Looks like we didn't lose anyone or pick anyone in the rule V draft. DA94 can rest easy.

cmiller00 said:

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Looks like we didn't lose anyone or pick anyone in the rule V draft. DA94 can rest easy.

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PTL!

My opinion is that we likely can afford Yates. I think MLBTR predicts him to a 1yr/$14M?!

Aroldis Chapman just got a 1yr/$10.75M with Boston. It is a risk, but maybe see if he is interested in a 2yr/$20M deal. It'd be getting a 2nd year for $6M and lower the CBT impact.

After some dust settles, I may pin the current 26-Man projection, unless someone else has time. I'm busy today and tomorrow to correlate much.

Fried negotiation comment:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/athletics-reportedly-made-effort-to-sign-max-fried.html

Quote:

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Sherman adds that the Rangers were also at $190MM over seven years, though the lack of a state tax in Texas actually made that fairly comparable to the eight years and $210MM the Yankees were offering, forcing them to go higher

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7 yrs on a SP is way risky, IMO.

I'm always glad when the R5 draft is over, so all the ridiculous and unwarranted hand-wringing can stop.

Anybody hear anything about Robertson potentially making a return? Wouldn't mind having him back at a reasonable price.

If we can't get Yates back, I would be for giving that job to Gray in spring training to see how it would go.

On position players, we may be mostly done.

IF Carter is healthy... you have:
4 OF
Langford-Taveras-Garcia + Carter
7 IF
Jung-Seager-Semien-Lowe
Corner IF: Burger
MIF: Duran+Smith
2 C
Heim+ Higashioka

That's 13 players. We could improve on that 13... but IMO... we start there.

Taveras, IMO, might be the most obvious.owe would be 2nd.

DallasAg 94 said:

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On position players, we may be mostly done.

IF Carter is healthy... you have:
4 OF
Langford-Taveras-Garcia + Carter
7 IF
Jung-Seager-Semien-Lowe
Corner IF: Burger
MIF: Duran+Smith
2 C
Heim+ Higashioka

That's 13 players. We could improve on that 13... but IMO... we start there.

Taveras, IMO, might be the most obvious.owe would be 2nd.

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Concur that Taveras and Lowe (in that order0 are trade bait.

Frankly, Josh Smith's value has never been higher and may make sense to move. If he can bring some value, a utility infielder is pretty easy to find.

Trade a utility infielder for another utility infielder?

fc2112 said:

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DallasAg 94 said:

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On position players, we may be mostly done.

IF Carter is healthy... you have:
4 OF
Langford-Taveras-Garcia + Carter
7 IF
Jung-Seager-Semien-Lowe
Corner IF: Burger
MIF: Duran+Smith
2 C
Heim+ Higashioka

That's 13 players. We could improve on that 13... but IMO... we start there.

Taveras, IMO, might be the most obvious.owe would be 2nd.

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Concur that Taveras and Lowe (in that order0 are trade bait.

Frankly, Josh Smith's value has never been higher and may make sense to move. If he can bring some value, a utility infielder is pretty easy to find.

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Except he's not just a utility infielder....he plays OF as well. Plus he can steal bases. Plus he showed he can hit. He just won a silver slugger award, and he's under control for several years yet.

I'm not sure why there's a lack of appreciation for this guy. With Seager and Jung being as fragile as they apparently are, and with Semien getting older, having a guy like Smith is a real plus. I would think you'd see Duran, Ornelas or Foscue (please get rid of him already) traded before Smith. At least that's what I'd do.

rbtexan said:

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fc2112 said:

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DallasAg 94 said:

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On position players, we may be mostly done.

IF Carter is healthy... you have:
4 OF
Langford-Taveras-Garcia + Carter
7 IF
Jung-Seager-Semien-Lowe
Corner IF: Burger
MIF: Duran+Smith
2 C
Heim+ Higashioka

That's 13 players. We could improve on that 13... but IMO... we start there.

Taveras, IMO, might be the most obvious.owe would be 2nd.

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Concur that Taveras and Lowe (in that order0 are trade bait.

Frankly, Josh Smith's value has never been higher and may make sense to move. If he can bring some value, a utility infielder is pretty easy to find.

