John_Havok

I think the market on Rodon is softer than we realize. He had a fairly obvious velocity drop in the second half of last season, and combining that with his very recent and prolonged injury history teams are probably very wary of signing him for high dollar figures. He might be a prime 1 year pillow guy that signs for well below what others of his skill range do because of that. Him expecting a 20 million-ish dollar AAV for even 1 year would be extremely surprising to me. The skillset it there for sure, but I doubt there's many teams looking at multiyear deals for this guy despite the obvious skill. And if they are looking at multiyear deals, the AAV wont be what it could be.

All that said about Espinal, if I had to pick who I think will be the better hitter in 2022, I'd take Wendle, but the difference is probably not huge. Wendle is a spray guy too and hits the ball harder.

The biggest thing that changed with Espinal from 2020 (SSS caveat) and 2021 is his whiff rate on certain pitches, and thus, his overall K rate. Against the fast ball in 2021, his whiff rate was just 10% vs 22% in 2020. Breaking ball whiff rate was about the same... slightly up from 20% to 22% so not super significant. Offspeed whiff rate fell from 40% to 25%. Overall K rate went from 24% to 12%. Exit velo average was 85 in 2021 vs 87 in 2020. Looks like he might have made some conscious efforts to reign in his swing a bit to make more contact and spray it around as well. His pull (39%), centre(31%) and oppo (31%) rates where pretty even last season with a slight favor to the pull side, whereas 2020 he was 46%, 40% and 15% To a guy with no power, that's how he's going to have to hit to be even remotely successful. To put the fastball whiff rate into perspective, Vlad's whiff rate on fastballs was 17%. Obviously not saying Espinal is a better hitter against the fastball, just saying that whiff rate is really really good.

That's basically his output in 2020, but that was 60 PAs, so not really all that telling. He's a slappy spray hitter with a good eye at the plate. Yeah, if his BABIP doesn't run higher than most, his offensive value will dry up. But his defense is plus wherever he plays, so there's always gonna be PA's available for him somewhere. But he probably shouldn't be a starter either.

I wouldn't say ALOT more depth in the pen, basically just 1 more guy and ideally he'd be upper tier. Someone like Kenly Jansen would be about perfect to have a clear top 2 of Jansen/Romano. Garcia, Richards, Mayza, Cimber, Stripling (assuming long/swing) then the rest of Pearson, Saucedo(L), Snead(L), Borucki(L), Thornton, Hatch, Kay(L), Merryweather, Phelps, Castro can fight it out for the remaining spots or be rotation depth. Likely even some other pickups before spring training of even more guys on minor league deals with ST invites, just like every year.

Not a bad idea. Though that might retard the growth of this new thread

That's lame.

That’s one way to look at it. An optimistic look would be that both sides seem to agree that it needs to be raised, so it’s a likely thing that can agreed on. As is expanded playoffs, universal DH, draft lottery, minimum salary increases, uniform advertising (f***) Looks like the major sticking points are international draft, revenue sharing, and service time issues.

Partial list of negotiating topics: FREE AGENCY MLB: Would keep existing system or change eligibility to age 29.5 rather than six years of major league service, which it has been since 1976. MLBPA: Would keep existing system for 2022-23 offseason, then would for 2023-24 and 2024-25 offseasons make eligibility six years of service or five years of service and age 30.5, whichever comes earlier, and then for 2025-26 offseason and later, six years of service or five years of service and age 29.5, whichever comes earlier. FREE AGENT DRAFT PICK COMPENSATION MLB: Would agree to eliminate penalties for teams signing free agents who turned down a qualifying offer. Draft pick compensation has existed since 1976. SALARY ARBITRATION MLB: Would keep current system or replace it with salaries based primarily on award recognition and career Fangraphs WAR, saying the change would address MLBPA’s concerns about paying younger players based on value. Players currently eligible for arbitration under the expired CBA would be grandfathered and have the choice of salary arbitration or the new system. MLBPA: Would lower eligibility to two years of major league service, its level from 1974 through 1986, when it increased to three years. In the expired agreement, it was three years plus the top 22% by service time of players with at least two years but less than three years. LUXURY TAX Threshold was $210 million in 2021, with tax rates of 20% for first offender, 30% for exceeding in consecutive years and 50% for exceeding in three or more consecutive years. Surcharge for exceeding $230 million and $250 million. MLB: Proposed raising threshold to $214 million in 2022 and offered an option of a $100 million payroll minimum funded by a 25% tax on payrolls above $180 million. Tax threshold would rise to $220 million in final season. MLBPA: Proposed raising threshold starting at $245 million for the 2022 season and eliminating non-tax penalties. SERVICE TIME MLBPA: Made proposals aimed to prevent what it says is service-time manipulation, including allow accruing of service time for rookies for awards and special accomplishments. MLB: Rejected MLBPA proposals AMATEUR DRAFT MLB: Proposed an NBA/NHL-style draft lottery for top three selections. MLBPA: Accepted the concept of a weighted lottery but would expand the number of teams to eight and make adjustments designed to incentivize competition. PRE-ARBITRATION PLAYERS MLBPA: Proposed pool from central revenues for pre-arbitration players, to be allocated based on award recognition and WAR. MLB: Smaller pool funded from revenue, partly from expanded playoffs and luxury tax proceeds currently assigned to other purposes. MINIMUM SALARY Usually one of the last items addressed. Was $570,500 in the major leagues in 2021, $46,600 in the minor leagues for a player signing his initial major league contract and $93,000 in the minor leagues for a player signing a second or later major league contract. Both sides would raise minimum but disagree on amounts. POSTSEASON MLB: Would expand postseason from 10 to 14 teams, with wild cards increasing from two per league to four. Division winner with best record in each league would advance directly to Division Series, and the other two division winners and wild-card teams would start in a best-of-three round. The division winner with the second-best record would choose its opponent from among the three lowest-seeded wild-card teams. The division winner with the third-best record would then get to pick from among the remaining two wild cards. The top wild card would face whichever team is left over after the division winners make their choices. MLBPA: 12-team expanded playoffs and possible realignment to two divisions per league, subject to agreement on MLBPA economic proposals. DESIGNATED HITTER MLB has offered to accept MLBPA’s proposal to extend the designated hitter to the National League, subject to agreement on postseason expansion. The DH has been used in the American League since 1973 and was used in both leagues during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. UNIFORMS ADVERTISEMENTS MLB: Proposed adding uniform advertising patches. MLBPA: Would agree, subject to agreement on MLBPA economic proposals. REVENUE SHARING MLBPA says MLB has rejected all its proposed changes and indicated that it would not agree to any changes. MLB says the changes would eliminate $100 million of revenue sharing money currently going to small-market teams in a system that has been largely in place since the 1997 agreement. INTERNATIONAL DRAFT MLB has proposed an international draft, which the MLBPA has long opposed.

