Orgfiller

Uribe is pre-arb and a stud, so the Brewers would have no real incentive to move him yet. Ashby is not a bad target, although he certainly wouldn't need to take Barger to get him. He's also cheap and good and has prior starting experience, so they might not be quick to part with him.

Ha-Seong Kim Jung Hoo Le both guys who have had success despite some injuries Erick Fedde had a 3.4 WAR season after coming back from the KBO

Already with Ponce I don’t see how Berrios and his contract sticks around. You add a major piece like Tucker and then a guy like Straw is getting traded for a ham sandwich, or potentially even attached with a prospect. I don’t think we’re going all Steve Cohen with the luxury tax budget, so adding these dollars is going to come at the cost of trading some of our expensive depth potentially alongside prospects to make the numbers work.

lol Let’s also forget the 41 innings pitched at the MLB level, 27 of which were in the postseason ho-hum.

Rogers is impossible to square up. If you look at his savant page, he routinely rates in the top 99-100th percentile in avg exit velo, 95+ percentile in barrel rate, and also among the top in GB rate. He also walks nobody. So you're getting him into games and he immediately provides a very different look to any other pitcher that hitters see throughout the year, resulting in uncomfortable ABs with lots of strikes and extremely weak contact. He's not really the guy you put in with a runner on 3rd and < 2 outs to get a much needed strikeout, although he could work if you want to induce a groundball at a defender to come home on or turn 2, it's unlikely he's giving up a deep flyball. His low velo and arm angle also means he's a rubber arm who never misses time and can pitch whenever. Finnegan is a fastball-splitter guy, who started locating much better when he arrived in Detroit. Hard to say if that's sustainable, although I would believe you if you told me that Detroit is ahead of the curve compared to Washington when it comes to pitching more effectively. His stuff didn't change at all, although Detroit doubled his splitter usage and limited the fastball, pretty much pitching backwards leveraging his best pitch most often.

Not sure why people are down on Robert Suarez. By Pitching+ he was the 12th best reliever in the MLB last season. He's firmly in that second tier of available relievers in free agency this offseason alongside Helsley, Raisel Iglesias, Fairbanks, except unlike most of them he was still trending positively, improving his K-BB% rate substantially, so he's arguably the best of those options. Elite velocity, tough on righties and handles lefties well with his changeup. With his age, you would think he wouldn't need a huge commitment. I'd be quite satisfied if he was our top option in the bullpen, certainly at least throughout the first half of the season.

I see Fairbanks as more of a Seranthony replacement rather than the top high leverage arm in the bullpen. Either of those options could also be acquired midway through the season if the price tag on Williams/Diaz is too high, or if we'd rather use budget on Bo/Tucker without going too deep into the luxury tax.

Doesn't matter for luxury tax calculations. Only way to really get around it as it stands is to add extra years to soften the luxury AAV ala Padres style, or get the player to accept significant deferrals.

Outlandish claim. The only tool that Barger comes close to matching Marte in is raw power. Marte is an elite hitter with no real flaws in his offensive profile, even if Barger hits his best case scenario he'll be hard pressed to come anywhere near "90% of Marte". At Barger's age Marte was just coming off a 6 win season. Barger should by no means be this untouchable piece. I'd move him as the headliner for a player of this caliber, that has such a reasonable contract, in a heartbeat. I think you might be overreacting a bit to his excellent postseason performance.

Interesting that Pinango got unprotected. He seems to think guys with his profile - good not great hitting, bad defense - don't tend to get picked often so they rolled the dice they can still retain him.

Juan Soto's max EV at the MLB level: 116.6 mph. No others above 116. Just gonna leave that information there with no further comment.

Adames is not a bad best case comparison. The power took a bit to develop, he ran a worse K/BB rate in A+ as a 19 year old with less power, albeit much better hitting. Age is still on Nimmala's side and the K rate hasn't gone off a cliff, there's still a chance there that he can become a good regular, but less likely to be special than the outlook from a year ago. If he can make it to AA by end of 2026 and tread water I still think he's on a great developmental path. He was touted as a pretty raw prospect on draft day, so I'd say he's progressing well.

