about a deal. Anderson had already given his opinion, so what did they hope to gain by consulting with him?

Probably because the guy they both consulted with is one of the foremost experts in that area with decades of experience in dealing with these kinds of injuries? This in both cases after their team specialists presumably both flagged up concerns. Doesn’t seem that mysterious to me, unless you were trying to cya after an pretty embarrassing situation.

Like, the Giants doctor doesn’t like what he sees, asks Anderson for a second opinion, Anderson gives it, Giants pull the plug. Then Mets doctor also doesn’t like what he’s seen, asks Anderson (because why would the Giants share medical information with a rival team again?), Anderson again gives it. Seems like clutching at straws tbqh.

Ya, it’s not like the Giants are going to hand over their medical info to the Mets.

But Boras said that he did share that information with the Mets. They chose to sign him anyway. So either Boras is lying, or there was a game of broken telephone going on with the Mets while trying to reach their owner on a beach somewhere.

Here's the quote:

“I don’t understand the Mets," Boras said. “I gave them all of the information. We had them talk to four doctors. They knew the issue the Giants had. And yet, they still call the same doctor the Giants used for his opinion.

The guy whose reputation depends on getting his clients the big bucks or several distinguished medical professionals? Can’t believe they didn’t just take his word for it!

You seem to be missing out the fact that the Mets have their own doctor, who is highly regarded in his own right, and they checked with the same expert the Giants did, presumably because he’s an expert. Seriously. This isn’t hard.

The issue isn't whether they should have trusted Boras or trusted the doctors. Boras shared the opinions of the doctors with the Mets. He didn't say "listen to me, not to them".

So either 1) Boras is lying/twisting the story in his favour, or 2) the Mets signed Correa on the off-chance that their doctors would come to a different conclusion than the doctors that the Giants consulted with (even though they planned on consulting with at least one of the same doctors). And when it turned out that the experts were right all along, they tried to lowball Correa or void the entire deal.

It’s possible boras is being 100% factual but still being misleading. The Mets may have only checked in for confirmation on something - who knows. I honestly just cannot trust what the man says.
The deal with the Mets was also announced in the middle of the night hours after the Giants officially pumped the breaks. It’s possible they didn’t realize how bad the report was that the giants got or that boras misrepresented things entirely with them.

lol ok

Yes, Tommy Pham slapped a man because of fantasy football, but the background work Mets did on him turned up intel that he's a very well-liked teammate and good clubhouse presence. The man he slapped was on a different ballclub, after all

— Andy Martino (@martinonyc) January 18, 2023

On top of Pham’s $6MM, the Mets owe a 90% luxury tax of $5.4MM, bringing their total tab for the signing to $11.4MM.

sheesh

*Mets make “wooooooo scary” fingers*

I guess it’s a new era when lolmets = look how much luxury tax they have to pay

aroldis chapman to the royals on a one-year deal

make him a starter or gtfo!

Could see a dead cat bounce bc of the stadium

twins trade luis arraez to the marlins for pablo lopez and two prospects. surprised by this move, though i'm not familiar with lopez