The Dr. Morbius Memorial 2020-2021 MLB Hot Stove Thread

excited to see half the league get non-tendered this evening

Rosario going on waivers (and clearing them) surprised me. I hadn’t realized how overall mediocre he’d been.

i can understand why the twins are dumping him -- alex kirilloff can fill that role for a lot less money -- but in a regular 2020 season rosario would have been worth like 2.5 WAR, which should honestly be plenty sufficient for someone to pay him the $9 or $10 million he'd have made in his final year of arbitration. i mean he finished 17th in the AL MVP voting!

cubs non-tendered schwarber and almora

love how the teams always say they're keeping the door open to bring people back (for less money) -- can anyone think of examples of that actually happening?

Charlie Culberson?

i think so! also kyle farmer was non-tendered by the reds last night and has already signed a one-year deal to return, so i guess i am Wrong

so Chris Young (the pitcher, not the outfielder) is the new, out-of-nowhere GM for Texas.

gotta be the tallest gm ever

i'm sure most people are feeling this way about their favored teams right now, but...STL is a mess. they look like a 4th place team, as it stands, they don't want to spend any money, and there's a lot of pressure to use anything that's left on bringing both yadi and wainwright back (they're both free agents now). it's easy to see a very disappointing spending where that happens and STL gets to do the Angels-Pujols-endless-retirement-celebration-and-losing-tour for a 2021 season, this time in front of selected groups of non-masked idiots

i feel like you kinda have to bring them back tbh. Molina might be above replacement level at best, but he's got to be done after 2021 (if they don't want to spend, they're not getting Realmuto anyways), and Waino looked alright last year. i'd expect a home-town team-for-life discount, or am i being naive?

they do have to bring them back, it's true. that's the problem. I mean, I want that too. sigh. fwiw, yadi has been saying he's seeking a 2-year deal (and has interest from at least 5 different clubs).

I know of a young A.L. catcher with great untapped potential you can please take.

gary sanchez is 28, so i know you don't mean him

he’s just 17 in “high ceiling” years!

I'd get rid of Molina and Wainwright and lean into a rebuild.

i'd happily give waino a one-year deal

no way he wants one year tho. surprised Molina is asking for two tho. guess he wants to make it to 40.

white sox reportedly acquiring lance lynn from texas

for dane dunning and pitching prospect avery weems

adam eaton back to white sox, 1yr/$7m + club option

nice. i hope we get a real baseball season in 2021 so i can enjoy this white sox team.

eaton was pretty awful this year but seems like a decent bounce-back candidate

Adam Eaton just hung up on Carmen and Jurko on @ESPN1000 after they asked him if Tony La Russa would have trouble relating to younger players.

Yikes.

— Sox Takes (@sox_takes) December 8, 2020

Carlos Santana agrees with Royals: $17M, two years

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 8, 2020

seems like a lot for a 35yo who just hit .199/.349/.350

I’m not gonna put too much weight behind people’s 2020 season. And his 2019 might have been his best season. He’s a discipline/power hitter and he’ll probably delivery decent value over the next two years.

I appreciate KCR's determination to resist tanking and strive for at most 75 wins over the next decade

Dombrowski to become President of Baseball Operations at Phillies.

A match made in heaven if you ask me.

bizarre -- he's the kind of guy this iteration of the phillies fire, not hire

also where the hell is andy with dombrowski.jpg

Yeah first thing he’ll do is trade Sixto Sanchez for two years of Realmuto.

can't fire 'em if you don't hire 'em!

Ugh. This off season is moving so slow.

Among the players who qualified for arbitration by reaching Super Two status, per source: Yankees’ Clint Frazier, Gleyber Torres and Luke Voit; Braves’ Max Fried and Mike Soroka; Dodgers’ Walker Buehler; Mets’ Dom Smith; Nationals’ Juan Soto; Brewers’ Brandon Woodruff.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 15, 2020

McCann deal with #Mets is 4 yrs, $40.6M. The $10.15M avg is the 14th largest ever given on multi-yr deal to a catcher. Incredible when you consider the #Tigers non-tendered him after the 2018 season.

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) December 15, 2020

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/12/padres-sign-nabil-crismatt.html

"Nabil Crismatt" is a hell of a name

Refuse to believe he’s real.
MLBTR is so desperate for news they’re reporting on their OOTP league.

total mandalorian-ass name

anagrams for NABIL CRISMATT:

Militant Crabs
Albinism Tract
A Transit Climb

you had me at militant crabs.

sam fuld is the new phillies GM

even when he was a player on the cubs i remember all the talk was about him being really smart and a big stats geek

(almost) too much time on ilb

The New York Mets are hiring Zack Scott to be their new assistant GM and senior VP, a source tells ESPN. He was a finalist for their GM job.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 23, 2020

who is this joker

shitty last name too

He’ll go into the hall with an asterisk on his name

pirates traded 1B josh bell to washington for pitchers wil crowe and eddy yean

yean is still a teenager; the other two were dreadful this season

The San Diego Padres are finalizing a trade to acquire former Cy Young winner Blake Snell from the Tampa Bay Rays for top pitching prospect Luis Patiño, catchers Francisco Mejia and Blake Hunt, and right-handed pitching prospect Cole Wilcox, sources familiar with the agreement told ESPN.

i guess it’s impressive that the rays succeed with no money and no fans, but maybe they have no fans because it’s tough to build an emotional attachment to an organization that treats its players as faceless interchangeable parts

I have a few Padre fan friends who are not thrilled about this move, why are you framing it like SD "won" this trade?

almost like the minors! :D

xpost

And maybe Darvish too? Padres are goin' for it, I like it

Oh god, Gallo in pin stripes.

some large adult outfielders in the bronx

free agents

yasiel puig
ryan braun
zack cozart
jedd gyorko
sean rodriguez
edwin encarnacion
matt wieters
matt kemp
yoenis cespedes
rick porcello
andrew cashner

i was surprised to see a few of these names

You’d think if Pujols could find a team that can make room for him, a few of those dudes on the list could too.

i am assume some of them are holding out for a better deal, and then it just got too far into the season? i remember reading a few articles recently advocating for one team or another to pick up rick porcello as an innings eater. and maybe covid was a concern for some of them, i don't know.

puig appears to be keeping busy in the Mexican League

Golpe a Yasiel Puig, discusión y se vaciaron las bancas entre Pericos de Puebla y El Águila de Veracruz. pic.twitter.com/cBL1kzqv8v

— Liga Mexicana de Beisbol (@LigaMexBeis) July 23, 2021