TwistedLogic

I agree completely on the sentiment about Shi, but even a great writer like Lott was a complete tard over the last week or so, so I'm letting it slide on the basis that there was a lot of misinformation, and even good writers should and do capitalize on big stories when they're popping out like Mexican children, even if there's no legitimacy to the rumors behind them.

LOL. Stole the exact words I was going to write. +1.

And the amount of typos and mind gaps in his "articles" is embarrassing. With guys like Shi Davidi and BNS starting to shine in their roles, Elliott has become redundant.

Bob Elliott has devolved into a geriatric hack. The guy is so far past the point on which he should have stopped writing. Aside from a decent piece once in a blue moon, where he's probably handed a story just because of who he is, he's become one of the most unbearable writers to follow in this city.

It's the Dodgers. They aren't run by idiots like the Phillies are. A team with their budget and baseball acumen will probably be far more open to eating salary to facilitate a trade, rather than making a public mockery of their club by asking teams to take on all of their hideous contracts and still give them their three top prospects.

Except THEY have never violated the narrative. Anthopoulos or anybody else has never mentioned anything other than the standard "if we need it, the money will be there". The fact that the Jays continue to spend in the international market and in the first year player draft, and have nearly doubled their major league payroll over the last two seasons, completely supports that. It's the third rate writers that are scavenging for hits and the people like you who readily eat that s*** up that gives birth and traction to these idiotic "rumors", and creates so-called stories out of nothing. The front office has maintained the exact same message since day one; it's everybody else that keeps changing the narrative.

This is exactly what I gathered from it as well. There were only AL East teams that moved big pitchers yesterday, and from the sounds of it, it would have taken Stroman in any deal. You'd be crazy to give Stroman to the Red Sox (Lester is a rental) or the Rays (Price is f***ing expensive) when he's already pitching at their level. Incorrect; he still doesn't have to do anything. If the right deal isn't out there, then it isn't out there, it doesn't matter what month it is. The majority of the top available names that are attached to big contracts and are expected to make it easily through waivers are all employed by the Phillies, who are run like a f***ing circus. Lee just went down again (surprise surprise), and Rios keeps getting hurt. Hamels will cost Stroman, Hutch and Norris. There's reason to be hopeful, but saying that a GM has to do something regardless of what it will cost him, is and always will be a ridiculous statement. If there is someone that is made available and the Jays bite on him, I'm hoping that it's Kemp. He's overpaid and his stats are being bogged down by completely atrocious defense, but he should make an incredible DH with that slash line.

That is an incredibly short sighted way of thinking. Business men like Beeston and corporate giants like Rogers aren't dumb enough to push out a narrative about having payroll available in advance of the August period, because if people see a strong and pricey player moved this month that made sense for the Jays, they'll have a much stronger case for their outrage, when they'll be able to refer to a now direct quote from Anthopoulos. The whole lie-to-please thing might be logical in your head, but the people you're accusing of doing that, despite popular opinion, aren't actually dumb enough to think it'll work.

Who gives a s*** about rumors? There's zero legitimacy to almost everything that is ever written about this club. A guy that doesn't ever tell anybody s*** suddenly opens up and says he's got payroll to work with. Why would he put his neck out there to lie about that? That's just a stupid assumption.

The last bit of your post is exactly why I understand AA's decision to not do anything yesterday. All of the major pieces moved yesterday were for legitimate, established major leaguers. Lackey for Craig and Kelly, Lester for Cespedes and Jackson, Franklin, Smyly and Price in the three way exchange. AA is right that a deal like that didn't make sense for the Jays. The only other major seller that had big enough pieces to significantly upgrade the team and would have accepted prospects was run by that tard, Ruin Tomorrow Jr, who probably would have asked for Stroman, Pompey and Norris for Lee and no salary relief. There's still guys out there that can push through waivers, like Kemp, Rios and several others. That being said, I agree completely with Dylan, that I feel better about free agency and the offseason after hearing this stuff than I do about the waiver period.

