Sorrow

As others have said I think an upgrade at 2B is necessary but a bench of Smith and Clement backing up the IF and one of the corners isn’t bad. I do think Suzuki is someone the front office should push for in a corner, and Arraez or Lowe at 2B would be a nice upgrade. its going to be an interesting off season.

It was also to the deepest part of the park lol

A bit more power would be nice from Sanchez but as the strong side of a platoon he’s for north of a 120 wRC+ on the season against RHP, dragging the overall down is his -2 wRC+ against “ LHP. He’s hitting like .280/.330/.450 against righties. Obviously the poor D and base running mean he needs to hit though.

I enjoy that Bateman has zero power in the MiLB and is like 6 inches off getting an opposition field bomb off Wheeler lol.

IIRC he has 40 grade raw power but hasn’t been able to unlock it in game.

Just looking at Batemans spray chart and some video all of his home runs are to basically dead centre. I wonder if he could turn some of his 40 grade raw power into a bit more usable game power with an approach change like Bichette had to pull mistake pitches in the air in place of try to slap everything into left CF

I was always under the impression that fWAR for pitchers is better for future predictions on performance based on what they can control but the better WAR for actual performance was bWAR or RA9-WAR. I don’t use bWAR as I like everything in one place and it doesn’t factor in catcher framing.

Apparently, and this is just what I heard on a podcast, the Angels love 4 seamers and basically demand their pitchers throw them. The guest that was on thinks that Soriano to the Jays is going to be massive for his development into a power sinker early in counts to splitter and breaking ball for Ks with the odd 4 seamer to keep guys honest. He also has for basically his entire career had horrendous catchers who can’t steal strikes while our staff does and can, so he should actually excel with that.

2 1/2 years for Soriano.

He’s f***ing David Eckstein reincarnated.

My fantasy baseball league does side bets around the deadline and if you’re open to going all in on predictions with specifics you can basically double your winnings if others will go in, if you’re wrong it just ends up in the league pot.

I was as looking through a few contending teams that needed SP that weren’t on his no trade list and took a gander at MLB ready OF and a MIF or OF lottery ticket in the 15-30 range and this package stood out based on Bateman being a major league ready CF and a chance of Varsho being moved it sort of made sense to get a 24 year old CF who plays plus D with plus plus speed and an eye that Atkins seems to like and the SS seemed the same.

Exact trade

Bateman is an immediate replacement for Varsho once he’s traded. He’s never going to hit for power but above average speed and base running and good D in CF. https://prospectsavant.com/player/703520 i don’t know much about the SS https://prospectsavant.com/player/807257 But this trade netted me a grand lol, I had a bet about this and this was the trade I predicted for Gausman.

I personally am opposed to a cap but would prefer to have the luxury tax a lot more aggressive, something like the NBAs second sheet or whatever it’s called where when you pass the first threshold your tax is 1:1 so every dollar over costs you a dollar in tax but when you pass the second threshold it starts at 3:1 and gets more expensive. Someone did the math elsewhere but I can’t find the post that if the Dodgers and their $180m luxury tax bill had the NBAs rules it would actually end up being closer to $1.8 billion this season based on how their dollars increase in that second tier. There’s also restrictions on trades and free agent signings that I think should happen in baseball when youre over especially by multiple seasons. I also think we need a reverse cap with a floor with identical penalties for going below. If you drop below you pay a tax and hit a second tier below you pay triple and get hit with more penalties related to trading signing free agents and drafting.