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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2022 18:35:54 GMT -5
The rich get richer: Abreu to Houston. Abreu is a risky signing. He is at the age where decline starts to set in, but while his average and OBP were very good last year, his power declined, which is usually the first thing to go in hitters like that. Next season could be a bounce back year, but it could also be the slippery slope of a decline that started this season. Three years was too much to give a hitter in that position, so good luck Houston and I am glad it wasn't Boston taking that risk, last thing we need is another albatross past-their-prime power hitting clogging up the DH spot and the line up for another 3 years. We just got rid of JD, no need to get another one like that. -M
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Post by berkley on Nov 28, 2022 19:37:50 GMT -5
I haven't paid much attention to college football this year (or for the last couple of years). But Boise State beat Utah State today to go 8-0 in conference play and will host Fresno State for the Mountain West Championship next week. Not too shabby for a team that replaced their QB and their Offensive Coordinator early in the season. Go Orange. Go Big Blue. Fight, Fight, BSU! Hey, is that legal?! Seems like kind of an unfair advantage ...
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 28, 2022 20:00:04 GMT -5
The rich get richer: Abreu to Houston. Abreu is a risky signing. He is at the age where decline starts to set in, but while his average and OBP were very good last year, his power declined, which is usually the first thing to go in hitters like that. Next season could be a bounce back year, but it could also be the slippery slope of a decline that started this season. Three years was too much to give a hitter in that position, so good luck Houston and I am glad it wasn't Boston taking that risk, last thing we need is another albatross past-their-prime power hitting clogging up the DH spot and the line up for another 3 years. We just got rid of JD, no need to get another one like that. -M If anyone can take a chance that Abreu, who doesn’t have to carry the offense, will be surrounded by a batch of good hitters in a winning environment, and still hits the ball hard, can regain his form, it’s the Astros. If he gives them 70 RBI’s, he’s a plus. Yes, he’s older, but unlike JD, he still generates the high exit velocity the Astros value. Plus he kills the Yankees. I couldn’t believe Sox were talking about having an interest in him. First base is the one position where they are supposedly set, to hear them yak about it. More smoke, no fire. They missed their chance on him years ago and still regret it.
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Post by The Captain on Dec 1, 2022 15:03:51 GMT -5
Posting this here so as not to disrupt the RIP Thread due to codystarbuck’s recent loss of his wife.
MLB HOFer Gaylord Perry passed away today at the age of 84. He was already old when I started following baseball back in 1979, so it feels like he should be so much older than he actually is.
I wonder if people are going to spit on his grave, as a weird tribute to the Master of the Spitball, or maybe they’ll just leave jars of Vaseline.
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Post by Rob Allen on Dec 1, 2022 16:45:21 GMT -5
Well, the Trail Blazers have fallen back to Earth, losing seven of their last nine games for a record of 11-11. Hmmm, seven of nine, that sounds familiar.
Hoping that having Lillard back healthy will turn things around again.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2022 12:26:41 GMT -5
Reality Check: So this is the current state of the Boston Red Sox as a free agent destination. Right hander Zach Eflin, who was with the Phillies last season and went 3-5 with a 4.04 ERA, striking out 65 in 75⅔ innings. The Sox made an offer to him and thought they had an agreement with him on a 3 year $40 million contract, but he then talked to the Tampa, who matched (not beat, matched) the offer and he chose to take the Tampa offer instead because he thought it was a better place to play.
The Red Sox have fallen to the level of negotiation leverage rather than a place free agents actually want to come play for.