Only a f***tard would have gone out and overpaid for Price. The Jays didn't have the pieces. It doesn't make any sense to pursue Price if you have to make the 25 weaker to do so. We already know the Rays don't like trading within the division, and that they clearly wanted big leaguers. To take that into account and assume you're giving them a return that is somewhat similar to Franklin and Smyly, the Jays would have probably had to cough up something like Lawrie and Stroman, and that kind of trade doesn't make any sense for the Jays right now.

Absolutely massive interview, probably the most Alex has ever really said in one sitting. He turns away from his habit of dancing around questions and flat out drops some truth, answering almost everything he was asked in a direct manner. If you can believe what he says in this interview, and you should, because all of this stuff was out there for us to figure out on our own, then you can't really fault his choice to stand pat. http://pmd.fan590.com/audio_on_demand-3/Alex-Anthopoulos-with-Sid-Seixeiro-and-Elliotte-Friedman-SS-EF-20140731-Interview.mp3 The bit that left me pretty appalled is that he actually straight up revealed the entire situation with the payroll, saying that he has the financial flexibility to do literally anything he wants. This is significant, because as he mentions, it's always the higher salary guys that are able to make it through waivers during August and fit into trades. When the interviewer asks him if this means that he has the ability to add 5, 10, even 15 million in a deal through waivers in August, he flatly says "yes". Of course the sky-is-forever-falling group will always find things to cry about, but for the more rational fans, it's nice to see Alex be a lot more open for once and shed some light on the financial parameters the club is working with; which is to say that money will not be a factor one way or another if a sensible trade is presented.

How is this a bad trade? If you're gonna knock on the A's for anything, it should be letting Fuld go before he put up 2 wins in the first place. He's been decent against lefties and he's had excellent defense.

Then the ignore button is your friend. Enjoy.

It has nothing to do with how cluttered this thread is. Not only is it convenient for people posting on the forum already, events like the trade deadline and winter meetings are excellent opportunities to gain new forum members with the massive amounts of increased online traffic during those times. Search engine bots that fly through forums picking up search data look primarily at forum tags (which nobody here uses, for some reason) and thread titles. Shoving blockbuster trades into thick threads focused on minor moves will give the board no chance in appearing in searches about the Lester trade. If you can have five page threads about North destroying another thread, we can have threads to discuss huge trades that might actually help out the forum.... The people who wanted Hammel are probably the same people who wanted Ubaldo.

They should trade Hammel if they can still get a return on his absurd over-ratedness. There was no way he was going to be consistent in how well he was playing, and sure enough, he's been hideous for the A's. If they can get a good return on Milone, it makes sense to deal him, but he's a great depth piece to have. With him down there, they have a very deep rotation.

And I used to think you were one of the more quality posters around here. LOL.

I'm sure when literally any other mod will come online, we'll probably have a thread. It's ridiculous that it's being policed so hard with the kind of garbage threads that are allowed to get posted so regularly, especially with everyone asking for it, but what can you do. One of the biggest trades of the deadline deserves to be relegated to a generic 30 page thread that none of the forum casuals will be f***ed to browse through. Of course it's great for us to push forum traffic over to other sites though, where literally everybody else will have a discussion page created to specifically talk about each big trade. We clearly don't need new members signing up.

A mix and match outfield of Gomes, Reddick, Crisp, Vogt, Moss and Gentry is probably better than what most teams have.

If you think the consensus World Series contenders picking up an ace at the deadline is not thread worthy, then I'm sorry to be blunt, but you need a few lessons in forum moderation.

Chavez. Chavez has been very good.

Get with the program. According to the mods, this isn't thread-worthy.

Apparently thread moderation is very hard. I already made two threads and he's merged/deleted both of them, so I give up.

This isn't "every deal"... It's probably the biggest deal of the season. Now that it's confirmed, it deserves it's own thread.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/07/athletics-acquire-jon-lester-jonny-gomes-cespedes-heading-to-boston.html Looks like the deal is confirmed.