max silver

Wow sounds like are a soothsayer. You should share some stock tickets and lottery numbers with us if you have the ability to predict the future with such certainty

The other owners can't be very happy about somebody who is willing to spend like a drunken sailor in free agency.

I kind of like the idea of Max Kepler as a potential trade candidate. His underlying Statcast metrics are pretty encouraging and he's run a sizeable xWOBA/WOBA spilt the last few seasons. As a heavily shifted left handed batter he has potential to benefit quite a bit from the upcoming shift ban

If Gallo doesn't bounce back platooning him with Gurriel might actually make the offence worse. Gurriel produced 119 WRC+ vs RHP in 2022 vs 100 WRC+ for Gallo.

Kiermaier has only managed to exceed Tapia's 2022 playing time twice in his entire career. It seems pretty unlikely he will exceed that coming off of hip surgery.

Given how much time Kiermaier tends to miss due to injury his playing time is self limiting. He's extremely unlikely to even match the amount of playing time Tapia received, but isn't a total zero defensively so can still provide plenty of playing time to the club.

That's a really important point in this discussion. Murphy essentially represents a 99th percentile outcome (or maybe even higher) for Danny Jansen where he maintained his previous level of production while somehow finally managing to avoid injury for an entire season. Jansen simply hasn't shown the ability to avoid a steady stream of soft tissue injuries up to this point. Add in the extra year of control that comes along with Murphy and it's no surprise that one of these two players is a dramatically more valuable trade commodity.

That's pure speculation on the part of an unnamed source. It would hard for this to be any less concrete than it is presently so this provides essentially zero proof that Helsley was ever on the table.

There is plenty of doubt whether Teo is going to have his best season ever, it's pretty presumptuous of you to suggest that. On a rate basis he had his best ever season in 2020, and he's been steadily trending downwards ever since then. With better health I don't doubt he can regain a bit of the lost value in the field and on the bases, but it's pretty unrealistic to expect that he's going to suddenly reach another new level of skill at the age of 30.

Kiermaier is a nice add to split time in center field with Springer. Hopefully with healthy hips he can produce up to his potential (not expecting much more than 90 WRC+). It took Chapman a while to retrain his body/swing after hip surgery, I can only hope Kiermaier doesn't face the same difficulty. I'm fully on board with a Conforto signing or trading for a younger outfielder if the right deal presents itself. It's too bad the team wasn't able to pry Nootbaar out of St. Louis but that's perfectly understandable given that he very well may be the best outfielder they have on the roster. Atkins has been suggesting he was happy with the teams outfield depth even before this signing, but if they hope to avoid running a collection of nearly replacement level players in the outfield another addition is going to be necessary

You sound as though the only thing that will satisfy you is having baseball's best bullpen. The presently assembled group comes with question marks, however they were basically a middle of the pack pen to end the season and just added a reliever who produced a 1.7 win season. There are finally potential reinforcements on the way from the minor leagues so they should have some depth available. Zach Pop managed to produce 0.5 WAR in only 40 innings of work. If a team is able to run out guys like this in low leverage situations then maybe they aren't quite as bad as you think.

I agree with most of this, but I don't think that the current regime inherited a team that was completely past it's prime. The current group took over after the 2015 season, and that team was one of baseball's best at that point. They took a kick at the can in 2016 without taking on any onerous long term commitments, but as early as 2017 the writing was on the wall and the time was likely right to start dismantling the team at that point. The current group has done a good job overall in developing young talent but there are some notable exceptions to this. They've done a very poor job developing home grown pitching and outfielders. Thankfully there appears to be a lot of high ceiling pitching talent in the organization both in the rotation and the bullpen, but there is still a distinct lack of impact outfield talent in the organization outside of a few players in the low minors.

It would be pretty risky for the team to place all of their eggs in the Barger basket. There is a good possibility he will struggle greatly to begin him major league career both at the plate and in the field. I don't that aside from Barger that any of those players are very suited to play the left side of the infield (although with how poorly Bichette fielded in 2022 it's possible all of the previously mentioned players might not be any worse).

