Orgfiller

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.

The Tigers don't even want to pay their homegrown ace. What makes you think they'll go after the top FA available?

I wouldn't count the Dodgers and Yankees out on Tucker. Dodgers can always dump Teoscar's contract elsewhere, and Yankees need to at least replace Bellinger. Red Sox I could see being out since they have too many OF as is, and they're all cheap. Mets have unlimited money whenever they feel like using it, but I mostly agree he doesn't seem like their main priority target.

Surprised nobody, especially the Mets, could beat that. That's a very good deal for the Dodgers, and what seems like a poor deal for Diaz's camp unless he literally had no interest from the rest of the league.

Dodgers splurge on Tanner Scott, he blows, and they "rectify" their mistake by just casually splurging on an even better reliever the next offseason for more money lol. Scott is probably back to being elite next year, as the setup man for Edwin f***ing Diaz. It's honestly hard to catch up to this.

f*** the Dodgers lmao. Just flexing on the rest of the league every offseason. This is some evil empire Yankees ********.

My god that has a chance to be a god awful contract very quickly. Dombrowski strikes again. Just learned nothing from the Castellanos disaster.

Here's my view on it. From a league context/popularity perspective, Olerud is far behind all three of these guys. This isn't entirely his fault, he's an advanced stats darling who mostly played in an era where the things he did best weren't yet fully appreciated as they are now. Olerud's accolades are 2x AS, 3x GG, a batting title, and the fact that he was a part of 2 WS champion teams, but not the most popular player in them. Not a single Silver Slugger is a big detriment to his case, although he arguably definitely should have some. I think his two 8 WAR years being so far from one another also hurt him in popularity, if he repeated those in 93-94 or 98-99 he might have some more notoriety. Instead he was more "boring" good around those seasons, instead of a force to be reckoned with. All in all, Olerud only had 3 seasons of 5+ WAR production. Compare that to: Keith Hernandez - seven 5+ WAR seasons. 1x MVP, 11x GG, 5x AS, 2x SS Don Mattingly - four (consecutive) 5+ WAR seasons, 1x MVP, 9x GG, 6x AS, 3x SS, bonus: played for the Yankees Delgado - three 5+ WAR seasons, 2x AS, 3x SS (in peak steroid era), bonus: 473 career HR which is about as much as Mattingly and Olerud combined. Allegedly clean(?) player in steroid era who still had monster numbers To me, from this list Keith Hernandez is the only guy who should most likely be in the Hall. Mattingly had the peak and popularity but not the longevity. Olerud is missing the popularity and the peak. Delgado probably just broke out too late to have a shot, and the missing 27 HR to gain him "automatic" induction is probably what costs him.

Yeah I think a Jays deal includes Barger to get the conversation started. Agreed on someone like Mayer being the centerpiece for Boston as well.

It would not. That's a harder thing to account for, and if you do try to account for it you might lose the generalization of the projection. Like yes I'm sure you can project DS to do worse against RHP with 95+ fastballs, but the sample size will be smaller and there might be some sampling bias involved, i.e. he might be just as good vs them as any other RHP but the team specifically chooses to hide him against them because they think he's not as good.

Campbell suxxx though. No position butcher who took a big step back with the bat in 2025. Average EV of 84 in AAA yikes. And not even cheap!

He's a very raw prospect given the lack of hitting experience. I think if he has an excellent development year it would mean he finishes at AA with good numbers while flashing plus CF defense. I wouldn't be surprised if they move slowly with him.

Oh lol, sorry all these white scrappy OFs look the same to me.

I don't think Schreck is that good of a CF defender. More likely he bursts onto the scene as the LF/RF of the future - he apparently also has a rocket of an arm - than as Varsho's replacement.

Yeah I'm sure the other prospects make a difference here, but on the surface I like it for the Pirates. Oviedo has good stuff, but is already in arbitration, has trouble throwing strikes, and has an injury history, literally just coming back from TJS. He's also under control for just two more seasons. Jhostynxon is a tooled up power/speed backend top 100 prospect with decent upside and a chance to play CF throughout his team control, which he has lots of. He probably won't make enough contact to break the 2 WAR barrier consistently (or at all), but if they can somewhat work around that he could be a good player.