moonslav59

We've had so many early hopes on pitching prospects that were quickly dashed. Witherspoon has a lot of promise, for sure, and yes, we've been doing a much better job with pitcher development over recent years, but getting high quality players by trade is also a good way to maximize prospect value. I'm never going to say a good pitcher is "blocked," but I do think we look pretty solid in the pitching area, especially starters: Control ends after... 2026: Sandoval 2027: Houck, Oviedo 2028: Crawford 2029: 2030: Bello, Harrison 2031 or later: Crochet, Tolle, Early Bennett, Sandlin, Uberstine, Drohan, Mullins, Witherspoon Valera, Holobetz, Phillips, Eyanson, Monegro, Delzine, Cason There is a risk that Witherspoon outshines almost all of these guys, but we have some serious holes to plus and an owner that has been stingy with his wallet over most recent seasons.

My guess would be Romy ends up being the FT 2Bman. His splits improved greatly, last season while DHam's bat looked horrific. Romy might play some back-up 1B, so maybe DHam still gets some time, but we should "rest" Contreras vs RHPs, and that does help DHam play vs only RHPs. Ragans can be an ace, when healthy. The 3 years is a major carrot. I may just be shell-shocked over acquiring injury-prone pitchers.

Getting him at the deadline also loses the comp pick, if he bolts to another team for 2027.

Pleasing some fans. It doesn't bother me, at all. I kinda like suspense.

If Bregman and Bichette sign soon, Suarez could sign shortly afterwards. I think he gets 2 years, maybe a 3rd year option. A one year deal might include a 2nd year option with a decent buyout number for Suarez. $22M/1 and option for '27 at $21M but with a $5M buyout making it a $43M/2 or $27M/1 deal.

His recent drop in WAR is almost 100% driven by his change from playing the highly valuable catcher position and then moving to play 1B, which is the lowest valued position next to DH. fWAR assigned these value to him since 2020: Defense: 4.5> 5.5> -1> -4> -2> -5 (plus first 2, then minus last 3) Offense: 3>5>18>15>16>13 (low first 2, then pretty good & consistent since) On their value page, the positional adjustment looks like this: 8>1>3>0>-10 His defense at 1B is fine. His bat has not shown steady decline: wRC+: 111 from '20 to '21> 130 from '22-'23> 131 from '24-'26 OPS .807 up to 2021 (112 OPS+) ,815 '22 at age 30 (126 OPS+) .826 '23 at 31 (123) .848 '24 at 32 (138) shows he was aging very well) .791 '25 at 33 (123) was a drop, but just one year and still not far from other recent years and way better than his pre age 30 years combined. The 123 OPS+ was his 4th best in his 10 year career. His PAs were second most of his career. I'm not too concerned.

Pleasant, yes. Surprise, not to me.

Thus spoke Zarapessimitra.

Couple that with his .348 career OBP, and it's a no brainer to pay Casas and hope he can regain most or all of what he has done in the past, He's even young enough to improve on it. He had a .357 OBP before 2025 in an 840 PA sample size (.830 OPS.)

Good thing we don't need a position player after we get a 3Bman. Contreras has 2 years: Duran has 3 years, and we already have 3 other OF'ers. By the time we need a position player, Arias and Gonzalez might be ready.

I doubt we ever DFA Yoshida, or have him on the 26 as a PH'er/back up DH/5th or 6th OF. That means trading him and paying all but $3-5M per year or trading Duran. While I think Duran is significantly better on offense than Yoshida, I think Yoshida can come close to Duran's projected 2026 OPS- less power & way less speed. fangraphs projects Duran at .761 and Yoshida at .766. While I don't agree with this, I do think Masa can do okay at DH. That coupled with the concept that Duran's value to another team as an OF'er is significantly more than to us as a DH pretty much decides the issue for us. Duran gets traded.

That is an advantage for Bregman over Marte, as DHam should never play 3B, and probably not Romy, either. (Same with SS, but hey some are fine with Rafaela playing middle infield.)

Yes. It could mean he leads the teams with 22 Hrs, or he could be healthy and hit 36 and double the second most HR player on the team. Maybe he barely beats Abreu 28 to 27.

Not sure what that has to do with wanting to pass on every player looking to make the most money they can. We'd never get anyone, even many 1 year guys.

No way I give a top 5 prospect for Donovan and certainly not top 3. Maybe Valero or Bennet plus 2 from Sandlin, Phillips and Mullins. Suarez will get 2 year- probably 3, but maybe we can overpay him and get him to accept 2 or 2 with an option and nice buyout.

So, we pass on 99% of all players, then.

I guess we could try just matching it and hope Breggie likes BOS more, or offer $181M/6. I would not go that high.

Because fans get frustrated waiting?

Houck was our ace before Crochet. His horrible start to 2025 and maybe his ending to 2024 might have been related to the injury not yet discovered. He's worth the $4M gamble towards next year. His arb will not go up. Casas has a chance at leading the team in homers.

