Orgfiller

I mean Jay Jackson is a 36 year old replacement level journeyman reliever, great for him to have gotten a guaranteed contract. Despite the success story there was some smoke and mirrors to his performance from last season, the velo is decidedly mediocre which means he's a righty reliever with one plus pitch that isn't coming from a particularly funky angle. I doubt anyone will look back at this contract as a steal on the Twins' end, but I certainly am happy for JJ and hope he can hit all the escalators.

I don't think every HOF is generational. Harper was a generational prospect but ended up being "merely" really good, and if he retired tomorrow he wouldn't sniff the HOF having completed his age 30 season. Mookie Betts is a lot closer to that label, as at the same age he has 11 more fWAR and has just about put himself as a lock. Even him I'm skeptical of placing that label on, since actual generational players like Trout, Pujols are Ohtani are leaps ahead. On the pitching side, generational is like Kershaw and Verlander, maybe Scherzer. Someone like deGrom is a unicorn and could have been generational but missed out on the health portion to be worthy of the title.

Varsho projects to be league average offensively with 25+ HR, I think a disaster is being harsh there. The upside is that he unlocks something in his physical profile that can allow him to tap into the power more frequently, he's already demonstrated 5 WAR upside before, and was a top prospect who demolished the upper levels of the minors. IKF I can agree has no real offensive upside, just a boring low offense utility guy who can play 3B really well and other positions pretty well.

I don't know about every other day. The Red Sox completely soured on him playing 3B during last season, and that's with him providing the option to rest Devers who isn't exactly Matt Chapman out there either. I think if we get 30 games from Turner at 3B it'll be too many. He can probably play a better 1B than Vlad so I'm sure we'll see him in the Belt role with rare appearances at 3B or 2B (late game, PH opportunities).

Squatting without shoes on is pretty common and probably recommended, especially if you don't have super gym bro completely flat lifting shoes. It allows you to get closer to the ground and be able to put your weight properly on your heels as opposed to the front of your feet, to drive more efficiently on the way up.

That's not a hashtag, I'm pretty sure he's just tagging his brother's gym/fitness training Instagram page. Some of you guys give your age away too easily lol.

Kershaw is out until at least midseason. Like BTS says, as soon as they can punt someone to the 60-day IL they can sign him and then also move him to the 60-day. This is with me assuming that you can't sign someone straight into the 60-day IL without having to make room on the 40-man to make the signing official first.

Good deal for the Nats. Most likely case Gallo is a 1 win/150G player with 30 HR, in which case it's not a lot of money and raises their floor a bit so their team is a bit less unwatchable. Best case he has a 2021-esque resurgence and they move him for prospects at the deadline, giving them quite a bit of surplus value on this contract. Worst case he sucks and has to be DFA'd, and $5M is nothing to them.

Players like Garcia are getting 3/30 at the minimum in free agency. If it was so easy to replace a guy like him then teams wouldn't be paying a premium to sign comparable players. Richards' inconsistency is sort of baked into his overall projection. Some weeks/months he's unhittable and can give you multiple innings, then he'll lose his release point for a month resulting in him walking the stadium and giving up massive bombs. He's not even someone you can count on in the playoffs since you never know which version of Trevor Richards you're gonna get. I'm not saying he's worthless but he's very cromulent on the whole, and I'm very much over him discovering any semblance of consistency or a tier bump in control. Garcia is who he is, good-great velo from a funky angle, solid number of whiffs, excellent control, will give up a bomb or two every now and then. 2 wins the last 2 seasons. Richards has provided less than half of that in 2.5 seasons while actually pitching more innings. At that point just use your 7-8th starter on the depth charts (Mitch White?) to give you the same amount of near replacement level inning as depth and let the big boys handle the single inning appearances where you need stops.

Garcia is only $4M more expensive with a much better track record and projections. In a world where Robert Stephenson gets 3/33, Rafael Montero 3/35, Reynaldo Lopez 3/30, I don't see how everyone isn't seeing how valuable Yimi at his price point is. Still gets whiffs and is several tiers ahead of Richards in control, I really don't think it's that close of a decision if you had to pick one to keep. It's really only if you believe you could get a legit player back in trading him.

Nah the Cubs traded some decent prospects for him, they'll use him. Whom this actually sucks the most for is Matt Mervis, as between Busch and Morel he might be getting extra blocked at 1B/DH. They could try Busch at third but he really just shouldn't be playing a position.

I don’t think he’s much of a 4th OF since he can’t cover CF though, I feel like that’s basically a requirement. Valuable utility/pinch hitter, but I think a proper 4th OF has to be someone that can play a passable CF.

