MiddleCoastBias

Rich Hill will also pitch 1/3 the innings as he's out with a blister all. the. time.

Tanaka may be what we need, but he ain't happenin'. Rumors are that he's considering going back to Japan on a 4-year deal. If he's staying here, it's to re-sign with the Yankees. He's 32. He doesn't want a 1-year deal from a new club that he doesn't know if he's ultimately looking to go back to Japan eventually.

Without making a move, I think they still tell Lopez that he's in the pen and work on getting him into the mindset of a being a reliever. For someone that seems to struggle with focus, having him wonder if he's starting or relieving this week wouldn't seem to help him. Sit him down and focus on preparing to pitch one inning at a time. My guess is that they'll mentally pencil Stiever in at #5 on January 18th with the intention that he'll be bumped by a vet signing before spring training.

Right, after seeing how they got creative with Liam's deal, this seems like an opportunity for our FO to do something funky with a deal that would appeal to Bauer and give us some flexibility. I just don't think they'll get the go-ahead to push it.

It'll be very interesting to see where Bauer lands and what he gets at this point. Figure he's got to be looking at ways to get creative with the contract to spin it as a win on a short deal but also get his "recognition" as a top talent/contract.

Again, I can't believe that we've collectively moved on from the annual courtship of Joc Pederson. Brantley seems to be the new darling, but I like Joc more (can spell CF if Robert needs any time off), better OFer with more versatility. And I don't hear his name in rumors for ANY team anymore, crazy.

Flashback to "the money will be spent!" Kidding, I'm very happy with the direction we're heading and where they've (eventually) spent that money

Having ReyLo in the pen now provides us a good emergency arm in case of injuries, helps as a stop-gap to eat some of this innings. Opens up a permanent slot in the rotation that we know we need to fill (and will this off-season) instead of playing the "will he figure it out this year" game and depending on Lopez. Once we fill that slot with whomever (Q, Kluber, Richards, etc), we have 5.5 starters on the active roster. I like that flexibility - gives him a chance to figure it out, but we aren't depending on him to do it.

"Family environment" in the clubhouse? Makes sense why Eaton wanted to come back ?

Jesus, I know we've been talking about how many free agents are still out there, but I forgot Joc is STILL available, wow

I can also predict something will happen fast - there's only 4.5 weeks until pitchers and catchers report, *of course* things need to heat up now.

My guess is Kluber ends up in Boston. They've been linked to him for a while, he lives out here, and Chaim Bloom has a bunch of money to spend. Kluber won't demand a long-term deal which gives a very weak Red Sox rotation a shot in the arm to get some vet leadership without over-committing. Good fit for both team and player.

I say now because it gives us the flexibility to trade to fill those holes or just use the money to buy free agents without giving up talent. And trades now have every team on a level playing field - mid season tip a market (see: price of Quintana in December vs. the mid season trade). If we wait until mid season, you're now stuck with making trades AND possibly paying a premium in talent return as those suitors have a more narrow market that plays to their advantage.

That settles it: Finkle is Einhorn, and Orlando is Maloney and Al's-Beef and Portillos and NotSteve ?

Agreed, sounds like a very Kansas City move, and I think he'd fit really well there. That might be one of the last places I want Benintendi to land as I've been a huge fan of his since the draft and always dreamt of a world where we got him instead of Fulmer.

Do we have confirmation that he's received any 4-year deals? The off-season started with people talking 3/39M and saying whoever good to 4 will get him. Maybe were all still waiting for him to sign because no one wants to give him that 4th year. Have to imagine if he had a deal for 4/48M on the table from anyone right now, he'd be signed. This may play into our favor where every team realizes that extra year and money in this market is not going to happen.

Might be that he'll go back to seriously considering a high dollar one-year deal, and try again next year with a bigger market and better $$$$ situation.

Nah, this has to be posturing by us to bring Hendriks' team back into final position. My guess is they have final offers and want to see if they can squeeze a bit more, we float we're looking at other people, Hendriks settles on the offers in front of him and decides.

But that's also trusting the front office to get into and win TWO bidding wars to build our super pen. What's stopping them from signing one to $8.5M and balking when the price goes up on the other as well? Then we're stuck with one inferior piece. On paper this sounds like a great idea, but the reality is that hoping for this outcome to actually happen in this off-season is higher risk. While I'd love the look of a super pen like that, I have higher confidence that we can just sign Hendriks and be done with it.

Oh no. This sounds like a tip-off that the MLB season will be delayed. Should see this coming but I still hate it.

This is so insulting how the org continues to peddle their definition of what "all in" means and refuses to actually spend the money that would SHOW that they're all in, instead choosing to leverage years of controllable pieces.

I think the so-called "character clause" is just as divisive as the question of PEDs in the Hall or not. Some voters use it a deciding factor for borderline guys, rightly or wrongly. A guy like Vizquel has very borderline hard numbers, but was getting the benefit for his defense, longevity, and "being good for the game". He would've benefited had that good-guy narrative stuck. Take that last part away and he's on the other side of fence. Schilling objectively should be in, but people again use the character clause because they don't like him and need a justification for why they can vote against him and still feel good about their decision. I feel like Eddie Murray was another case like this back in the day because he was an ass to reporters - he just wanted to play ball, and he did it really, really well. The reporters/voters took took that as a slight and held him out for a long while.

Another view of the tracker that has Buehrle staying on the ballot for next year with reasonable confidence.

Ryan Thibodaux https://twitter.com/NotMrTibbs?s=09 actually tracks all of the public ballots and shares them in spreadsheet that calculates percentages, etc. Buehrle is currently tracking just over 10% (I honestly thought he would get less than 5% this year and drop off). For those that want to keep up to date on what the numbers look like as more ballots come in, his sheet is found here - https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!31002&ithint=file,xlsx&authkey=!AKnsRGrHzGEkOuw