MLB 2018 - Hope for a 7-game WS so they'll play on Halloween

whew - Thank you, Padres. I liked Hosmer and all, but any rebuild would’ve been one-legged with a contract like that for a guy who’s often barely above replacment level. Now if we can just get someone else to give Moustakas a nice $50M deal, and remember to give Dayton Moore a few whacks over the head with a mallet come June, KC should have a nice little draft this summer.

I remain so pleased by this front office. Literally never heard of the guy they traded, who after a little research is a fringe top-10 kinda guy who may or may not do much of anything in the bigs. And Odorizzi is not Chris Archer but definitely a dude who can pitch going into his age-28 season. I love it.

It’s a super smart move for them. Yeah, they’d have liked to get Archer, but they get Odorizzi even up for a trade of a guy who wasn’t going to beat out Polanco any time in the next three seasons and was likely to fall behind Nick Gordon this season, if he hadn’t already.

I honestly don’t know what the Rays are doing. They were steadfast about driving such hard bargains on Colome and Archer during the offseason, and then in two moves they take an OK-but-not-great prospect for Odorizzi and DFA (rather than trade) Corey Dickerson. It’s like someone just took over a team in OOTP and doesn’t know how the transaction interface works.

Heh.

Palacios might have been higher in the depth chart in terms of “what if all the shortstops are hit by a meteor tomorrow,” but Gordon has always been the more highly regarded prospect and 2017 first overall pick Royce Lewis is making Gordon look expendable too. Hell, Polanco had half of a real damn good year last year himself.

I kinda wonder if talks didn’t start with “Gordon plus XYZ for Archer” and ended up at “Well, how about this other guy for Odorizzi?”

Regardless, I’m damn pleased. Even if this mostly shrinks the paper deficit in wins between the Twins and Cleveland from like 18 to 16.

Yeah, that means another move is coming.

Right. But why DFA him first, before officially completing a trade? If they had a deal framework in place with someone, that GM would be crazy to not reduce the offer if no paperwork has been filed with the league.

Good question. I’ve also seen teams do that to players they intended to keep, but the timing is still a head-scratcher. It’s not like they need to worry about burning options on other players at this time of year or anything.

We might be seeing some interesting base-running and bunt attempts this year, thanks to the CBA:

Knowing that position players will participate in just four official workouts before games begin Friday, the staff asked them to go to high schools and colleges near their homes before coming to camp to drill themselves on skills such as sliding.

from:
https://www.sfgate.com/giants/article/Giants-relief-prospect-Julian-Fernandez-slowed-by-12623727.php

I mean, it’s a dumb reason, but they needed to clear a 40 man spot for CJ f’ing Cron and apparently whatever deal they had in place was at a point where they felt comfortable doing this. Assuming they have a deal in place the other GM is unlikely to use this for extra leverage because that’s the kind of thing that gets around and then no team will trade with you.

I agree that this seems like a drastic step considering it is not revocable, but I would bet that it doesn’t actually impact things in the end.

That said, if they don’t have something worked out already then they are clown shoes terrible.

Orlando Cepeda had what is being described as a “cardiac event” yesterday and is in extremely critical condition. Doesn’t sound good.

I had the very great and amazing pleasure of meeting Cha Cha in person back in the 1990s when I worked at Euclid Records. Cepeda is an avid collector of jazz, especially afro-cuban jazz, and we had a huge selections and once a year he’d be in St. Louis for something related to the 1967 World Series team and he’d come by the store and buy hundreds of dollars in records that we’d ship to him.

Just a great guy. Wore a white Panama hat always, and always looked like the coolest cat in the universe with light floral print shirts and pastel linen pants – like every day was a day at the beach. Big booming voice, said hi to everyone, just an utter force of nature. I’m very sad to hear that he may be shuffling off.

I read about Cepeda in the paper this morning. The Baby Bull. Last time I saw him was during the Giants last world series run I think.

https://twitter.com/RaysBaseball/status/966740329683668993

Well, now we know where he’s going. The subtleties of the DFA move still escape me, though.

Missed this somehow earlier this month:


I’m too young to remember Francona’s playing days, but he certainly did baseball a favor in how he raised his son.

He was a good ballplayer too. Hit .363 in 1959, but was one or two AB’s short of qualifying for the batting title.

Good news: Chronicle reports that Cha Cha Cepeda is recovering and progressing well. Sounds much more optimistic than it did a week ago.

Free agency is so weird.

Yeah yeah, 29-year-old breakout season, limited defensive ability, hot offensive year, yeah yeah.

The Twins still just signed a guy in his prime who hit 38 bombs last year. For basically nothing. One year with a vesting option at like $6m.

So weird.

Tim Lincecum expected to sign with the Rangers

I thought he didn’t really like pitching in the heat shrug. I wish him the best. Maybe he can reinvent himself as a reliever (or closer).

Yup! One can hope.

— Alan

I love Timmy forever, but jeesh. What’s the track record for mid-30s pitchers who’ve been bad for like 5 years and then took a year off?

My guess is: not good.

Oh god, why Texas…why???