max silver

Bethancourt and Heineman can battle it out to see who has a less bad spring training showing.

Cabrera still managed a 5+ win season at the age of 33. I believe he started to take a dramatic downturn after back issues started to become an issue for him.

I view Santander's deal as pretty similar to Schwarber's, but it's more team friendly after you factor in the deferrals. If Santander becomes more of a DH in a year or two that's no big deal as he's really only being paid like one.

I believe it's possible that the players may actually be better off if the league implemented a salary cap system that made the qualifying offer system disappear completely. The top end could be some semi outrageous sum like $350-400 million or whatever that would still allow the top few clubs to flex their financial muscle. I believe a floor would force the lower end teams to actually spend on their clubs vs pocketing the revenue sharing funds. I believe if the league was forced to open the books and set the cap to increase over time based on league revenues that the players would be better off in the end, particularly the mid range guys are really getting the shaft in recent years in free agency, particularly those that are barely good enough to receive a qualifying offer. The high end earners also happened to be a lot of the players who tended to populate the unions negotiating group and it feels like they tended to negotiate a lot based on the needs of the top few earners in the game while sort of ignoring the lower income earners of the sport.

I get the impression that the MLB players union didn't particularly care that much about the international free agents and prioritized guys that were actually in the union during contract negotiations over the years.

I believe that the actual contract structure is very important in this discussion as well. Given that it contains a lot of deferred money I believe this mitigates quite a bit of the inherent risk as Santander's present day value corresponds to a lowly $14 million AAV. I do believe it's frontloaded to a certain degree for the first three seasons, so this could potentially increase the likelihood of Santander utilizing his opt out after the 3rd year of the deal as well which would be a fantastic result for the club.

Ah gotcha. This is just one of the many reasons how the current qualifying offer system does nothing but hurt the players. But of course MLB wanted to attach a million strings to removing the qualifying offer system such as implementing an international draft.

The 2-4 hitters were likely the best trio in club history, but I think the 2021 team may have featured a deeper lineup as the 2015 squad was pretty top heavy.

The signing period lasts until December 15th so there's plenty of time to spend it or trade it.

This is just simply dumb criticism. Olney is saying that if Vlad isn't signed to a long term extension then the Santander deal somehow becomes regrettable regardless of how he actually performs on the field. If the team struggles and Santander is a potent middle of the order bat the team would have little difficulty in moving him to a different team, there just wouldn't likely be much if any prospect capital coming back in return. If Santander struggles on a bad team he's not paid an exorbitant amount by any means, and if the team is blown up in the meantime Rogers can simply absorb the cost with ease as there is very little long term money on the books past the next few seasons. There really isn't a lot of potential downside here as Santander is basically being paid DH money despite still likely being able to man an actual position for the next few seasons.

The team has reportedly been Santander's primary pursuer for the entirety of the offseason, and they've reportedly been involved in nearly every major free agent on the market as well. I don't think the Straw miscue really has any significant effect on their overall offseason plans aside from eating up a tiny chunk of the overall team payroll.

I do believe the Mets would stand to lose a compensation pick if Alonso were to sign elsewhere but it wouldn't be until the end of the 4th round so no big deal.

Perhaps if Clement were traded then Jiminez could fill the same type of role. I don't know if Jimenez offers the same level of defensive value but I believe he offers a little more offensive upside vs Clement.

I don't recall reading anything that suggests Roden can't handle a corner outfield spot. believe it was stated that he possesses fringy speed but has a strong arm at least. MLB Pipeline slapped a 50 rating on the glove and arm so hopefully he's at least playable out there. Perhaps Spanky can share the BA scouting report for a different point of view.

That's a good possibility as he would have had a football field worth of territory to cover.

I'd like to see the team try Springer in left field to see how he can adjust. I believe that would likely be a more effective solution to keep Santander in right field in the short term with Springer in left field as Santander produced awful numbers in left field when he's played there.

Ah I was looking at it from a Blue Jays perspective instead of considering the opposing view.

Soto or nothing? I think Santander was likely the second best outfield option on the market, although you could make a case for Teoscar or Profar depending on whether he's able to recreate his 2024 success.

Yeah it obviously sucks to have a team starved for power sign one of the better power options in free agency.

Are you capable of making a single post without a massive exaggeration thrown in for good measure? I get the feeling I'm on this ignoramus'es ignore list but that just leaves me free to take pot shots as wanted at his expense with no chance to retort so it feels like a guaranteed win each time.

How is that even possible? Do you have some sort of available context to explain this statement?

Santander was right there with Teoscar as a plan B type of target in free agency with Soto being the plan A guy. This is a very good addition to a team desperately in need of power in the middle of the lineup.

I think the biggest risk with Kim is how the shoulder bounces back from offseason surgery. If his arm strength is greatly affected he may be forced to move to second base which would stand to reduce his defensive value quite a bit.

Projections have Kim at about a single win above Clement. Both of the projections see these guys losing the bulk of their defensive value though and a lot of the overall difference is based on overall playing time.