Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:
1. Tucker aftermath:
The Dodgers made waves last night when they landed star outfielder Kyle Tucker on a four-year, $240MM deal that shattered AAV records and affords him opt-out opportunities after the second and third seasons. Though the Dodgers were commonly listed as one of Tucker’s three potential landing spots in his final days on the open market, the deal is still an upset of sorts, given that both the Mets and Blue Jays were more heavily linked to him over the past couple weeks. It remains to be seen how Toronto and New York will pivot after missing out. Perhaps the Blue Jays could look to ramp talks with star infielder Bo Bichette back up. Either team could feasibly try to pivot towards the No. 2 outfielder on this year’s market, Cody Bellinger.
As for the Dodgers, it’s worth wondering whether there will be any subsequent moves. They could deal from what’s now an even more crowded and star-studded big league roster — Teoscar Hernandez’s name has already popped up in rumors a bit this winter, even before the Tucker deal — and they also have several top-tier outfield prospects (e.g. Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope) whose path to the majors is further obfuscated by the latest blockbuster acquisition.
2. Incoming roster moves:
The Rockies, Red Sox, and Dodgers are all going to need to make 40-man roster moves in the coming days as their respective recent signings of Willi Castro, Ranger Suarez, and Tucker become official. The most likely way for those clubs to clear up that 40-man roster space is by simply designating a player for assignment, though it’s also possible that any of those teams could look to work out a trade that creates space on their 40-man roster by acquiring non-roster players. The Dodgers already went down that road not too long ago when they traded outfielder Esteury Ruiz to the Marlins.
3. Cubs, Reds hosting fan events:
With spring training less than a month away, teams around the league are hosting fan events to get their fan bases excited for the upcoming season. This weekend, two clubs are hosting events: the annual Cubs Convention in Chicago is scheduled to take place today, tomorrow, and Sunday, while today and tomorrow will also play host to Redsfest in Cincinnati. Cubs Con will be highlighted by a ten-year reunion for the World Series-winning 2016 team, while both events will both have a number of current and former players involved. Events like this can often (but not always) produce quotes of note from team owners, front offices and/or managers that provide some insight into the remainder of the offseason and the outlook for the upcoming campaign. Full schedules and ticketing details for the Cubs’ and Reds’ respective fan events can be found at these links, courtesy of MLB.com.
Tucker tsunami!!!
It will be fun when the Dodgers lose this year.
Yeah, surely they will lose at least 8-10 games this year
Yeah.. Can’t wait to see what his annual second half leg injury will be.
I’d love to know if the Dodgers contracts with the players demand that they pay the players even in the event of a strike/lockout.
These are the same players who would take the cash and run to the bank early and leave all the 22-23-24-25-26th men on the team to eat beans out of a can by the railroad tracks.
And what if a salary cap IS negotiated, and the Dodgers can only keep 6 men under contract undr the cap?
The cable tv deals fell apart in recent years , and many teams are just taking what an MLB tv contract gives them.
And the rich teams will get richer. And the rest pray for miracle seasons. Welcome back to the 1950’s.
As much as fans complain, it isn’t ticket sales funding their teams.
Pre-arbitration players on the Dodgers now qualify for food stamps and Section 8 housing allotments.
They have redesigned the coaching staff in order to reflect new market realities. They now have the first and third base valets, the bullpen concierge, and the hitting and pitching design crew.
Come on now… let’s not pile on the Dodgers. This was a totally necessary move for the Dodgers to pivot and sign Tucker after the DBacks traded for Arenado.
The Tucker signing could have an interesting domino effect on the Yankees. If either the Mets or Jays end up grabbing Bellinger, it means they don’t have Tucker as a fall back plan anymore.
Going into next season, the Yankees outfield could be a lot weaker than last season. Judge will be Judge, but can Grisham repeat his career year? Can the Martian actually perform as advertised? Will Spencer Jones make any noise?
Will Judge be Judge? He’s been putting up some historic numbers. You have to expect him to decline somewhat.
However the Belli Saga (NYM or NYY) ends up, whoever loses him is gonna get raked by their fanbase.
That’s why you play the games….nobody wins the WS on paper….two side to the coin with your side, or, The Martian stops switch hitting and more than holds his own in a platoon….Grisham has a good follow up year because he’s looking at a new contract from somebody again in 27, and Spencer Jones hits moonshots and nobody except haters worry so much about his K’s in a league where league average is .240’ish and everybody K’s in a 1 for 4 game as a norm….HR hitters get the babes, singles hitters get what;s left…..
It’s time for Dodgers baseball!
Remember when the Mets tried to sign Kyle Tucker?
Feels as if it was only yesterday…how fast time flies. Pepperidge Farm remembers though
Mets escaped a bad contract with Tucker
Yet they can’t escape the aura of LOLmets.
