2022-23 Hot Stove thread

lol the red sox are all like TAKE OUR MONEY and the only one paying attention is kenle_y

Jeter definitely wore the C, I remember it

I tried googling this and turned up nothing except this a arm patch which says captain
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/61/15/05/12898663/8/1200x0.jpg

It’s no electrical tape C

The Captain? pic.twitter.com/Er67nkoWV9

— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) September 10, 2021

Maybe he included the C with his gift baskets

weird. mandela effect??

It seems like the kind of thing he’d do though right?

James and Posnanski both wrote about the Red Sox yesterday (well, Posnanski was actually writing about Judge):

James - "My reasons for wanting Xander back with the Red Sox don't have too much to do with winning. They can win with Xander; if they spend the same money on some other star, they'll be as likely to win. But Xander is the captain of all the class acts. Something there you can't replace."

Posnanski: "And yet this team dickered around with Judge, lowballed him ($213 million for seven years), then bizarrely made their bad offer public. I still don’t know what the Yankees were thinking on that one. They said that they went public for “transparency purposes,” which you know is a whole lot of hooey. My best guess is they did it to mildly embarrass Judge for not accepting so much money … maybe they thought that would bring him back to the negotiating table. My second-best guess is they did it to show their fans that they really did make a good-faith effort … you know, in case Judge left.*

*This, I think, was the Red Sox strategy before they shamefully let Mookie Betts go. I don’t have any inside information here, but I honestly don’t think the Red Sox made a serious offer to keep Betts. I think they made various lowball offers and when Betts turned those down, what do you know, whispers suddenly circulated that Betts wanted out and that he wouldn’t sign with the Red Sox at any price. Then, voila, the Red Sox traded him so they could get under the luxury tax threshold. “It’s just business,” Betts says. “It is what it is.”

...I mentioned at the top that there’s a lesson here. And it’s a delightful one: DO NOT TRY TO SHORTCHANGE YOUR MARQUEE PLAYERS."

Machado, Bogarts, and Tatis: not as rock-star euphonious as Betts, Bogarts, and Ortiz, but they should be quite formidable.

Thanks I hate it

it’s Bogaerts by the way

I think I've been misspelling that for years.

Baggarly writes about the Giants side of the Judge trade:

Not at any point during a two-day summit that could’ve taught a timeshare agent a thing or two about the art of the hard sell. Not when his parents, Wayne and Patty, drove into the city from the Central Valley to dine with top club executives in the ballpark’s Gotham Club. Not when they saw the look on Judge’s face as a curtain parted and Rich Aurilia, his favorite player while growing up, made a surprise entrance.

None of it felt forced or perfunctory. His parents didn’t make a token appearance, excuse themselves, and get halfway across the Bay Bridge before dessert. The two retired schoolteachers stayed deep into the night, charmed Giants officials with their wholesomeness and then politely declined the offer of a hotel room for the night.

This would be a family decision for Judge and his wife, Samantha. You do not ride a stalking horse in a homecoming parade.

But the Giants also knew what they were up against. They understood what it meant for Judge to continue to build his legacy in New York, where he’d just hit more home runs in a season than Babe Ruth or Roger Maris or anyone else who ever wore Yankee pinstripes. The Giants understood where the money would go and that didn’t deter them from presenting themselves as a legitimate destination for Judge to mash baseballs throughout his thirtysomething years.

But they knew this was not a player who could be bought. He was a player who needed to be sold.

At just after 5 a.m. Wednesday, Giants president Farhan Zaidi was awakened from whatever shallow somnolence his jangles of adrenaline had allowed him to enter. He could hear his cell phone buzzing on the nightstand. Before he could adjust his eyes, he understood what his screen would tell him.

“You’re probably not going to get a yes in a 5 a.m. text,” Zaidi said.

willson contreras to the cards, one of my favorite players to one of my least favorite teams, ugh.

i missed that the cubs signed jameson taillon

mets and phils in all out war to see who can get the most jan 6 indictments on their 40 man rosters https://t.co/u8baAjRa68

— express written consent haver (@KenRosenthot) December 7, 2022

Machado, Bogarts, and Tatis: not as rock-star euphonious as Betts, Bogarts, and Ortiz, but they should be quite formidable.

Don’t forget Soto

i gotta say that's going to be one good-looking team and i don't mean their batting averages

You don’t mean Cubs do you

(xxpost) I did, embarrassingly enough, twice in this thread. (Doesn't quite work in the context of the joke, but no one under 60's going to get that anyway.) Which would have made Judge-Machado-Soto-Tatis just about the most fearsome quartet since who knows what.

no the Padres!

xpost

thank you for bringing this to my attention.

