moonslav59

Good to see you, Danny. We will likely be worse in a few areas, but we have a good chance at staying the same or improving in a few areas. Will those improvements offset the declines enough for us to win the division again? I think so, but it won't be easy. Areas we may see improvement: 3B: Hopefully, Devers stays healthy and shows some gains after his step back on offense last season. 1B: Pearce all year should help. 2B: Pedey, Holt and Nunez- between them, maybe we improve over 2018. CF: Maybe JBJ stays steady all season long. SP: Eovaldi all year can help. ERod and Sale staying healthy is another way to improve. C: Both catchers had terrible offensive seasons. We don't need them to do better, but if they just return to their career norm, we could see a near 100 point gain in catcher OPS.

What explains the 180 point gain on the "with Papi" year?

Huh?

Well said, and although he may not be a monster, he's an incredible athlete with the gift of amazing reflexes and instincts. His all out play on defense may increase his injury chances, but it's a part of his character I do not want him to change. Besides, when I say "good chance," I don't think that necessarily means better than a 50% chance. Plus, I hedged my statement to "close to" doing better than 2018 in some season in the future. I don't see how that reached a "drinking Kool-Aid" level of optimism.

Exactly, except for Eovaldi, who they must gave viewed as a bargain and a projected plus for 4 years. He allows us to lose Porcello or Sale with a lesser big ouch.

That's why his remaining deal with the Yanks is good for the Yanks, unless he starts sucking sooner than expected.

The problem with the Stanton deal was paying him and giving up prospects to get him. In today's FA market, Stanton for $220M/10 is a bargain.

...but Betts achieved these numbers without hitting 33 HRs. One could argue, he can hit 40-45 HRs this year and see his BA dip. BTW, not all those guys were super big beefy hitters.

We have a bunch of players that have contracts expiring every year. The idea is not to expressly have to reset every 3 years. As it turns out, we will be going over the max line 2 years in a row. I'm not sure that is in the plans again, but when looking at our future budgets, it certainly looks easier to reset every now and again while trying to not go $40M ever again. Do we have to reset after 2019? No. Would not doind it after 2019 mean we have to after 2020, probably not, but it doesn't make sense to me, to stay at the 50% tax rate indefinitely, when dipping under every 3-5 years and maybe going $20-39M every now and again when you feal an extra push is needed is cheaper.

I'd sign him to $32M x 5 front end added to $12M x 5 back end.

Okay, throw those three out and it's 2 that repeated and 1 that did not. Still, good odds. I'm still not seeing why it's so "drink the kool aid" rare.

Very rare? I listed all the non steroid players in the top 20 over the last 20 years and only Luis Gonzalez and Carlos Delgado were "one and dones." The other 6 all came very close or beat a great season with an even better one. The Coors Field claim is lame. Both Helton and Walker did not have their first season outside of Coors then have a later, better one there. They had both seasons there. If you want to throw them out, too, the score is still 4-2 in favor of players repeating great years vs one and dones. That's certainly not "kool-aid" wishful thinking, when at least this evidence actually supports the idea that Betts might repeat.

Most could retire on $1-3M, and live better than they ever have.

I think Stanton at $22M is a steal.

I'll take Mookie's twitch skills over Judge's Shrek physicality 7 days a week. Look, I never said I'd bet on him repeating. I only said there's a good chance he comes close or does better at least one more year. There's also a good chance he doesn't. Same with Judge.

Want some live ones? I'll take the most recent 20 seasons' best OPS and throw out Bonds. I should throw out Sosa and McGwire, too as both of them used PEDs and saw a massive spike in their OPS and then equaled or topped that spike later in their careers. Here's the rest: #6 Larry Walker: He has a three seasons over .900 and a .912 OPS in 1996 before exploding with a 1.172 OPS in 1997 (6th best in 20 years). He ends up going over 1.013 5 more times, including coming very close to his 1997 high twice: 1.168 in 1999 and 1.111 in 2001. #7 Todd Heltom: His 2000 season was about 180 points better than his previous high (just like Mookie), and he came close the following year with a 1.116 OPS. He then had 3 more consecutive seasons over 1.006. #8 Manny Ramirez: He jumped up to a 1.105 OPS in an insane 1999 season (44 HRs and 131 RBI while batting .333)! Can't top that, right? Well, the very next year, he has his 1.154 OPS season the year before signing with the Sox. He ends up having 6 more seasons over 1.009, including one pretty close to his 2000 season in 2002, when he hit 1.097, which even as his second best of his career was still better than Mookies' 2018 season. #9 Jason Giambi, someone you know. A good example for my case. He jumps 100 points in 1999 with the A's to a .975 OPS. In 2000, he has a "career best year" of 1.123- a similar jump as Mookie of about 150 points. Except, it wasn't his career best. He did better the next year and by 124 POINTS! He hit 1.137 in 2001 the year before joining the Yanks and beginning his slow decline, despite a 1.034 first year with them. #10 Carlos Delgado: I agree he was sort of a one and done player. His 2000 season's 1.134 was a bout 180 points higher than his previous season, but he did have one more season at 1.019. #13 Jim Thome: in 1996, Thome jumped his OPS by about 70 points to 1.062. Pretty damn good. He followed it with a 1.001 OPS and 4 years later a 1.040 OPS. That 1996 season had to be his career best, right? After all, he was now past prime. WRONG! He went on to hit 1.222 in 2002 and even had a couple more seasons over 1.000 much later on. #15 Luis Gonzalez: The true one and done. .952 in 1999, 1.117 in 2001 and never above .934 afterwards. #17 Albert Pujols: He really had no spikes. He started off his career with amazing numbers right out of the gait. In 2003, he hit 1.106, which was almost 100 points better than his next highest. He then hit between .997 and 1.072 the next 4 years before topping his career best with a new one at 1.114 in 2008. He came close the next year at 1.101 (3rd best of career), then 1.011, .906 and then fell off a cliff with the Angels. Those are all the top 20 OPS seasons in the last 20 years not named Bonds, McGwire or Sosa. These guys are still alive.

