Laika

They waived him, you big idiot.

Imagine even thinking about tendering guys like Brandon Drury and Derek Law when some of these other players will be available? https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/11/2019-non-tender-candidates-mlb-2019.html

I don't know if it's true either, but the old way of "making the big leagues" seems to be more of an illusion than ever. Days gone: Players prove themselves in the upper minors, get a chance in the MLB, and if they stick they are big leaguers. New era: MLB teams will use options liberally and most bench or platoon quality players are up and down for several years. Even when they are out of options teams have a strong preference for MiLB deals and are very shy about giving 25 man roster spots at guaranteed money to even big league veterans who are bench-level talents. Just so much uncertainty for these kinds of dudes on the North American side. That's not even to mention the increased $$ across the Pacific for some, and how it is increasingly normal to go over there.

Man, Aguilar looks worse than Rowdy at a glance. Not really interested.

He’s worth 3/30 anyway but give me the under on his projections.

I understand the narrative but it's only a 1 tick bump in velocity, he has always given up a lot of hits, and the increased HR rate paralleled what happened league wide (to some extent) as did the K rate (to some extent). I didn't even think of the medical thing but IIRC it is a chronic issue. I'd just much rather have several other options at his level of the SP market. I would have thought 3/30 was fine but I don't think Toronto missed out at all. I legit think Chase Anderson might be better and it might not be close?

Yeah I don't get it. I mean I understand that people don't just look at ERA anymore but sometimes you need to just look at how many f***ing runs a guy gives up. Kyle Gibson has three seasons in the last five with ERAs near 5. Two good years in the last five and three nearly replacement level years. Chase Anderson is better (quote this). I'll admit that earlier this offseason I thought Gibson had a better 2019 based on how people were talking about him.

but but but but Rowdy Tellez!

imagine drafting a player in a league where only ~200 prospects are owned and having that s***** f***ing player not even be anywhere in the entire Fantrax database, which has like 9999 prospects you must be the one dynasty baseball owner in the entire world who owns this piece of trash

I doubt he can start in CF. He's a bit like Emilio Bonificacio in that he can play all over but he doesn't seem particularly good anywhere.

This is a level of incompetence that would be shocking if it was any organization other than Baltimore. It's like they did not even try to trade him until just now and ran out of time.

Guys this baseball offseason is not terrible!

Huge f***ing win for Milwaukee. Lauer is worth a boatload more than Davies, is he not? Urias was a top 20 or 30 prospect.

Weird scouting profile for Joey Bart on Fangraphs. This is 23 year old guy, picked out of college in 2018. They give him present hit and game power grades of 35 and 50. Speed 35, arm 55, fielding 65. Overall future value of 60 as a defense + power guy. I'm just surprised the hit tool is that low, I thought he was supposed to be a better all around prospect. I mean Reese McGuire is probably a 35 hit, 65 defense guy right?

Okay, I made all of the posted changed to the league rules but I realized we should probably still have a promotion threshold at the February deadline. It will probably never matter. The only time mandatory promotion thresholds will apply is at the February cut deadline. The thresholds have been increased to 1000 PA and 50 (GS + half of relief appearances). The point of this is to eliminate owners using the MiLB roster as a loophole to keep an additional MLB player, if that player happened to have a green flag near the end of the season and was therefore able to be demoted.

66th percentile spin rate on the fastball is close enough to middle of the road and that velocity is not special in this era. At this point I am willing to begin to think that Nick Pivetta is just one of those batting practice style pitchers who can post good K/BB rates but gets hammered on contact. Could be an ultra hittable fastball, lack of a third pitch, or both - or it could be random.

Is that a three way trade??? Fantrax benefits!

nice was almost a top 100 prospect in the past. might be a good reliever if he can stay healthy and put in a full season... sat almost 95 last year

Kerfoot's hit was very dirty and dangerous. Marchand's wasn't nearly as dangerous or dirty. Bortuzzo should have received more than 4 - I think there was an intent to injure. It's the intent (or neglect) that should really be punishable, not the results.

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO MINOR LEAGUE ROSTER MANAGEMENT AND ASSOCIATED RULES Background: - In Yahoo we did not allow prospect demotions. The main reason being it would have been a pain to ask the commissioners to process them. - In Yahoo any player who played in AA the year prior could be added. With no demotions and one NA slot the effect of this was that a small number of near-MLB prospects would be owned in Yahoo. - In Yahoo we used mandatory prospect promotion thresholds. The initial theory was to prevent prospect hoarding by good teams and to promote turnover/transactions. The main effect seemed to just be the rare punitive effect on an owner who forgot to promote. New Substrate: - Fantrax opens up easy movement of players to the minors, allowing demotions. - Demotions would clash with our AA eligibility rule, allowing any team to stuff their minor league roster with decent prospects from free agency. - The mandatory prospect promotion thresholds don't seem to really matter. Teams will probably promote or trade good prospects and cut bad ones naturally. New Rules: - We will have unregulated promotion and demotion from/to the MiLB roster (in Fantrax you can't demote unless they have a green flag; in Fantrax if an MiLB player loses their flag it does not lock your roster). - Waiver draft eligibility will be changed to only include prospects who played in AAA in the previous year (or a prior year). - Free agent eligibility will be changed to only include players with MLB service time. Players making their debut will be eligible to be added at 8PM EST on the day following their first active day on the 25 man roster. If desired, an owner can request before the 8PM EST eligibility time that a commissioner place a debuting player on "debut waivers." A commissioner who places a player on debut waivers has to announce it in this thread. There is no general obligation to use debut waivers, which is an accommodation for owners who can't compete for an 8PM EST add, but there is an obligation for commissioners to respond to requests for debut waivers. - The mandatory prospect promotion thresholds will be no more. - I had previously added a 13th MiLB slot to replace the NA slot. I have decided to reduce the MiLB slots to 12 again in light of all of this. I think all of this is sensible but I am still open to comments, particularly about the debut waivers thing.

Draft orders are done. I emailed Spanky and Abom the results as they were generated. MiLB: 1 spanky 2 njh 3 torontofan 4 abomination 5 orgfiller Waiver: 1 njh 2 spanky 3 torontofan 4 abomination 5 orgfiller

If we go to free movement between MLB and farm, I think I would change the FA eligibility rules to be more strict. Maybe: A) must have hit AAA, or must have been promoted to MLB 25 man roster in real life at some point previously, or C) current AA rule or new AAA rule during waiver draft only, every other time use , and teams can only take two no-MLB-experience players in the waiver draft.

Maybe you're right here. The MiLB draft might be all the incentive owners need to promote active players.

Okay, the one reason to be hesitant is that teams with s***** farms could just stuff their farm with prospects who hit AA in the prior year, at any time. That's a problem and very much changes the farm dynamic of our league. These tend to be decent prospects based on our league depth.

It wouldn't need to be proactive. We'd just use the tattle-tale system, and maybe peruse farms around draft time (which I already did in DDL).