Around Baseball 2025

[BTS]

Jeff Kent elected to the HoF. Bonds and Clemens don't secure enough votes to re-appear on the next few veterans committee ballots 

[L54]

Hope we get some action these next few days at the Winter Meetings 

[Laika]

From The Athletic this morning.

Quote

At the same time, the A’s are showing little interest in simply dumping right-hander Luis Severino, who is guaranteed $42 million over the next two seasons, with the second year being a player option. Teams have shown interest in taking Severino’s entire salary, but only if the A’s do not require them to part with talent in return. The A’s, already in need of a starter, would prefer to bank on Severino improving over his first season with the team instead.

It really seems like this is the best chance to find a fit for Berrios. 

Severino is owed $25M and $22M (player option) 
Berrios is owed $18.7M, $24.7M, and $24.7M

Very similar post-trade CBT AAVs 

Severino projects better so it makes no sense on paper but there are personnel factors - it seemed like both SP had relationship issues in 2025 with their current organization. Perhaps the As want someone more reliable and steady. Maybe a C prospect or some $$$ is involved bridges the gaps. Severino is more viable as a relief option, if everyone is healthy and he is outperformed by Ponce. 

[Laika]

 

 

[L54]

Red Sox seem like the best fit honestly 

They can offer Campbell as a centrepiece and immediate replacement plus pitching 

[L54]

 

[Orgfiller]

4 minutes ago, L54 said:

Red Sox seem like the best fit honestly 

They can offer Campbell as a centrepiece and immediate replacement plus pitching 

Campbell suxxx though. No position butcher who took a big step back with the bat in 2025. Average EV of 84 in AAA yikes. And not even cheap!

[John_Havok]

40 minutes ago, BTS said:

Jeff Kent elected to the HoF. Bonds and Clemens don't secure enough votes to re-appear on the next few veterans committee ballots 

Yep. 

Jeff Kent was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, as revealed by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee tonight.  Kent received 14 of a possible 16 votes from the Era Committee, easily topping the 75% (12 of 16) threshold needed for induction to Cooperstown.  Of the other seven candidates under consideration, Carlos Delgado was the next-closest candidate with nine votes, and Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly each received six votes.  Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, and Fernando Valenzuela all received less than five votes.

[Jonn]

18 minutes ago, Laika said:

 

 

Lets not forget they want to trade Marte because he’s a terrible teammate. Plus the acquiring cost. I don’t care how good he is. Better business elsewhere.

[L54]

8 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

Campbell suxxx though. No position butcher who took a big step back with the bat in 2025. Average EV of 84 in AAA yikes. And not even cheap!

I’m sure between Campbell and Mayer they can use one of them as a big piece. I forgot about his extension but it’s 7M 

I guess the Jays have a logical fit with Barger too. Hard to imagine a deal getting done without him in it 

[Orgfiller]

1 minute ago, L54 said:

I’m sure between Campbell and Mayer they can use one of them as a big piece. I forgot about his extension but it’s 7M 

I guess the Jays have a logical fit with Barger too. Hard to imagine a deal getting done without him in it 

Yeah I think a Jays deal includes Barger to get the conversation started. Agreed on someone like Mayer being the centerpiece for Boston as well.

[Laika]

Lawlar + Mayer is a fun infield combo. Arizona can collect all of the pre-bust fake shortstop prospects. 

[Jimcanuck]

26 minutes ago, Laika said:

Lawlar + Mayer is a fun infield combo. Arizona can collect all of the pre-bust fake shortstop prospects. 

Lawlar is my break out pick for 2026

[Olerud363.354]

1 hour ago, John_Havok said:

Carlos Delgado was the next-closest candidate with nine votes, and Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly each received six votes.

Olerud has 57 fWAR compared to Delgado 44 and Mattingly 40.   Delgado has a 135 wRC+, Olerud 130 wRC+, and Mattingly a 124 wRC+.

The only reason Olerud isn't being considered with Delgado is I guess is that people don't think the 1b defense metrics are real.  

What is the reason that he isn't being considered along side Mattingly?  Olerud is better on offense and defense.  

Olerud's best two seasons are both better than Mattingly's two best.  His best 5 combined are better.  If Olerud wasn't platooned by CIto his career would look completely different.  20 homers and 80 rbis on back of the baseball card looks so much better than 15 and 60.  

Then there is the second order effect that platooning probably had on a young player.  Not seeing lefties much for so many years probably hurt his development.  

[Olerud363.354]

John Olerud had an 8 fWAR MVP type season at 24 to start his prime years hitting .363 and setting the Blue Jays batting average record. 