There's oodles of examples of recent players having their career best year and then doing better afterwards. In fact age progression charts project better and better years until prime is reached. Even then, some players top their best seasons post prime. It's not a freak happening. Anyway, does this mean Stanton, Judge, Sanchez and others can only get worse? After all, every player in MLB today already has a career best year under their belt. Look, I realize, Betts' OPS in 2018 was about 180 points higher than his previous best, and that doesn't happen often. Certainly, there is also a "good chance" he never repeats or maybe even never comes close, but Mookie just turned 26. He's in the heart of prime. He's got an insane advantage over other hitters in his era with his off-the-charts "twitch" rate. He's in a line-up where you have to pitch to him, and he has an area where he can greatly improve upon without doing anything more than just swinging at more good pitches than he did last year. He is a truly amazing player to be able to put up numbers like 2018 while having such a poor rate at swinging at the best pitches.

That's a possibility, at least for a year or two, but those 50%s add up over time. Resetting drops the rate for 2 years before getting back to 50% again. While going $10M over in a 50% tax year costs $5M, going $20M over in a 20% year costs only $4M. Losing Pablo's contract after 2019 makes next winter the likely reset year, IMO.

I agree that the $40M line in 2019 is less of a worry than the reset winter after 2019 or possibly after 2020.

Only because it will be very difficult to keep Bogey, and there is only Lin in our current system to compete with Chatham for the 2020 SS job. I'd say, once we trade Chavis or Dalbec, the other one might have slightly better odds at winning the 1B job by 2020.

I totally disagree. I'm not saying it's a sure bet that Mookie tops the 30th best WAR ever put together since 1925, but he's still under prime age and has clear areas where improvement can be made- like swinging at more good pitches, instead of taking so many. History shows us that many of the greatest seasons of all time were later topped by the same player, or at least they came very close to topping it. I won't use Bonds as an example, but here are a few others I found: While Ted Williams was a freak of nature, and he had so many great seasons, he nearly topped his alltime best (1.287 in 1941) 16 years later! In 1957, he hit 1.257, when he was way past prime. Babe Ruth went off the charts in 1926 with a 1.253 OPS- an OPS so high, it had to be a once in a lifetime thing, right? Well, the very next year, he topped it. Mark McGwire totally smashed his best OPS in 1996 by hitting 1.198.Two years later, he topped it. Mantle topped 1956 in 1957. Jimmie Foxx nearly topped 1938 in 1939. Hornsby topped 1928 in 1929. Musial topped 1946 in 1948. Sure, when you look at the list of the best OPS seasons of all time, there are plenty of players only seen once in the top 50, 100 or 200. One and done, yes, but even the Hack Wilsons, Frank Rhomases and Jeff Bagwells of the world had several fantastic seasons not far removed from their best. It's not absurd to think there's a "good chance" Betts can repeat or do better at least one more time.

Yes, I read that part and the part about how DHernandez is tied for our best FV and Dalbec is tied with others for our 4th best FV. I do not think we can match up with other teams for big ticket trade targets, but it's hard to know how much other teams want for a player and how much they value our prospects (more or less than fangraphs?).

Actually, the Braves have 11 ranked higher than our best. Our best 3 are ranked as 45FV. Their 11th best is a 45+. They have 3 more guys ranked 45- like our best 3. MIA has 5 at 45+ or better and 5 at 45. NYM have 5 and 3. PHI have 6 & 4. WSH 4 & 1 CHC 4 & 4 Cincy 7 & 2 PIT 5 & 4 MIL 3 & 3 STL 3 & 2

The thing is, it's usually a nice thing, if you don't have any 50+ prospects to have more than three 45 FVs and five 40+FVs. It's not easy to rebuild a farm under the new rules, especially when you win your division 3 years in a row and go over the tax limit as often and as far as we do. I'm trying to stay hopeful, but it's hard to be optimistic about our farm. We seem to be getting worse. Last year, they had us with two 50 FVs (Chavis & Groome) and five 45s (Houck, Travis, Mata, Beeks, Hernandez). (11 were at 40.)

20-25 seems about right.