Offseason Roster Thread

[Krylian]

I like how the casuals are always to blame. Like they have any say or power. No one gives a s*** nor should they.

[Laika]

Might of painted Atkins in the corner with the casuals.

 

lol

[glory]

Shatkins has done the opposite of what casual fans have wanted for three years.

 

They might give Axford an invite to ST to see if he can contribute but they won’t feel obligated to give him a spot or anything.

[Slade]

Obviously a joke but I can already see it on twitter. "Atkins hates Canadians! First Martin and now Axford"

[Carlos Danger]

Obviously a joke but I can already see it on twitter. "Atkins hates Canadians! First Martin and now Axford"

 

Just wait until he drops Pompey off the 40

man.

 

They all suck, so anything else would be some Canadian content quota like they have in their radio and TV rules.

[P2F]

Haven't listened yet, but here's Ross Atkins talking about moving on from veterans, being competitive ASAP, and the ongoing Kyler Murray debacle.

 

https://www.tsn.ca/radio/toronto-1050/atkins-we-re-looking-to-be-competitive-as-soon-as-possible-1.1241412

[Spanky__99]

Haven't listened yet, but here's Ross Atkins talking about moving on from veterans, being competitive ASAP, and the ongoing Kyler Murray debacle.

 

https://www.tsn.ca/radio/toronto-1050/atkins-we-re-looking-to-be-competitive-as-soon-as-possible-1.1241412

 

Good listen.

[z3r0s]

So Machado apparently sitting at 7 years @ 25-30M yearly-ish. That's really crazy low. At some point you need to just take the value while its there, even if its earlier than you expected.

[L54]

I would puke if I ever had to watch Manny Machado play for Toronto

[Terminator]

I would puke if I ever had to watch Manny Machado play for Toronto

 

I have a feeling you'd get over it pretty quick!

[Laika]

So Machado apparently sitting at 7 years @ 25-30M yearly-ish. That's really crazy low. At some point you need to just take the value while its there, even if its earlier than you expected.

 

The thing that is weird and stinky about free agency is that teams don't seem to make any attempt to bid up the prices anymore.

 

At 7/$30 or 8/$25 or whatever there should be a dozen teams lined up with formal offers. It makes no sense.

 

Why would nobody offer DJL more money or years? 2/$12 is a no-brainer for the Yankees and it's pathetic to see the Yankees just get no-brainer decisions falling into their lap.

[Jimcanuck]

The thing that is weird and stinky about free agency is that teams don't seem to make any attempt to bid up the prices anymore.

 

At 7/$30 or 8/$25 or whatever there should be a dozen teams lined up with formal offers. It makes no sense.

 

Why would nobody offer DJL more money or years? 2/$12 is a no-brainer for the Yankees and it's pathetic to see the Yankees just get no-brainer decisions falling into their lap.

 

There was an interesting article in BA discussing this yesterday. Will paste when I get home, too much of a pain from a cell

[Brownie19]

Why would nobody offer DJL more money or years? 2/$12 is a no-brainer for the Yankees and it's pathetic to see the Yankees just get no-brainer decisions falling into their lap.

 

DJL turns 31 this year and his value is almost solely generated by this defense. He has a lot of similarities to Pillar (Pillar runs better). He's a 2 WAR player (2016 appears to be an anomaly) and I don't think teams are willing to buy into him as a starter moving forward. I fully expect to see the same thing happen to Pillar when he hits free agency.

[Terminator]

The thing that is weird and stinky about free agency is that teams don't seem to make any attempt to bid up the prices anymore.

 

At 7/$30 or 8/$25 or whatever there should be a dozen teams lined up with formal offers. It makes no sense.

 

Why would nobody offer DJL more money or years? 2/$12 is a no-brainer for the Yankees and it's pathetic to see the Yankees just get no-brainer decisions falling into their lap.

 

Grandal is a great example too. 3 WAR Catcher entering his age 30 season. He can hit and he's one of the best framers in the game. Settled for a 1 year deal not much better than the qualifying offer. A team like the Rockies should have been all over that.

