Laika

I don't know how this person would know but... This guy is not a reporter or insider. I think just a blogger type. But he's always seemed like a straight shooter

Kind of hoping it's a two year deal and I don't care about the money, within reason. They aren't going to be up against any actual payroll ceiling next year either. Yates is old enough that he might not be thinking of a pillow contract. He might be looking to just lock in the biggest guarantee he can. Guarantee him an extra mill or two to get an option on year three while you're at it. Why not?

Seager > Lindor >> Correa > Story >>> Baez Baez is clearly the 5th talent. He is in tier 3. Story is a bit overrated as a hitter (Coors) and there are mild K concerns as he ages. Correa has scuffled a bit in the last couple of years and had injury problems. I think he's fine but that puts him below Seager/Lindor. Correa is two years younger than Story though, which is the main difference for me between then. Not a huge gap for me between Correa and Story - they make up tier 2. Lindor is an excellent defender and well-rounded, without glaring injury or strikeout concerns. Has the best single season of the whole bunch. I have a lot of confidence that he will age gracefully. I think Seager is the best all things considered. I think he's the best hitter of the bunch. He's still only 26. I don't really care that he probably moves to 3B at some point - he might be a slugging 3B when Lindor is a light hitting shortstop. Seager and Lindor is super close. Near coin-flip.

Do you mean in AAV? The total of Hand + Yates' contracts might be like half of what Hendriks was guaranteed.

Barfield had the talent to be a Hall of Famer, with better luck and aging. He was so bad in 1992 that his career swiftly ended. Wikipedia will tell you that he sucked in 1993 in Japan because he only hit .215, but he hit .215/.357/.477 which we would recognize now as a solid enough line. That was 15th out of 68 qualified hitters in the JPCL that year. Makes you wonder if he still had enough juice left to be a platoon OF in MLB. His OPS that year in the JPCL was better than a 19 year old Hideki Matsui and a 25 year old Matt Stairs! I don't know how Stairs ended up in Japan that year but it seems like the Expos sold his rights to Chunichi Dragons and then later sold him to the Red Sox. Stairs would play 1895 MLB games, 467 more than Jesse Barfield (1428 games). In that many less games Barfield's career WAR of 39 is almost 27 full wins higher than Stairs'. There's a different cosmos where Barfield has one more elite season in his 20s and then plays a productive but average corner outfield until his late 30s, adding WAR and counting stats, and then he ends up in Cooperstown by a hair.

Really nice to see the organization making a good impression on pitchers. That's two obvious ones now - Ray and Walker.

Dick Fiasco is a great name.

not sure that's exactly what they mean when they call you little piggy

Porter said the dick pick wasn't his dick. Maybe it was Springer's agent's dick!

Tim Mayza might be the first one up from Buffalo this year

Funny how different baseball was a few years ago. Chatwood got like 3/$40M coming off a below-average season because the Cubs thought they were geniuses and evidently a bunch of other teams also thought Chatwood was sneaky awesome too, driving a weird money rush. That's like Martin Perez getting $40M this offseason.

2021-01-19 Yates day

Yates would be Grate. The pen would be essentially done: Romano Merryweather Yates Dolis Chatwood Borucki Stripling? Mayza/Hatch/Kay/Gooch/Cole/Thornton/Murphy/SRF/Perez

Are you Jake McGee's agent? He had an elite season and could be asking for a lot

hmmmm

Well you better get your tissues ready because this dude is going to OPEN like ten games this year

This is how you get good relievers without giving them big stupid multi-year FA deals, by the way.

Tweaked his pitch mix in 2020 and had interesting results: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/tyler-chatwood-and-strikeouts-have-a-meet-cute/ Sleeper signing. Probably better than Taijuan Walker. Nice thing about Chatwood is you can imagine him being a setup RP or a useful SP. Some pretty filthy stuff: https://www.mlb.com/video/search?q=Player+%3D+%5B%22Tyler+Chatwood%22%5D+Order+By+Timestamp+DESC

Castillo could be worth more than Torres I suppose. Way better in 2020.

Padres will regret that one. Musgrove is overrated and Hudson Head is going to be very good. I know the Padres have managed to hold onto many of their very top prospects through all this, other than Patino, but guys like Head and Hunt are very solid spects and with so many names out the door there will be other guys who turn into all stars. Padres have to win now. They are affecting their farm more than people admit. It will take a while to restock the depth.

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Team I'm not saying they don't need to sign an infielder but I just don't think they need to go crazy to land someone impactful. It's not a dire need to me because of positional flexibility and Skinny Vlad. CF, SP, RP are bigger issues IMO. I very much disagree with this idea that Biggio can't play 3B because his arm is weak. He'd be absolutely fine there.

No they are not. SS and 2B are locked down, Groshans and Martin are on the way to fill 3B, Tellez and Vlad can play 1B, the team has 69 catchers, and maybe skinny Vlad can even pass at 3B for one year. The team needs a stop-gap infielder at the most. It can be someone who plays any of SS/2B/3B because Bo and Biggio can move around. There's not a dire need for anything. Worst case Ontario just give Brad Miller or Jake Lamb or someone like that a few million bucks to cover 3B in 2021.

Springer reminds me of Jayson Werth when he signed his big Washington contract. Take from that what you will... Werth had a couple of solid seasons with Washington but I really don't think Toronto missing on Springer should be seen as a travesty, especially if it will take 6 years to land him. Players his age tend to decline precipitously!

Toronto is in a great spot. Kloffenstein could explode this year too, based on some of the info from his time in that independent league. Couple other guys in the system that could make a 2022 top 100 as well.

lmao "rent free"? you are the one who seems rattled, bud