That's pretty much what I just said. You can't count on Moreno to be the 3b of the future, but you also shouldn't make that position impossible for him to step into if he shows he is ready. I don't have the information available to make that decision, I can only guess the Jays are hoping to have the option of him at 3b, or they wouldn't have asked his Arizona fall league team to play him there.

NOt yet. He might be the last one.

Nothing wrong with a 3 year deal for Kikuchi if it's around 8-10 Per season. He's got skills, just needs to be fully unlocked.

Signing Stroman probably is cutting costs. Who's left for a starting pitcher that's worth anything?

Good point. Given that anyone not on the 40 man roster wouldn't be in the union, I would expect this doesn't impact them.

Yeah but you also don't want to pave over the position you want the kid to play either with someone on a big money multi-year deal. A stopgap would be someone with good quality D, not an embarrassing bat, and maybe 1-2 year deal that you can either keep on the bench once Moreno comes up (assuming he's truly ready for 3b this season... which is honestly something I doubt), or deal to try and fill some other need.

Lockout starts tomorrow. What remains to be seen is whether it goes on long enough to impact Spring Training or season games. Really the only thing players miss out on with a lockout over the winter is access to team training facilities. However, most large agents will have their own training facilities (BOras for example has his own) or they will just work out at home, or some university.

I had the same conversation with someone at work today about that, and used that exact same example. Like.. how could the players demand full salary in a reduced schedule with the owners not only not getting fans in the stands, but for less games, and less TV revenue? But that's the reality of negotiating at that level, both sides intentionally ask for insanely unreasonable things that they know will get rejected so they arrive in the middle at what they really want. It's especially sad when both knows know that's what both sides do, and still do it while pretending that they don't.

I guess the perfect scenario there would be that Ramirez arrives here for 2 seasons via trade, Vlad and Bo both get extensions done in the meantime, and whatever 3B prospect that didn't get traded in the Ramirez deal takes over 3B at that point. There's a lot of assumptions made in my statement though like the Jays and both those players actually agree on long term extensions that make sense. Right now the long term core of the team is obviously Bo, Vlad, Springer, Berrios, Gausman. 3 are already locked up with guaranteed contracts, 2 need (IMO) to be. That's about as many guys as you can realistically afford to be big money deals before things get out of control in a hurry. Extending Ramirez in that scenario likely wouldn't be feasible unless both Vlad and Bo get bent over like Acuna and Albies.

Yeah, a lot can change in 6 months. Apparently the Jays were hard after Ramirez at the deadline and Cleveland loves Kirk. So maybe there's still a deal there without Moreno now that it's only 2 years of control vs 2.5.

Just finalized, pending a physical. No term or dollars given yet.

I feel like this could be Shakespeare, if he had ADHD

4 straight years of negative D value from Taylor though... he had 1 good year prior to that. Should also be mentioned that he has very little experience at 3b overall, like 189 innings.

THat should be plan Z. PLan A should be get a half-decent 3b on something very short term with a focus on defense, give Biggio his last long look at 2b to see if the bat comes around or not and then cut bait if needed, and at THAT time, see what's out there for 2b while Espinal fills in the meantime. Injuries will happen of course, but 3b is the clear priority over 2b IMO

Maybe 90%.

Its the same thing every time around. Nobody ever negotiates in good faith until they're up against a deadline of losing games. At least this is in the offseason instead of June.