-M
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 2, 2022 16:49:13 GMT -5
Reality Check: So this is the current state of the Boston Red Sox as a free agent destination. Right hander Zach Eflin, who was with the Phillies last season and went 3-5 with a 4.04 ERA, striking out 65 in 75⅔ innings. The Sox made an offer to him and thought they had an agreement with him on a 3 year $40 million contract, but he then talked to the Tampa, who matched (not beat, matched) the offer and he chose to take the Tampa offer instead because he thought it was a better place to play. The Red Sox have fallen to the level of negotiation leverage rather than a place free agents actually want to come play for. -M Sad news: Franchy Cordero signed by Baltimore. The over-under on number of Orioles wins over the Sox in which Franchy plays a key role is three. Take the over. Sox signed FA righty reliever Chris Martin. Seems like a reach for the Sox as Martin neither needs TJ surgery or is rehabbing from same. He is, however, 37 next June, and thus can hold his own in bullpen trivia games with Rich Hill (43 in March), if Hill returns. Good for team chemistry.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2022 19:50:55 GMT -5
Reality Check: So this is the current state of the Boston Red Sox as a free agent destination. Right hander Zach Eflin, who was with the Phillies last season and went 3-5 with a 4.04 ERA, striking out 65 in 75⅔ innings. The Sox made an offer to him and thought they had an agreement with him on a 3 year $40 million contract, but he then talked to the Tampa, who matched (not beat, matched) the offer and he chose to take the Tampa offer instead because he thought it was a better place to play. The Red Sox have fallen to the level of negotiation leverage rather than a place free agents actually want to come play for. -M Sad news: Franchy Cordero signed by Baltimore. The over-under on number of Orioles wins over the Sox in which Franchy plays a key role is three. Take the over. Sox signed FA righty reliever Chris Martin. Seems like a reach for the Sox as Martin neither needs TJ surgery or is rehabbing from same. He is, however, 37 next June, and thus can hold his own in bullpen trivia games with Rich Hill (43 in March), if Hill returns. Good for team chemistry. Prince HalSaw the signing. Not pointing fingers at you, but all I have seen all day since the signing is Sox fans who whined for weeks the Sox weren't doing anything to address bullpen needs and that they are too cheap to spend money and sign anyone except scrubs like Joely now whining when the Sox go out and sign a reliever who did well last year to a market value contract and picking nits as to why it was a bad signing. A free agent has to win a Cy Young/MVP the second they sign the contract for Sox fans to even consider it might be a good signing these days, unless it comes to resigning someone who was already playing for the team. And if a free agent doesn't win such rewards by the end of the first week of the season, they start booing them (see Trevor Story last season) and then wonder why big name free agents don't want to come to Boston and some Sox free agents don't want to resign at a bargain basement price to be the fan's bitch. Maybe I am just having a bad day, but the bulk of Sox fans seem to be as bad as Yankees fans now and make it hard to engage with the team as a fan these days. Love my Sox, not a big fan of Red Sox nation these days. -M
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2022 20:07:23 GMT -5
Just saw this as breaking news on ESPN-first major signing of the offseason
Right-hander Jacob deGrom has signed a five-year, $185 million contract with the Texas Rangers, sources tell ESPN. Physical is passed. Deal is done. Includes conditional sixth-year option that would take total deal to $222 million. Full no-trade clause. A massive haul.
-M
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 2, 2022 20:23:16 GMT -5
@mrp, sometimes the answer isn’t either/or, but both. I avoid the message boards, comments sections, etc. because they seem to attract the know-nothing types who just want to be wiseasses. They live to bitch and moan.
However, you may also be having a bad day. I was actually kinda/sorta complimenting Sox on grabbing somebody who seems to be injury-free.