John Olerud had an 8 fWAR MVP type season at 29 to end his prime years hitting .354 and setting the Mets batting average record.

Have to think if he had a manager and organization that believed in his style his age 25-28 seasons would have been better.  Even with that way more fWAR than Delgado and Mattingly... should have been a hall of famer.  Should have been a life long Blue Jay. 

[Olerud363.354]

Enough about Olerud already Olerud.

One more thing.   He also had potential as a pitcher.  I don't think it was Ohtani like potential but crafty lefty type potential.  Given his elite hand eye coordination (which shows up on offense and defense) got to think he'd he'd have had more control than Brandon Little.  

Probably could have pitched 50 innings a year, at the very least been a position player mop up guy with some actual pitching game.  

Love to see another player like him come up in my life time.  

[Laika]

2 minutes ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Olerud has 57 fWAR compared to Delgado 44 and Mattingly 40.   Delgado has a 135 wRC+, Olerud 130 wRC+, and Mattingly a 124 wRC+.

The only reason Olerud isn't being considered with Delgado is I guess is that people don't think the 1b defense metrics are real.  

What is the reason that he isn't being considered along side Mattingly?  Olerud is better on offense and defense.  

Olerud's best two seasons are both better than Mattingly's two best.  His best 5 combined are better.  If Olerud wasn't platooned by CIto his career would look completely different.  20 homers and 80 rbis on back of the baseball card looks so much better than 15 and 60.  

Then there is the second order effect that platooning probably had on a young player.  Not seeing lefties much for so many years probably hurt his development.  

Hardware and contextual impact I guess

6 time AS + 9 time GG + MVP + MVP candidate by voting a few times

vs

2 time AS + 3 time GG + topped out as 3rd in MVP voting and never got serious consideration outside of that year 

 

Have to think that Olerud continues to get discussed and might eventually get in one year via Veteran's Committee. Similar case as Alan Trammell, just a bit less career WAR. ??? I don't remember how the Eras / Veteran's Committee works. Can players just stay on it forever? 

[Laika]

Sonny Gray lied about wanting to play for Yankees before 2017 trade, Brian Cashman says

 

ORLANDO, Fla. — It all started with a little Gray lie?

Sonny Gray made waves last week after he was traded from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Boston Red Sox, saying that he “never” wanted to play for the New York Yankees in the first place and that he was excited to join Boston, “where it’s easy to hate the Yankees.”

But Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Gray lied behind the scenes about wanting to play for the team before the club acquired him in 2017 in what wound up as a failed marriage.

Speaking to reporters at the Winter Meetings on Sunday night, Cashman said Gray — then pitching for the Oakland Athletics — was telling people at the time that he wanted to play for the Yankees and that Gray later admitted he was fibbing the whole time.

“When he was with the A’s, he was telling our minor-league video coordinator, ‘You got to get me over to the Yankees,’” Cashman said. “‘Tell Cash, get me over to the Yankees. I want out of Oakland. I want a championship.’”

Cashman said Gray was “communicating that to a number of different people … that he wants to be a Yankee.”

But in his second season in the Bronx, after Gray told Cashman he was surprised the Yankees didn’t trade him at the 2018 deadline, he came clean to the general manager.

“That’s when he told me he never wanted to be here,” Cashman said. “He hates New York. ‘This is the worst place.’ He just sits in his hotel room.”

Cashman said when he reminded Gray he had told people he wanted to be traded to the Yankees, Gray laid the blame on his agent, Bo McKinnis.

“(McKinnis) told me to do that,” Gray said, according to Cashman.

Cashman said Gray told him McKinnis “told me to lie” because “it wouldn’t be good for my free agency to say there’s certain places that I don’t want to go to.”

“In 2017, Sonny did not have no-trade rights with the Oakland Athletics, so he had no legal right to have input as to where he would be traded or if he would be traded,” McKinnis told The Athletic when reached for comment Sunday night. “As such, he made no statement that he did or did not want to be traded to any specific team, and thus, there was no statement that could have included a lie.

“The Athletics had no obligation to inform Sonny of any trade communications they had with other clubs, so they never told him they were potentially trading him to any particular team. As an aside, if a player does not want to play for a particular club — thus potentially not performing at their best if they were with that team — it does not help their career and future free agency to lie their way into a trade to that club.”

A short while later, McKinnis sent another message to The Athletic:

“So, Brian is trying to make people believe I told Sonny to, in Cashman’s words, ‘lie’ to the minor-league video guy to try to get Sonny to the Yankees — even though, per Cashman, Sonny did not want to be with the Yankees — to subsequently somehow help Sonny’s free agency. This makes zero sense. … Further, the words, ‘I want out of Oakland,’ have never been said by Sonny. He loved his time with the A’s.”

