moonslav59

The deal makes. Very little sense, but it shows how GMs view players and prospects much differently than others. Maybe TB sees something in these two- maybe an adjustment here or there that will turn them into their next gems. I don’t see it, but I’m half blind.

The Rays always surprise but when you compare player to player. We look better, even figuring for injuries. No Snell, Morton or Chirinos. It will be close.

To get anyone for those two scrubs is a steal! With Vaz only having 2 years of team control left, boosting the catcher depth chart can’t hurt, although this kid will not be ready in 2 years- if ever.

ALE wins 97 Yankees 88 Jays 85 Sox 84 Rays 52 O’s We lost power again- maybe rolling blackouts. Water is back.

Well, Vaz is not a great hitter, but he is one of the greatest hitting catchers, today. He's had 2 very good years a decent one, for a catcher, out of the last 4 seasons: .801 in '20 .798 in '19 .735 in '17 I didn't comment on the pitching, because there was nothing to add. edit: I didn't notice you comment on Verdugo.

Verdugo is just 24 and has this line in his last 163 games (2019+2020): .300/.351/.476/.827 Hardly ordinary and on the upswing of his career. Vaz is one of baseball's best hitting catchers. He has 30 HRs and a .798 OPS in his last 655 ABs (2019+2020) Not really ordinary. Dalbec has yet to prove himself. I agree our defense sucks, but Verdugo is a plus OF'er and EHern has very good numbers in CF. Too bad, he may not play there much. My guess is Dalbec will end up a plus at 1B in 2021. I'm not a big fan of Vaz behind the plate.

Weird how we were 10th oldest with only Brasier at age 32 and everyone else at 31 or younger. We used 30 pitchers in a 60 game season. 1 @ 32 (Brasier) 6 @ 31 (only Walden remains and may not pitch in MLB, this year) 5 @ 30 (only Eovaldi & Barnes remain)

Bloom barely spent anything, last winter. He spent much more, this winter, but he had so many holes in the 40 man roster that spending large and long on one guy would have meant leaving a few slots for guys like Springs, Payamps and Mazza. Plus, IMO, Bauer, Springer and Realmutto were not the blue chippers you go all out to get. Maybe none are available, next winter either, and I know you are not for just spending on the best available just for the sake of spending and getting a little better at the expense of the future. Look at all the slots Bloom filled this winter with a relatively small spending budget: Richards Ottavino E Hernandez Renfroe Gonzalez Andriese Cordero Sawamura Whitlock Non 40 man: F German J Winckowski C Koss 3 PTBNL (from KCR & NYM) Last summer: Pivetta Seabold Potts Rosario non 40 man: Wallace We can haggle over any one move or small group of moves, but with all the slots needed filling, with the spending budget given, I'm not sure we could have done all that much better. Had we signed Odorizzi ($13M x 3) and JBJ ($9M x 2) and had to offset those signings elsewhere, we'd be left with several holes unfilled.

Free agency is not the only way to spend money. If ERod looks healthy, extending him is one way to spend rather large and somewhat long. As for FAs: Some are old- some are better than Bauer and much better than Odorizzi: Syndergaard Kershaw Scherzer Verlander Greinke Lynn, McCullers RP: K Jansen Familia Knebel A Bradley R Iglesias Non pitchers: OF: Conforto, Pham, S Marte 1B: F Freeman, A Rizzo SS: Lindor, Correa

He's not worth $8M/1, so why pay it? Pillar at $5M would have been better and cheaper. I still think RP'er or 2B are the only two slots worth filling while staying under the tax line by $1-2M.

I could see that as making sense but not for JBJ. I guess with JBJ or Odorizzi, if we sucked at the deadline, we could make enough trades to get back under.

True, I wouldn't say we are young, but we have very few old players and none way beyond prime. Ottavino is 35 and is a FA after this year. JD is 33- not far from prime. Brasier is 33 and not a key piece to the team. Richards is 32 with low mileage and an option year in 2022. Sale is just 31 with high mileage. Andriese is 31- not a key piece. Eovaldi is 30 and has 2 years left. Barnes is 30- last year of control. Vaz is 30 and has an option for 2022. EHern, Perez, Plawecki & Valdez are 29. Renfroe & Bogey are 28. ERod, Taylor & Pivetta 27 Dalbec, Chavis, Arroyo & Cordero are 26. Verdugo, Devers, DHern,Whitlock & Houck are 24. No major pieces to the 2021 team are under 24.

I agree. I'm not expecting much more than a mild run at the wild card slot, but we could do much better than that (or a bit worse). There is a lot to watch with many subplots. Getting to see some prospects later in the year could be exciting, too. I'm thinking Devers, Verdugo and Bogey could have career years in 2021. Maybe just one or two do, but I'm guessing at least one does. Dalbec could compete for ROY. EHern will be fun to watch. Renfroe, Cordero, Vaz and others all can do well. Our pitching looks questionable in many areas but there is a lot of chances for good to very good years from 6-8 pitchers and decenct years from another 4-6 pitchers. Our defense is the only area where we look to be not only worse from last year but as bad as we've been in a long time. I don't need to see 94 wins to enjoy watching, and in some ways, it might have been harder to watch a high expectation team like the 2019 team win 84 games, than this team win 81. It makes it easier, for me, knowing that the future is brighter. The future did not look brighter in 2019.

I guess $204M is not enough for many fans.

He's 36 and played 160 or 175 innings in CF, last year and 647 0f 879 in 2019 in CF. 34 OF'er had 600+ innings in CF since 2019. Dyson placed 13th with a UZR/150 of +3.5 (JBJ was at +0.1) and 15rh in DRS at 3. 25 CF'ers had 800+ innings. Dyson placed 10th in UZR/150 and 12th in DRS (same as JBJ).

