Orgfiller

Shapiro has spearheaded revitalizing the Rogers Centre into a modern facility that improves both the baseball and casual fan experience. He's helped make our ST complex top of the line, and just in general brought up this organization to be among the most respected in the league, including the signing of several top free agents, and leading the team to its most successful run since the 90s. No brainer decision to continue with him at the helm.

Nice to get the elephant in the room sorted out. Ross Atkins extension news should follow shortly now.

I could be proven wrong by the TJStats models, but Stuff+ on fangraphs grades his sinker at 97, albeit they think he commands it perfectly which shoots up the Pitching+ model on it. Curve wise it's the opposite, a near elite grade on the raw stuff but poor location of it leading it to be a below average offering. Just sounds like the kind of guy that can easily be awful if the command backs up again, and there's a long history of that being a problem for him.

Aside from what you brought up, some issues for them are depth, which AA has always struggled with. Some of their core building blocks like Riley, Albies and Harris have been trending down since 2023 to the point where two of those guys are below average, and Riley is average but being paid like a star. The projections are still positive, so they might not be totally screwed, but it's a dangerous spot to be in. SS has been a total black hole ever since they lost Dansby Swanson. On the pitching side of things, there's upside but the rotation is completely filled with ticking time bombs. Strider broke and then came back looking pretty bad, he should hopefully be better in his second season of return. Sale is going on 37 and hasn't been dependably healthy in quite some time. Schwellenbach looks potentially special but lost half the season with elbow troubles. Reynaldo Lopez is a total unknown, was great after converting back to starting, and then broke. Their best case scenario is one of the better teams in the league, but the 50th percentile case is a bunch of injuries and little depth to tread water when their big pieces are predictably out, or struggling from playing through nagging injuries.

I'd be pretty scared of Newcomb. Not sure how much I buy him suddenly fixing his command, and the stuff doesn't pop off the page. Stuff+ is about average, with all of his fastball shapes being mediocre, and poor Location+. He has a lot of Little like characteristics, except the fastball isn't special if located well.

Considering 3 non Diaz relievers this offseason have already gotten 15M+ AAV, you should maybe consider recalibrating your perception of what market value for these guys is around the league.

Can't believe we signed the top starter on the market and some people can still act like Ross Atkins is just sitting on his ass lol.

I'd probably rather rather Fairbanks and Rogers over Jansen, if only because I think they'd be more used to working in random points of the game, rather than Jansen being super accustomed to the classic "closer" role. There's also the age and other factors of course.

Robert Stephenson. He's just beeing cheeky with the name: https://www.fangraphs.com/players/robert-stephenson/13594/stats?position=P Pretty excellent stuff but just can't stay healthy.

All these deals for relievers makes it seem like either Devin Williams left a lot of money on the table, or certainly Edwin Diaz did. After deferrals, Williams basically ended up getting what age 34 Robert Suarez did. Maybe the elevated ERA did actually affect his market, it's just that this is the going rate for pretty good relievers.

Too bad, I would've been okay with him at that price, but I also don't know what kind of budget we're playing with, especially if we're still in on Bo/Tucker. Likely couldn't have done the big bats and added a Suarez.

Higher AAV than Devin Williams when you factor in the deferrals.

Bit expensive for such an injury prone arm, no? Although that $2.5M club option for 2027 is very interesting. Wonder if his luxury tax hit when traded would account for the option having already been vested, and then effectively halve the AAV calculation.

AA is washed

Not sure who the Braves were bidding against that they needed to guarantee Yastrzemski 2 years for his ages 35-36 seasons. He currently projects for around 1 WAR as a platoon bat. Cedric Mullins who's much younger and can still play CF just got 1/7.5

I don't think (and hope) this deal will actually age all that well for the Orioles, but it's the kind of move they need to make to show they're serious around supplementing their young core. Pitching is still a big hole for them, but this signals they're willing to open up the chequebook to make the team better. Putting on my hater hat, I think Pete is good for two more seasons before pretty much falling off a cliff in years 3-5, especially at the latter end. He's deeply unathletic with mediocre K/BB rates and is already one of the worst 1B defenders in the league. It's the Schwarber contract to a guy who's a little younger but with a higher floor and lower ceiling. Same as the Schwarber contract, it's too much money for my liking, but good for Pete on betting on himself and securing a big payday. And their pitching is still a joke lmao.

Detroit basically reinvented how he pitched and he was excellent for it. Good deal for both sides.

Not really unless they pull a Bobby Bonilla and get themselves into a ponzi scheme. Every team that has handed out deferrals is already putting that money somewhere each year and just accruing interest on it until it's time to pay it out.

Because he's a DH. If the power/bat speed declines even a little bit due to expected aging, then you're tying up $30M AAV to a guy that is literally one of the worst defenders in the sport. It's not like him improving his conditioning means all of a sudden you can play him in the outfield every now and then, he's f***ing horrendous and already is at 14th percentile sprint speed at age 32. This is already a guy whose profile can swing precipitously to one end if age related decline hits, really living on the edge with that K rate. When Kyle Schwarber isn't putting up career years offensively, he's basically about as good as Anthony Santander from 2022-2024, and that guy got ~5/70 on the open market. Schwarber is better than Santander was then, but not by that much, and certainly not for double the price. This is George Springer money for a guy with the tenth of the athleticism that George Springer has, and even more expensive per year!

wat

I totally get this mindset and the logic behind it, don't get me wrong. But the Tigers are realistically not a poverty franchise in a small market. They can and should afford to throw big bucks around to the likes of Skubal, and not be totally financially hampered to still make other big moves payroll wise. I actually think they're in a perfect position where most of their talent is pre-arb or early arb with some good prospects coming up, no real albatross contracts aside from the disaster that was the Javier Baez signing.

Yeah don't disagree there. However, I think Skubal is firmly in that category of players that if you can afford it, you should mostly be prepared to give him whatever he wants. Idk, I get that he's a pitcher but he's the best pitcher in baseball. I think ironically, if they take a Dodgers package of like, Sheehan++, assuming mostly minor leaguers, then they're going to be one Tarik Skubal like piece away from being true contenders, even with Michael King + Cody Bellinger attempting to but not recuperating the lost value. They're not quite a dumpster fire as a team like the White Sox were when they moved Crochet, and I'm sure they're regretting not getting full value from him. Prospects are so fickle, and you can't realistically bank on getting anyone back that would be as impactful as Tarik Skubal is to contention.

I don't about no matter the cost, but I do think Suarez is the top remaining bullpen target for us. With Diaz only getting 3 years, they have some decent leverage there. Either getting him for 2 years, or push a third year for a reduced AAV which would help our tax calculation. Would 3/30-36 get it done? MLBTR and fangraphs projections have him at 3/48. Diaz went under his projected in total value and years and that should drive down Suarez's market value.

I think they'd be out of their minds to not deal him if they have no intention of meeting his contract demands. With that said, they're a pretty mediocre team who happens to still contend thanks to existing in the worst division in the league, can they really afford to lose someone of his calibre with a relatively exciting prospect pipeline coming through the ranks? Something to be said about making the homegrown ace the face of your franchise for the foreseeable future, and hoping that can both instill a winning mentality in the upcoming younger players, and signal to FAs that they're serious about contending.