What have your Yankees done this offseason, Chuckster? Keep being obsessed.
The duality of Mets baseball. Both wise not to sign Tucker, but also LOLMets!
Perhaps the Mets pivot to not only sign Belli but also pony up the haul the Tigers will require for Skubal. Granted this would actually be stupid because Belli will probably regress outside of the Bronx and they would only get one year of Skubal to try and stop what may be inevitable in the playoffs when they travel to play the Deathstar Dodgers. Still could be fun to watch!
Their lineup is too incomplete to warrant a Skubal trade. They might as well wait until next offseason to get outbid instead of giving up the farm for a one year rental
Sucks we missed out on another good player but like you said they dodged a bad contract. Him joining the Dodgers is the ultimate low blow
2nd highest aav ever, only top 50 in WAR last year. Make it make sense
Highest AAV ever when you factor in deferrals. Insane that he’s effectively getting paid more than Ohtani, even if it’s for fewer years.
You commented this on the other thread. You should really come to terms with WAR not being as important as you think it is. Teams that have entire departments dedicated to talent evaluation and dish out hundreds of millions of dollars to players clearly dont care about WAR. Why should we?
Nick Punto, who has 19 career HRs over 3700+ PAs and a career OPS+ in the 70s, has more career WAR than Ryan Howard and its simply because bWAR overweights DRS (which is a terrible, gameable stat in its own right). If WAR mattered as much as you think it does, teams would just look at a players baseball reference page and try to pluck the guy with the highest WAR and call it a day.
Absolutely insane statistics point out. Never even heard of Punto while Howard was awesome to watch.
Claims to know what GMs and “talent evaluation departments” consider important. Proceeds to give a single example of how WAR isn’t “perfect”. Go away chump. You’re basic af
I didnt claim to know exactly what they value and dont value. I only said that, evidently, they clearly do not use WAR to hand out contracts. I can give you countless examples of WAR being imperfect, did you want another one?
In 2017 Judge and Altuve both had 8.1 WAR. Andrelton Simmons had a WAR of 8. Do you truly, truly belive that Simmons had a virtually similar valuable of season as The MVP 1 and 2 that year just because his DRS was high?
Also, why are you weirdly taking it personal and dishing insults all over the fact that WAR is an often misleading stat that FOs clearly dont take into consideration?
I was just feeling saucy 😉
And by the way Ryan Howard’s career WAR is less than Puntos because Howard gave 5+ back at the end of his already short career. Played little to no defense. Struck out a ton. Couldn’t take a walk.
But but but! Howard hit a lot homers!! Grow up
Shortened*
Beg
“Teams that have entire departments dedicated to talent evaluation and dish out hundreds of millions of dollars to players clearly dont care about WAR. Why should we?”
Because the WAR framework remains the best framework we have have for measuring player performance.
Because the contracts that teams sign players to and trades they make roughly follow the WAR framework.
“If WAR mattered as much as you think it does, teams would just look at a players baseball reference page and try to pluck the guy with the highest WAR and call it a day.”
Tell us you don’t understand WAR without telling us you don’t understand WAR.
WAR tells us, pretty accurately, how much a player produced in the past. That’s different from saying this is how a player will perform in the future.
Just like you wouldn’t look at a player’s OBP, SLG, FIP, DRS etc from one year and expect them to do the exact same thing the next year, you shouldn’t expect it with WAR.
Are you going to learn from this? Or are you going to make this same dumb comment a week, or a month or a year from now?
You can only buy what’s for sale. If Judge, Ohtani, Soto, etc, were on the market, Tucker would not make more than them. But they are not on the market, so it’s not really a comp. This isn’t arbitration.
I’m so looking forward to the upcoming lockout/strike. RSN model is crumbling the division between the small market and large market teams is widening. I can’t wait for the players to finally have to cave to a cap so we no longer see these obscene deals like Soto and tucker. Viva2028
Super League in 2029 —
West: Astros, Rangers, Cubs, Dodgers, Giants
East: BlueJays, Red Sox, Yankees, Mets, Phillies
I mean, why not if I were Tucker. Dodgers have an endless supply of money and are well positioned for quite awhile to be championship contenders. Hop on the wagon Tucker. SMH! Haha
Happier than ever to be a fan of an AL team in these times. At least the AL Pennant is an achievable goal for a lot of teams still, since the Dodgers aren’t eligible.
56 million a year for effectively mike greenwell, eh? Perfectly normal system we got here.
120 mil a year after the luxury tax. They will be paying more for tucker alone than like 8 teams payrolls
Meanwhile regular folks have to take out a loan to buy buffalo wings.
Just get that Pick 6 Meal for 2. Two entrees, two sides, and two drinks, $19.99. #BDubbs
Learn to code
this guy BWWs.
