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QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 02:01 PM) Not really. I don't think a single franchise has been "crippled" by any FA in the last decade. What teams are doing is in response to the economic incentives currently in place. Those incentives, for the most part, encourage teams not to spend on FA. I think that's a softer way of saying what I said. Boras has worked so hard to make free agents get paid MORE than they're worth, that he's essentially priced his clients out of teams' plans. He has made his own product so overpriced that the entire market has shifted to bypass him.

They're going to work pretty hard to trade SOMEONE for a pitcher or two.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 02:15 PM) I just don't understand it when you have similar production in Santana for peanuts. Unless they have a deal locked up to trade Santana for pitching I don't really understand what they're doing. I'm assuming they're pretty far along on moving Santana for pitching, and they simply decided they'd rather pay Cain $80mm than pay Darvish $120mm if it's going to net a similar upgrade. But we'll see if that actually happens.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 02:11 PM) Am I mistaken or is the Cain signing a pretty fair deal for the Brewers? I presume there is risk on the back-side (given age, etc) but early on, given his recent production (when he's healthy) he's been a 5 WAR+ guy which at $16M per year feels reasonable. That's my take as well. I'm not sure where the narrative of his decline is coming from -- dude's coming off a 4-win season in which he hit .300 and almost 20 homers. Seems to fit both the sabermetric and non-sabermetric standards for a good year.

Teams are tanking/rebuilding specifically BECAUSE of mega free agent deals, lol.

QUOTE (BrianAnderson @ Jan 24, 2018 -> 09:19 AM) True and not true. I get where you are coming from. However at the same time, at that point we didn't have Eloy, Robert, our whole draft class and our position in this years draft. Not to mention Rutherford, Cease, etc. etc. I definitely agree you don't give up a top 4 guy (Eloy, Hansen, Robert, kopech) but if you can get it done for the right pieces? I'd pull the trigger. We're not as far away from winning as we may think and getting a Yelich doesn't preclude us from going out and spending big on a FA next year which is the added bonus to me. Correct, but we DID have Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, etc. The system is no doubt better, but we don't have the MLB core anymore. The system has to first replenish the value we traded and THEN add more for us to be a contender. It only works out if the trades yield more guys than they cost us initially. I'm not saying it won't, but we have to let it do it's work to see what we "have" first -- and that part is a numbers game. Now, the reason Hahn is kicking tires is because you have to find out if the Marlins are going to trade him for less than he's worth, in which case of course we should get him. But given the sheer number of teams that have been connected, they're clearly not going to have to trade him for a discount.

Look at it this way: last year, we traded Adam Eaton (a young, cost-controlled OF) for three prospects. We did this beause we didn't have enough good players to compete, so we needed to take the chance to turn one good player into MORE THAN ONE good player. What good would it do, a year later, to trade 3-4 prospects for Christian Yelich (a different young, cost-controlled OF) when the MLB team is WORSE than before? Yelich is younger and better than Eaton, but not substantially. Does keeping Eaton throught the rebuild instead of trading him make sense? If the answer is no, then trading for Yelich doesn't really make sense either. There will be a time where trading for guys is the right move, but we have to have some of these prospects turn into MLB guys first, because until that happens, we still need the prospects.

QUOTE (2005thxfrthmmrs @ Jan 23, 2018 -> 12:20 PM) Law is really trolling hard here. If Hansen can continue to harness his control, I see the ingredients of a TOR starter. An above average starter that puts up 200 innings pretty much IS a TOR starter.

QUOTE (kwill @ Jan 23, 2018 -> 12:20 PM) I don’t get the Casey Gillespie love. Short arm swing, no hip rotation, no bat speed. Saw him barrel one to CF last year on a homerun launch angle but it landed 15 feet short of the warning track. To me, he's not a prospect unless he can rework his swing to generate more power. No idea why he hasn't yet -- he certainly seems like he has the size.

QUOTE (yesterday333 @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 06:38 PM) MLB.com had Burger as the number 16 player in the draft, so I wasn't that much of a reach. And he was the best bat available at that point, so I think he would've been the pick no matter what position he played. Everyone agrees that Mayo doesn't know what he's talking about.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 12:15 PM) You are arguing things no one has said. Right -- if you're worried about where Ellsbury would play if the White Sox acquired him, you're thinking about it wrong. If we get him, it's because of what comes with him.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 11:11 AM) If he were a free agent today, he'd still get a major league contract for sure. It wouldn't be a $20 million contract, but Ellsbury still brings positive value. He was around 2 war each of the last two years. There are a number of teams he would start for. Yes, a number of teams he could play for. But how many legitimate contenders would he START for? Because he's already on a contender and will get playing time.