[Laika]

DJL turns 31 this year and his value is almost solely generated by this defense. He has a lot of similarities to Pillar (Pillar runs better). He's a 2 WAR player (2016 appears to be an anomaly) and I don't think teams are willing to buy into him as a starter moving forward. I fully expect to see the same thing happen to Pillar when he hits free agency.

 

You sound like a corporate MLB-side apologist!

[Brownie19]

You sound like a corporate MLB-side apologist!

 

plus we all know that 2nd basemen in their early to mid 30's always fall off a cliff. Yanks signed him to be a backup player, which is probably a good fit moving forward (can he play a little 3rd too? or does he not have the arm)

[Brownie19]

Grandal is a great example too. 3 WAR Catcher entering his age 30 season. He can hit and he's one of the best framers in the game. Settled for a 1 year deal not much better than the qualifying offer. A team like the Rockies should have been all over that.

 

Didn't we hear that Grandal turned down some multi-year deals to sign with the Brew Crew?

[Spanky__99]

Didn't we hear that Grandal turned down some multi-year deals to sign with the Brew Crew?

 

I didn't hear that, but he did turn down 4/60 which seems low, also.

[Brownie19]

I didn't hear that, but he did turn down 4/60 which seems low, also.

 

are you trolling me friend?

[Spanky__99]

are you trolling me friend?

 

lol... forgive me, I didn't sleep at all.

[L54]

I have a feeling you'd get over it pretty quick!

 

Extremely unlikely. There are no rules that you have to like players because they play for your favorite team. I’d rather see them pay someone else 30M a year, not the modern day Alex Rodriguez

[Spanky__99]

Extremely unlikely. There are no rules that you have to like players because they play for your favorite team. I’d rather see them pay someone else 30M a year, not the modern day Alex Rodriguez

 

He's pretty damn good though, lol. I digress, he's a legit POS, and can eat a dumptruck full of fat gargantuan sized dicks in the South Side of Chicago!

[DigitalRock]

Shatkins has done the opposite of what casual fans have wanted for three years.

 

They might give Axford an invite to ST to see if he can contribute but they won’t feel obligated to give him a spot or anything.

 

Thank God.

[Jimcanuck]

Thank God.

 

You seem to know your s***. You should join one of our baseball leagues.

[Jimcanuck]

There was an interesting article in BA discussing this yesterday. Will paste when I get home, too much of a pain from a cell

 

For the second straight year, free agency has slowed to a crawl.

 

With one month until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, just 82 of the 217 major league free agents (38 percent) have signed or agreed to contracts. Seventy-three of those 82 players received deals of two years or fewer.

 

But while the free agent freeze has dominated headlines, players are still on the move and teams are still filling their roster holes. It’s just happening in a different way.

 

Increasingly, teams are opting to pay in prospects, rather than dollars, to acquire players they need.

 

A total of 38 player-for-player trades have been completed since the end of World Series. Twenty-nine of those 38 (76 percent) involved primarily prospects going one way and primarily big leaguers going the other.

 

That is up markedly from previous years. Through this date last offseason, there were 19 such prospect-for-veteran trades. In the 2016-17 offseason, there had been 15.

 

The Reds needed starters and opted to acquire Tanner Roark and Alex Wood in trades for prospects rather than dip into the free agent pitching pool.

 

The Mets needed bench depth and swapped six prospects for Keon Broxton and J.D. Davis rather than go the free agent route.

 

The Nationals needed catching and acquired Yan Gomes for three prospects rather than sign one of the more than 20 available free agent catchers at the time.

 

The White Sox sought starting pitchers and a first baseman and traded prospects for Ivan Nova and Yonder Alonso. The Astros needed infield depth and traded a minor leaguer for Aledmys Diaz. The Athletics needed a second baseman and traded two prospects, international bonus pool money and a draft pick for Jurickson Profar in a three-team deal.

 

All of those holes could have been filled via free agency, without a team risking a traded prospect coming back to haunt them.

 

Instead, the teams involved decided the prospect cost to acquire a player via trade was still less than the dollar cost to sign one.

 

"A lot of the mid-market free agents, just the way the system is now (because of) the CBA, it just doesn’t incentivize you to spend a lot of money on those guys,” one American League official said.