Remember when the Yankees participated in free agency?
The Yankees decided not to overpay for injury prone, average outfielder like Tucker should make Yankees fans happy IMO.
Agree, glad the Yanks never really even entertained the thought of Tucker.
I fell asleep early last night, pizza induced coma lol, so I saw the Tucker signing at 1:30am, but fell back asleep right away. This morning there’s over 1k comments, congratulations MLBTR, but I passed on commenting directly there.
Anyhoo, I predicted Dodgers but holy cow that’s a lot of cash per year for Tucker. At some point that’s going to hurt, but they’ll pocket enough Championships in their coffers not to care. You gotta break the eggs to make that omelet!
Tucker wins here big time, 4 years and another big contract to come if healthy and playing well. Best case scenario has played out for him.
Mets made a heck of an offer as well, don’t feel bad there, however I do now fear both the Mets and Toronto make signing Bellinger a priority. Yanks had a chance to get it done and didn’t pull the necessary trigger. Now Cody is center stage.
Good luck.
Something has to change. In all honesty, seeing most of the big free agents go to one or two teams is just frankly boring. It’s also not a good way to grow interest in the game. At the same time, seeing so many teams have tiny payrolls and not try to win also sucks. It would be great if the two sides came into the next CBA negotiation with an open mind and a focus on hammering something out that is good for the game and fans, but I am not optimistic.
I hope AA has at least started talks with Acuna about an extension.
The Braves have 3 years of control. Meaning Tucker has the possibility of opting out in 2 or 3 years opening a spot for Acuna to replace him in the Dodger lineup.
If Atlanta does not sign Acuna to an extension soon, I think they need to trade him soon and get all the top prospects they can back for him,
If he hits free agency, he WILL be a Dodger in 3 years
At this point, barring sweeping changes, it’s a safe bet to assume that any highly coveted free agent will end up on the Dodgers.
They might as well sign Bichette too I mean why stop there? Framber Valdez, trade for Skubal and Skenes. Make Cody Bellinger the utility player off the bench for 200 million over 3 years. Just finish demolishing the sport already why even pretend like there’s any integrity to this industry. It’s WWE but with bats and gloves.
With Cubs Convention on deck, news came out the other day that the Cubs’ radio station 670 The Score will migrate to 104.3 FM on 2/2. Don’t be surprised if station owner Audacy is at Cubs Con to promote the move.
Redsfest sounds like a party from the 70s.
“they also have several top-tier outfield prospects (e.g. Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope) whose path to the majors is further obfuscated by the latest blockbuster acquisition”
None of these guys were ever likely to be starters this year. Next year maybe. 2028 is more likely. And Teo will be gone then and maybe Tucker too
By gone in 2028, surely you don’t mean opt out (in Tucker’s case), so what other gone would play out?
Brew
“surely you don’t mean opt out ”
Why, yes, I do mean opt out.
Due to the structure of his contact, he’ll “only” be making around $50 million the last two years of his contract.
No reason to think that he might not opt out at that point and try to improve on that (he had at least two better offers this year) or he may want a longer term deal. Or he may not.
Miss me with any thoughtless “hot taek” type reply you might be thinking of.
I want my team to spend to bring in new toys like everyone else, but spending >$100mm (when factoring in the LT) is insane.
nice use of obfuscated
The LA Superfriends found their Marvin.
.266 avg, 22 hr 73 rbi
$60 million a year
Sweet baby jesus
It’s really is such a stupid contract.
The Dodgers are a money machine. Must be nice.
Will the Phillies:
A) Pretend they can send last year’s lineup back out again and defeat the Dodgers.
B) Overpay Bichette
C) Admit defeat and begin a rapid tear down selloff to reload inside of three years?
Well, we all kept joking that the Dodgers could swoop in at the last minute, and sure enough, they stole the Mets’ thunder lol
Bellinger and Boras got a little more leverage in negotiations with the Yankees I think, but we’ll see if Cashman acquiesces to Boras or if Stearns comes in and makes the offer Bellinger wants. Good luck to Tucker, I’m good with him not being back with the Cubs.
I’m at the point where I actually want the dodgers to get every top player available. Trade for Skubal or Skenes. I wish Tatis jr didn’t play for a rival so they could trade for him too. I want to see the most loaded team ever. I don’t even get annoyed anymore. If the Dodgers offer I assume the player will accept. When they do I just laugh and shake my head.
Great signing for baseball. Baseball interest was built with juggernaut teams like the Yankees so we need the Dodgers to continue the tradition.
Seems like the dodgers told Tuckers representatives go get your best offer and we’ll beat it. Toronto and the Mets were used by Excel Sports Management. Hope at least they got dinner and a movie before it happened