Click here to read a transcript of Tuesday’s chat with MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
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Be careful Steve, the Os fans on here won’t like you questioning the great and powerful Elias. I’ve been called a troll by questioning the same things, like why not trade for Cease last year? Make a run at Crochet this year?
With a ton of young infield resources they decided to sign a couple one year arms this year, trade for a 1year arm last year, and give some of their young capital for Trevor Rogers. If you are desperate to keep Mayo and Kjerstad and all the prospects, then you have to pay for one of the big free agents.
I concur, Frank. If you want to squirrel away all your acorns for winter then that’s fine… but you’ll probably need to buy a big bat or TOR arm to help keep your window open for as long as possible. Haven’t seen that strategy from the O’s. It seems they’re content to shop on the fringes and run with what they’ve brung.
Gwynn – I totally agree, there’s a clear path for the O’s to make the World Series if only they spent some money on a stud pitcher and reliever. Why they are not GFIN is beyond me.
Norby and Stowers for Dylan Cease… who says no?
Marlins can’t afford Cease.
This is an Orioles trade proposal
Neither the White Sox at 2 years control nor the Padres at 1 year control would do that deal. There would have to be *at least* one larger piece included.
No it’s not. They no longer own either player
The Orioles purchased their contracts. Learn about baseball, you dolt
Why would the Fish do that, Jawline?
That sounds like a trade proposal that would get you Trevor Rogers but it’s not getting you Dylan Cease
1:28; finally a healthy version of Brady House in 2024. Hey Rizzo, let’s see what he’s got in 2025. Please just pass on the Bregmans, Arenados.
Apparently few Giants fans paid attention to what Posey stated following becoming POBO. I’ll just quote Andrew Baggerly who summed up Poseys intent in a Nov 16 article: “But there might be ways for the Giants to shrink the gap between themselves and the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks. And one of those ways could be to emulate what those two teams did so well last season: executing in situational at-bats, hitting with two strikes, putting the ball in play, and in general, applying pressure to an opposing defense.” So please, please, PLEASE stop begging the Giants to sign Alonso and Santander. Those are the antithesis of what Posey wants the team to become. Kim would be a fit for them, even though not able to play for awhile. Fitzgerald can play second until Kim is ready and Kim won’t break the bank. Defense, speed and fundamentally sound as a hitter…if healthy. Heck, Bregman would fit as well. Obp and contact guy. And would probably be as good defensively at 2nd as he is at 3rd. 3rd base is the more difficult position. Or a trade. If you’re worried about Verlander success then why does Flaherty not raise red flags. $15 mill vs $25 mil/yr for 3 yrs? No brainer, especially if Flahert wants opt outs. If he fails, he’d opt in and SF would be stuck with that. JV fails and he’s gone anyway. But PLEASE, stop with the alonso/santander nonsense. Save your breath because they only hit hrs or strikeout. And they don’t defend well.
Finally a Giants fan who makes sense! Thank you! While it’s not ideal, the Giants can stick with high OBP Lamonte Wade Jr and ok Wilmer Flores until Eldridge is ready to come up and mash. I’m fine with that.
Thx will. Why are fans so forgetful of what those 2 did in 2023. Sure, 24 was a bust but just 1 year earlier they combined for 24 hrs as firstbasemen. And hit around .280. Imagine if they can find that form from just a year ago.
Thx will. Why are fans so forgetful of what those 2 did in 2023. Sure, 24 was a bust but just 1 year earlier they combined for 24 hrs as firstbasemen. And hit around .280. Imagine if they can find that form from just a year ago.bte
Im starting to think Bregman regrets not accepting that Houston offer of 6/$156. Statistics say he only has 3 years of above average production. Not sure why any team would want to pay $78 million for those last 3 years.
@TroyVan Well said, and that’s the problem. He’s not good enough, he’s turning 31, and he didn’t have a strong platform year such that teams can expect he’ll have 4 good years left of 6, or 5 of 7, making 6/156m already somewhat generous,
You might very well get only 3 good years, then be stuck with a bad 4th year and a 5th year during which you’ll cut him, leaving you eating roughly 3/75m.
Sign him for 7 years and you might eat 4/100m. 8 years? Dine on 5/125m.
