Balta1701

Rodriguez is an international signing with some ceiling. It's something they've shown willingness to do in the past and would be a reasonable use of their available funds - if he flopped, the cost isn't back breaking, and if he has a good couple seasons now you have him under control and can figure out your long term plan with one rotation slot filled.

Without knowledge of Montas's injury, I will go with Montas unless the medicals say otherwise. Over the last 3 years, Eloy has been a 2.4 fWAR player total, Montas has been a 6 fWAR player. Over his entire career Eloy has put up 5.4 fWAR, Montas has put up 9.4. Both of them have clear injury issues, but Montas has been clearly the better player over the entire stretch of Eloy's career, and teams have shown they will specifically overpay for pitching at the deadline (see: Lance Lynn).

And the likeliest scenario for Eloy right now is that they hold him through the year and pay his buyout at the end of the season after he gets like 350 plate appearances. Money down the drain.

I think he's far more likely to bring a return at the trade deadline than Eloy is. They're probably about equally likely to be healthy, probably roughly equally likely to be tolerable players next year, but teams are more likely to overpay for middling pitching based on last year and way less likely to pay for a middling DH.

Your highlights are from 2021? Here's a video of Dallas Keuchel in June 2021 throwing 7 shutout innings against the Rays. Maybe we should add him, I think he's available? Look how good he was in 2021.

I would probably take 4 of those 5 pitchers over Eloy.

That's fine to me, if I had no experience with him, Eloy would be the kind of "Bad contract" that I'd be ok with the White Sox taking on - some talent, some control, some ceiling. If you could have dumped a Clevinger last year and gotten an Eloy, that's a move I'd have been ok with. This is an honest assessment of Eloy's performance, ceiling, and legitimate struggles. But this is bloody different from "We can't move him we need him to protect Robert in the lineup!".

I don't think Reinsdorf cares one bit about his draft pick in 2025. I think he cares a lot about his bottom line this year, and I think they've got a good chance at challenging the all time attendance low for this ballpark. So yeah, I think he doesn't want to waste a year, but he isn't going to spend anything like what he committed the last couple years. This is why Getz, fwiw, should have gotten Reinsdorf to understand and agree to a multi year plan format before taking the job. Reinsdorf never, ever, ever should have been up in a press conference talking about how they needed to "Win soon", it told me clearly that Getz didn't know he needed to prevent that.

So are there any pitchers available who MLBTR projected for $14 million annual value? Let's find out. Frankie Montas, 1/$15. Sean Manaea, 2/$22. Michael Lorenzen, 2/$22 Clevinger, 2/$26 (no I would not be happy about this) Yariel Rodriguez 4/$32 (Cuban/Japanese import)

22. Jack Flaherty. Three years, $40MM What did he actually get?

I think it's entirely possible that they had a $125 million payroll limit and they've reached it and that's why they haven't added a more experienced starter, sure.

Lucas Giolito presumably. Flaherty literally signed for exactly that last week.

If Eloy is half as good as these people say then why aren't we talking about a top 100 prospect for him? He's a good hitter right? Last year we were told that Eloy and Hendriks for Jeff McNeil and the game's number 1 prospect was a move people didn't want to do because Eloy might hit 40 home runs and they needed the offense. If he's an .840 OPS hitter why aren't people beating down the door for him?

You know darn well they have a payroll limit man, come on.

And his OPS in the last 3 years is .785, averaging 350 plate appearances per year. 2020 doesn't hold as much weight as the last 3 years and that's literally all you're hanging on. And his OPS last year was .758. Is a .758 OPS DH a useful bat?

So basically, you're on the side of the A's owner?

Just the hypothetical - what if they're at their payroll limit, and trading Eloy clears another $14 million that you could spend on one of the remaining starting pitchers?

Fine, let's do this. 2021, 231 plate appearances, .740 OPS, .293 BABIP. 2022, 327 plate appearances, .858 OPS, .337 BABIP. 2023, 489 plate appearances, .758 OPS, .305 BABIP. 3 years, 1047 plate appearances, .785 OPS. How much you wanna hang on "he's really the player that he was in 2020! That season is representative of everything!"? You say why we hate on people, why we don't say anything positive - because burying one's head in the ground and calling this adequate deserves a response. This is poor performance for anything but a backup or platoon player. It doesn't deserve compliments, and you can't even type his performance last year on its own because it was so bad that you have to lump in his 2020 to make it look better.

I have no problem when people complain about an owner who has received a ton of funds from a city/state historically who then threatens to move (which would mean all the money put in previously was a waste) if he doesn't get still more money and yet another new stadium.

How serious was the ballpark agreement they had with the city? The city seemed pretty pissed that what they were offering was turned down at the end.

Last year there were 90 players in MLB who had an .800 OPS and 200+ PAs. An average team had 3. Eloy Jimenez was not one of them.

And him hitting behind Robert seems to give me a great reason to walk Robert, Eloy will just hit it on the ground.

I…what?

With the history of arm injuries to the pitchers that come over from Japan, and the fact that no one has seen him against big leaguers, I can’t imagine how teams are selling themselves $300 million on this guy. I’d rather pay the guy who has been iffy on health but has 2 Cy Young awards a much lower sum.

I would definitely be surprised if Getz got Reinsdorf to agree to a plan that involves them not competing until 2026.