Ray

Yeah, the leash is not going to be particularly long with Roark, but I think he breaks camp with the team.

I think McGuire starts as the backup with Kirk at AAA. Fisher is going to be the bench OF. Davis is likely going to be DFA'd. Espinal optioned to AAA for a Marwin Gonzalez/Adam Frazier type I think there's a good chance that they open with a rotation without Pearson if they add another starter. They're going to see if they can catch lightning in a bottle with Roark/Matz at the bottom of the rotation. This front office loves to exhaust all options and then turn to their depth if needed.

I don’t necessarily fault Anthopoulos for the lack of resources put into player development. Seems like that type of stuff should’ve fallen on Beestons shoes to figure out and invest in. Anthopoulos and Atkins are a wash to me. There is no doubt in my mind though that Shapiro is a vastly superior President than Beeston was towards the tail end of his career. Not only does he invest in the right things, he also seemingly inspires confidence with ownership. I don’t know if they dish out money for the Dunedin reno’s or the Springer/Ryu contracts without him.

The reason was because we had a player development system that was still in the stone age. It was still very much a sink or swim, we'll see who comes out alive approach. I don't even think we were doing individualized development plans for prospects until Shapiro/Atkins got here. I'm less certain about technology, but we might've lagged on that front too. I doubt we see a guy like Biggio become what he has under AA/Beeston. That seems to me like a prime example of how much this player development system has improved. Biggio was a 4th rounder with fringey-average grades on just about everything but his eye, and he went from OPS'ing in the low .700's in the lower minors into one of the better 2B's in the game. You could make a case for Teoscar too, who looks like he's made some real strides over the past seasons worth of his games on his plate discipline.

Or you could keep Teoscar, add Marwin Gonzalez for like $3M a year since he was horrible last year and shouldn't cost much, and sign Odorizzi because the quality of starter you're going to get for Teoscar is not going to be much better than that. Wow, look at that, we've now improved a position of weakness without sacrificing anything from a position of strength, and it just cost cash instead of prospects and cash.

I think you’re vastly overestimating how much value Teoscar Hernandez has. He’s not returning German Marquez with “a bit more”, not to mention the Rockies are dumb and still think they can compete so they’re not going to trade him. Marwin Gonzalez is literally just replacing Santiago Espinal on the depth chart. We’re a middle infield injury away from seeing Espinal get relatively significant reps. Can probably easily upgrade there.

Jays legend Elvis Andrus. Could not have won Game 5 without him.

Bauer is such a troll.....

Yeah, I'm gonna need Rosenthal or Passan to confirm it first, but if true, thank god. Good for the Mets. Now let's hope the other FA starters sign

I think you do a high AAV deal if it's for 2 or 3 years. The upside is obviously there. But I wouldn't go more than $30M/yr if the term is longer than 4 years.

I think it’ll be the Mets. 4 years $140M, with opt outs after years 2 and 3.

If we’re going by Feinsand, looks like it’s between the Mets and Dodgers.

Bauer decision likely coming soon it looks like:

Or Jansen stops getting unlucky and performs to his xwOBA from last season: .339! Should also note, this was already a team that was Top 5 in the AL in almost every offensive metric last season, to which we've added Springer and Semien and hopefully the younger guys taking a big step. League average pitching alone probably wins you 88-90 games with our projected offense.

Honestly, I'll put our Top 10 against just about anybodies except the Rays. It's not entirely top heavy either. When Anthony Kay is ranked #20, that seems like a relatively deep system. It does fall off a little bit after that, but there are interesting names towards the latter half. Andrew Tinnish has gone on record saying he believes Sem Robberse is going to be a fast riser in the system who is incredibly advanced for his age and has one of the best deliveries for any amateur he's ever scouted. Joey Murray gaining an uptick in velo is interesting. Groshans has done some podcasts this offseason where he gave absolutely rave reviews for Joey Murray and said he was the toughest guy he faced in the alternate site. Says his stuff is just on another level and it's super hard to pick up anything he throws.

Would rather have Semien for 1 year.

That article states a "study in 2017" which it doesn't even properly cite. It's seems to be more of an in-depth analysis of the medical aspect of TOS as opposed to detailing the actual performances. There's been 17 pitchers who fall under an acceptable age deviation as Archer who got the surgery (age 27+, and I'm being generous giving him the benefit of the doubt comparing him to 27-30 year olds). 5 of them didn't pitch a single inning in the majors after the surgery (~30%). When you widdle it down Age 31 or older, which is the quartile Archer belongs to: Age 31 or older (7 pitchers): - 95 FIP- before vs. 113 FIP- after surgery - 4/7 of them pitched less than 50 innings for the rest of their careers So most either suffered a noticeable decline in production or they pitched very little the rest of their careers, or both. Josh Beckett and Kenny Rogers were the only ones you can only really make a case for that were the same before/after, and Beckett only lasted 100 innings while Kenny Rogers seems like an extreme anomaly. If you're age 22-26, it seems like you have a good shot of bouncing back to some extent, but age 27+ seems like you're in the dead zone. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/thoracic-outlet-syndrome-fells-archer/#:~:text=As%20I've%20written%20before,with%20physical%20therapy%20and%20rest.

Doubtful as the pure odds say otherwise. The track record of pitchers coming back from thoracic outlet syndrome surgery and either pitching significant innings or pitching well is grim. I’m kind of surprised he got $6.5M.

Law is maintaining that Biggio isn’t worth a roster spot in his periscope today. https://www.pscp.tv/TheAthletic/1OdKrVNNaVvKX (around the 34:30 mark)

It kind of depends on where the Nats are at that point. This season will tell a lot about their future. Soto is a god and Turner is fantastic, but everyone else in that lineup is just meh. Pitching depth falls off dramatically after Scherzer/Strasburg/Corbin. It’s kind of a stars and scrubs team with an absolutely barren farm system. I could see Scherzer wanting to end off his career on a competitive team and chase another championship.

What’s a reasonable projection for Odorizzi? 3 years $36M? Would he do another 1 year $15M-$18M deal and try to re-enter the market after rebuilding his value?

That’s a better prospect than I thought they would get for 1 year of Alex Cobb.

I find it funny that most people within baseball don't know that we had Top 10 payrolls semi-recently from 2013-2018 and only cut back when it made sense to due to rebuilding. Our high watermark is around $170M when we were competitive, and coming into this offseason, we had close to nothing on the books due to most of our core making league min. I'm happily surprised we landed Springer, but if you'd look at the general consensus around baseball media, they were absolutely flabbergasted we got him.

Still waiting for the mid-tier SP market to get going after the Bauer domino falls. It’ll be interesting to see where Odorizzi/Paxton/Walker land, and for how much.