Brownie19

3 years of control in his prime years for a guy who throws 99 and has upside is valuable. Of course it's dampened by his injury prone past. I thought they'd get a "bit" more for him. Caissie has his own flaws and upside though. Fun trade!

Baez ended the year with an 84 wRC+? That's insane after he made the all-star game. Pure nose dive in the 2nd half.

Is Justyn-Henry Malloy a AAAA guy? Still pretty young, lights up AAA and has 2 options left.

There's a high probability that happens. I'm almost certain we'll be here in 2027 talking about firing Atkins again.

Sold out everywhere I looked.

Barger and Schneider can also both play the infield. We have all kinds of versatility man.

Yeah - for me it was all about measuring just how much better he was than everyone else. We all knew he was "the best" - we knew it was a generational defensive CFer. But did I know he was like 4 times better defensively than Jim Edmonds? I probably didn't, and without the advanced stats, I probably underestimated how good of a hitter he truly was.

I believe he's suggesting that Andruw Jones looks better when viewed through the eyes of fWAR than he did through the human eye and/or in context of his peers at the time. I think there's "some" truth to that. His defense certainly wasn't overlooked - but we didn't really have way to measure just how good his defense was. For instance, I don't think I considered him to be a Top 10 player in 1998 when he hit .271 with 31 HRs, 89 R and 90 RBI. That's the year Mac and Sosa were chasing 61. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&month=0&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&player=&startdate=&enddate=&season=1998&season1=1998 For me personally, Andruw Jones reminds me Scott Rolen a bit. I wouldn't have given him the credit he deserved without fWAR calculations. Cal Ripkin Jr. kind falls into the same category for me.

It's still really hard to find Blue Jays merchandise in stores. Anything with the 2025 World Series patch is gone and even their standard hats are difficult to find - especially the white panel hat they wore a lot in the playoffs.

I think that's all worthy of a debate as to whether it's good or bad. I'm sure a lot of franchises and fans prefer the cyclical nature of winning v. watching dynasties. The NHL seems to be doing well financially. They recently expanded, have strong TV deals in place and have growing revenues. I'd certainly need to do more research to provide a better opinion.

Perhaps. Probably just as many pissed off at the Owners of the Pirates, A's, Rays, etc. Although I suspect that was true in all major sports leagues before cap systems were implemented.

I hear what you're saying, but they've figured this out in the NFL, NBA and NHL - surely there's a solution that all can be happy with? (not that I'm yet convinced a floor/cap system is needed for MLB - I haven't even considered that question really)

And Guillermo Martinez!

I remember watching Andruw a lot as a kid. I remember he was renowned for his defense early on - and he was incredible to watch. It was like watching Devo again. I remember him being a good, but not great hitter. I think my perspective was skewed by a few things. #1, I was a teenager. #2, he hit 2nd a lot and that typically wasn't where the best players hit in the early 90's and #3, I was comparing him to the studs around him (Chipper, Big Cat, Javy, Pendleton, McGriff, etc.). Looking at his stats now, he was a pretty good hitter from an early age. Then of course he hit 51 HRs and that changed my perspective about him as a hitter. He was consistently a 30 HR guy, but I remember it seems wild that he hit 51. I seem to remember he bulked up when he hit 51 HRs, but the stat suggest his defense was still elite and he was an 8 WAR player. Then he signed that big deal with LA and fell off a cliff. It was kind of sad. It's funny to go back and be honest about how you viewed players before all these advanced statistics were available.

Brewers name Danny Burgers and Guillermo Martinez hitting coaches. That is awesome.

It's certainly nice to see some Japanese players choosing to sign in cities that aren't on the west coast...

I'm good with all 3 of those guys getting into the HOF. They each had 64+ WAR and they were all star players who played premium defensive positions. They let Harold Baines in FFS - these 3 are miles ahead of him.

He makes almost everyone around here look bad 🤣

Another way to gauge value is to see what he's worth on the open market. It's great we have a deep purse now, but paying a 5th OFer $7.4M is a terrible use of resources. This subject doesn't require multiple paragraphs or responses either.

If Straw was a FA right now, nobody would give him $7.4M. You can look at $/WAR all you want, but he's overpaid. Luckily - payroll no longer seems to be a concerns, so we can live with it. I'd be happily surprised if he can replicate his 2025 success.

You don't say...

It sounds like there's a chance that Okamoto is as good defensively as Barger was at 3rd.

I'm pretty sure the cap hit is based off AAV guys. Also - $7.4M for Straw is gross.

That would be fantastic.

I'm in this boat as well following this signing. I don't love "selling low" on Santander and I do think he can rebound. His power and low K's fit the mould, but we're so stacked now that the my may just cut bait.