There's no such thing as "using Gallo properly". The last 3 orgs he's been in have been the Twins, Dodgers and Yankees. It's not like these are stupid orgs/FOs that are throwing him at the wolves without a plan, Gallo just hasn't been good since he left the Rangers. Additionally, for a player as extreme as he is, he actually has pretty decent splits, career 111 wRC+ vs RHP and 103 against LHP, so you don't even have to hide him against lefties. The only thing you're hoping if you sign him is that he cuts his K rate down to "reasonable", which for him is 35% at best, and then taking that with his positional versatility and running with it.

Bounce back to what? The only time he was good was as a rookie running a .400 BABIP with really bad defense. The fact that the Brewers didn't call him up at all in 2023 should be very telling, and they were trotting out Rowdy Tellez and his 78 wRC+ more than half the season.

I wouldn't give him more than an MiLB deal with a spring training invite. He's a R/R 1B only guy with a horrendous K rate and doesn't have the walks or the power (although the power is good) to make up for it. I think he's the definition of a AAAA guy, consistently rakes in AAA with a decent K rate and is fully exposed at the MLB level. When his BABIP isn't .350+ he's one of the worst hitters in the league. I'd rather have Gallo. He also has extremely weird splits; he's blind against lefties or something, as a right handed hitter.

One thing about Gallo, you definitely aren't dreading a GIDP if he comes up with men on first or first and second lol. He has less GIDP in his career (15) than Vlad does in every single season less the shortened 2020 (holy f*** that's a depressing fact). On the other hand, guy on third and < 2 outs, a K or pop up is extremely likely, he has THREE (3) sacrifice flies his entire career. Pulling two players out of a hat, Craig Biggio has 9 (4 in 2021), Santiago Espinal has 5 (3 in 2022).

This was bait btw. To max silver's point, I doubt Belli can continue having success with an all-fields approach given that his barrel rate and hard hit rate cratered even relative to his awful 2021 and 2022 seasons. Unless he's mastered the art of sending weak bloopers over the infield, if you're hitting the ball less to your pull side you better be crushing it oppo ala Judge or make it difficult to shift against in the outfield. His xWOBA with 2023's approach point to him being more of 110 wRC+ hitter than his actual output. So he either needs to continue getting stronger/better at driving the ball, or he'll see his numbers up the middle regress heavily.

Great, another good dead pull hitter working on his all-fields approach. Can't wait to sign him for $200M and then have him underperform his xWOBA by 30 points by continuously hitting 375-390 foot bombs to LF-CF and straight CF.

At $200M someone else can have Bellinger. For that money you’re expecting 4 WAR to be his floor, and it clearly very much is not if the two years prior showed us anything. One whacky homerun celebration and you got a pumpkin on your hands.

More money and commitment than I would’ve been comfortable giving him, but good for Gurriel. Easy guy to root for. Low risk, low upside move, probably fair all things considered.

Tagalog is a gender neutral language anyway so this pedantry isn’t even providing anything. It’s entirely correct to refer to a person of Filipino descent as Filipino, whether male or female. Filipina is an exonym from the Spanish colonization that isn’t an established standard. Some use it some don’t.

A .301 ISO is great obviously. The question is if he can continue selling out for power as he gets older and his bat speed declines even further. Also he was literally as good a hitter as Belt was last season, which was my point. If he can be exactly as good as last season that’d be great, would take it in a heartbeat.

I feel like people expecting JDM to be a significant upgrade on Belt are in for a rude awakening. His whiff and K rates shot up pretty significantly and he's already a guy who didn't walk that often. Granted, he's still got some pretty exciting, game changing power, when he connects the damage is significant, but this might prove harder to do as a 36 year old turning 37 midway through next season. I'd still take him but I would be thrilled if he gave us a 125+ wRC+ good for 2 WAR, trading some OBP for SLG. He provides no defensive value whatsoever unlike Belt who could at least give Vlad a day off at 1B, and is a significantly worse baserunner.

I don't think Urshela coming off major injury is any better than a collection of our league min guys. Like the Montas idea, ambivalent on Brantley (old and oft-injured), and I think Hicks clears 3/27 with ease from some other team, he's got some of the best stuff in baseball and it finally translated into strikeout success. Teams will pay for that. JDM has some major red flags in his profile, I'd probably take him at 1/12 but I think with his pedigree he might beat that and I don't really want to be the team to do it with it adding yet another RHH bat to a lineup that badly wants lefties.

Hoskins can’t even play first base adequately lol. Man is an absolute butcher.