The 2021-2022 Non-Fungible Hot Stove Thread (Presented by Monkeyjizz)

didn't expect that.
next few days will likely be nutty as everyone tries to sign before the cba expires.

long-term deal from the Twins for Byron Buxton

Marcus Semien is close to a deal with the Texas Rangers

I assume they're offering mountains more than anyone else, because that seems like a terrible choice otherwise.

Yeah, if you look at the rest of the roster it is really hard to understand what the idea is there. They're years away.

175 mil for semien, 100 for buxton

avisail garcia to the marlins

I'll be interested to hear what the Jays offered (if they did). He just opted out of a potential 100-win team for a team coming off 100 losses, and he didn't end up back home, either.

jays are probably better off saving that money to spend on vlad/bo/pitching, i would think

Ya. I see the jays offering a fair deal (like 4 years) and saying they understand if he goes for a larger deal elsewhere since they need to focus on pitching etc. I guess he wanted to play SS again too - so I was surprised to see the rangers weee still talking to story.

And also they just spent that money on pitching! Gausman for 5 years, 110m.
Bummed this likely means the end of Ray here tho.
I wonder if they jays liked Gausman overall better for the next 5 years or if they just like that contract better then what Ray will likely land. I know the jays had been high on Gausman for a while now.

ray has had a lot of ups and downs -- he was great this year and was great in 2017 -- but i'm not so sure he's a great long-term bet

anyway look at the jays having a plan and executing it imo

also the fact that they managed to snag semien and ray at their most economical moments speaks well to the jays' front office

Semien was a goddamned gift in every way last year.

I like Ray a lot better than Gausman but Ray is probably looking for a $200M deal and Gausman cost half that, so I get the logic. Berrios/Ryu/Gausman/Manoah is a more than solid rotation.

Max Scherzer and the Mets are finalizing $130M, 3-year deal. Minor details to go only.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 29, 2021

well all right then

angry/upset Steve Cohen sure is something

Mets and Rangers spending a lot of money to miss the playoffs in 2022.

How many grand slams to relief pitchers will Scherzer give up this year, though.

damn! did not expect Scherzer to get $43M/year at 37 years old. then again, i guess he hasn't had a subpar season since like...2011?

and even that was only subpar by his standards - i'll take a 3.70 FIP for most seasons

I guess if Cohen wants to recreate the 1993 Mets, he's going to need his Bret Saberhagen to go with his Vince Coleman.

the pirates have countered by signing jerad eickhoff, who has a 6.48 ERA over the past four seasons

robbie ray to the mariners sounds like a done deal

I keep watching all these pitchers I want the angels to sign go somewhere else

No way they couldn't have outbid Seattle there

Troutani is never making it to the playoffs

BREAKING: Star shortstop Corey Seager and the Texas Rangers are in agreement on a 10-year, $325 million deal, sources familiar with the situation tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 29, 2021

wow

Correa's getting a billion then

By my calculations that means Seager will be the starting 3B for the Yanks in 2025.

Am I reading this right--Seattle got Ray for 5y/115m? Five more million that the Jays are paying Gausman? That can't be right.

By some measures, they were pretty similar last year:

https://www.fangraphs.com/warleaders.aspx?season=2021&team=all&type=2

I think the jays like Gaus better tbh. They also get the bonus of saving $5M, getting a comp pick for Ray and not having to give KG a NTC and opt-out.

To my eyes Ray is better and I’m surprised the M’s got him for that price.

Also can’t believe what the Rangers are up to. Spending half a billion on two short stops?! And they still have no pitching plus John Grey. I don’t see them playing much better than .500 and as far as I’m aware they don’t have a huge prospect crop about to break through. The timing feels all sorts of off.

Seager and Semien would be the best offensive option at pretty much any position they've got. Semien played great 2B this year.

I’m wondering where they play who, because Semien said he’d wanted to play SS wherever he wound up.

Seager's never played an inning of 2B in the majors or minors. I think there's more of a chance he plays 3B than 2B, but I guess we'll see. Sounds like they want Kiner-Falefa to play 3B which suggests to me that Seager stays at SS.

Well I hope someone told Semien the plan before he signed!

Their top hitting prospect Josh Jung is also a 3B/SS fwiw

So many of these moves seem weird, not just from the perspective of the teams but also the players, that it's probably the oldest story there is: pay me an extra dollar, and that's where I'm going.

I get that up to a point, but in the everyday world, don't most of us place great weight on where we'll be happiest--and if the money's comparable, that becomes the determinative factor? You would think that when you're dealing with sums of money exponentially (x exponentially) larger, that would be even more true--taking the lesser offer won't entail even minor adjustments to the way you live. But it's not.

who knows wtf TX is up to. this may work out moderately in the short-term but unless they have infinite money they seem to still be doomed

weird and refreshing to see a bad team try to get better

fwiw eno sarris had an athletic story comparing ray/gausman/stroman that puts them all pretty close

The Tigers (who just signed Baez) were headed in the right direction last year, right?

i feel like their hot streak last season was a bit of a fluke – but they are definitely heading in the right direction. Some of the young guys they have up, or coming up soon off the top of my head: Skubal, Mize, Baddoo and Torkelson. a decent enough young core to build around imho.