And you weren’t exactly thrilled with Sox being used by Eflin to get home to Florida. You have to admit that the Sox are looking more and more like a team in the tank.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2022 21:30:35 GMT -5
@mrp, sometimes the answer isn’t either/or, but both. I avoid the message boards, comments sections, etc. because they seem to attract the know-nothing types who just want to be wiseasses. They live to bitch and moan. However, you may also be having a bad day. I was actually kinda/sorta complimenting Sox on grabbing somebody who seems to be injury-free. And you weren’t exactly thrilled with Sox being used by Eflin to get home to Florida. You have to admit that the Sox are looking more and more like a team in the tank. Oh I wasn't happy with the Eflin news, but I was more unhappy with the sox Nation experts bemoaning "they should have outbid the Rays, we're the Sox for crissakes and their Tampa, if we can't outbid them we're doomed!" crowd who totally ignored the way the events played out to fit their narrative so they could complain some more, including some of the Sox media corps out there on social media. And to be honest I was having trouble parsing your reaction to the Martin signing, on the one hand the sarcasm about injury free seemed complimentary, but the seeming snark about his age at the end left me confused as to what the tone of the response was supposed to be as it could have been read both as somewhat positive or a completely negative. But I'll own my misanthropy today. Everywhere I turn this week my faith is humanity has been shattered, and hermiting/hibernating for the winter and staying off anything remotely social on the internet is getting more and more attractive with each passing day lately. Seeing the malcontents in the fandoms of every single thing I enjoy from baseball to D&D crap over everything I turn to to find a spark of pleasantness in these difficult times makes it even more attractive to completely disengage for a while. -M
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2022 2:03:08 GMT -5
Apparently Xander has said in interviews he will give the Sox an opportunity to match the best offer he gets as he wants to be in Boston, but not if they won't pay him. If true, the ball is really in the Sox court, and they have no excuse for losing him to another team except that they weren't willing to pay market price for him.
-M
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Post by The Captain on Dec 3, 2022 10:30:00 GMT -5
Just saw this as breaking news on ESPN-first major signing of the offseason Right-hander Jacob deGrom has signed a five-year, $185 million contract with the Texas Rangers, sources tell ESPN. Physical is passed. Deal is done. Includes conditional sixth-year option that would take total deal to $222 million. Full no-trade clause. A massive haul. -M I don’t understand this deal at all. DeGrom is 34, with a history of injuries, and the Rangers open the vaults to sign him through is age 39, possibly age 40, season. This right here is why my passion for baseball is almost gone. This is an absurd deal being made by a panicking, irrelevant team that thinks it can actually compete with Houston by making moves like this. It drives up the price for every FA, pushing them out of the reach of teams like the Pirates, who then become nothing more than a de facto development organization for the rest of the league.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2022 13:26:10 GMT -5
Just saw this as breaking news on ESPN-first major signing of the offseason Right-hander Jacob deGrom has signed a five-year, $185 million contract with the Texas Rangers, sources tell ESPN. Physical is passed. Deal is done. Includes conditional sixth-year option that would take total deal to $222 million. Full no-trade clause. A massive haul. -M I don’t understand this deal at all. DeGrom is 34, with a history of injuries, and the Rangers open the vaults to sign him through is age 39, possibly age 40, season. This right here is why my passion for baseball is almost gone. This is an absurd deal being made by a panicking, irrelevant team that thinks it can actually compete with Houston by making moves like this. It drives up the price for every FA, pushing them out of the reach of teams like the Pirates, who then become nothing more than a de facto development organization for the rest of the league. The whole point of the MLBPA's moves this last CBA negotiation was to facilitate moves like this and drive up player's salaries. It's not that teams like the Pirates can't afford deals like this, the money they get from revenue sharing would allow them to be a player in this new market if they chose to, They choose not to, while the Rangers chose to actually spend money to improve. The Rays have a smaller market and worse attendance than the Pirates (or most other small market teams) but they find a way to remain relevant and to spend when they need to (they just set a record for most money in a free agent deal this week getting Elfin for $40 million overall) yet they has just about the worse attendance in MLB and are in the worst market overall. The Pirates aren't relevant because they choose not to be and their ownership decides to use only the revenue sharing money and not pony up anything more to keep their team relevant and competitive. That is not the fault of the system, it is the fault of the unwillingness or the inability of Pirates ownership to do the things they need to do and pay the price they need to pay to be able to do so. -M
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2022 15:24:42 GMT -5
Well the Phillies are out on Xander but may have just set the market for his contract. They signed Trea Turner to an 11 year $300 million deal. Turner is only a couple years younger than Xander, so that's going to be the benchmark teams need to be at to get Xander, and I am not sure the Sox will be willing to approach that. Rumors going into the Winter Meetings was that the Sox offers to Xander were nowhere near close to what other teams courting him had discussed. It also seems those rumors of Xander being willing to let the Sox match any offer were either inaccurate or have gone by the boards as Alex Spier is reporting the Sox are falling out of contention to sign Bogaerts.
-M
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