I’d much rather sign him for 1/35m, no player opt out. Fans get opt outs all wrong. They’re NOT what you give guys you have reason to believe will decline—meaning they’ll just stick around on your dime.
You give opt-outs typically to good players whose performance for the coming year is highly uncertain, but who you expect will leave because they put up a good enough year to look for a bigger contract. You don’t give old players like Alonso and Bregman, players 30 and older who are already in noticeable decline, the chance to keep playing at high AAVs while performing at an ever-lower level.
So, this blogger on Twitter did a great analysis of players just like Bregman. Superb job, really. The article is in the tweet, and it seems to advocate signing him.
I asked him about year-by-year data and he shares it in the comments in a pic. Notice the sharp drop off in the 4th year of those players. Very telling.
Here is that tweet and article:
x.com/tigersmlreport/status/1877508943645184114?s=…
Bregman has had 6 seasons of well above average production. Are you saying he’s likely to have only 3 more above average seasons remaining in his career?
gbs, the numbers cited above might be or might not be coming. So maybe a 6 year deal with club options (doubt bregman would go for that). The thing that IS SCARY is how he’s used those Crawford boxes to his advantage. I’m just not sure that factors into the posts above but to me if there’s a red flag, that’s it.
Given his age that does seem to be the consensus
Yes. By the 4th year, his production will become average and tail off even more (if he is typical).
The article above really goes above and beyond in showing how very similar players (same age, production, position type) produced in their next 6 years.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Bregman will follow the same trajectory. But, he did have a down year last season and had surgery to remove bone chips. Maybe that’ll help him produce again. Or, maybe last season was the beginning of the end. With so much money on the line, I think GMs are erring on the likelihood of the latter.
Troy,
Thanks for clarifying. When you said, “Statistics say he only has 3 years of above average production,” I wanted to confirm you meant expected production going forward and not past performance.
Elvis Luciano is probably a good example of a Rule 5 draft selection hurting the player’s development. The Jays selected him when he was 19 having never played above Rookie ball and it went just like every sensible mind would’ve expected. He was terrible. Hasn’t sniffed the big leagues since and played last year in Japan.
I wonder if there are less extreme but similar cases. Wouldn’t surprise me if there were, considering some organizations are clearly worse at player dev than others.
Speaking of Mets pitching for 2025, most fans don’t seem to grasp that Stearns did nothing special with it in 2024.
Of the three starters who went the distance, 2024 was only the EIGHTH best season for Quintana by innings pitched, who in any case was already on board when Stearns arrived. Btw, should Quintana’s 4.56 FIP be ascribed to the Mets new pitching lab?
180 innings wasn’t anything new for Manaea, either, who gave the Mets roughly 25-30 innings more than his projection, but it wasn’t as if he was unfamiliar with getting to 150 IP, or even 175 IP for that matter.
Manaea also needed a .191 BABIP in his last 10 regular season starts, ie historical good luck, to provide the illusion that he was better than mediocre for the year.
It was only Severino who did anything surprising in the context of his career. A tip of the hat is in order to Stearns for betting on Severino, but good fortune on a single starter isn’t anything to carry on about. Add Houser to the list of pitchers who didn’t cut it on the 2024 Mets, and didn’t come close.
As for Peterson, his peripherals were nothing special, he’d reached that FIP in 2022, and the drop in his K-rate is alarming.
—One thing Stearns recognized is that Citi is a pitchers’ park and if you sacrifice some offense to be able to put an OF of 3 CFers behind fairly ordinary starters you can catch a bit of lighting, especially with Lindor at SS and Iglesias at 2B when McNeil was out or in the OF. Adding Bader and Taylor in the 2023-24 offseason was a smart gamble.
The pen was very poor in the overall, with all 3 relievers Stearns added last offseason for $4m apiece combining for negative 0.8 bWAR. The pen was a weakness all year and Stearns’ pitching additions at the Deadline were primarily Blackburn, Brazoban, and Stanek, all with ERAs over 5.00.
To his credit Stearns kept churning the Mets pitching all year and had the wit and payroll to hit on some decent relievers—but expecting some carryover into 2025 when he was nothing special regarding finding pitching in 2024 is ill-advised.
Guess Steve didn’t get the memo that Cal Raleigh fired Boras in November.