Major League Baseball announced a retroactive 20-game suspension without pay for Braves outfielder Marcell Ozuna, as per the terms of the MLB – MLBPA Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy. Ozuna’s suspension was retroactively served during his time on Administrative Leave at the end of this past season; he’ll be eligible to return to the field starting in 2022. He will forfeit twenty games’ salary, as his previous Administrative Leave placement had been paid pending the results of the league’s investigation.

Ozuna was arrested on May 29 after police responded to a domestic disturbance at his residence. Court filings at the time indicated that the responding officers saw Ozuna place his hands around his wife’s neck, throw her against a wall and strike her with a cast that was on his left hand. (He had fractured two fingers in a game the week before and was on the injured list at the time).

Felony charges originally brought against Ozuna were dropped in early August, but prosecutors moved forward with a pair of misdemeanor charges. In early September, Ozuna agreed to enter into a three-to-six month domestic violence intervention program that could see those charges dropped if he completes all the required measures. The domestic violence policy allows the league to impose discipline even in the absence of criminal charges.

Ozuna signed a four-year, $65MM contract with the Braves last offseason. He remains under contract through 2024.

oh, i forgot Riley Greene!

i can't believe that either side of the tigers/baez deal was able to sign the contract w/ a straight face. will he have an OBP over .300 in any season there? will they ever finish above .500?

you could have an hours long debate about which of the contracts signed so far will look the worst in 4 years. could legit offer up 5+ options and there's still several big contracts left to be signed

i don’t think it’s *that* bad. only goes through his age 34 season, he can still hit dingers, he’s good defensively. i don’t think $23m/year is too out of line for that, if you’re unwilling to pay a lot more for correa

otoh steamer has him at just 2 WAR in year one, so yeah maybe

The deal is too long and could blow up, but if they get 2018-19 Baez or Mets Baez then it looks pretty good. Their existing SS situation was pretty bad.

these deals always more or less make sense when you do the WAR calculations and what not, the front offices and agents are all working off the same data. but obv we know most of these contracts go south way before the gradual WAR regression tables want us to believe, and these teams are only handing out whoppers this offseason. baez could be good for the tigers for a few years, he could also be horrible and useless with a contract further underwater than a shipwreck 12 months from now and nobody would be surprised. best of luck to both parties!

what else do i have to say

Man that's sad. I'm not sure i've ever seen anybody with his arm.

Have i related this story before? With my parents and my kids at Fenway, watching an interleague game against Arizona. Top of the first. David Price on the mound. Leadoff hitter, can't remember who, absolutely rockets the first pitch he sees to deep center. JBJ goes back for it, kind of stumbles, and can't catch up to it. Over his head. The crowd groans. Standup triple. Jackie's kicking the grass back there. Second hitter comes to the plate and laces the first pitch HE sees to shallow center field, a laser this time, dipping down, the leadoff hitter trotting slowly home along the third base line. And somehow, impossibly, Jackie makes the catch off his shoelaces. He comes up firing. The leadoff hitter is like YIKES - he scrambles back but he's too late. The throw from Jackie is a strike, no hops, tagged out. Double play. Bases clear, two outs.

Actually I must be remembering that wrong - no need to tag him out because he'd left the base too early. In any case he did not beat the throw, which appeared to come from a whirling assembly of body parts in shallow center named "Jackie Bradley Jr". The combined motion of catching the ball and throwing that strike left Jackie sprawled on the ground but when he saw the out called he bounced right up, and headed back to his spot.

The other thing I remember about him in the field, which you never got to see on the telecasts, is how if he caught the third out of the inning, he and Mookie would play a kind of game of football when they were running back into the dugout. Mookie, playing right, would run a route towards the dugout, JBJ would launch the baseball to him and Mookie would glove it on the run like a wide receiver tucking away an outlet pass. Just pure joy in that outfield.

the cubs announced they're releasing jason heyward at the end of the season. he's injured right now but they're keeping him around for "veteran presence" for the rest of the season. kind of a bummer he never really panned out as a star, he seems like a cool guy.

There were these shaky cell phone videos of him w the cubs after he rebuilt his swing for the hundredth time where he’s taking BP and crushing balls down by his ankles and i remember feeling so happy for him that he had finally figured it out.

Fun player when he was on

he might have earned his cubs salary by pumping the team back up during the rain delay of world series game 7

i was convinced dude was going to be a hall of famer!

u mad

he put up 6.4 bWAR as a 20yo!

always interesting to me to look at the JAWS of ~good~ players -- heyward obviously isn't a hall-of-famer, but he's just under 40 bWAR through his age-32 season (today's his 33rd birthday)

JAWS has him as the 55th-best right-fielder of all-time. and that's really really good!

he was never a slam dunk case, but when he signed with the cubs he was only 26 and he had already racked up 25 fWAR. i was disappointed at the time that he didn't sign with the cardinals. i thought that he was young enough that a long, 8 year contract would still be worth it for his defense alone. i thought his floor was as a 3 WAR kind of player, with superb defense more than making up for what would probably be mediocre to slightly above average offense production. but that turned out to be more like his ceiling, and it got worse from there.

https://i.imgur.com/8pFoEbP.png

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/checking-in-on-the-aging-curve/

xp and yes, jason heyward is an exceptional baseball player, especially in comparison to normal people, but also in comparison to almost all of his peers

braves sign 21-year-old michael harris II, who has played one season of double-A ball and 71 MLB games, to an 8-year, $72 million extension

Makes me wonder if Swanson is a goner after this year.