Barnes and Dermody have put up some stupidly good numbers in the minors the last two years. They're probably not much different than most of what's left on the open market, except they'll cost the min. That said, I'd love to nab Romo or Shawn Tolleson before the Rays agreement gets finalized, and of course Holland.
LF is questionable, but the rest of the lineup should be very, very good. Adding someone like Moss would be incredible, but that's a lineup that should be able to compete.
It kinda sounds like they're discussing various scenarios regarding contract length, but perhaps have a fallback option they've both agreed on or something.
If his bat bounces back and he returns to 4 to 6 WAR, I don't care if he's in the OF. 1B would be ideal, but he's miles ahead of all the other available options.
Signing Moss too for LF would make it even better.
Interesting, apparently Rosenthal is going to be stretched out this spring, but to be used in an Andrew Miller type role rather than the starting rotation.
Hardly. If they were, we wouldn't be talking about catcher framing not being included, or things like spin rates. However, the systems are currently the best we have at (most) of our disposals, and far better than our own intuition.
He was a pretty good target at the deadline. He knew most of the staff already, and they seemed to like throwing to him. His bat was really as good or better than most backups (or should have been). The familiarity is less an issue with a full spring training to work in a new catcher though, so I think it's less likely that he'll be signed now (depending on market).
Well, the idea is to have high WAR players in all positions, you just can't buy them all in FA. You have to have a constant development stream of good players too to keep the payroll at a reasonable level.