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

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

i understand why TB made the deal, and by 2023 or 2024 their team will almost certainly be better for it. but i don't think winning a pennant and then immediately dealing your (inexpensive) best pitcher is a healthy thing. there's no prize for having the best farm system or most 'financial flexibility'.

mostly i was thinking about how i related to MLB when i was a kid, though. i had a favorite team, but having favorite *players* was more important to me -- someone you were excited to see come to bat or get a start. tampa is very smart and does what it does very well, but if i were a kid with a blake snell shirsey, it wouldn't really be comforting to know that the rays got a good return that will pan out in three years.

there is good economic sense in running your team (or league, or sport) like a hedge fund, but i think it -- yes, like destroying the minors -- tends to discount the reasons why fans care in the first place.

I would be more disappointed if they gave up on a bat. They're very good at identifying pitching talent. They already lost Morton so they kind of needed to reset. It's not like Rays fans go to the games anyway.

feeling that post, mp

somewhat bittersweet display name you’ve got now given the context :/

They needed to reset because they lost one pitcher? Who they easily could've resigned with all the money they hoard?

I think it was smart but it was definitely very Marlins-esque

I've been bemoaning the financial realties of the game for at least since the Dodgers traded Piazza; I hung on to the notion of face-of-the-franchise players long past its expiry date.

(As someone whose posts are littered with typos--and I don't have the excuse of a phone--"shirsey" is HOF.)

Naturally, I just found out a shirsey is an actual thing! (which I clued into on my own...hmmn, shirt + jersey).

A “shirsey” is definitely the biggest financial investment a Rays fan should be making in their favourite player these days.

I asked my friend, a Montrealer and Expos-fan-turned-Rays-fan what he thought of the trade and it really is such a perfect response I wanted to share it here

"It was inevitable, I kinda figured he was gone during the playoff run. So in that sense, I was not disappointed. I was more pissed that they didn’t re-sign Charlie Morton.

"That said, it sucks. I followed the Rays because of some sort of kindred spirits (read: my deep psychological trauma) with the Expos; in fact Tampa has perfected the Expos (front-office) Way. I hate that the only pyrrhic victory I can enjoy, it’s that small-market team philosophy won — from MTL to OAK to TB — but it came at the expense of killing the sport I loved. The shift, the launch angles, the rising fastballs, the acceptance of K’s, the openers.. they’re working, the underdogs have finally won and they’ve broken baseball.

"Good to pretty good return for Snell. Can’t wait until they trade Luis Patino after HIS Cy Young. Maybe this time they can do it from Montreal for full symmetry."

bob nightengale is saying the yu trade is on, but it's bob nightengale so grain of salt i guess

saying yu/victor caratini for davies and 4 other guys, none of whom are top prospects

if this happens....what a fun team this is gonna be

The other two are Ismael Mena and Yeison Santana. https://t.co/Ks9GPmsw6E

— Jeff Sanders (@sdutSanders) December 29, 2020

buncha teenagers

I love Caratini. Underrated catcher, and worked with Darvish.

i understand why TB made the deal, and by 2023 or 2024 their team will almost certainly be better for it. but i don't think winning a pennant and then immediately dealing your (inexpensive) best pitcher is a healthy thing. there's no prize for having the best farm system or most 'financial flexibility'.

mostly i was thinking about how i related to MLB when i was a kid, though. i had a favorite team, but having favorite *players* was more important to me -- someone you were excited to see come to bat or get a start. tampa is very smart and does what it does very well, but if i were a kid with a blake snell shirsey, it wouldn't really be comforting to know that the rays got a good return that will pan out in three years.

there is good economic sense in running your team (or league, or sport) like a hedge fund, but i think it -- yes, like destroying the minors -- tends to discount the reasons why fans care in the first place.

I agree with all that. Had the same reflexion for all those young Red Sox fans who just adored Betts.

I was recently thinking that a Cal Ripken probably could not happen today and it's very sad. Clubs with big financial power can sustain keeping a Kershaw or a Trout for the entirety of their careers, but they are few, and some don't even care (Red Sox and Betts being the best example).

That being said the strategic elements of sabermetrics (shift, opener, launch angles) haven't broken baseball yet, if baseball is broken, it is really because a bunch of owners have decided to pinch every penny possible from the players.