jacksonianmarch

If Mookie doesn’t resign and JD has another monster campaign, I can see him opting out to go to a better opportunity

He's 5'9". He's small

Even Price’s deal landed significant value. He was being paid for last performance, but he still performed well enough to belong in the top 3 of a rotation. The last very long term deal for an elite talent that really backfired was Pujols. Even Teixeira provided positive WAR. Pujols fell off the planet almost immediately, although his fall was likely more due to shifting than anything else

Betts is going to decline earlier than most even if his bat continues to be elite. A lot of Betts WAR is tied to his base running and defense. Even if he takes pristine care of himself, he’s gonna lose a step which will harm his defense as well as his SB and 1st to 3rd totals. If you’re going to extend him very long term, you need to evaluate him as a long term bat first corner OFer rather than the speedy, quick twitch guy who can play a good CF and an elite RF while stealing 20+ based. To be totally honest, small guys don’t age well and I wonder if Bloom is taking that into account.

Sterling is a homer and a twit. Most of the garbage out of his mouth comes right from the mouth of Cashman and Levine. Suzan Waldman is the same, except her voice sounds like you’re gutting a live cat with a spoon. Neither of them speak for Yankee fans in general. The Pedroia watch thing was stupid. He shouldn’t have done it, but it was harmless. This Astros thing isn’t harmless. This is an organizational cheating ring concocted from the top and enacted with the sole purpose of gaining an advantage in game that is explicitly illegal. This illegal (baseball wise) activity propelled their team to winning the WS and continued on to their being 7 outs away from a second. Some of the biggest teams in baseball were eliminated by these cheaters. Also, fans aren’t really flocking to baseball. This cheating scandal is bringing eyes to the game in a negative way. With everyone jockeying for millennials’ eyes and dollars, an overreaction to this is the only acceptable answer. It also sets an example and a precedent to deter teams from doing this ever again And as a Yankee fan, I could care less if Cora gets suspended or fined. I want Houston to suffer. Punishing the Sox isn’t going to achieve that goal

Sterling is a twit

I feel horrible for Tua. This is a Bo Jackson injury and is potentially career threatening. Awful

I also wonder if the Sox are better off waiting into the season. The Dodgers gave up so much for Machado because Seager went down. That caused them to “have” to win the Machado bidding. Maybe the Sox hold onto him and if they’re contending, bonus. If not, wait for a team like MILWAUKEE should Yelich go down again or LA should Bellinger go down or another contending squad should a Star OFer go down. Imagine the horror. The Sox aren’t in the PO picture and Judge goes down. Could you imagine seeing Betts in a Yankee uniform?

Exactly. Teams are willing to spend the farm if they can negotiate with a player about an extension. Betts has already said he isn’t interested

Knowing who your GM is, I honestly think Betts is moved. You’ll probably be underwhelmed by the returning package but be pleasantly surprised by the production. None of Bloom’s deals have looked like wins at the start, but they almost always turn into a win

Then you’re gonna get one more year and risk losing him for a draft pick or signing him long term. Both are risky propositions

Harper said length was important. Machado too. Betts is the kind of guy who would probably love the idea of a long term contract with a short term opt out. The Betts offer I’d make is a 10 year $300 mil deal with $120 mil coming in the first 3 seasons and then an opt out. The final 7 years pay out $180 mil

You’re not gonna get the value you want for one year of Betts at $30 mil. The Sox should look for an immediate replacement in a deal and one other either big league player or high end prospect. The Mets meet that if it’s Nimmo plus

So you don't care that you may have been robbed of a title in 2017? Does it bother you that the sox went 1-1 in Fenway and outscored the Astros 14-8 in Fenway but got shitstomped in both games in Houston 16-4? What if the Astros were cheating in those games (they were) and had they not, maybe the outcome would have been different

I hear you there. But how can he be good for routine plays when every error I saw was on a routine play and he made A LOT of them

Yeah, but the coach and player who have been considered “integral” in the cheating process are managers also. I’ve read that bans are in the discussion. Not suspensions, but bans. I’ve also seen some video compilations where you can hear the bangs plain as day before a breaking ball. Really bad. Hinch should get banned. Cora and Beltran should lose a season if their role is true. If the Astros were 81-81 and missed the POs, then I don’t think this gets the pub it’s getting now. You’re talking about a team that cheated and knocked out the Yankees twice, the Red Sox once and the Dodgers once. Those are iconic teams with pretty big fanbases and they were eliminated in 2017 and for the yanks, 2019. It’s garbage. Listen, Sox fans, you guys could have had home field for the 2017 ALCS vs the Yanks. Kinda pissed we were robbed of that

And position players just played 162. So it goes all around

And guys who are able to replicate their regular season career numbers vs elite competition are more clutch than you give them credit for.

They clearly didn't watch any of the games notin. I saw over half his errors live and almost every single one of them was on a play where he had time and it was almost always on a throw

It’s random sample sizes from different seasons, that much is true. It’s hard to make inferences on players from smaller markets or who’ve only played in a couple post seasons. The guys who go every year, it’s easier to infer. Like guys from the Yanks dynasty on into the 2012 year had so much playoff AB’s that you could make an inference. Mariano you could make an inference on. Jeter to a degree. Arod, absolutely. And it’s only really viewable after a player retires. That’s around where they’d have enough AB’s or innings to stack them up. Mookie’s book has a lot more pages. What happens if he has an Ortiz a la 2013 style post season and all of a sudden his WAR jumps

Andujar being groomed to be a multiposition defender. 1b, 3b, OF. He’s got a cannon. He’s got the hands. His errors came almost entirely on routine throws. It was weird. Diving plays, charging plays, bang bang plays, he nailed them. But anything where he had time, he’d sail it. He’d need work, but has the potential to be a good OFer. He’s got some speed and he has an arm. He also would be a great defender at 1b, IMO. He’d have range for days compared to his peers, his glove work wasn’t the issue and he wouldn’t have to worry about throws. My worry is that by turning him into a multi position defender is that he will never develop enough to be an option at 3b, where his maximum value would be unlocked

The mega deals aren’t for marginal talent. Typically, when you pay for a HOF level talent, you get at least some return on that investment. Where teams really screw the pooch is when they pay players in that second tier and think the player will jump into that first tier during the contract. This is where the Pavano’s and the Clement’s jump into the fray. This is where I think Wheeler will end up this year. You’re seeing teams actually start to shy away from these players on the open market now, especially if they’re tied to draft pick comp. it’s not worth spending $100 mil on Wheeler just because you need to spend $200 mil on Cole.

I heard the audio that had an example of the banging on a trash can. It sounded like a cannon. Clearly audible to the cameras focusing on the plate and clearly before the pitch. This is only useful when there isn’t a guy on second base. When there’s a guy on second, the catcher switches it up. That being said, it’s not rocket science to figure out which sign they’re using if they’re using a series of signs. It takes about 3 pitches to figure it out, especially if you’ve got a guy looking at it. This is going to be heavily penalized. Cora might see a suspension. Heck, Beltran might see a suspension before he even starts. Hinch might lose a season. Any players involved (like whoever banged the trash cans) will be fined and suspended as well. Betting on the game has always been heavily fined. But cheating to this degree leaves all options on the table. Hinch and Luhnow are in for a lengthy suspension, maybe long enough to have them replaced

Bloom didn’t choose Cora. Remember that