metafour

Kimbrel is not better than Osuna.

How was Cabrera a "came out of nowhere" surprise? He was worth 3.6, 2.6, 0.3, 1.6, and 2.2 wins the five years prior to the Mets signing him. Apart from that one 0.3 WAR season, he's been a consistent ~2-3 win SS, and he's a guy who's good for a consistent 140+ games a season. Its not like he was 40 when they signed him either; he was just turning 30 and therefore it wasn't ridiculous at all to assume that he had more performance left in him. That just looks like smart decision making, not "luck".

Like I said; I don't even agree with this. The "process" of the trade was covering up a mistake (Reyes) by throwing MORE assets and MORE money on a BAND-AID that in short time was likely just going to turn into another mistake himself (Tulowitzki). It was a band-aid solution , and just like a band-aid, its probably going to hurt a bit once we get to the point wherein its time to yank it off.

So 1.6 and 2.2 WAR as a younger player gets you $18.5 million, but I'm supposed to believe that 2.3 and 2.8 WAR is going to net the older player $74 million on the open market?

Who cares? They are a rebuilding team and knew what they were acquiring. Not only did they get two top pitching prospects, but they actually LOWERED their future financial commitment as Reyes was owed much less money than Tulowitzki. Its not like Tulo's 2-3 WAR value would make any difference on their non-contending team. In reality, getting rid of Tulo allowed them to play Trevor Story at SS this season. Story actually put the exact same WAR as Tulo...in 30 less games LOL.

...the Mets found that player for $18.5 million.

Except that Tulowitzki looked like utter crap in his last half season with the Rockies, which kind of kills the entire claim that we were getting "one of the best players in the game". His 1.5 seasons so far in Toronto have confirmed that he is a shell of his former self; its almost as if Colorado knew what it was doing by dumping him while people still thought that he was a 5 win player. I'm not going to get into Hoffman/Castro. Its not like our best starter isn't a guy who had "stuff" yet couldn't strike batters out in the minor leagues. Like I said, I feel pretty confident that those two could have easily become high end relievers in the least. Imagine rolling out Castro/Hoffman/Osuna out of the bullpen for the foreseeable future.

You think he'd get $74 million over his age 32-36 years after 2.3 and 2.8 WAR seasons the last two seasons? That seems like an awful lot for an injury-prone ageing player who is almost all-defense now.

And its not like we just flipped the contracts of Reyes/Tulo; we gave up two top pitching prospects to get it done. Hoffman and Castro probably end up disappointing just like every pitching prospect ever in Colorado, but those two could have easily been elite relief options for us even if they never worked out as starters. Colorado literally used up all of Tulo's prime years, paid him a huge contract to keep him there, and then got another team to pay two top prospects to eat the ugly back end of his contract wherein he's no longer an elite player, all for the price of eating some of Reyes' contract, which wasn't even a big deal considering that they are rebuilding and therefore they can afford to pay a guy to just leave.

He's an asset in that we just wound the clock back a few years on Jose Reyes; albeit he's not as useless from an attitude standpoint. A year or two from now this could easily be a situation wherein you're sitting on ~2+ years of extremely overpaid (while under performing) Troy Tulowitzki, which is exactly where we were sitting with Reyes. Asdrubal Cabrera was a better SS this season and he signed with the Mets for 2 years, $18.5 million last offseason.

Exactly. This isn't an "oh, we're doing this so that we can build our own super-great baseball academies" situation; its a "we want to reduce owner costs so we're killing the market, but don't worry, we're building our own academies so there is really nothing to get upset about".

We got rid of Reyes by acquiring a player with an even bigger/longer contract. Tulo has been a ~2-3 WAR defensive player here. It was an alright trade, but hardly anything incredible considering that we've got 4 years left wherein you better pray that his defense doesn't decline, because his hitting has already regressed to league-average level.

AA couldn't do that again either; hence why all of his other trades for "MVP candidates" (Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes, RA Dickey, Troy Tulowitzki) proved to be colossal flops. The man made a once-in-a-lifetime trade. Remember when we were acquiring an "MVP candidate" in Tulowitzki?