 

That issue—the structure of the Collective Bargaining Agreement—remains at the core of players’ concerns and is oft-cited as the root of the current state of free agency.

 

With the competitive balance tax serving effectively as a hard cap on free agent spending, lucrative, long-term deals for second-tier free agents are no longer in clubs’ interests because of the taxes and draft pick penalties incurred.

 

As such, teams are going the trade route more frequently and using prospects as the primary currency.

 

 

Part of that calculation, per one veteran National League executive, is free agents waiting longer to sign in the new landscape, hoping the big contract they’ve dreamed of comes through at the last minute.

 

“In a perfect world, you don’t want to do it that way (trade prospects), but it’s a different era. Free agents aren’t signing that quick,” the NL executive said. “It’s just different where guys are pushing it back much further, the signing date. Clubs are still in it to win it and can’t wait until February to profile out their team. We’re trying to compete. We can’t take that risk.”

 

Clubs have made those intentions known through their actions. Agents are trying to respond, knowing now that if their non-elite clients wait too long, teams will simply trade a few prospects to fill a need.

 

“If there is an opportunity to sign early, to strike early, then you do that,” said one agent on how he now advises his clients. “Waiting doesn’t always pay off in the end. The history, at least in the past two years, seems to be that a lot of players who have struck deals early have done well.

 

“Here we are getting into February and there are a lot of free agents out there that may not sign. I don’t think that anyone wants to go back to that camp in Bradenton (held) last year. I don’t think that was fruitful. But it became necessary because of the shift in the timing of deals getting done.”

 

Even as more free agents begin to come off the board, the trend does not appear to be abating. The Dodgers became the latest team to trade prospects to fill a need rather than sign a free agent, sending two prospects to the Blue Jays for 35-year-old Russell Martin and assuming $3.6 million of his salary rather than take that money and spend it on a free agent catcher without giving up young players.

 

But the Dodgers made the same calculus most teams have—that $3.6 million and two prospects is a lesser price than what they would have had to pay on the free agent catching market, even for a part-time veteran as Martin is now.

 

With the current system how it is now, all sides expect that pattern to only keep getting more pronounced.

 

“In theory, if you can just spend money versus giving up assets of your own, it makes more sense to give up money,” the AL executive said. “But it’s definitely a trend. The free agency market is again moving slowly. I don’t know the answer to it.”

[Laika]

That issue—the structure of the Collective Bargaining Agreement—remains at the core of players’ concerns and is oft-cited as the root of the current state of free agency.

 

With the competitive balance tax serving effectively as a hard cap on free agent spending, lucrative, long-term deals for second-tier free agents are no longer in clubs’ interests because of the taxes and draft pick penalties incurred.

 

As such, teams are going the trade route more frequently and using prospects as the primary currency.

 

This explanation definitely does not satisfy me. Most teams do not care about the cap or the associated penalties.

[Brownie19]

This explanation definitely does not satisfy me. Most teams do not care about the cap or the associated penalties.

 

most of the teams they list who chose to trade prospects to fill holes (instead of buying a FA) aren't up against the luxury cap limit either. Aren't there only a few in baseball that are? This seems like a flawed argument.

[Spanky__99]

You seem to know your s***. You should join one of our baseball leagues.

 

lol

[Laika]

most of the teams they list who chose to trade prospects to fill holes (instead of buying a FA) aren't up against the luxury cap limit either. Aren't there only a few in baseball that are? This seems like a flawed argument.

 

My assumption right now is that the depressed FA market is not actually an effect of the current CBA.

I also highly doubt that it's collusion or anything like that.

 

More likely, IMO, it's one of these things:

 

1) A natural market reaction to a saturation, over time, of horrendous deals. See enough Albert Pujols situations happen and you might vow to never go there. Or Jason Heyward, Chris Davis, Miguel Cabrera, etc. If enough teams decide to never go there again, the market collapses.

2) There is something behind the curtain that most teams know about that the public does not. Some type of novel research finding about surplus value or modern aging curves, that has drastically altered how teams project and value these players on the free agent market.

[Boxcar]

lol

 

I guess part of being the dumbest poster on the forum is being blissfully unaware that you're the dumbest poster on the forum.