Cashman said he told Gray the Yankees might not have traded for him if they had known how much he didn’t want to play for them.

“‘I wish you would have told me well beforehand,’” Cashman recalled saying to Gray. “‘I wish we knew this before we even tried to acquire you, that you never wanted to come here.’ We tried to do our homework.”

At his introductory news conference at Yankee Stadium in 2017, Gray appeared thrilled to join the team.

“I couldn’t be happier with how it all played out,” he said at the time, “and I couldn’t be happier to be here.”

Then Gray spent a miserable 538 days with the club, going 15-16 with a 4.51 ERA in 41 games (34 starts). He was frequently booed before the Yankees traded him to the Cincinnati Reds in January 2019.

When the Yankees acquired Gray for Dustin Fowler, James Kaprielian and Jorge Mateo, he had already been an All-Star with Oakland in 2015. He has since made All-Star teams as a member of the Reds and Minnesota Twins.

Gray immediately struggled when he joined the Yankees midseason in 2017, going 4-7 with a 3.72 ERA in 11 starts and never seeming to be on the same page with then-pitching coach Larry Rothschild. Then, in 2018, he went 8-7 with a 5.08 ERA in 20 starts before the trade deadline. Cashman said Gray thought the Yankees would trade him before the deadline. When it didn’t happen, the pair spoke in an office at Yankee Stadium.

That was when Gray revealed to Cashman that he never wanted to be a Yankee in the first place. Cashman replied that in the offseason, he’d do his best to trade him.

“I told him, ‘Nothing I can do about it now,’” Cashman said.

— Ken Rosenthal contributed to this report.

[Orgfiller]

1 hour ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Olerud has 57 fWAR compared to Delgado 44 and Mattingly 40.   Delgado has a 135 wRC+, Olerud 130 wRC+, and Mattingly a 124 wRC+.

The only reason Olerud isn't being considered with Delgado is I guess is that people don't think the 1b defense metrics are real.  

What is the reason that he isn't being considered along side Mattingly?  Olerud is better on offense and defense.  

Olerud's best two seasons are both better than Mattingly's two best.  His best 5 combined are better.  If Olerud wasn't platooned by CIto his career would look completely different.  20 homers and 80 rbis on back of the baseball card looks so much better than 15 and 60.  

Then there is the second order effect that platooning probably had on a young player.  Not seeing lefties much for so many years probably hurt his development.  

Here's my view on it.

From a league context/popularity perspective, Olerud is far behind all three of these guys. This isn't entirely his fault, he's an advanced stats darling who mostly played in an era where the things he did best weren't yet fully appreciated as they are now.

Olerud's accolades are 2x AS, 3x GG, a batting title, and the fact that he was a part of 2 WS champion teams, but not the most popular player in them. Not a single Silver Slugger is a big detriment to his case, although he arguably definitely should have some. I think his two 8 WAR years being so far from one another also hurt him in popularity, if he repeated those in 93-94 or 98-99 he might have some more notoriety. Instead he was more "boring" good around those seasons, instead of a force to be reckoned with.

All in all, Olerud only had 3 seasons of 5+ WAR production. Compare that to:

• Keith Hernandez - seven 5+ WAR seasons. 1x MVP, 11x GG, 5x AS, 2x SS
• Don Mattingly - four (consecutive) 5+ WAR seasons, 1x MVP, 9x GG, 6x AS, 3x SS, bonus: played for the Yankees
• Delgado - three 5+ WAR seasons, 2x AS, 3x SS (in peak steroid era), bonus: 473 career HR which is about as much as Mattingly and Olerud combined. Allegedly clean(?) player in steroid era who still had monster numbers

To me, from this list Keith Hernandez is the only guy who should most likely be in the Hall. Mattingly had the peak and popularity but not the longevity. Olerud is missing the popularity and the peak. Delgado probably just broke out too late to have a shot, and the missing 27 HR to gain him "automatic" induction is probably what costs him.

[Terminator]

These two are close enough that you could go either way:

• Hernandez also has the “greatest defensive 1B” case. Whether he was the best or not, his highlights make it clear he was elite. He moved like a shortstop, and if he did not throw lefty he probably would have played on the left side of the infield. He should be in.
• Olerud should be in if Hernandez is, but I see why his case is weaker due to the hardware. But it's not his fault idiot writers (and front offices) didn't evaluate him properly when he played. He still has some accolades (3x GG, 2 x AS, Batting Title, 2x WS winner). He also has two 8 WAR seasons, nobody else being mentioned had any.

