Around Baseball 2026

[G-Snarls]

Hitting in Japan is overall better than Korea yes?

[Stangstag]

22 minutes ago, Spanky__99 said:

I know, both are pretty unknown, but Imai just had Cy award season in the NPB, a better league than the KBO where Ponce just pitched as their Cy. I wouldn't go near that bet as it's so unknown, Jonn likely would though. 😜

Ponce actually won MVP of the league which is crazy. Will be interesting to see who’s talents translate better to MLB between him and Imai. Are the KBO stats a mirage?

[Stangstag]

FWIW Erik Fedde won KBO MVP in 2023 before coming back to MLB and had a great 2024 season. 2025 not so much…

[Spanky__99]

7 minutes ago, Stangstag said:

Ponce actually won MVP of the league which is crazy. Will be interesting to see who’s talents translate better to MLB between him and Imai. Are the KBO stats a mirage?

Not really, like AAA numbers essentially.

[Terminator]

Are the Yankees going to sign anyone this offseason?

We’ve added more talent with our minor league deals

[Spanky__99]

14 minutes ago, G-Snarls said:

Hitting in Japan is overall better than Korea yes?

Yeah, that's what they say.

[Jimcanuck]

Asian players, particularly the pitchers, tend to struggle the first MLB season.  Id take Ponce over Imai in 2026.

[Laika]

Senga got 5/$75m right? 

Imagine if he had an opt out after his 2023 

[Brownie19]

I'd have liked to been in on Imai at that price. However, I understand why we weren't and I'm happy with the path we chose.

[Stangstag]

5 hours ago, Terminator said:

Are the Yankees going to sign anyone this offseason?

We’ve added more talent with our minor league deals

Probably Bellinger if I had to guess. They also technically signed Grisham for 22mil lol

[mphenhef]

Is it starting to feel like the Jays misread the market big time on the Cease contract?  

[Spanky__99]

1 hour ago, mphenhef said:

Is it starting to feel like the Jays misread the market big time on the Cease contract?  

No, why would you think that?

[Spanky__99]

11 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

I'd have liked to been in on Imai at that price. However, I understand why we weren't and I'm happy with the path we chose.

Yeah, Boss Atkins has done a great job thus far. Imai was out of the picture as soon as they inked Ponce.

[glory]

14 hours ago, Terminator said:

Are the Yankees going to sign anyone this offseason?

We’ve added more talent with our minor league deals

Seems like if they miss on Bellinger then they’ll just go with what they have, or maybe make a small trade. Hal a few weeks ago basically said he would ideally like to spend less than he did last season so my guess is Cashman can only increase payroll for specific talent.

[Laika]

1 hour ago, mphenhef said:

Is it starting to feel like the Jays misread the market big time on the Cease contract?  

Can't say yet 

Cease doesn't have any clean comparables this year. He's the top SP that was available by most relevant measurements. Top projected WAR, younger than Valdez by two years, best Stuff, best velo, best durability track record...

His deal is more like a $27M or $26,5 AAV if you factor in the deferrals, which should be done 

Michael King for a $25m AAV, Merrill Kelly got $20m 

If Valdez and Suarez get a similar or higher AAV on shorter term deals, then Toronto's read of the market was just fine. And you need to really compare a guy like this to other years because you need top of the market comps. Last year Burnes, Snell, and Fried all got deals that were richer or comparable (Fried an extra year while being older; Burnes more AAV and guaranteed money; Snell more AAV). 

[mphenhef]

32 minutes ago, Spanky__99 said:

No, why would you think that?

It seems the market is quite depressed with all contracts coming in below projections, except Cease's.  Now maybe we will see that isn't the case once the other big names sign, time will tell.

[Laika]

Also, the top hitters who signed got PAID. Schwarber and Alonso. 

 

[Spanky__99]

46 minutes ago, mphenhef said:

It seems the market is quite depressed with all contracts coming in below projections, except Cease's.  Now maybe we will see that isn't the case once the other big names sign time will tell.

Cease came in at just below projections with deferrals, not mention Jays jumped the Shark and got the best SP on the market when he let Boras know he wanted to sign here, very good signing.

King got 3/75, far higher AAV to his projections.

Imai came a bit under but he's unknown there's a reason. I don't see any fad where SP are going cheap? Most just haven't signed.

[Nexii]

12 minutes ago, Spanky__99 said:

Cease came in at just below projections with deferrals, not mention Jays jumped the Shark and got the best SP on the market when he let Boras know he wanted to sign here, very good signing.

King got 3/75, far higher AAV to his projections.

Imai came a bit under but he's unknown there's a reason. I don't see any fad where SP are going cheap? Most just haven't signed.

