BTS

Anyone particularly promising?

It's very deep. I wish I had a 1st, but there's some pretty exciting guys well into the 2nd round

Who/what is Geeb?

Ah, didn't realize he has basically been moved off 2B.

Kind of feel bad for him in that his blocked again, this time by Hoerner. Unless they plan on trying him at 3B or corer OF?

Goddamn, Braves extended AA through 2031

Reminds me of the Maeda deal with LA where they were protected against his arm injury by a series of vesting options. Does Imanaga have a long injury track record?

The Toronto Blue Jays sign CF Kevin Kiermaier to a one-year, $10.5 million contract. The Toronto Blue Jays sign UTIL Isiah Kiner-Falefa to a two-year, $15 million contract. Times really were simpler back in the day. That isn’t to say they were bettert—they were absolutely not better, except maybe in terms of carcinogens inhaled per minute—but it’s undeniable that everything existed on fewer axes. If one were to analyze this transaction 20 years ago, it’d be simple. You’d hardly even need the words: an embedded minor-key MIDI file, maybe a tinny minor-key square-wave rendition of “Everybody Hurts” would accompany the blinking HTML text. “SUBOPTIMAL USE OF RESOURCES,” the page would read, and that’d be that, you’d be free to log off (people still logged off at that point) and go to work to pay for your $700 rent. Pity that poor made-up version of you. Instead we live in an enlightened age, with so many new ideas and perspectives to consider, so many metrics that provide us new insights to better understand the wisdom of baseball teams staffed with all those guys who got into baseball when the blink tag was still around, so many… $15 million? In American dollars, you say. For… wait. Don’t the Blue Jays already have that guy? No, not that one. I’m talking about the other other guy. The Kiermaier thing, fine. The Blue Jays need a center fielder, and there’s two of them on the market—I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s only two, Bellinger’s a first baseman and wants a lot of money and that’s the end of the conversation—and they’re basically exactly the same guy, except one of them you’ve met and you know you can stand to be in the same room with him for six months. You don’t know if Harrison Bader chews really loud, or can’t shut up about his grind mindset. He’ll start in center about 100 times, which is better than watching Daulton Varsho start in center 130 times, or worse yet watching Daulton Varsho hit while starting in center 130 times. He’ll hit fastballs and whiff on everything else, but it’s okay because he’s hitting ninth and he’s fine for a guy hitting ninth. But you can only have one guy hitting ninth. Look, I don’t want to be this guy. In doing the TA94 series this offseason, I’ve read a lot of articles by This Guy: beat writers, forged and honed on the toxic masculinity of sports radio and alcoholism, who get paid to be angry about the idiocy of the baseball team whose blood feeds them. But this transaction is their origin story. This transaction is the mirror in which madness lies. The Blue Jays have Santiago Espinal. They have Davis Schneider. They have Cavan Biggio. They have Ernie Clement and Orelvis Martinez and Addison Barger and Leo Jimenez. So let’s travel back in time again, and do this differently. Because there’s another phenomenon that used to be a ubiquitous concept in our lives, before they were invaded by smartphones: not knowing things. You’d be sitting in line and suddenly wonder: “Who was Shoeless Joe Jackson in Eight Men Out” and your line of inquiry would just die there, instantly. You couldn’t look up the fact that it was D.B. Sweeney, a tidbit that enriches your life in no way whatsoever except to suffocate your sense of humility and curiosity. I don’t know what the Blue Jays were thinking here. We waited weeks, working on this book, waiting for the truth to reveal itself, and it just didn’t. We have nothing to go on except that it’s a SUBOPTIMAL USE OF RESOURCES. Consider all the ways that it makes sense, on some invisible axis just beyond the periphery of your imagination. There isn’t really an alternative. —Patrick Dubuque

There is. It's tiny and hidden in the top right corner, and you have to scroll up the enormous ad to find it. Edit: I guess it's irrelevant now. Thanks admin!

You're not thinking enough like a nerd. Donaldson is a win-win for Atkins. 5% chance he plays well and helps the team. 95% chance he's terrible and Atkins gets to call him into his office and personally tell him his MLB career is over. The ultimate nerd victory over the alpha athlete.

Getting rid of these should be a priority. They're beyond what most people are going to want to deal with on a forum.

Ross is going to get him for like 18 + a team option with a 2M buyout. He's going to hit 40 bombs and we will all be celebrating the masterful offseason.

Teo is a year younger than Soler. They were about equally valuable in 2023. They project to be equally valuable in 2024. I don't see why Soler's market would be any better than Teo's. Hopefully Atkins is on it.

Senga Quintana Severino Manaea Houser? That's a lot of question marks after Senga. I think their rotation is going to be held together with duct tape and prayers again.

Yeah same. A guy you could plug in every day and he'd contribute something almost every game. Not a lot of 0-4s.

If there was any doubt left, it's gone now. He's never playing another MLB game.

Please stop

Oh that's interesting. I guess Grissom will be their 2B with Story at short?

Montas 1-year deal with the Reds

Yeah, agreed. Someone should do this.

I lol'd

Man just walk away. This is undignified

Yeah he'd be a great addition too. Elite defensive SS who can play all over the infield and hits a bit.

I'm still holding out hope for Machado or Tatis from the bankrupt Padres