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Except he's not just a utility infielder....he plays OF as well. Plus he can steal bases. Plus he showed he can hit. He just won a silver slugger award, and he's under control for several years yet.

I'm not sure why there's a lack of appreciation for this guy. With Seager and Jung being as fragile as they apparently are, and with Semien getting older, having a guy like Smith is a real plus. I would think you'd see Duran, Ornelas or Foscue (please get rid of him already) traded before Smith. At least that's what I'd do.

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I agree, Smith has proven his worth and I think there are other areas to focus CY's energy on. I do get what you mean about his value being as high as it may ever get though

I would agree with that!

I see both sides of the Smith situation. Jamey Newberg wrote last night about the Pirates open to trading Mitch Keller and Jared Jones. If Smith can be be packaged to make that happen, then I'm really good with that.

I would prefer Lowe as the headliner in a Keller trade since his salary would come off the books and the Pirates need a 1B badly. I like Lowe and am perfectly fine with him at 1B for the Rangers on opening day, but Burger was brought in to play 1B/DH.

Dude, our rotation would be bonkers with Keller on board

Yes indeed.

Would make Gray very expendable and if it's Lowe going to the Pirates, helps a lot on the team payroll situation.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the return for Gray. Get what you can in return, but dump that salary off the books and pay Keller roughly the same amount. Use Lowe's money towards a closer. Win lots of baseball games.

I do get the sense the front office would like to move Lowe and bring in higher caliber pitching. Idk if they do those things together necessarily, but that has been my sense for a while.

Bacsik had a great segment this morning on The Fan, he discussed possibly starting Rocker at AAA for a month to help build him up more but having to cap him at between 100-120 innings this year. Rocker has only pitched more than 120 innings in a season one time in his entire life (@Vandy).

If that's the case, that at least 3 pitchers likely having to be held on pitch counts this season in DeGrom, Mahle, and Rocker. That would mean we need a lot more swing guys to come in and bridge more innings.

How would you all try to build out this pitching staff in this scenario?

MrCoachEricTaylor said:

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Bacsik had a great segment this morning on The Fan, he discussed possibly starting Rocker at AAA for a month to help build him up more but having to cap him at between 100-120 innings this year. Rocker has only pitched more than 120 innings in a season one time in his entire life (@Vandy).

If that's the case, that at least 3 pitchers likely having to be held on pitch counts this season in DeGrom, Mahle, and Rocker. That would mean we need a lot more swing guys to come in and bridge more innings.

How would you all try to build out this pitching staff in this scenario?

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Do we need a ton more guys that fit that bill? Maybe could use one more or swing a trade for a surefire starter like some have said. I like Contreras as a project, he has some pretty good stuff.

Starters: DeGrom (limited), Eovaldi, Mahle (limited), Rocker (limited), Bradford

Swing guys: Dunning, Gray, Leiter, Contreras

This is just my personal opinion, but you've only got deGrom for another three years (with a club option fourth), so while you don't want to get him hurt again etc., I do think you need to use him while you have him. You need him to be your horse and ace, so use him like it.

TheNotoriousP.I.P. said:

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MrCoachEricTaylor said:

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Bacsik had a great segment this morning on The Fan, he discussed possibly starting Rocker at AAA for a month to help build him up more but having to cap him at between 100-120 innings this year. Rocker has only pitched more than 120 innings in a season one time in his entire life (@Vandy).

If that's the case, that at least 3 pitchers likely having to be held on pitch counts this season in DeGrom, Mahle, and Rocker. That would mean we need a lot more swing guys to come in and bridge more innings.

How would you all try to build out this pitching staff in this scenario?

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Do we need a ton more guys that fit that bill? Maybe could use one more or swing a trade for a surefire starter like some have said. I like Contreras as a project, he has some pretty good stuff.

Starters: DeGrom (limited), Eovaldi, Mahle (limited), Rocker (limited), Bradford

Swing guys: Dunning, Gray, Leiter, Contreras

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in my opinion, not necessarily more. But I think I would mean we don't need to prioritize a trade involving Gray, I think that would make him much more important in all honesty. I agree on all those swing guys you mentioned.

