Terminator

He's actually a good fit IMO. He's a solid hitter who is pretty balanced against both sides of the plate. He's just completely uninspiring because he can't play a position and he's old. If he came for dirt cheap I wouldn't hate it if it allowed to spend more money elsewhere.

I think there's a chance! If EE gets 90 million then someone will have to give Bautista a 3 year deal or Reddick a 4 year deal to eclipse 90 mil.

Mlbtraderumors is saying that sometimes these deals allow the player to opt-in to arbitration once they are eligible. If that's the case he'll make a bit more than 22 million if he's any good.

Yeah a Reddick and Bautista combo might cost about the same amount of money as EE on his own.

What exactly about the 9 year age gap lead you to believe that he was his dad and not his brother?

Lol I want to say this is a joke but I don't think it is!

How exactly is 23 old? His brother was 30 I believe.

No arbitration unless he sticks in the minors for a while and his service time clock out runs the contract.

If it's something like that I would be fine with it.

Well this is cool. 7 years, 22 million. I assume he starts off in the minors.

He's actually a pretty darn good fit. I'm worried about his price but I think it's come down a lot with his poor play for the Dodgers.

Maybe.

Well the Braves just spent 20 million on over 40 stopgaps. I get signing one to plug a hole so the team isn't complete s*** but 20 million total I'm not so sure. Might be best to just put some of that money toward next season.

For what it's worth Thames' 2016 MLE in the Korean League was a pretty robust .258/.341/.513.

This offseason truly is the end of the Alex Anthoupolous era.

What's his better "position"? Would love to bring him and Pearce on board as cheaper options to go along with a Fowler or EE signing or something.

Wow yeah I almost swore he appeared in some games for us too.

Are you referring to this classic?

Yeah that's a good feeling. Also if we move Biagini to the rotation he and Bolsinger actually give us a couple of relatively decent #6 and #7 SPs as well.

That's a good signing by the Braves. They need 3 starters so to strike early on an okay back-end guy so early is a solid move for them. I was always a big proponent but given our current roster he wasn't needed anymore.

Good point although sometimes the two can be the same. But in this instance if Morales seems really keen it's something to consider rather than chasing a guy who may be better but doesn't have interest in signing here (for example perhaps Holliday).

Yuck, not a fan of Morales. If he doesn't cost that much having his 110 w RC+ switch hitting bat in the lineup isn't going to hurt but I'd prefer someone that could play the field.

Yep that's pretty much where I'm at. I wonder if we see teams starting to mimic the Indians now. Where your #2 RP is your CL and your #1 RP is used earlier in the game. Or will that just be a playoff thing? I'll be interested to see how creative teams get with their relievers after this year's playoffs.

I was thinking about that earlier today. I'd need to look back at it and see how good Ryan actually was and how much relievers were getting paid. Conventional wisdom (at least through sabremetric side of things) on relievers has gone through some serious changes though too. It seems like back then we all thought that 200 IP was more valuable than 70. Therefore RP shouldn't really get paid much. Teams like the Rays then started taking that to the extreme and building bullpens was basically finding gems off the scrap heap. But now with these elite relievers throwing 2 innings a game in the playoffs the conventional wisdom is kind of changing again. As for me, I'm starting to kind of land in the middle in that I think that elite relievers might only be worth that much money if they are on a high-end team projected to win a lot of games. Paying top dollar for a guy to throw 70 innings when you are projected at 80-85 wins or so isn't going to make as much sense as perhaps paying a starter similar money to throw 180-200 innings. But playoff baseball is different than regular season baseball. Paying an elite reliever can give you surplus value that can be hard to attain as a 92-95 win team. Also helps in the playoffs more as the elite reliever can throw 2 innings nearly every game. Seems like a good way to help a team add win probability in the playoffs.

I don't really think it's a downgrade. Castro is one of the top pitch framers in the game. Martin is slipping in that area. There is a significant chance that Castro outproduces Martin next season.