Balta1701

In hindsight they didn’t really give up a lot in terms of players for Kimbrel. What they didn’t do relevant to their spending was - be smart at all with their signings (more relievers) and - continue developing literally any talent to replace guys that traded away or aged out. Among other mistakes.

Wasn't there some poster during the year who kept saying this?

If you have to ask a coach if there's a quarterback controversy...there's a quarterback controversy.

I expect we will see a pivot to "we are definitely trying to win a weak AL Central" pretty quick. Whether that is 2025 or not I don't know and I doubt anyone else does, that would depend on development this year. They could quite literally push their committed payroll down below $50 million in 2025 if they cleared out a bunch of the options and arb-eligible guys. Lower if Benintendi has a tolerable year and becomes movable at the deadline. If they got some progress out of their system this year, buying a couple mid-level free agents next offseason to shoot for above .500 isn't out of the question, or at least them convincing themselves they could do it isn't out of the question.

So yeah I'm definitely going with it's the losing that sustains him.

AJ Pollock was acquired by the Dodgers as basically a full value free agent, this is also distinct from Taylor, Muncy, Hernandez, and Turner - all of whom were picked up by the Dodgers after some other team developed them but soured on them or gave them away while they still were pre-free-agency. You do not need to add additional names here, those 4 are included correctly.

Outman should not be included with the other ones as he was drafted by the Dodgers and has never been in any other organization.

This. They were lucky Luis Robert didn't break in half before all star week last year with how little rest they gave him. Thompson's job wasn't to be good, it was to keep Luis Robert alive.

The big part of this story is that the Dodgers continue having a strong system and continue developing talent, both from their system and from guys they find elsewhere. While their big league spending certainly helps, they've also been able to just recently trade for Betts, Turner, Scherzer, and losing 2 of those guys to free agency didn't break them. Houston, as a contrast, has been excellent for a long time, but they're basically at the end of the line this year. They have the worst system in MLB depending on who you ask, and Altuve, Bregman, and Pressly are all free agents after this year, with Verlander, Tucker, Urquidy, and Valdez free agents after next year. They have been really good at finding some cheap pieces once their run of success started, but time has caught up to them and there's only so many of those guys they will be able to keep. The Dodgers stand out here even compared to a team that is making the LCS every year and paying the luxury tax.

Is his value eroding because he is giving good reasons to think he won't be a strong player?

Is "his value is eroding" a worrisome sign for him?

While I'm not sure what those teams can actually afford (are the Jets still missing picks because of their last QB?), if I were either Washington or NYJ I would absolutely do that if I thought I was getting a franchise QB.

If I'm Washington and I wind up #3-4, I'm darn well trading up to #1-2 if there's any possible way to do so. If I'm Vegas or the Jets, I'd try but I'd imagine Washington would outbid me with the higher pick.

At the same time, there is some benefit to the business as a whole in having the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox actually make the playoffs pretty often. IF they are winning the World Series every year this is a bad thing because then no small market teams get the revenue and fan boost from winning a title, so there needs to be a path where small market teams can make the World Series and sometimes win them. If they are so good that it prevents other good teams in their division from making the playoffs, this is a bad thing because it is hurting those franchises specifically. If it's a challenge for a small market team to win a World Series, but it's an achievable challenge, then baseball has struck a decent balance. The thing we don't want is for MLB to become a European soccer league where only the teams with Oil money have a chance to win, and all the other teams become farm systems to develop players for the few big franchises who are ok losing money. The Dodgers, Yankees, Mets overspending might help them, but it's not foolproof. There's mostly an ok balance here, you can build a 100 win team in Cleveland or Kansas City if you're smart. I am worried that "Deferred money" has created a new loophole available only to a big market club, a tool that allows the highest money teams a way around some portion of the luxury tax due only to the fact that they are high revenue teams. The Dodgers have a credit card that the Royals do not have, they can go into debt like this with the expectation of higher long term revenues. This was not intended by the CBA and hasn't been the case previously.

They shouldn't be! What people are missing when talking about the Dodgers now is that the Dodgers need guys like Lux, their young pitchers, their young OFs - these guys are cheap and under control for years. That's how they afford an Ohtani and a Betts - they have lots of income, but they also don't deplete their team around those guys, they The Dodgers are experts at rotating people through their lineup and roster, they have been for years. They need a good 4 middle infielders to cover the 3 positions, they need 4 outfielders, they need 7 starters and will hold some guys in the minor leagues to gain extra experience if needed. Giving away a SS with 3 years of control and a pitcher with 6 years of control is a potential setback for them.

If Arizona winds up at #2 my guess would be they do the Bears thing and trade down to #3-#4 unless they're taking a QB. The 2 top QBs are going to go #1 and #2 because someone will trade up for them.

There's benefit to baseball to having every team legitimately on a level playing field. The Luxury Tax rule was genuinely simple, it made it challenging to find loopholes. I'm still not even sure how this one works, but it's definitely not good for baseball to have Ohtani making $600 million after his contract ends.

So tell me if I’m wrong here - the rule used to be that it was total dollars divided by the years paid out. That would make the tax amount here $35 million a year by my accounting. Am I wrong?

Literally everyone was expecting Vaughn to be better last year with the new hitting coach and getting out of the OF. Like even I agreed with that, how many people said that the reason his second halves were worse was that his legs were wearing out in the OF? Vaughn not getting better at all should count as unexpected. But we should expect it this year. Moncada being bad was unexpected? He was even worse in 2022, maybe we should stop expecting big improvements there and just be happy it’s the last contract year.

Bizarre. So basically it’s a $700 million 20 year deal so the tax number should Come out to $35 mil a year, is that right?

Having some familiarity with White Sox fans expecting the guys we have to improve without a good reason, I think you’re expecting guys to improve without good reason. For example - yes Stassi is a defensive upgrade from Grandal, but less so from Zavala. However offense does matter, and Stassi compared to Grandal is a loss of like 50 points of OBP from the 29th ranked OBP in the league. And Lee, well I don’t know if he can be as bad as he was last year, that sounds like a serious challenge. Benintendi might be a little better with slugging if his wrist was a problem (this still bugs me because no one ever says we shouldn’t sign a guy who hurt his wrist but then it immediately becomes an excuse if they struggle), but he had another problem - his defense fell apart as the season went on. I didn’t expect this from him and am uncertain why he suddenly went from average to terrible, can you tell men if you’re saying his D will get better id like to know why. A bounce back from Yoan, sigh I’m sure I wrote last offseason why that was too optimistic. Improvement from Vaughn - I will believe it when I see it, we heard last year that the new coaches would make a difference and they just made him chase more. The bench is better? Who is the bench? The same guys as last year right? Right now on paper I will give you Lopez as better than the awful 2b they ran out last year, that sorta balances Burger being gone. Otherwise it’s the same optimistic stuff that didn’t work last year. I will give some Credit for saying that it might get to 70 wins, rather than saying it could challenge for the division like people said last year.

Not disagreeing with that. Replying to a poster who says that our position player group right now is better than they were in 2023. Stassi is fine, he's not obviously a massive downgrade from Grandal, but he's on paper certainly no massive upgrade right now either.

Arizona isn't taking a QB? Are you sure about that? Let's imagine though that Arizona wins 1 more game with Murray back and gets up to 4 wins, creating a logjam. If Washington or NYG were in the #3 spot, would they trade up to #1 for Williams?

No I did not, I guess I was looking at his 2022 and that was just about the 0 WAR that Grandal put up in 2023. That makes it look even worse! Thanks!