QUOTE (GenericUserName @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 09:32 AM) That's why people bring up him accepting the trade contingent on being released so he can try to sign with a contender. No contenders want him now with his contract, but if he is released and you can get him for basically the minimum, then some of them would almost definitely do it. My thought was a way for him to get to the White Sox would be to promise starting time and that we would attempt to trade him to a contender at the deadline or next offseason, assuming the Yankees eat some of the contract and then we can eat more to entice another team. I guess maybe the Giants would give him league minimum and a real shot to start?

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Jan 22, 2018 -> 09:25 AM) The thought is that if Ellsbury wants to receive regular playing time he would waive his NTC rather than be stuck on the Yankees bench If he was playing for a contract, maybe I could buy that -- but he's locked up through 2021 on what is obviously the biggest contract of his career. I would think he's likely more interested in championships than an extra 200 ABs, especially because it isn't like he has an insignificant role with the Yankees.

Doesn't Ellsbury have a NTC? Why would he allow himself to be dumped to a non-contender?

I like Yelich, I like his contract, and I think he'd still be very useful when the team is good. I absolutely do not want to pay what it will take to acquire Yelich.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 12:01 PM) I'd rather play Sanchez, Anderson, and Moncada from day 1 and see if they can hold onto the jobs. I don't disagree strongly, but generally speaking, I do think we still need flippables to collect assets. BA and Razzball both summarized our system by saying "strong up top; sharp decline after 10 or 15," and I tend to agree. I think there's room for collection all the way up until the first "compete" year.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 05:32 PM) Isn't the Giants farm pretty bottom of the barrel these days? Yes, they have one good prospect and a couple interesting ones, and none of those guys were included in this deal.

QUOTE (iWin4Ron @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 03:25 PM) Sorry -- I've been out of it for a bit on the Giants since they did absolutely horrible last year... ... Why does this make sense for the Giants? Trading for an impending free agent ageing CF when they came off a terrible season? Don't they need to rebuild or is their legitimate chance that they can contend? 1. The Giants have decided to continue to push inward until the whole thing collapses in a spectacular, molten heap -- kind of like the Phillies did. 2. Perhaps surprisingly, the Giants had literally the worst OF in ALL OF BASEBALL by fWAR last year, and their OF doesn't have anyone that seems likely to bounce back, so even league average players are substantial upgrades. 3. The price to get McCutchen was very small, and because of the pending reckoning referenced in (1), a short term acquisition may serve them better than a big free agent contract at this juncture.

QUOTE (BrianAnderson @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 11:03 AM) Good points.. I didn't think of the aspect of that these type of players are available every year. I still like Nunez, but can see with his injury history (hamstrings a lot if I remember) that if you zap his speed a bit, and combine his age, he can go from a really really nice UTIL and 3B fill in to just dead weight quickly. If you could get him on a 1 year deal I'd still consider though. I think he has flip ability. Definitely like Nunez much better on a one-year deal. Let the kids try to take the job from him.

Admittedly, Moran's bounceback/helium makes this look better than it did at first glance. In my head, Moran was a bust/post-hype sleeper, but it seems like his value has already started to climb again.

I just don't see anyone on the market today whose skillset can't be bought every year. So why not buy a 2-win player like Nunez when you actually need those two wins? Otherwise you're just hoping he doesn't decline much between now and the competitive years, and holding the bag for the salary either way. I'm definitely on board with looking for free agent opportunities in unique markets like these ones, but I think we have to be looking for upside. No matter who you sign, the only production you can be reasonably sure of is what comes in the next 12 months -- anything else is a substantial risk, and should be considered an additional "cost" of acquisition. That cost can be worth it to pay, but we need to feel like we have a good chance of getting more production than we're paying for. I just don't see any upside with Nunez/Melky/Jay types. It's possible you could get that with Martinez, but it sounds like the Red Sox are already offering him a pretty reasonable deal, so his price floor isn't really that low. I'm all about over rebound contracts to guys like Tillman and Buccholz, but I would think that the Gonzalez signing means those guys are still holding out for multi-year deals, because I can't believe Hahn didn't look into those guys first.

Unbelievably light return, at first glance.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 12, 2018 -> 01:32 PM) If anyone sees what Bryant signed for please post it - genuinely curious if he topped what Ryan Howard got in his first arb year. $10.85mm; new record.

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 02:16 PM) I think the slowness of the market is largely due to this year's free agent crop being pretty mediocre overall compared to how good next offseason's will be. It's definitely a big part of it. As good as Martinez is, his big tool is power in an era where power just became the most abundant tool available.