That's apparently the goal for the organization as well. Robberse is still pretty young/slight of build and is supposed to have a lot of remaining projection physically. The team has a great player development complex and pitching lab so it feels pretty realistic that Robberse can squeeze out a few more ticks of velocity.

Williams is off the board now, reportedly to start for the Nationals.

I'd say Robberse has a higher floor as a potential innings eater or better if the stuff picks up as he reportedly has a highly repeatable delivery, but Macko has a higher ceiling as he already displays excellent stuff. Macko seems pretty likely to end up as a reliever unless he can begin to harness his command a bit.

Yeah I'm more or less in the same boat. Signing one of these pitchers to start, bringing in Kiermaier to split center field duties with Springer (it seems more than likely that at least one of these guys will miss significant time), and then trading for someone like Max Kepler would suit me perfectly fine. The outfield defence would be massively upgraded in that scenario with a bit of a hit to the offense. Alternatively signing both Keirmaier and Conforto to short term deals could allow the team to paper over the outfield if there are no decent trades to be worked out.

I can certainly agree that Semien's bad seasons weren't as bad as Bo at his worst, but this is kind of like discussing whose fart smells worse. Each guy at his worst has pretty wretched defensive metrics. Looking at Bo's UZR it makes me wonder if the purveyors of UZR didn't over-correct when it comes to the impact of shifting on their metric. Aggressive shifting such as the Jays did with Lawrie led to the system receiving a substantial overhaul. Bo's numbers dropped far more precipitously in UZR compared to DRS and OAA from years past. He dropped by only 2 runs by OAA vs a whopping 23 runs by UZR. DRS really wasn't a fan of his defence either though as he dropped a rather sizeable 18 runs as well. It makes it hard to know which defensive system to trust, is OAA the new standard, or do you look for agreement between two of them?

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I don't think it would necessarily have been a great move if this happened however, as Semien's defensive metrics when he played short stop as a Blue Jay were actually worse on a rate basis compared to Bo. He made less errors, but simply appears to have made far fewer plays as he didn't have the tools to effectively man short stop anymore.

The team ultimately made this decision for him. The thinking was that it wasn't worth moving Bo off of the position for a player that was likely to be a one year rental. If I recall correctly they said that he could only be moved off of short stop once, as sending him back to the position after moving would be incredibly hard to do. It would be far more prudent until they are completely convinced he is unable to be the long term answer at short stop. The results of the last two seasons aren't exactly encouraging, but I still think Bo has the necessary tools to man short stop effectively. What remains up in the air is whether he can ever develop the kind of consistency that is required. He has had extended stretches were he plays a really good short stop, but then he goes through even longer periods of time where he struggles to make the routine plays. Bo was reportedly willing to move off short stop years ago for the likes of Didi Gregorius to allow the team to upgrade around him, I just don't think this idea that Bo has been refusing to move from the position has any kind of proof behind and is rife with assumptions.

Bloom is going to be absolutely raked over the coals for this situation, however he ultimately dodged a huge bullet handing out that type of deal to an aging middle infielder. This makes last offseason's semi-ludicrous Semien deal look like a steal in comparison.

I'm fully aboard the sign Nimmo train. The team has very little outfield depth working their way up through the minor leagues, and the only high upside prospects they have are a very long ways away. Nimmo would give the team two legitimately above average outfielders for the duration of the time that the team has Vlad and Bo under control. Aside from working a trade to bring in a young outfielder I see no path forward aside from the patchwork approach in the outfield each offseason.

I'd have no issue with an occasional worrisome groan, but when every single post is whinging about an offseason that has only picked up steam a few days ago that gets old really quickly.

Holy christ Padres seem determined to spend money like drunken sailors. They are like last years Rangers who proudly proclaimed they intended to spend stupid money. At least the Padres have a very solid team as a starting point though.

Holy f*** you're annoying.