Tksymm7 said:

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This is just my personal opinion, but you've only got deGrom for another three years (with a club option fourth), so while you don't want to get him hurt again etc., I do think you need to use him while you have him. You need him to be your horse and ace, so use him like it.

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That is an interesting opinion. Bacsik actually had the reverse and insisted on pushing Mahle much more because he's a bit more expendable than DeGrom. If holding DeGrom to no more than 4 or 5 innings for the year makes it more likely he's available for a potential WS run, I think that's what you have to do. Only because of his injury history, in my opinion

Flounder Dorfman said:

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I see both sides of the Smith situation. Jamey Newberg wrote last night about the Pirates open to trading Mitch Keller and Jared Jones. If Smith can be be packaged to make that happen, then I'm really good with that.

I would prefer Lowe as the headliner in a Keller trade since his salary would come off the books and the Pirates need a 1B badly. I like Lowe and am perfectly fine with him at 1B for the Rangers on opening day, but Burger was brought in to play 1B/DH.

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Maybe I'm wrong but I imagine Burger will play very little 1B and only get AB's as a DH. I think the reason for that is that our DH Stats were horrible last year. For a lot of it, we did use it to give Seager, Semien, Garcia, etc. a day off the field but even with that, there was no production coming out of that spot and therefore less likely to be a revolving door again this year.

KT 90 said:

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MrCoachEricTaylor said:

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Bacsik had a great segment this morning on The Fan, he discussed possibly starting Rocker at AAA for a month to help build him up more but having to cap him at between 100-120 innings this year. Rocker has only pitched more than 120 innings in a season one time in his entire life (@Vandy).

If that's the case, that at least 3 pitchers likely having to be held on pitch counts this season in DeGrom, Mahle, and Rocker. That would mean we need a lot more swing guys to come in and bridge more innings.

How would you all try to build out this pitching staff in this scenario?

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I think Rocker already proved that he belongs at the MLB level last year. So if he has an innings cap of 120 or whatever it is, why would we waste some of those innings in AAA?

Unless he regresses a bit in Spring Training (lets hope not), Rocker needs to be in the MLB.

$0.02

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I need to go back and relisten to the segment, I was in and out of the work truck a lot. But he was also talking about Langford and the lull he hit after being the best player in ST to having such a rough time when the season started. That's not to say that the same thing wouldn't have happened had he been sent to AAA and then get the call a month later.

Tksymm7 said:

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This is just my personal opinion, but you've only got deGrom for another three years (with a club option fourth), so while you don't want to get him hurt again etc., I do think you need to use him while you have him. You need him to be your horse and ace, so use him like it.

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I think part of the issue is more it's not the franchise's choice on how much they push a guy. If deGrom doesn't feel 100%, he's not going to go. He wants to help the team, but he's also going to make sure he's got one more good contract in him.

So, reading this...
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/roki-sasaki-rumors-joel-wolfe-small-market.html

Is a little crazy. Wasserman is one of the major Agent firms. It isn't like Robertson representing himself.

This reads like the agent has barely spoken to Sasaki... which I get Japanese culture tends to be more private.

But it also reads like Sasaki has had a number of arm injuries and wants to get to MLB so he can get a major contract before his arm falls off and he is worried he might get injured before reaching the requirements to be posted normally.

The weird part for me is... the route he has chosen limits what he can sign for and then locks him to league minimum for 3 years, and another 3 yrs of limited negotiations as an Arb.

I've never been accused of overthinking something (rolls eyes) but his agent gives me pause about signing him. And I would say NY is definitely out of the picture.

What pitcher hasn't had arm injuries though?

Less about the history of arm issues, as much as it reads like he wants to get a MLB contract so that when it happens he'll be under contract.

As mentioned above... deGrom is likely to play it safe so he can get one more contract.

It just read funny to me.

Given the way he's chosen to go about this, I don't think teams technically can sign him to a big contract. More of a wink, wink, nudge, nudge, it's coming later. Pretty big gamble on his part if he does in fact have arm issues, because the money on the back end will be dependent on what he does once he gets here, not a long term guaranteed contract on the front end.