(I was hoping you meant the Cubs though, you know, considering.)

https://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/embed/public/2018/08/16/gettyimages-1017376680_0.jpg

https://mlb.nbcsports.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2019/07/gettyimages-1155005755-e1563138045132.jpg

https://www.yardbarker.com/media/2/4/2420fb8830c99fe6c83d68405075773d2429e2ff/thumb_16x9/13110857.jpg?v=1

https://i1.wp.com/defpen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/chin091014soxorioles_spt22.jpg?w=960

they're going to be the fuckin Beatles of baseball man. crazy lineup.

the beatles also used performance-enhancing drugs

god bless those boys

jeff passan story about the bogaerts signing had an anon quote from a red sox front office guy saying that they aren't going to give out 10 year deals because those contracts don't work out for teams. which i think everyone agrees with! but it also feels weird to see the red sox be run this way.

also based on the turner & bogaerts contracts it looks like teams are maybe looking at a hockey-ish model of super long years to lessen the AAV of these deals. the rangers seem to be the one team still handing out these early 2010s style contracts to FAs

machado has and seems likely to use an opt-out after next season, which no doubt had a bearing on the padres going after bogaerts

saw it claimed somewhere that the sox offer to him was under $200m (!)

The suspense is killing me slightly discomfiting me re: Dansby. I can't help but feel (without evidence) he's peaked and the Barves would be better served with a good-enough SS and a big push on LF improvement. (If they've already done something about LF plz ignore.)

can't imagine what Correa is going to get, being two years younger and better than Bogaerts. Swanson is sort of the poor man's Bogaerts, he's not bad if you need a SS but he worries me yeah. I think the Cubs will land one of those guys, I'd prefer it to be Correa for sure.

Honestly don’t see the Twins reaching deep enough to bring back Correa. It’s probably Swanson or someone more replacement level (the consensus is the braves aren’t bringing him back, no?)

dansby's coming off a big season and he's a good player, but also his career wRC+ is 94. i don't see him getting a deal anywhere near bogaerts/correa/turner level

was surprised to see Correa's career bWAR as high as it is, considering how much time he's missed, but per 162 games he's averaging 7.2 -- which is way above the likes of Machado and Harper and some others.

Just to cheer up tracer hand:

Chaim Bloom inherited 27 year old Mookie, 27 YO Bogaerts, 25 YO Benintendi, and 23 YO Devers and so far has turned them into:

Alex Verdugo
Jeter Downs
Connor Wong
Franchy Cordero
Josh Winckowski
Grant Gambrell
Luis De La Rosa
Freddy Valdez

Devers still here, but not extended

— Michael Dyer (@Mike_Dyer13) December 8, 2022

devers will hit free agency next winter having just turned 27

bloom is the leonardo dicaprio of GMs, all his serious relationships have to be terminated by age 27

saw it claimed somewhere that the sox offer to him was under $200m (!)

― mookieproof, Thursday, December 8, 2022 12:52 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, is this really so insulting? we will see how good a 30 year old SS with an average glove and average power looks in 5 years…then in 11 years

dunno about insulting -- i just think it's notable that their offer wasn't even in the same ballpark, so to speak, as san diego's

saw a quote today (from farhan zaidi i think) to the effect that if you act rationally about free agents, you'll always finish third in getting them. there are no prizes for financial efficiency

Bogaerts has had a couple of superstar level seasons but mostly I want to say he’s felt maybe just a little disappointing, at least over the last couple years. he made leaps in 2018 and 2019 but seems to have taken a step back.

Not that he is anything other than a good shortstop but it really is going to be interesting to see how this contract looks in a few years.

tbf all the contracts are going to look bad in a few years. someone pointed out that judge's deal is basically the same as prince albert's deal with the angels, adjusted for inflation/increased revenue

but hey, it's not my money

One difference w judge I think is he’s coming off his best season (and one of the best hitting seasons in recent memory) while pujols signed the deal after the first season of his decline phase. I mean looking back on that final year with the Cardinals, red flags were all there.

Admittedly judge maybe just be signing before the first season of his decline phase but he’s in better shape than Albert was. I want to believe. 🛸

Nimmo, 8 years 162 million.

Good lord

happy for him but yeah

Nimmo's deal reminds me of Jayson Werth's with the Nationals about ten years ago, at a time when people thought 4-5 WAR outfielders were the new market inefficiency.

Nimmo is a good player but he’s also turning thirty soon, how much better do they think he’ll get? The deal makes sense if he was in his mid-twenties and they were trying to lock him down.

definitely seems like the trend this offseason is players getting (over)paid. pretty much every deal has been high. otoh life is more expensive in general now

The money seems kind of meaningless if you start to think about it. It’s a boring rant but I still can’t normalize stuff where people hold out for an extra $125 Million and it comes across as being justified.

I mean a lot of right thinking teams have their core kids locked up for eternity that FA money is going to go somewhere

minor league deal with the dodgers for jason heyward. is kyle hendricks the last cub standing from the 2016 world series team?

Senga to the Mets.

Pretty crazy the amount of spending they are doing but they did basically have their entire starting rotation / bullpen on an expiring deal. I also assume some of this was supposed to be Degrom money.