Eminor3rd

This team fucking sucks and I'm losing my passion for it for the first time in my life.

Which is in the process of hammering out a posting deal similar to the npb one. It’s just unfortunately a tough time to do stuff like this. The league has put a stranglehold on teams abilities to spend their way to being competitive in any way other than free agency. Smart teams were taking advantage of it when they had the opportunity. But, unfortunately, our team is not smart.

Sugano and Senga will never be available until they achieve international free agency in their early 30s. The Giants and Hawks literally never post players, and have publicly denied requests from both of those players to be posted, despite both players publicly expressing their desire. Furthermore, the MLB, in its indomitable quest to restrict the earning potential of every non-unionized player on earth, has bullied the npb into progressively worse posting systems, and the recent one is so bad that we are likely to see far fewer players posted than in the past couple decades simply because the amount of money that teams stand to gain in selling their most promising stars is now laughably small. The owners, apparently, would rather simply not have access to elite talent than be required to pay anything remotely close to market value. Norimoto may be available but he has publicly stated that he wants to pitch for Japan in the olympics first, so it’ll be a couple years down the road, and he is notoriously overworked by Rakuten who just flat out abuses its pitchers, and he is starting to have injury issues pop up. He’s out the first half of this season because of a procedure to “clean up” his elbow. Shintaro fujinami is a fantastic, all-time level bust. He isn’t even on the Tigers top team right now.

Both Santana and banuelos will get opportunities to make the rotation this season. This is nothing to worry about.

Because we will never have a chance at all of the prospects don’t get a chance to develop. They already got Nova to stabilize the rotation, presumably back when Gio was insisting on multiple years.

Gay pride night isn't about promoting homosexuality, it's about promoting the ACCEPTANCE of people who live different lifestyles, and if you don't understand that, it's a shame that you're in a position to influence children, because developing sympathy and respect for others in a community is a critical point of development for kids. You probably think you're being the reasonable one by saying that you respect others' points of view, but it's tragically ironic that standing up against Gay Pride night is LITERALLY standing up against respecting others' points of view.

Worst post I've ever seen on this site.

If the contracts were for one year, I think that would make sense. But a tremendous portion of what teams are buying in this case is specifically the mid and late twenties seasons that aren’t available normally. Pujols and Cabrera were are arguably the best hitters in the game when they signed, but they were selling years of decline. And their value isn’t as much higher as it seems (than Machado and Harper) becaus eof the defensive difference. Also: I think if you focus on the fact that Machado/Harper signed the largest TOTAL guaranteees inbistory, but didn’t really come close to the highest AAV currently in the game, it fits with your mindset a bit more.

The logic doesn’t work because the contract is for them as total players, not just hitters. And because it entirely ignores age. So citing lumbering DHs in the early to mid thirties as examples for why elite athletes in their mid-20s won’t work out is making a false equivalency.

This argument would make a lot of sense if you said top five instead of top ten, were completely unaware of the players’ ages, and didn’t realize that defense exists.

Oh don’t worry, they’ll get you some established hitters here in a year or two. Like those you mentioned, they’ll all be a few seasons past their peak output and their contracts will be nearly underwater, which will limit further upgrades to some that look remarkably similar to what the Reds did to their pitching staff. And they’ll probably block a few prospects, too.

It’s a Cincinnati Reds rebuild.

But yeah, don’t stress over kevan Smith

I’m guessing that McCann was not plan A

I don’t think it’s “quit being a fan”-worthy, in terms of rooting for my team, but I do think I’d have a really hard time rooting for his success. And I would feel very uncomfortable if he was, say, leading us to a World Series. So overall, i hope he doesn’t end up with the White Sox. I think I have a softer stance than most think I should, but let me be clear that it is NOT because I am not outraged at the idea of him molesting a child. Rather, I think it’s because I just don’t know what really happened. At the end of the day, it is hard to believe something bad didn’t happen, but... I don’t know maybe it’s just how my brain works that I tend toward neutral on things where I don’t feel like I know all the facts. Like - it is PLAUSIBLE that the child made stuff up for any number of reasons and that he did just follow bad advice pleading guilty. I accept it isn’t likely. But it is possible. And... I don’t know, I guess I sort of liken it to not being comfortable with capital punishment because of the fact that we know SOME people on death row are actually innocent, even though most aren’t — my brain just has trouble supporting vengeance in an instance where I can’t be totally sure that the vengeance is actually warranted. It just. It give me pause. I think if we actually had details about what happened, I would very easily and clearly be more on the “don’t even let this guy play” side — not because criminals don’t have a right to live their lives after they do their time, but because if it’s all true, the guy should be in jail doing time right now. And it’s weird because I objectively know that whatever happened probably deserves that, but I just cant commit to it emotionally because I can’t be sure that it’s really true. It’s a nuanced thing that I can’t feel comfortable with and I wish the whole thing simply didn’t happen.

It’s just reshuffling relief innings to the only point in the game where you know you’re going to face the best hitters. It makes sense because there’s a ton of evidence that suggests that the “times through the order” effect is more about hitters becoming familiar with the pitcher arsenal than it is about pitcher fatigue. So if you protect your starter against the top of the lineup the first time around, now when he faces them in the third or fourth inning it’s still it’s the first time they’re seeing him. The advantage is even more significant when your starters is a guy with a limited arsenal, as he should theoretically be hurt by the times through the order effect even more, since he has fewer “tricks” to show. And that’s essentially exactly what you’ve seen the Rays/A’s do — use it before they throw a swingman type who has good stuff but lacks a third pitch or good enough command to go deep. The opener would have had to relieve the guy anyway, but this way he cuts out the top of the order, instead of waiting to have to bail the “starter” out of trouble in an unpredictable situation. The inning you “burned” early is really just racked on to the other side of the starter’s outing. All that said - no, the Sox shouldn’t use it this year. It’s a win-now strategy that covers deficits in a rotation. This is still development time, where we seek to limit those deficits in the future.

Is it time to break this thing out again? I’ve only ever used it sarcastically, but now I feel like I want to join:

I can tell you with 100% certainty that dwindling attendance and viewership makes it extremely difficult to sell and renew corporate sponsorships. The team will never be close to going broke, but a substantial increase in fan apathy will absolutely hit the bottom line.

This is exactly what got us to the point of needing to rebuild in the first place. Targeting second and third rate talent, refusing to step up for elite talent.

How do you figure? Look at all the offers that leaked. Both players signed for the highest guaranteed dollars. This stuff isn’t rocket science. For once, the old analogy works backward: Hahn is trying to play 4D chess in damn game of checkers!

By then they’ll have signed four or five average players for $40-60m apiece, and Hahn will point to it and tell us that the “money was spent.” Then Eloy is going to sign with the Tigers and lead their next window of contention.

They were damn near unwatchable last year, when I still felt like the franchise was at least trying to win. I can’t imagine I’ll feel like spending much time on them this season. Sure as hell am not buying merchandise.

Shoot - Based on the way inflation works and the probably larger % of the financial pie the players who’ll be lobbying for in the coming decades, the PHILLIES might not even have that albatross. $25m could very well be what a 2 WAR player makes in... 2090 or whenever the hell that contract ends

Machado and Harper signed for $300m and $330m respectively, with one opt-out combined between them. Neither AAV sets a record. And the White Sox didn’t get either of them. The White Sox have a total of $15m committed to next year’s payroll.

How do you know this?