Jesus Christ, almost 116 mph max exit velo as a 17 year old is insane, that has to be minimum a 70 grade power projection. Combine that with BA giving him a 55 hit tool and his encouraging low K rate and it's hard not to dream a little about the kind of player he could become.

The sample size is pretty small, but he had a 5.58 FIP in the playoffs on the back of an 11:6 K/BB over 14 IP with 3 bombs given up. Call it vetrin presents and "playoff experience grittiness" all you want, but if it happened on any other team you'd probably say that Max got pretty lucky to not be shelled. Obviously it worked out for us and I'll remember his playoff run fondly, but easy to see how this could have gone sideways with worse sequencing luck.

Surely someone like Barger goes back in a potential Marte deal though. Seems very unlikely we could just send back a pure prospects package, at least while still retaining some semblance of a farm system after the fact. The offense would be unreal with both Marte and Bo, but realistically you wouldn't retain Bo if you acquired Marte. Probably use the savings on a top tier SP or maybe go all-in for Tucker.

Imagine being like "why would the Toronto Blue Jays inquire on <superstar player making peanuts> when <worse player across the board> may be available to sign for a premium dollar amount?" lol

Marte is a top 5 player in baseball who can switch hit and is on a dirt cheap contract. I love Bo but I'd rather have Marte and the money savings any day of the week.

TIL Dick Fitts is/was a top 100 prospect. I guess with that in mind his ceiling is likely higher as a SP4/5, which makes even more sense why the Cards are fine sending this much money back,

He's trash with decent max EV and can play all infield positions. Likely just sticks in AAA most of the year covering all over the infield. Unlikely we see him unless we suffer multiple 60 day IL stints.

This makes it far more reasonable for the Red Sox. Reduces the luxury tax hit significantly. On the Cards side, they shed salary, gain a top 100 50 FV prospect plus an optionable depth arm that has a chance to be a rosterable SP5/6.

It's 1/35 with an attached club option for 1/30 that has a $5M buyout. So 1/40 if the Sox decline the club option. But it's essentially a mutual option since Gray can decide to opt out if the club option is picked up.

It's $35M for 2026 with a $30M club option for '27 with a $5M buyout. The Cards are eating money it seems, so we'll see just how much which will inform the value both teams are getting from it. Gray is still quite good and projects for 4 WAR - this seems like an error tbh, he's been at 3.8 and 3.6 the last two seasons and they somehow expect him to pitch more innings in his age 36 season than he has since 2015. Nevertheless, he's still a very good pitcher and I could see the Sox potentially accepting the club option if he's in the 3.5 WAR range again. Of note though, is that the velo declined by a tick last season. This kind of thing doesn't tend to bounce back as a pitcher ages, and Gray is already undersized as an SP, so will be interesting to follow if it keeps declining and how it could affect his performance. Edit: just saw Gray can opt out if the team picks up the club option, in which case the buyout is forfeited. Interesting contract structure.

He doesn’t really seem like a target for either team tbh. Guy who was never overpowering or had elite stuff (Rays love these), not a command artist (Guardians love these), and has a big ego. Not exactly within their model of unheralded guys that they can squeeze more out of.

Mark Leiter Jr. and Ian Hamilton both non-tendered by the Yankees. Potentially decent cheap options for middle relief depth. Aaron Boone used Leiter like the second coming of Andrew Miller, but he’s actually been pretty good for the last 3 seasons despite the mixed results in 2025. Use him in low to medium leverage and he could be a valuable part of a bullpen.

Easy with the hyperbole Jonn. Santander got basically the exact contract Josh Naylor just got, while being a year older with the same production, and cheaper when factoring in deferrals. Seriously, look them up, Santander from 2022-2024 was basically the exact same player as Naylor from 2023-2025. Obviously him being injured all year and pure garbage when he did play will make you cringe, but if he had met projections then he wouldn't be viewed as some black hole contract. That's the luck of FA sometimes, not like you could've expected him to be literally one of the worst players in the league.