Maybe we should have worried more if he had projected 86 wins.

According to BTV, Lee has a value of 9.3. They already gave is Winckowski (0.3) and this what they have that comes closest: 13.2 Vientos 3B 4.9 Ginn RHP 4.5 Ramirez OF 2.6 Dominguez RHP I'm no expert on prospects, but it seems like maybe we should have just kept Lee. Cordero has a 3.5 value. Beni is 4.6 (-2.8M paid)=1.8. The return might equal near 1.7. Here is what KC might offer (2 players): 4.8 Melendez C 4.1 Bowlan RHP 3.2 Pratto 1B 2.6 Marsh RHP 2.6 Hernandez RHP 2.3 Fox SS 2.0 Candelario SS 1.8 Matias OF & Hicklen OF 1.7 Hernandez RHP 1.6 McConnell SS, Massey 2B, Gentry OF & Collins OF 1.4 Hernandez C, Guzman SS, Florentino SS 1.3 Rave OF 1.2 Garcia SS 1.1 Murdock RHP, Haake RHP & Bolanos RHP many at 1,0 and under

This is not a bad core of young and prime players: (3 or more years of team control) 27 Bogaerts (opt out) 23 Devers 24 Verdugo 31 Sale 23 DHern 24 Houck 25 Dalbec 27 Pivetta 25 Cordero Casas, Downs, Mata, Duran, Jimenez, Ward, Seabold, Ramirez, Song, Groome, Yorke, Lugo, Potts, Rosario, Jordan...

We also have EHern to play CF, if we can get Arroyo, Chavis, Arauz or Munoz to play decent 2B. 2021 In System CF Options: EHern Cordero Verdugo Munoz Duran Wilson

Expect about the same pro-rated IP'd from Martin Perez (1st in IP in 2020), Nathan Eovaldi (2nd) & Brasier (8th). Expect zero IP from these pitchers: Mazza (5th) Godley (6th) Springs (10th) Osich (13th) Kickham (T14th) Covey (T14th) Stock (16th) Hembree (20th) Triggs (24th) Workman (25th) Leyer (26th) Tiapa (27th) Non pitchers ONLY Workman is a significant loss here, and the total IP's from these players was 170 IP which is 33% of all 2020 IP! 33%! of the worst IP GONE! Expect less to way less from these pitchers: Weber (3rd most IP on Sox in 2020) Valdez (4th) Brewer (7th) Brice (11th) Walden (17th) Hart (18th) Hall (21st) This list totals 125 Total IP or 24%. 33+24%= 57% gone or greatly reduced. That's a lot of room for improvement when projecting those IP'd being replaced by... Expect more from these pitchers: DHern (22nd) Barnes (9th) Taylor (24th) Expect way more from these pitchers: ERod Richards Sale Houck Pivetta Ottavino Andriese Sawamura Whitlock Mata, Seabold, Gossett, Bazardo

One could just have easily expected a downturn from JBJ as un upturn from Beni. No way did we get worse by replacing these two with Renfroe, who by himself is better than Beni, Kike, Franchy & Marwin. We are also adding a full year of Dalbec. Yes, our pen is a mess, and Ottavino is "no savior," but he improves it. Barnes did not pitch much in 2020, either. He will in 2021. That's a big help. Our rotation did get better "but it didn't take much." LOL! Just because it sucked, last year, doesn't mean a massive improvement should be viewed as "It didn't take much." Even if ERod & Sale do not come back at full or near full force, our rotation is much much stronger, on paper. 2020: 12 GS=20% 2021: 32 GS=20% 2020 GS%>2021 GS% 20% Perez> 20% 15% Eovaldi> maybe 15% again (24 starts) 20% Godley & Weber> 20% from ERod + Sale 20% Mazza, Brewer Kickham>Richards + more than Houck's 3 GS in '20 20% Hart, Triggs, Brasier, Brice, Osich, Hall, Leyer + 2 from Pivetta> 20% more from Piveta plus Whitlock, Mata, Seabold On paper, this looks like a massive improvement. Of course, much is speculative, but one could say teh same about the Yankee projected rotation.

I meant it in terms of him leading us to the playoffs or beyond in 2021. Sure, he'd improve our CF situation, but if it's just a glove we needed, we could have signed several players for dirt cheap, and even Dyson is still available. I would not sign him for one year, if it puts us over the tax line, and since he won't sign for $5M, I don't see it happening, at all.

Contracts Ending Soon (Lux dollars) After 2021: $13.8 Pedey $8.9 Ottavino $8.3 ERod $4.5 Barnes $3.0 M Gonzalez 2022 Options: $10 Richards ($1.5 buyout) $7 Vazquez ($0.25 buyout) $6 Perez ($0.5 buyout) $3.5 Andriese ($0.25 buyout) After 2022: (any option players who stayed in 2022) $22 JD $20 Bogey (opt out?) $17 Eovaldi $7.0 EHern ~1.8 Plawecki $1.5 Sawamura Not counting arb players that could be let go.

With so many one year deals and options for 2022, we can easily get under, next winter, but if we are heading towards a better and better roster, going forward, why sacrifice a later year for 2021?

I disagree. It's no so much about paying a small tax for going over in 2021, but if we plan on spending very large in 2022 or 2023, starting the yearly tax clock in 2021 sets the rates a year ahead going forward. That could amount to a big tax difference 2-3 years from now or necessitate an earlier reset at a time when we rate to be more competitive than 2021. I just don't see JBJ as "that guy" we absolutely need to have for 2021.