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It would be a massive gamble to hand out this kind of money but given the current state of the organization I'd be willing to bite the bullet here. The front office has been a little risk averse at times and very strict when it comes to their valuations on their own players and free agents so we shall see if they are willing to step out of their comfort zone.

I think it's certainly fair to criticize this front office's complete inability to extend any of their core position player prior to free agency. All of Vlad, Bo, Chapman and Semien were guys in my view who were worthwhile in investing in to sustain a long term position player core. I can't help but wonder if the front office was lowballing these guys to a certain degree, or if it's a case where all of these players were essentially looking for free agency level mega deals to sign on the dotted line. The Vlad situation reminds me a little of the Edwin situation years ago. The front office was largely painted as the villain despite Edwin and his agent turning down the best offer they received that year in free agency and being forced to take a shorter deal as a result. I think the Vlad situation is another unfortunate situation where it's kind of hard to fully blame either side. It appears as though Vlad has been insisting all along on being handed a contract that he hadn't fully earned, and the front office was looking to share a bit of the risk of an extension in the case where Vlad never became a consistently elite offensive contributor. I'm nearing the point where if the team can't agree to contract terms with Vlad it might finally be time to ship him out to another organization and consider a full on rebuild.

He's been above average as a whole for his career though given the incredible level of inconsistency season to season. He's averaged about 3.5 wins per season up to this point which is incredibly disappointing given the natural talent the guy possesses.

Goldschmidt showed signs of life and put up a 120 wRC+ in the second half. The Yankees seem to have a lot of success helping turn guys around at the plate and based on his expected stats Yankee stadium would add a handful of home runs onto his record so the Yankees may get decent value out of this signing.

It just seems completely illogical to me to assume that a professional sports front office would waste their time on fake pursuits of free agents as some sort of smokescreen.

I think the Jays need to aim higher. The Phillies are adding to an already excellent offense so they can afford to roll the dice on Kepler. The 2023 result is a massive outlier to the point where his 4 year average wRC+ is all of 102. It’s entirely possible that the substandard offensive output of last season is basically who this guy is.

Both Semien and Chapman were good extension candidates, but it would have taken a full freight free agent type of deal to prevent either of them heading to free agency.

I'd guess first base would have been his position if they acquired Arenado

It doesn't particularly appear as though the Astros plan to use Paredes at third base if they are attempting to trade for Arenado.

Bo had been a very consistent performer as by the end of each season he would typically settle into the 4.5-5 win/700 PA range. It's only the injury riddled 2024 season in which he hasn't performed to his typical standards.

I haven't heard a peep about Bregman this offseason aside from turning down an offer from the Astros. Given their inability to replace him with someone else an eventual reunion feels to be the most likely outcome.

In 2024 Bellinger was approximately 10% better than Varsho last season so they aren't THAT far apart. Go back over the last 5 seasons and Bellinger has averaged 100 wRC+ vs 96 wRC+ for Varsho.

That's all nice in theory but Bellinger's prime years ended like 4-5 years ago.

That depends on how Kim's shoulder bounces back from surgery. As far as I can tell Kim has only played the infield in his professional career, so he'd need to learn a completely new position on the fly.

I'd far prefer either of Santander or Teoscar as legitimate middle of the order bats.

I don't think it's some sort of insurmountable task to add 50-60 home runs to the lineup. A typical healthy Bichette season on it's own adds 15-20 home runs. Add a bat like Teoscar or Santander and there's another 30. It appears as though Popkins is being brought aboard with a task of squeezing a little more power out of the existing roster but that's certainly not close to enough on it's own without meaningful external adds.

Bellinger just makes more sense for the Yankees on many levels. He's well suited for the short porch in right field, can man 1B/CF as needed as it moves Judge to right field where he's more suited and the Yankees don't have a firmly entrenched 1B starter, and the Yankees have a lot more financial wiggle room and can spend more accordingly betting on an offensive bounceback.

That's still a better outcome than the Jays actually trading for Bellinger.

That's crazy to think that a player shouldn't date a woman because she used to date one of the 1000+ MLB players.

It does feel like there should be some available upside in the bat as he's produced at a high clip previously.

How do you figure? His highest innings total since 2019 is 78.

Take this with a massive grain of salt to be certain but there are posters on other online venues that claim Kirk is looking slimmer in his instagram photos. I read similar claims last offseason and he showed up looking no fitter than usual though.

Why? He's simply pointing out that Teoscar seemingly hasn't been able to receive his asking price from any of the league's 30 General managers at this point. It's not a statement that should get your panties in a knot.

That's my interpretation based on the explanation of the metric that's provided. It's supposed to create probabilities for success based on factors including the runner's sprint speed and outfielders arm strength. In Kirk's case it makes all the sense in the world that he should be super conservative on the bases but I believe Vlad is fast enough that he could likely take a few more bases than he does strictly based on the provided numbers.

The actual numbers don't support this theory. If anything it appears as though the team might be playing things too safely on the bases as holds are the primary factor towards why they rank so poorly. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/baserunning-run-value?game_type=Regular&season_start=2024&season_end=2024&sortColumn=runner_runs_tot&sortDirection=asc&split=no&n=1&team=&type=Batting+Team&with_team_only=1