drewski6

getting rid of your depth to not lose 10 draft spots doesnt feel like its worth the squeeze to me. Id rather Masa be in AAA in case needed than trying to chop 5m off the tax line And i do understand how it can be the difference between whetehr you can fit bregman under second tax line or having to fall back to a 2ish WAR third baseman. But I honestly think if they want breg ,theyll just pay a little more tax.

I dont think the tax line matters as much as some think. Even the 10 draft pick spots isnt much cuz teams are drafting for signability and overslot vs underslot. Its not like baseketball or football where pick 10 vs pick 20 is huge.

100% Going by CBT and going by total cash outlay are both imperfect. And btw there are others too (which Im sure you know). None of them are perfect, but the CBT can be expanded by a creative GM and also (like you mention) its not a hard cap. The Red Sox bought discounted years for Cedanne, RA, Campbell, Crochet (think he had 2 years left on his deal when we got him). And due to the rules, these extensions recalculated the CBT for each of these guys and raised it significantly for 2026. We could have had Cedanne, RA, Campbell, Crochet all making peanuts in 2026 with minimal tax hit, and most of these guys arent getting a ton of cash in 2026 either (exception Crochet) because they are trying to keep the cash outlay close to each players performance and they care less about the CBT hit getting out of whack with performance. These players have higher CBT hits and obvs, if we had a 280m tax hit with cedanne/RA/Campbell/Crochet making peanuts we prob have a better team than a 280m tax hit with cedanne/RA/Campbell/Crochet making what they make. Someone could be glad for it (I think its overrated), but it doesnt change the fact that the CBT shoots up when you extend, and you could just as easily keep them cheap and spend that money shopping for external fortifications and this is a big reason why the CBT isnt the only metric for aggressiveness. Trading prospects matters too. Becuase if you refuse to part with any, thats still a non-aggressive mentality. Its really not about and shouldnt be about just trying to obtain and cram as much value as you can. This is what that article that I found a month ago went into. At some point you have to try to line it up and make a serious push. NOt just always looking all future years evenly. "Over the life of the..." thinking at some point hits a wall. Theres a time to think about the short term.

I agree.

I didnt say the CBT is irrelevant, im just saying that looking at the cash outlay alongside it provides context. Correct, Ohtanis 2m cash outlay is very relevant, and its as relevant as the 46m CBT hit (which is also relevant)

With how he remade the pitching dev here, a few of the smaller orgs would dump hot-seat their CBO's/GM's to sign interview him to a POBO/CBO position for their org. And then breslow would blow it, cuz he doesnt interview well If I walk in to interview you and you are sitting their defiantly and smugly , I already have my answer. Cuz chances are you are compensating for a lack of skills/experience with bravado, and ive seen that movie too many times to get fooled by it again. When interviewees are over the top confident, its a red flag. If you wanna win a job that you are a bit long shot for, you do it with asking the right questions at the end, not by pounding your chest and talking about your past accomplishments Its all about vision anyways.

agree both numbers are relevant.

I dont think so, at least not at same level. Not saying he couldnt get another job as CBO somewhere, but its not a guarantee it would be immediate or happen at all. I think if we sacked him, hed def get offers as a GM somewhere but thats a lower position than he has now

Would you rather: Roman Anthony make 7m this year and count 18m towards the luxury tax. Or Roman Anthony make 7m this year and count 7m towards the luxury tax (giving us another 11m to spend) Now I understand that this overlooks the future savings that we hope to receive from locking up RA. I get that by increasing Romans 7m tax hit to 18m, we get him 6,7,8 years down the road at a more affordable price. But really , its moving money around. They bought a future discount on Roman. They didnt buy Roman. And they could have kept Roman cheap, and used that money to go get more players and had a better team in the short term. Not to say that I dont agree with locking him up, but what I am saying is that only looking at the tax completely ignores this kind of thing. THey increased RA's tax hit in 2026, 2027, 2028 (by a lot) to lessen his tax hit 2031,2032,2033. I dont think they should get full credit for this "spending" and only looking at CBT ignores that this purchase was really jsut buying furute discounts.

Of course the cash is relevant. For example, the red sox are paying roman 7m this year, but crediting themselves 18m because they bought future years of his at a discount, and the averaging of the yearly for CBT calculation purposes makes them look more spendy than they are. There are ways to more out of the CBT. Not all luxury tax bills at a given amount are created equal.

What role are you penciling Hicks into that you are worried would need to be replaced , haha?

Hes trying to get teams to submit something close to a best and final to know exactly who/what is on the table. Not the very end and I agree, theres more time. Its mostly posturing to advance the stage of various one on one trade talks between Dbacks and other teams We see it all the time.

Jamex Paxton or Paxton Crawford?

I think Dodgers view teoscar as "in the way" but would see Hicks as a gamble to potentially help their bp and i think theyre still looking to add there. Of course, im not sure theyd do it.

I think they would because they are interested in bullpen help, and a Hicks resurgence could help them. Plus 104 mph will always have teams believing they can fix him.

point

My spiderman v spiderman comment would prob be "postional veratility" on one spiderman and "noodlebat" on the other.

I would do all 4 of those pitchers for marte in a heartbeat lol. Crawford, Harrison, Dobbins, Sandoval. And wed still have Crochet, Gray, Tolle, Oviedo, Early, Bello, Drohan, Uberstine Could use one more 3/4 starter, so maybe try to hold Crawford back but if you need to include him you do and maybe sign a #5 starter.

Yup, BOYS can contribute but you need MEN to win in the playoffs. Even Jordan didnt dominate his first few years in NBA

Cliff Floyd

Cliff Robinson

This guy is nothing if not reasonable.

he meant seabeachfred

With you on this.

Our offense needs help, and its not going to come from Mayer who is not strong at all (Breslow challenged him on that) or Anthony (who does not have all of his man-strength yet) or Casas (he's not healthy, nor is he particularly good when he is healthy) Some of the help may come from those guys, but if we are counting on this group, then its just more complacency and more third or fourth place.