These are the estimated fWARs for the remaining 2026 free agents: 4.4 Tucker OF 4.0 Bregman 3B 4.0 Bichette SS (2B) 3.0 Bellinger Of/1B 2.5 E Suarez 3B (1B/DH) 1.8 Realmuto C 1.6 Arraez 1B/DH (2B) 1.1 Moncada 3B (2B) 1.2 Willi Castro (2B) Caratini (C) 1.0 Rengifo 2B/3B Pitchers 3.7 Valdez 3.3 Ra Suarez 2.4 Gallen 2.1 Bassitt (might take the 1-2 year deal JH loves) 1.7 Littell 1.6 Verlander (1 yr deal) 1.5 Jon Gray 1.4 Scherzer (1 yr deal) 1.3 N Martinez, A Civale 1.2 Giolito, Mikolas, M Perez, Sugano 1.1 Quintana, Corbin, Paddack

While it makes sense to us, JH seems to detest paying more than $1.5M in taxes, almost as much as he detests any FA deals over 6 years or $140M. I think the tax is 30% for the second year, right? Going over $5M is a $1.5M tax. $10M over? $3M tax. $20M= $6M tax. That seems acceptable to you and me, but I'm not so sure JH sees it that way. $40M is $12M tax- about what he pasy Hicks. In total, it's $52M than staying at the line $40M below.

Houck is cheaper than Hendriks, Sandoval, Paxton and all the other IL pitchers we dream of returning to glory we signed. It makes total sense they view that $4M as a good gamble. Casas is worth the tiny money spent on him. That $1.6M is just $800K over a min wage guy we'd have in his place if we non tendered him. The guy was an.800+ batter for a long time. He may even play in 2026!

Agreed. The third line affects the precious draft slots and bonus money.

Do you remember the budgets when JH took over? Was his spending really the major factor, early on? The 2001 budget (pre JH) was $110M on opening day and $114M at the end. JH's group took over that winter. The 2002 budget, according to cots was $108M and $110M at the end of 2002. The 2003 budget went down again to $100M and finished at $104M. Maybe you are talking about a few years into his reign, not when he first started. We did see a big jump for 2004, and Foulke was a big piece for the ring year. but do you remember he cut the budget the next two years ($127>123>120.) There was a massive drop from end of year 2004 ($131M) to the end of year 2005 ($117M). Was it really as rosy as you portray it to be? The big spending years (2018-2019)came closer to 2026 than 2003. Sounds shocking, doesn't it? We jumped the spending for 2007, bigly. (Again, with my "cycle" talk you abhor and ridicule.) We won a ring and guess what? Cuts again. ($143>134>122.) That was pretty major, as in a 15% cut. It was time to cycle up again for 2010, but it didn't work as planned. We jumped the spending by $47M from 2009 to 2010 and stayed close to the same for 3 years, as we transitioned from Theo to Ben. We cut by more than $20M for 2013, but somehow won a ring, that year. We can't really call that ring a "JH desire to kill the evil empire" season, can we? 2014 saw about the same budget, then the DD era began, and I think this is the time frame we seem to be linking to 2002-2014. To me, many years in the 2002-2014 era look very similar to 2021 to 2024 and 2025. Ups and downs. Of course the big difference is we were top 3-4 spenders for many of those years. Note: our ranking pre-JH: T6th in '98 ($6M from NYY at #2) 6th in '99 ($4M from #3 and $17M from #1 NYY) 7th in '00 ($4M from #4 and $15M from #1 NYY) #2 in 2001 (The year before JH) just $200K from #1 NYY. That was the JH starting point- essentially tied with the Yanks. Then... -$17M year 1 from NYY -$53M year 2 -$57M year 3 (2004) -$84M year 4 (man, facts hurt, don't they?) -$75M in 2006 -$46M year 6 (ring year) -$76M in 2008 (4th place in spending) -$79M year 8 -$44M in year 9 and -$40 year 10. Was this the golden era you speak of? We didn't pass the Yanks until 2018. That was year 17 out of 24 seasons under JH.

I'm glad we finally seemed to catch on to the deferred money ploy. It might help offset the tax line hit those long extensions to the kids did to the near future budget. Eventually, these extensions will see the AAV become below the salaries, and they may be very helpful, assuming these guys are still doing well. (Campbell has yet to start doing well.) Some felt we jumped the gun or overpaid on Bello and Rafaela, but both look like solid deals, now. Bello's AAV is $9.2M. His salary jumps from $8.7M in '27 to $16.1M in '28 and $19.1M in '29 plus a low buyout option year for '30. ($21M w $1M buyout) Rafaela's tax his is just $6.3M but for 8 years. His salary passes the AAV in 2029. Campbell's AAV is $7.5M. His salary passes the AAV in 2030 ($9M) and goes to $16M by '32. He has two option years: $19M in '33 w $4M buyout and $21M for '34 w no buyout. Anthony's bold extension has an AAV of $16.2M. he better be good! His salary tops the AAV in 2030. It goes u to $29M in 2033 with a $30M option for '34 and no buyout cost.