BTS

I literally posted a picture of myself wearing that on my IG last week and nobody called me an attention whore.

Now Ottawa gives up a 5th round pick for known shitbag and pending UFA Eric Gudbranson. Gudbranson is worse than Duclair, and makes about what Duclair was going to make in arb (3M)? Why would they give up a pick for an overpaid player with no upside while letting a skilled player with the same salary walk for nothing? They're going to be straddling the cap floor and Gudbranson has a 3M salary and 4M cap hit. Ottawa is like the Tampa Bay Rays if their front office consisted of Ruben Amaro overseeing a couple of high school interns.

Team is like 25M under the cap floor and was scared of like a 3.5M potential arb award for a guy who scored 23 goals in 66 games in his age-24 season.

I can’t see Ottawa giving Murray a lucrative long-term deal, and I can’t see Murray agreeing to stay in Ottawa long-term for anything short of a lucrative deal, so I suspect he’ll be gone on a year. Not sure why they didn’t just pursue Greiss or Khudobin or whoever to pair with Hogberg. Also, not qualifying Duclair was a Mickey Mouse move by a Mickey Mouse team.

I just put a poll up on the 26th man. I think that's everything that needs to be addressed for now.

Is he even still with the org? He was DFA’d last offseason and I don’t remember him ever signing a contract for 2020.

Aww f***, Iglesias just imploded. It's over.

If the Reds bow out of this having scored 0 runs in 22 innings Votto is going to be endlessly mocked about his "f***ing nightmare" comment.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/09/trevor-bauer-on-free-agency.html "Again, I think it comes back to I just want a chance to win every year. I want to be in a situation where I feel valued and I have the chance to conduct my career the way I want to conduct it. So, pitch every fourth day, and stuff like that. I want to challenge myself and have a chance to do those things. So if there’s a situation where it presents itself where it is a four-year or five-year deal, and I feel confident that’s going to be a situation that’s good for me, I would consider it. I do think that in order to do the things that I want to do, I think I’m going to have to take on a little more risk than normal in those long-term contracts. …I’m not afraid of the one-year deals. I’m not afraid of the longer deals. It’s just going to be a case-by-case basis, and we’ll see what the situations look like." Some big market team is going to throw $250M on the table and I'm guessing he won't be able to turn it down to go 1 year at a time.

I'll be shocked if Bauer signs a 1-year deal. He's been asked recently if he's still only looking to go a year at a time, and said he's going to consider all options. I'm guessing if the team wants him it will require like 200-250M. Which the should absolutely do.

This is a good point, and one I probably didn't give enough consideration. Anderson's option likely makes no sense in what will probably be a very weird/tepid offseason.

Anyone know who has to be added to the 40-man this offseason?

I agree on Jansen. I think he starts 80+ games next year. Seems likely that Kirk gets the other half and DH's a fair bit when he's not catching. Could also see Kirk start in AAA (if there is a AAA). I also agree on Ray, and especially Shoemaker. I'd bring Bass back on a cheap 1-year deal, but I think on a good team he's probably your 5th or 6th best reliever, and I wouldn't go much higher than the 1.5M he made in 2020.

Some interesting early-offseason decisions to be made: - Do they pick up the 9.5M option on Anderson? (probably) - Do they non-tender Shaw (probably) or Cole (probably not)? - Do they cut their losses and eat the 12M Roark sunk cost? (probably not) - Is there any reason to retain an out-of-options Reese McGuire? (meh)

Projected 26-man Roster C - Jansen (nm) 1B - Guerrero Jr. (nm) 2B/SS - Semien (18) SS - Bichette (nm) 3B/2B/OF - Biggio CF - Springer (32) LF - Gurriel (4.5) RF - Hernandez (A1 (2.7)) 1B - Tellez (nm) CF - Grichuk (10.333) C - McGuire (nm, no options) 3B/2B/SS - Espinal (nm) OF - Davis (nm) SP - Ryu (20) SP - Ray (8) SP - Pearson (nm) SP - Matz (5.2) SP - Roark (12) RP - Romano (nm) RP - Yates (5.5) RP - Dolis (1.5) RP - Phelps (1.75) SP/RP - Chatwood (3) SP - Stripling (A2 (2.5)) RP - Merryweather (nm, no options) SP/RP - Borucki (nm, no options) Also on 40-man Roster SP - Zeuch (nm) SP - Kay (nm) RP - Waguespack (nm) RP - Luciano (nm) RP - Murphy (nm) RP - Tice (nm) RP - Payamps (nm) C - Adams (nm) C - Moreno (nm) SS - Lopez (nm) OF - Palacios (nm) SP - Thornton (nm) RP - Hatch (nm) C - Kirk (nm) On 40-man roster = 40 12 guaranteed contracts = $121.78M 12 near-minimum contracts ~ $6.9M 2 arbitration contracts ~ 5.2M Yamaguchi = 3.175 Total 26-man roster projected payroll = $137.055M

I'm particularly interested in the team's handling of the bullpen this offseason. I'm not buying Hatch/Bass/Cole/Dolis/Borucki all maintaining the elite contact management that led to them all outperforming their ERA estimators, and see the bullpen as Romano (and Mayweather?) and a bunch of mediocre question marks.

Reds just blew a 1st and 3rd nobody out situation for the second time today.

A-rod in particular is awful. I don't understand why he seems so well-regarded.

Melancon has somehow avoided a meltdown all season. Hopefully it happens now.

The Reds are playing an awful game, Bauer excepted.

Jesus Christ Castellanos

He's changed his tune about only looking at 1-year deals, and is now saying he wants to win, wants to pitch every 4th day, and wants a team at the cutting edge of technology. He's probably also going to get like 250M. Hard to say how he'd perceive our odds of competing or our pitching infrastructure.

Damn, Votto having a rough game.

Reds get 1st and 3rd with nobody on and then their 3,4,5 hitters fail to bring them in.

Braves vs. Reds on now