These two aren't there for me:

• Mattingly isn't a HoFer to me. He was great for 4 seasons but in the other 10 or so he only put up about 15 WAR. It's unfortunate because it was probably due to injuries but if he wasn't a Yankee he wouldn't even be on the HoF radar. If he was a better manager on top of his player status, I could see making a better case for him.
• Delgado is not a Hall of Famer to me. His talent and counting stats were close, but as a first baseman in the steroid era you either needed to be a bit better or last a bit longer. His career wRC+ was only slightly higher than the others being discussed, and his defense was much worse. If the Jays had moved him off catcher earlier in the minors, he probably would have reached the majors sooner, and that extra production might have pushed him over the line. Another one or two effective seasons at the end of his career might have done it too. He is close but not quite there, though if he gets in I will still celebrate. There are worse Hall of Famers, and it would be nice to see more Jays added. I also do not factor steroids into my HoF evaluations at all really. That probably leads me to penalize the supposedly clean guys like Delgado and not punishing the others enough.

 

 

[Brownie19]

Bonus points to Hernandez for the magic loogie.  Olerud's loogies were below average I'm told - Alomar never taught him properly.

[BTS]

Mets reportedly interested in Schwarber. 

I don't understand their lack of respect for Alonso. By all accounts he wants to be there and is well liked by everyone in the org. He's not going to get outrageous money - just pay him and have him chase 500 HR as a career Met. 

[sliderguy35]

42 minutes ago, BTS said:

Mets reportedly interested in Schwarber. 

I don't understand their lack of respect for Alonso. By all accounts he wants to be there and is well liked by everyone in the org. He's not going to get outrageous money - just pay him and have him chase 500 HR as a career Met. 

the mets are using monopoly money, but they still care about years & roster flexibility. if you assume they're both ~140 wRC+ bats over the next few years, stearns would probably rather pay schwarber a higher AAV but for 2 less years to give him more flexibility down the road. 

it hasn't been reported at all, but i sneaky also think the mets are probably looking to put a first basemen's mitt in soto's hand sooner rather than later & having pete extended blocks that idea.

[Jimcanuck]

54 minutes ago, BTS said:

Mets reportedly interested in Schwarber. 

I don't understand their lack of respect for Alonso. By all accounts he wants to be there and is well liked by everyone in the org. He's not going to get outrageous money - just pay him and have him chase 500 HR as a career Met. 

I think they want to transition Soto to 1B.  He's terrible in the OF.  Would be fantastic for my BORED team, with Elly expected to move to the OF.

[Brownie19]

23 minutes ago, Jimcanuck said:

I think they want to transition Soto to 1B.  He's terrible in the OF.  Would be fantastic for my BORED team, with Elly expected to move to the OF.

Elly is moving to the OF?

[Pendleton]

1 hour ago, BTS said:

Mets reportedly interested in Schwarber. 

I don't understand their lack of respect for Alonso. By all accounts he wants to be there and is well liked by everyone in the org. He's not going to get outrageous money - just pay him and have him chase 500 HR as a career Met. 

Pete was killing it last year until he got injured 

[Jimcanuck]

1 hour ago, Brownie19 said:

Elly is moving to the OF?

He leads MLB in errors at SS.  It's a question that gets asked often.

[Spanky__99]

32 minutes ago, Jimcanuck said:

He leads MLB in errors at SS.  It's a question that gets asked often.

He played through a quad strain from July on, that certainly played into his D as he was exceptional the 2 years prior, it's too premature to move him off short, errors, c'mon dude?

[Jimcanuck]

2 hours ago, Spanky__99 said:

He played through a quad strain from July on, that certainly played into his D as he was exceptional the 2 years prior, it's too premature to move him off short, errors, c'mon dude?

You are right.  Was just going off the reporting I've seen.

[Omar]

10 hours ago, Olerud363.354 said:

John Olerud had an 8 fWAR MVP type season at 24 to start his prime years hitting .363 and setting the Blue Jays batting average record. 

John Olerud had an 8 fWAR MVP type season at 29 to end his prime years hitting .354 and setting the Mets batting average record.

Have to think if he had a manager and organization that believed in his style his age 25-28 seasons would have been better.  Even with that way more fWAR than Delgado and Mattingly... should have been a hall of famer.  Should have been a life long Blue Jay. 

Wearing the batting helmet while playing first base did him in unfortunately.  Can't put a guy like that in Cooperstown.