Laika

The Orioles collapse will be legendary. People will call it the Wet Fart Dynasty. 101 wins in 2023 and the best farm in baseball, no salary commitments, a core of bats, some of the strongest 5+ year projections at the team level in baseball..... and in 2 years they are a non playoff team with a bunch of flawed players, no real rotation, and a s***** farm system. Some of the core are already getting expensive or approaching FA. Nobody extended other than Basallo, a DH projected for a 107 wRC+.

Nah, you have to start to wonder if their system was just overhyped or they were succeeding with stuff at the plate that the league was always capable of adjusting to. Rutschman has collapsed. You can blame injuries but he's almost 28 and has been on a steady decline. Holliday does not look like a future star at all. He looks like a guy who might be able to scrape together some decent years but that's it. Cowser has been whiff addict even when he was good. Mayo hasn't been able to translate to the MLB yet. Mountcastle even collapsed last year. Kjerstad complete bust? Henderson and Westburg smaller steps back Some of their recent higher draft picks (Honeycutt, Bradfield) ain't working out Mullins collapsed as a player while they had him Their farm goes from pretty much #1 to like, 15th in one year. And that's after selling MLB pieces at the deadline. And that ranking is bouyed mostly by Beavers and Basallo, who will graduate soon. So their farm system going forward is heavily reliant on their 2025 draft class working out. Personally I don't even see how it's a top half farm system and I think people are just too hesitant to completely tank them in one season. You can blame a lot of it on injuries but when everyone is getting hurt can you really say it's bad luck? Maybe it's systemic and related to the kinds of training they do. IIRC they had multiple players with oblique/intercostal injuries.

If Yesavage threw 99 mph you might consider throwing a Franchise label on him now but the uncomfortable truth is that he does not have a lot of wiggle room on the velo front. It's 56th percentile now, at 22. That number tends to only go down. For comparison, that fastball velo percentile is comparable to 2021 and 2022 Jose Berrios. Definitely wait and see how he ages. And how the league ages with him and adjusts to his weird arsenal.

On paper it's such a big loss for the O's that you have to assume Grayson is broken OR there is some kind of attitude issue with him like, even if you just take Grayson Rodriguez' 2.3 Steamer Projection and assume he provides 2.3, 2.3, 2.3, and 1.8 WAR in his four remaining years of control, and goes 5-10-15M in arbitration, it's almost $70m in projected surplus value. Ward is worth maybe $13 or $14m surplus value and that's it.

Wild trade for Elias to make lol

Yeah this is like Shane Bieber basically Brewers are happy. Maybe Woodruff is worried about his own health.

Kodai Senga reportedly very available. Interesting target. 2/$28M left to him. Probably not the upside Toronto wants to chase, at this point in the offseason, but he can be pretty nasty.

Here is how horrible that trade idea even was. Clement on left of course. This is even a pessimistic view of Clement. He can turtle under the guise of "trolling" but we all know it was a serious idea Year WAR $/WAR Value Salary Surplus Value Year WAR $/WAR Value Salary Surplus Value 2026 2.2 $11,000,000.00 $24,200,000.00 $4,300,000.00 $19,900,000.00 2026 2.5 $11,000,000.00 $27,500,000.00 $17,300,000.00 $10,200,000.00 2027 1.7 $11,330,000.00 $19,261,000.00 $6,500,000.00 $12,761,000.00 2027 2 $11,330,000.00 $22,660,000.00 $21,000,000.00 $1,660,000.00 2028 1.2 $11,669,900.00 $14,003,880.00 $10,000,000.00 $4,003,880.00 5.1 $57,464,880.00 $20,800,000.00 $36,664,880.00 $50,160,000.00 $38,300,000.00 $11,860,000.00

Qualifying Offer decision day Torres, Imanaga, Gallen, and Grisham are the 4 that people think could accept the QO Personally I think they all should but I am probably out of touch. The websites predict just Torres to accept it.

It's demonstrably true though I mean what more do you want lmao. 0.4 WAR is a rounding error

The main point is that Bo might be pretty close to "market inefficiency" territory Yes, anybody is going to give Tucker more money because of the kinds of skills he has. The walks, the ability to pull the ball in the air. Those give you some confidence that he could age gracefully. But I don't know how people are justifying these $400M projections for Tucker and then saying they won't give Bo the Willy Adames deal. It just seems like some classic can't see the forest for the trees stuff going on.

Yeah I agree If Rogers is keeping the payroll flat, then the position player side of things is "fine" as it is They can add nobody and field a complete lineup. It's flimsy though, and needs depth to cover injuries or flops. In 2027 you assume Santander slides to full time DH when George leaves.

It's not even a narrative, hahaha. It's facts. They are pretty close in talent. Tucker probably gets $100M or $150M more but Bo has a shot to outperform him from here on. Tucker is at best 1 win better right now. There is an argument that Bo is actually quite underrated right now

Steamer 2026 3.7 WAR - Tucker 3.6 WAR - Bo lmao Peak season - 4.9 fWAR for both Bo is a full year younger and has more "defensive utility"

It definitely won't Steamer might be low on him but it only has 3.7 WAR (I don't think any other projection systems are out right now) He is 29 in two months. Aging curve says he is now on the backside of things. If you start him at 4.5 WAR and take off 0.5 per year, he's worth like $270M if one WAR is worth $11M now and you inflate that slightly over time. I think a team can justify the 10/$300M if they want to get better NOW but that's his value IMO.

I guess he's an elite defender. + he got so lucky with the stick, lol.

But Vlad is the Entertainer of the Year!

He's barely better than Bo Bichette Tucker is a really good player but he has no standout / elite tools. This isn't a $400M+ player. I could see nobody wanting to give him $300M. If you cover the names it's hard to discern his 2025 season from say 2018 Andrew Benintendi If you need a bat (that can play defense too) and can get Bellinger for 5/$125M or Bo for 7/$175, or something like that, it's hard to justify spending so much more for Kyle Tucker

Raise payroll Sign Imai and Tucker

Horrendous plan

I'm not so sure. He's a pitcher, remember. This isn't a guaranteed superstar every year. That arm blows up and the chance to sell EXTREMELY HIGH is over.

No other team would make an offer like that though As good as Skenes is, he still has a projected surplus value and he's not worth that much capital They SHOULD trade him for a big haul right now though. A realistic top offer would be the top 5 or so prospects / rookies of a solid farm system. Like, Nolan McClean, Jett Williams, Carson Benge, Brandon Sproat, and someone else from the Mets. And the Mets might even not want to do that. The Yankees probably get uncomfortable after offering Schlitter, Rice, and Jones, tbh.

Not sure the Mets or their fans even love Diaz. Yeah his overall numbers are dominant but he has had two years with them where he had pedestrian ERAs and one with a pedestrian save rate. There might be a perception that he is too erratic and unreliable.

Daulton Varsho is 5'8" and 207 lbs I agree that he should be extended Maybe some kind of leg implant procedure could bring him up to 5'11"? He'd lose some athleticism but he'd look better in pictures

Varsho and his .222/.290 projection isn't landing a TOR pitcher anyway Only thing I can even think of is the Royals, for Kris Boob Itch. They have Isbel as their CF and he's basically Myles Straw.