Dr. Dinger

So he's going to hit .400 in the majors with 5% K rate, basically.

19 year olds are not supposed to slash .373/.433/.560 in AA with more walks than strikeouts.

This FO is so pragmatic, I love it. Next up, DFA Morales.

Christian Villanueva is a bad man.

It seems inherently racist in that it predominantly targets players from Latin America who come from poor socioeconomic classes and desperately need money upfront, but it's really just a form of insurance. I could see a player saying to himself, "I think I'm going to make $100M in my career, and if I do, then $90M is plenty to live off of. If I don't, then maybe it's best if I take this $400K up front." It's a hedge. At any rate it's apparently better than what they could get in a line of credit from a major bank, otherwise they would go that route.

I actually have no sympathy for Mejia in this case and I hope he loses, from a legal perspective. He could be a total bust, never make $5M in his career, and never have had the money to pay those medical bills. If his career earnings are $1M, then he doesn't have to repay the money he was given, so it really cuts both ways. He ought to have reasonably known that 10% of his future earnings was potentially many times more than the money he received upfront. The amount of money he was given up front was also at his discretion and based on a % that he agreed to.

He has a unique voice and a big readership.

260 PAs isn't that small of a sample, especially when we are talking about K and BB rates. I don't want to be too anecdotal, but for him to working 2 walks against Chris Sale is also pretty damn impressive. Seems to indicate that he has taken to heart the need to make improvements to his plate discipline, which I'm sure was made a focus for him by management.

I don't think we're at that point. His career DIPS are league average. His ERA is good due to suppressed HR rates and good GB tendencies, but unless he significantly improves his K-BB%, he's never going to be "very" good, he's going to be a solid mid-rotation guy... which I think he is. Nothing about his statistical profile indicates that he is going to keep posting ERAs that are a full run better than his DIPS going forward. I see the two meeting in the middle. If we are lucky, his command will improve gradually and he'll be Brandon Webb.

You have some serious contrarian tendencies, Mr. tercet. Have you explored psychologically why you feel compelled to be (perhaps irrationally) pessimistic and adversarial to the opinions of your peers? Are you a 2nd child?

Actually his plate discipline gains are making a (semi) believer out of me. His ISO isn't sustainable but the BB and K% improvements bode very well. His career MLB BB rate is now at 9% over about a 1/2 season worth of PA, and at his age there is room for further improvement. He may not be the low-OBP hacker that we assumed was his ceiling. He is showing the promise of a dude who could BB at 10%+, K at under 25%, and post ISOs above .200. That's a legit above average hitter.

Barker was a garbage hitter and is a garbage analyst. I have no idea why he has a job. He's like a poor man's Kevin Millar.

Yeah, we don't need to outright release Morales but we should at least DFA him, he'll probably get outrighted. That's tough but that's business, and he still gets his money so I won't cry any tears for him. Those PAs are better spent developing Grich and Teo, who will also certainly produce more WAR anyway.

Votto has inexplicably shown a complete unwillingness to consider allowing a trade.

Yeah, good luck making due with only Jose Abreu and Rhys Hoskins to hold down the fort. SHUT THE f*** UP

He even doubled down on the slip-up: “Well, Dotel, I believe he’s like three or four years older than me,” Pujols said. “He was in the league above me, and it was actually like an intrasquad game.” Now, we’re cooking with gas. Dotel, whose birthdate we know for sure because it was corrected and verified well after his career began, is 44. He was born in late November 1973. Dotel signed with the Mets in March 1993, so it’s technically possible for Pujols to have hit that homer at age 12 or 13, against Dotel, and still be 38 now. However, that would be a shocking age disparity for the two players at the time. More importantly, though, Pujols himself said Dotel is “three or four years” older than he. That would put Pujols’ actual birthdate in either 1977 or 1978.

Ryan Braun maybe? But that's not really a great match, and he has 10/5.

I don't agree with riding him hard. Make him earn his PT. Give Solarte reps at 2B when Donaldson is back and otherwise let Travis and Gurriel fight it out. This is very much a case of "What have you done for me lately?"

Any trade assumes that Tulo is a dead asset and that Morales is a negative 0 WAR player, IMO.

It's tough to see a scenario where it would make sense. The Tigers would have to eat at least $50M of the remaining contract. Even then, I'm sure our Front Office would rather just get that $30M off the books ASAP. [TABLE=width: 710] [TR] [TD]Year[/TD] [TD]Cabrera Salary[/TD] [TD]Tulo Salary[/TD] [TD]Morales Salary[/TD] [TD]Difference[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]2018[/TD] [TD]$30,000,000.00[/TD] [TD]$20,000,000.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]$11,000,000.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]($1,000,000.00)[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]2019[/TD] [TD]$30,000,000.00[/TD] [TD]$20,000,000.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]$12,000,000.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]($2,000,000.00)[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]2020[/TD] [TD]$30,000,000.00[/TD] [TD]$14,000,000.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]$0[/TD] [TD=align: right]$16,000,000.00[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]2021[/TD] [TD]$30,000,000.00[/TD] [TD]$0[/TD] [TD=align: right]$0[/TD] [TD=align: right]$30,000,000.00[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]2022[/TD] [TD]$32,000,000.00[/TD] [TD]$0[/TD] [TD=align: right]$0[/TD] [TD=align: right]$32,000,000.00[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]2023[/TD] [TD]$32,000,000.00[/TD] [TD]$0[/TD] [TD=align: right]$0[/TD] [TD=align: right]$32,000,000.00[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Total[/TD] [TD]$154,000,000.00[/TD] [TD]$34,000,000.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]$23,000,000.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]$97,000,000.00[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

Lol whoopsy, Pujols with a slip: Earlier this month, Pujols gave an interview with Tim Brown, of Yahoo! Sports—the reporter who first broke Guerrero’s age discrepancy. It aired on the first edition of the Yahoo! MLB Podcast. In it, Brown asked Pujols to take him back over a story that Pujols had told Brown before, about his first over-the-fence home run. “I actually hit it off Octavio Dotel, I think I told you that,” Pujols said with a laugh. (Brown didn’t remember that.) “I was about about 12, 13, almost 13 years old,” he continued. Pujols talked about how giddy he felt, about the excitement and disbelief. “And we go back, you know, 28 years later, and here I am.” --- https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-the-angels-could-get-out-of-paying-albert-pujols/ https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/39462/rubbing-mud-aging-angel/

Maybe Morales + Tulo for Miggy + money eaten. I'm sure Detroit would like to be free from that obligation sooner but they'd still have to pick up a substantial portion.

Just make the catcher stay within the box like the batter I guess. Pitchers wouldn't like seeing their pitches bouncing and flying all over anyway, I suspect.

Acuna is overrated. He's going to K at like 25% with less power than the hype expects, and the SB won't be there.

Nah, that's not a thing. Besides, nobody here wants to see us lose a year of Vlad for a 0.5 WAR upgrade in a year of marginal contention, that's just Front Office malpractice. Maybe he signs a contract, otherwise there are still meaningful games to be played in September.