hot stove 2018-19

Matt Harvey’s Angels deal for the 11M guarantee has the 3M incentives based on games started between 15 and 26 gs. @Feinsand 1st with agreement

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 19, 2018

Terrance Gore back to KC for one year

The Nationals have agreed to a deal with right-hander Anibal Sanchez, I’m told.

— Anthony Fenech (@anthonyfenech) December 20, 2018

looks like the cardinals will likely get andrew miller, who will definitely bounce back to 2017 form and won't get injured in early may

He's a year removed from his two big years, but I figure Daniel Murphy will do a passable Rogers Hornsby imitation in Colorado anyway.

puig your red

Wow ! Must have a real inclination Harper is willing to sign

Lol Reds

for those who don't get notifications, ie me

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25589407/los-angeles-dodgers-trade-matt-kemp-yasiel-puig-alex-wood-cincinnati-reds

i presume the dodgers aren’t actually going to let homer bailey pitch for them

i was going to call it the Homer Bailey trade

This trade is about clearing cap space and room on the forty man roster and literally nothing else, right?

yeah it seems that way

Some people think this is trade one and a second trade is brewing with Cleveland perhaps for Corey Kluber.

Reds still will need to get 'someone' that can play CF or at least someone that can platoon with Scott Schebler, unless he is dealt.

Reds hitting coach Turner Ward is supposed to be fairly tight with Puig and knows Kemp from working with them in LA.

I think Puig could make some serious cash playing in Great American for a year (even for a single year). Worked out ok for Kevin Mitchell and Sin-shoo Choo.

weird hot stove is the new normal hot stove

look at everyone who's still unsigned: https://www.fangraphs.com/tools/free-agent-tracker

didn't they establish some sort of training camp for unsigned players last year, so they could work out during spring training? might need to make that a permanent thing i guess (the island of misfit toys)

The Island of Dr. Boras.

Rays analyst promoted to uniformed coach

https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/rays/2018/12/05/so-what-will-rays-new-process-and-analytics-coach-do/

Clayton Richard and cash considerations are heading to Toronto in a trade with the San Diego Padres that has minor league OF Connor Panas going to San Diego.

To clear a roster spot for Clayton Richard, the Blue Jays designated Oliver Drake for assignment, leaving him to search for his seventh team since May.

whoa, i missed that Kikuchi signed with the Mariners. kind of a complicated deal:

TODAY: Kikuchi will earn $43MM over the first three years of the contract, Heyman reports (Twitter link). At that point, the Mariners can then choose to extend Kikuchi for $66MM over the 2022-25 seasons, which would make the deal a seven-year, $109MM contract overall. If the M’s don’t exercise this four-year extension, Kikuchi then can opt to exercise a player option for 2022 that would pay him $13MM.

YESTERDAY, 10:34 pm: The deal is for three years plus a player option for 2022, per Heyman (via Twitter). The Mariners have the unique option of replacing the player option with an additional four year guarantee, thus securing seven years of team control for Seattle. Theoretically, the partnership could end after three years should both the Mariners and Kikuchi decline their options.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/mariners-appear-nearing-deal-free-agent-yusei-kikuchi-rumors.html

i like Kikuchi because his last name (菊池) translates very poetically to "chrysanthemum pond".

i did not know that
that's awesome!

minor league OF Connor Panas going to San Diego

curious about how this guy ended up in the deal, and if it's as completely random as it seems

how do you mean?

i'm full of cough syrup, bored and hungover, so i'll try to answer... i've been keeping an eye on him because he's a canuck in my teams' farm system, and he's shown some potential - tho he had a rough 2018 for sure. he's shown some discipline and power and his 2017 gave me high hopes (but now that i'm checking he was a good clip above the average age for high A).
he's probably the best fringe prospect they could have hoped for really, in return for a negative-win pitcher.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/report-yankees-agree-deal-former-blue-jay-troy-tulowitzki/

If there's a situation where I end up regretting all the mean things I've said about him, this would be readymade...

Ya, I find this somewhat irksome.

clayton richard is terrible and had already been dfa'd, so the padres had no leverage to extract anything from toronto. that they got the jays to pay half of his $3m salary for 2019 was a small victory. richard is at least left-handed and might conceivably have some use as a loogy or mop-up dude at $1.5m, so it's a low-risk proposition for the jays.

none of that has anything to do with panas, a corner outfielder who turns 26 next month and was bad in his lone season above A ball. the deal was about the padres saving $1.5m, so why was *this* non-prospect included? was a minor leaguer included to make the cash sale of richard more palatable to the public? are the padres short of double-a corner outfielders, or do the jays have a glut? do the padres really have a scouting report on panas and think they can make something of him? the jays do have a tendency to, other things being equal, take fliers on canadian players, so why trade away this one?

anyway i was just curious, and also hopped up on cough syrup

Lucroy to Angels for a year

Lucroy's such an odd player, a lot of his value as a catcher was tied up into his pitch framing skills which went from league-leading to genuinely awful in the span of only a couple of years. I'm not sure what happened to him. But 3.6m for 1 year seems like a good bet.

How does that skill even decline?!

could be noise

i think that's supposedly happened to other catchers too (maybe yadi?) and i don't understand it either

david robertson to the phillies, two years/$21m plus club option year

The Mets signed pitcher Arquimedes Caminero and outfielder Rymer Liriano to minor league deals.

"We focus on the Yankees and Cubs, the Phillies and Dodgers, but a team like the Pirates can not only sign Manny Machado without risking a loss, they are positioned to get more from the signing, based on the marginal wins he would add, than almost any other team. It’s teams like the Pirates refusing to take themselves seriously that is grating. The 2019 Marlins shouldn’t be spending money. The 2019 Royals shouldn’t be spending money. The 2019 Pirates should. That they’re just accepting 81 wins and fat checks should be more an embarrassment to MLB, and frankly to Bob Nutting, than it is."

joe sheehan otm

Mark Loretta, new Cubs bench coach

This was pretty fun.

'the team would be pretty gritty'

https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-managers-trash-talk-spot-mvp-baseball-2005-lineup-002104365.html

.@Mets acquire OF Keon Broxton from @Brewers for RHPs Bobby Wahl, Adam Hill and INF Felix Valerio.

— MLBRosterMoves (@MLBRosterMoves) January 5, 2019

anyone know if those guys they gave up are any good?

NYY sign Zach Britton 39/3

The busy Mets acquired infielder J.D. Davis and Minor League infielder Cody Bohanek from the Astros on Sunday. Houston received Minor League outfielder Ross Adolph, infielder Luis Santana and catcher Scott Manea in return.

Looking those guys up, I'm guessing Davis was out of options and Houston is pretty packed where this guy could play. Davis has hit for some power in the minor leagues.

kelvin herrera to the white sox 2/$18m

Mets also sent Kevin Plawecki to Cleveland

https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-kevin-plawecki-j-d-davis-1.25616997

BREAKING: MLB Sees Record Revenues Of $10.3 Billion For 2018 via @ForbesSports https://t.co/BGHBiUoqoY

— Maury Brown (@BizballMaury) January 7, 2019

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/1/8/18173625/free-agency-slow-signing-pace-manny-machado-bryce-harper

the dilemma of teams’ bottom lines being divorced from their on-field results

indeed