Brownie19

He tried (and failed) to do this a while back...

Hard to argue with this.

Looks like a potential Tommy Edman type, possibly with less speed, but better infield defense? Nico Horner and Brice Turang also come to mind as potential positive outcomes. Then again, maybe those are the 80th+ percentile outcome.

I was reading about this on the weekend and wondering about players who go to JUCO and then to the NCAA....never saw that as an alternative to the minor leagues. Is there any angle now with the NIL money where players would prefer that v. making jack s*** in the minors? It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

100% agree. My apologies for taking the bait too often. It's ironic that you've brought this up, as just this morning I made the decision to add them back to the ignore list to try and remove myself from the issue. I had them on ignore for a long time, but made the mistake of removing them at some point. That was my mistake - if I wanted to read that nonsense, I'll go to Facebook next time. I agree it's ruining the board and I want no part of it.

This place is going to resemble Facebook soon with these 3 making half the daily posts.

I'm in full agreement with this. Just hoping Atkins does the right thing in setting up the next regime as best they can.

I googled what a group of Blue Jays is called and I came up with Blue Jays Party Blue Jays Band Blue Jays Scold Blue Jays Flock Band of Blue Jays? Blue Jays Intelligentsia?

I agree. This is frustrating as f***.

Welcome!

Barf - that's really expense for a 39 year old coming off a dead cat bounce.

Naylor to the Diamondbacks

Admin - appreciate everything that you and others have done to create this community. Happy holidays to you and your family.

100% One of the best ever. It's crazy to think he died after a bout with pneumonia. RIP

Tons of risk in this approach. The last few Rizzo years have been challenging already.

I think that goes without saying ..100%

I'd agree on sunk costs for Bregman. Teo at 3 years shouldn't be too bad. The prospects we receive for Bo would hopefully give us enough to get Robert (although his value may have dropped already following a terrible 2024). But yes - overall, this is likely a bit of a pipe dream scenario...

Yeah - after 4 years in a coffin. Dead cat bounce. Votto had 1 too.

You're not adding a frontline SPer to this. No budget for it.

That's why I said it's Russian Roulette. Miggy died at age 34, Votto died at age 35, Carlos Santana died at age 34. But Freeman won WS MVP at age 34 - so who knows.

They trotted Singleton out there last year because the last old 1st baseman they signed immediately fell off a cliff (albeit he was 36).

At 34, it will be a little russian roulette to see if he gives them more than 1 good year. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a Goldy type decline. Great at 34, steep decline at 35 and replacement level at 36.

Interesting. The market is still pretty warm IMO, but $20M AAV for an aging 3 WAR player isn't bad business.

I think I'm up for all of this if it were to happen. That's assuming we get a good return for Bo. Bregman and Bo are almost completely opposite hitters. Bo swings a ton and uses his physical skills to hit the ball hard, but stats like Chase%, Whiff%, K% and BB% all suck. Bregman is the opposite. He generally excels in Chase%, Whiff%, K% and BB% (albeit BB% dropped hard last year), but doesn't wow you with exit velo and such. It will be interesting to see which skillset ages better. Neither of them run well anymore, but Bregman offers more defensively. If they think Gimenez can be above average defensively at SS, then you can certainly see this approach helping out defense. If you could sign Teo (3 years $66M) and trade for Robert (maybe using pieces from the Bo trade), then this starts to look really solid. You could also trade for Naylor (and Bo Naylor?) and play him at 1st/DH, with Teo sliding into LF. C - Kirk 1st - Vlad 2nd - Wagner/Leo SS - Gimenez 3rd - Bregman LF - Robert CF - Varsho RF - Springer DH - Teo That's a lineup with WS potential IMO. No idea where that would leave us from a budget perspective and we'd still have to patch the bullpen (Minter, LeClerc, Hoffman, etc.) and the SP depth (Lynn?), but it wouldn't be hard to get excited about this team for 2025. Make it happen Ross.

I don't know what Atkins has to do with this. I'm providing my opinion on Kepler. I assume this is some kind of crack about signing KK last year. But even KK has been over 100 wRC+ in 5 of his 11 ML seasons, with elite defense. I see a lot more risk than reward in Kepler myself. That said, his statcast page does look solid. It is odd he's been so inconsistent and generally weak at the plate throughout his career.