Yea people forget there's value in locking in a top player as far as getting more top players. Jays might not have gotten Ponce and Rogers otherwise. We can't know for sure, of course.

[John_Havok]

22 hours ago, Jonn said:

You know his contract is extremely well structured to maintain his flexibility right? The market is about to humble a lot of players and he still an unproven commodity from Japan which has been a boom or bust market for the most part. He comes over this Season and can have a monster year. Which if healthy I expect him strike out 200+ batters and go right back out on the free agent market and get a much bigger deal.

MLB's hesitation to give bigger guaranteed deals doesn't mean that both Murakami and or Imai can't become great players in this league. It just means teams are trying to spend with more assurance of what they are getting with both a labor dispute on the table and potential major changes to the salary structure in MLB. I don't think we will see a Salary Cap. But a Salary Floor, a more detailed luxury tax, and revenue sharing system are all on the table.

I feel like that contract is both great for Imai and the Astros. Imai gets a pretty strong starting salary comparable or slightly above what he would have got in Japan while maintaining all his flexibility. Astros got what could be the prize or one of the prizes on the free agent market without locking themselves for the years it usually takes to sign a premium arm.

Me thinking he will be great is my opinion. I couldn't give a single f*** if you agree or disagree with that. Only time will tell.

I would be shocked beyond belief if a salary floor happened without a hard cap. The two have always gone hand in hand.

[Jonn]

2 hours ago, John_Havok said:

I would be shocked beyond belief if a salary floor happened without a hard cap. The two have always gone hand in hand.

They can't do a hard cap. The players will never accept it. They can absolutely do a floor because that's something both sides can get behind. Small market teams won't like it but the players and a lot of the owners will. Floor at minimum should be the goal. You can't have teams like the Pirates operating the way they do anymore.

[Jonn]

7 hours ago, Laika said:

Also, the top hitters who signed got PAID. Schwarber and Alonso. 

 

Those guys also have a long history of health and track record despite being DH's. The other big name hitters Bellinger, Tucker, Bo, and Bregman have seen a lot of fluctuation and or injury concerns. I think they all get paid well AAV but aren't going to get the term they want and that's why they haven't signed yet. I think the biggest loser this off-season will be Bregman. He might sign for less than he opted out of which means he could go into Spring without a deal. 

[max silver]

1 hour ago, Jonn said:

They can't do a hard cap. The players will never accept it. They can absolutely do a floor because that's something both sides can get behind. Small market teams won't like it but the players and a lot of the owners will. Floor at minimum should be the goal. You can't have teams like the Pirates operating the way they do anymore.

I see no reason why the owners would have any interest whatsoever in a floor if there's no firm cap to go along with it. 

[Jonn]

2 minutes ago, max silver said:

I see no reason why the owners would have any interest whatsoever in a floor if there's no firm cap to go along with it. 

Even if they introduced a hard cap they would need to give team a realistic time frame to get under it without gutting their rosters. It's just not realistic. Nor will players be happy if resources for larger deals will be halted due to richer owners being restricted on spending.

There is multiple ways they could go about introducing a floor that isn't like it is in a league like the NHL.

The MLB already has both revenue sharing and competitive balance draft picks but both those systems are not effective enough to have any impact. The easiest thing they can do is set a floor in spending in which you can qualify for both of those things. Competitive balance shouldn't be just about penalizing the rich teams it should also penalize poor teams owners for not fielding competitive teams. So you set a floor to access those benefits. Increase the value they get from revenue sharing and draft pick compensation for meeting the new competitive criteria.

[Jays24]

 

[Brownie19]

Bregman back to the Red Sox makes sense to me.

[Eat My Shatkins]

All this waiting around and it will probably go like this:

Bregman back to the Red Sox

Tucker back to the Cubs

Bellinger back to the Yankees

Bo back to the Jays

[Jays24]

41 minutes ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

All this waiting around and it will probably go like this:

Bregman back to the Red Sox

Tucker back to the Cubs

Bellinger back to the Yankees

Bo back to the Jays

Agree with the above except Tucker is going to the Dodgers for a short with high AAV deal.  

[max silver]

1 hour ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

All this waiting around and it will probably go like this:

Bregman back to the Red Sox

Tucker back to the Cubs

Bellinger back to the Yankees

Bo back to the Jays

I've seen nothing online to indicate that the Cubs are interested in bringing Tucker back.

[Jonn]

17 hours ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

All this waiting around and it will probably go like this:

Bregman back to the Red Sox

Tucker back to the Cubs

Bellinger back to the Yankees

Bo back to the Jays

Tucker isn't going back to the Cubs but I can see all those other scenarios playing out.

Most likely scenario for Tucker is he either gets his desired long term contract from a team like the Blue Jays or he signs a short term contract with a massive AAV and opt outs with the Dodgers.