Laika

I'm betting Boston will make every attempt to move both Napoli and Victorino before 2015. $29M owed to the pair of them, and they'll probably want to give everyday reps to Craig @ 1B and both Castillo and Mookie in the OF. Brock Holt also deserves a semi-regular role in 2015, so some bodies need to ship out in Boston. They really need some reliable arms now too... In a nutshell, a Buehrle for Napoli swap would make sense. Too bad we're not in a nutshell.

Belt is better. AT&T makes him significantly less sexy. In the AL East you're looking at a 25 HR #4/5 hitter with good/great AVG/OBP skills. Hosmer is a f***ing creampuff fringe major league starter that can barely poke 10 homers.

I was bummed that I didn't line up better for Belt. The only viable option seemed to be undoing our Salazar-Belt deal from last year... which would be weird.

What the hell is internet ass-to-mouth?

Looks like one Darrell already started to input MLB rosters on the prospects/picks sheet. You can click onto a completely different excel sheet at the bottom of the Google Doc called "MLB Rosters". I've already inputted all of the team names and 5 team rosters.

Everybody, please see league-wide email for some important info. Darrells, if everybody takes a minute to input a few MLB rosters / numbered picks into the Google Doc, then it won't take any one of us a significant amount of time.

How did you do in the BBDL and MPL this year?

I wasn't even comparing our teams, you insecure twat. I said "I'd rather have the week off than finish 7th" because our consolation match was for 7th place.

ok?

I'll take the one week Yahoo vacation over the 7th place finish, thank you very much.

Grant is going to win the PL without setting his lineups for 4 months and No49 just won my own league.... anyone know a good therapist?

Anyways, MLSE is pumping ~$100 million into BMO and it sounds like they want the Argos to come there. It could happen very soon. Remember that when Rogers agreed to the lease with the Argos there was a lot of talk about the Argos leaving as soon as possible, not necessarily waiting until 2018. http://www.thestar.com/sports/tfc/2014/09/23/toronto_fc_and_mlse_begin_bmo_field_renovation.html "We’ve always hoped that the CFL comes. It’s a natural for them. It’s a great solution for them size-wise. They’ll end up with 26,000 to 27,000 seats,” said Bob Hunter, MLSE’s chief facilities officer. Hunter says the CFL portion of the renovation can be done any time after the initial two stages are complete. Hunter also suggested the renovated stadium could also play host to an NHL Winter Classic. MLSE spokesman Dave Haggith says the company is still optimistic about reaching a deal with the Argos on playing at BMO Field, but said talks about buying the team aren’t part of the equation. “The ownership question isn’t on the radar right now,” said Haggith. Argonauts president Chris Rudge is also hopeful the team will eventually play at BMO Field. “Mr. Braley has been talking to MLSE. I believe it will happen, but I’ll be a lot happier when there’s something concrete,” said Rudge."

They have a lease. If Rogers was to put in grass and make the RC inhospitable to football, they would be breaking that contract and they'd potentially be liable for quite a bit of damages.

Remind me next spring, I agree that using this as the finals week can be kind of unfair.

Everybody realizes that Melky is a terrible defender, bad baserunner, old, and generally a terrible candidate for any type of contract that extends beyond "short term".

Hutch for Starlin Castro, who says no? Kind of feel like both teams say no...

Or, you know, just be happy winning 83 games and saying that they really wanted to make moves and they had money but nothing came together.

I'm not really convinced that every prospect needs "AAA seasoning" or a substantial amount of "AAA seasoning". Development is rarely linear, where players learn little things and make little improvements at each level, reaching the big leagues as some kind of finished developmental product. Sometimes players are just simply good enough or not good enough. Or, development is essentially stochastic (Arrieta, DeGrom). Jose Fernandez went from A+ to an immediate big league Ace while improving his peripherals. Anthony Gose has like, 1100 PA of "AAA seasoning" and he's probably gotten worse. Pompey is in the big leagues, looking like he belongs, consistently having good at bats, driving the baseball and showing XB pop/speed, and playing good D. Yeah his statistical sample size will be small for MLB, AAA, and AA, but if you take his entire season as a continuity you have a kid who climbed the ladder from A+ and put up an .850 OPS at each level, so he never missed a beat. I wouldn't start him in AAA as a rule or anything. I could get behind him being the everyday CF as long as LF is filled with a good trade / free agent, and the CF backup plan isn't just a Gose/Pillar platoon. Or, him in LF and a good CF brought in (defense for days). But they will probably go with Pompey in LF and Gose/Pillar platooning CF.

The money was spent in a very stupid way, but Rogers really just saw an impending PR nightmare based on the increased TV money and their sweet position of owning the team and network, so they threw the team and the fans a one-time $40 million dollar cookie to effectively smother all criticism for the next decade or so. Everything since then has indicated that there is absolutely no more money to spend, not even what we would define as "wiggle room". I really think the payroll will fail to rise in the next ~5 years or whatever, and Toronto's position in the top 10 payrolls will slip and slip as other teams spend according to income, until Toronto is back down into the 20's and Rogers senses with their social media analysts that payroll discontent is reaching a level yet again where it needs to be quenched with a brilliantly timed token financial cookie.

Knowing Rogers, I doubt it, because the Blue Jays will be "building from within" for the next decade due to "payroll parameters".

MLB team disappointments aside, the minor league system is producing quite a bit to be excited about. The amount of high-end rookies and sophomores that will make an MLB impact in 2015 is pretty exciting. Stroman Sanchez Norris Pompey Graveman Granted, Graveman is more of a high-floor guy, but he's pretty intriguing to me. Has gotten like 60% GB rates in the minors and he pounds the zone with decent stuff. Could end up like a Dallas Kuechel or Henderson Alvarez. I mean, I could totally see a version of this universe unfolding where Graveman is an unsexy middle rotation SP that consistently out-WARz sexy clozer A-a-ron Sanchez. Now, imagine if that above list of names included young guns like Handsome Jake, Synderlaander, and Travis "needs to drink moar melk" d'Arnaud.

"tudoring" haha

I REALLY want Belt back. Send me a handwritten note via carrier fruit bat, plox.

It's funny how a guy like that (or, say, DeGrom) just has his stock slowly creep upwards... from waiver wire fodder to rosterable SP7 to SP3 with strikeouts to.... an true Ace? All within like, 4 months. Meanwhile, ~80 pitchers with "ace upside" will be owned in our league as MiLB players at any given time, and maybe 2 of them will ever become SP1 or SP2s.

Carrasco is pretty much the X factor incarnate.