It changes everything, are you serious? Shapiro's analysis found that most hitters/sluggers start falling off significantly at age ~35/36, therefore signing 30 year old Bourn until age 34 or 32 year old Swisher until 36 theoretically made sense because it should have limited "dead contract years" to at most a year or so for both players (with more risk on Bourn because he was a speed-driven player). That is drastically different from going long-term at INFLATED MARKET VALUE on a player like EE who is already 34 and could start declining significantly even a year from now...a thought that isn't even that ridiculous considering that he actually regressed metrically THIS season (~4-5% jump in strikeout rate, ~15 point drop in wRC+ relative to his norm the past ~4 seasons). The scary thought on EE is him giving you 5-6 WAR the next two seasons and then being stuck with a DH making ~$40-60+ million over the last 2-3 years of his contract while he gives you ~1-2 WAR per year.

Why would they trade Stroman (one of only two young, cheap, controllable starters in the staff)? THat makes no sense for a team that should be looking to get YOUNGER. If you want to move a starter, you sell high on someone like Happ who is 34 years old, or Estrada who only has a year left on his contract.

You might want to look at the ages and contract lengths of Bourn and Swisher, LOL. Bourn was 30 years old when he signed a 4 year deal. That is a bit different than 34 year old EE signing a 4-5 year deal that would take him to ages 38/39, now isn't it? Swisher was 32; and neither of those two were guys who were in talks to sign contracts of up to ~$100 million.

Shapiro was one of the first execs in baseball to realize that handing out long term contracts to old and declining players (ie: paying premium for past performance that is unlikely to be replicated) is a stupid idea. While EE isn't in a Price-like situation; the fact that he's a 34 year old hitter looking for a 4-5 year contract is automatically going to make him an unlikely choice from Shapiro's perspective

21 years old playing in a league for 17 year old IFA signees making their NA debuts and 18 year old HS kids moving out of their parents houses for the first time...."not old for the league". OK Todd.

Nobody is paying 37 year old Jose Bautista a long term contract. It worked for Cespedes because he wasn't 36+ years old. David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre...these guys have all been playing on 1-2 years deals. Its not like Bautista is going to opt out and then get 4 years from someone.

Overall.

BA just posted a review of this past draft, with Bo Bichette getting a lot of love: Best Power Hitter: #2 Bo Bichette Best Pro Debut (HS): #1 Bo Bichette Closest to the Majors (HS): #3 Bo Bichette

We got Tory Lanez who has an ongoing beef with Drake...

With all due respect; your point here is pretty stupid. Ortiz is the first guy to maintain elite performance at that high an age since who? Barry Bonds? To pretend that this is some sort of expected outcome at this point is lunacy; it is beyond extremely unlikely...and we've got a guy on our own roster (Jose Bautista?) who proves that, with prime Bautista actually being a better hitter than Encarnacion. The only other name that people can bring up is Jim Thome, and in reality Thome is a guy who clearly regressed after age 35/36 despite ONE fluke season in 2010 (age 39) wherein he managed to re-find his elite hitting albeit in a season wherein he only played in 108 games. To use David Ortiz as some sort of "expectation" of Encarnacion's future outlook is beyond foolish. Even Boston knew that Ortiz's elite hitting performance relative to his age was unlikely, which is why he's been playing on 1-2 year contracts since ~2012. The reality about Encarnacion's season this year is that metrically it was actually the worst hitting season he's had since he officially broke out in 2011. The only reason why it looks like he's been as good as in previous years is because he managed to play in more games this past season than in any of those previous years. More at bats = more standard counting stats (RBI's, HR's, etc). In reality his strikeout rate jumped ~5% this year and his wRC+ dropped about ~15 points. There is no reason to expect that Encarnacion from ages ~34-38+ is going to somehow manage to stay healthier than he did from ~29-33.

Does someone want to look for that outside two-seamer or what?

Wayne Kirby is also overweight. How do you know that it wasn't just a fat joke? Fat people like fried chicken too. Wait...that would make it "fat shaming" though; which I think is as bad as racism these days?