Finally! Official Hot Stove League Thread

[Coeurd’Alene J]

So no QO to Mitch…..I know that doesn’t surprise some of you. It is interesting how his final season kind of petered out, I’m sure he is happy as it should help his signability…..

[ice99]

Actually, you're right. B-Ref has him at 9.042 as of 1/2023. I didn't realize they had updated service time calculations across the site so I was still adding one year to their number. They must have pushed that change through in the last day or two.

But I still don't see him getting to 3,000 hits. Father time will bring him down. He needed a lot more 190+ hit seasons I think, and 2020 obviously didn't help anyone's counting stats.

His Sept. callup and his rookie year add up to 162 games. If you throw out those seasons and the hits, and the Covid year, to get a better approximation of full years, then he has something like 1200+ hits over 7 full seasons. Or about 173 hits/full season.

He has an outside chance if he plays 10+ more seasons.

But you can't just throw those out. The numbers are the numbers and his age is what it is and although he could still have some career years in front of him, every player's performance declines with age. I will concede though that if he could get to 2500 hits by the end of the 2028 season, it could happen. But that's really hard. That's more than a thousand hits over 6 seasons. But if he could do that, and he's still healthy and hitting effectively, it might happen.

Sure I can with regard to his current hit rate. His hits average over the last seven non-covid seasons was 173 hits/season. He has 1590 more hits to go.

It's like career WAR. I don't care what his WAR rate was 9 years ago. I care what his WAR rate is over his last 6+ seasons.

[harmony]

More Jerry Dipoto quotes from columnist Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic:

The Mariners have two such pitchers, Chris Flexen and Marco Gonzales, and president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said other teams are already calling on a number of his club’s pitchers.

“We’re getting hit constantly, up and down, with our bullpen, our starters,” Dipoto said. “We’re unlikely to be too aggressive in moving away from our bullpen. We want to add to it, not necessarily subtract from it.

“With what might be some type of pitching surplus, we will if we can put that into play to answer other needs, even in part to try and fill some of the holes we have on our team right now, which are a middle infielder and potentially two corner outfielders.”

https://theathletic.com/3777480/2022/11 ... rs-correa/

Does that mean the Mariners may pursue 29-year-old Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida to be the high-OBP potential leadoff batter if posted?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... shid002mas

Yoshida walks it off with two homers in this year's Japan Series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDGiTnuiIuQ

Yoshida has played seven seasons with the Orix Buffaloes, the offspring of the Orix Blue Wave team that for nine seasons had Ichiro, another diminutive lefthand-hitting, righthand-throwing outfielder.

[Seattle or Bust]

Not that I'm unhappy with what Ichiro did as a Mariner... but it would be such a Mariner move to take the cheap way out and sign a Japanese position player at an area of need. Pitching is a different story as it's not as desperate of the need and Senga would be a great, cheap option to complete the rotation so long as they move on from Flexen/Marco... but filling an OF spot with a guy who has less hype than Seiya Suzuki just seems so weak... especially when the offense needs significant upgrades.

Yoshida is also only 5 foot 8... bleh. His power will likely get cut in half coming to the bigs meaning he's a corner OF who will maybe hang 10-13 homers. He's got really good plate discipline which could be alluring. But so did Seiya and he saw nearly a 100 point dip in OBP... K'd at a more than 3/1BB rate.... and had a 200 point dip in slugging %. A guy like Yoshida might be lucky to hit for a .750 OPS IMO.

[Donn Beach]

Dipoto doesn't seem to be looking for OPS

. We would like to strike out less, we’d like to walk more, we’d like to raise our batting average – there’s a variety of different statistical goals that you can look to achieve by acquiring a player who does those things well

Though the deal with Yoshida could be more his defense, he really sounds limited, seen him projected as a dh. He doesn't sound like he has the ability to even play left field at Safeco

[bpj]

Dipoto doesn't seem to be looking for OPS

. We would like to strike out less, we’d like to walk more, we’d like to raise our batting average – there’s a variety of different statistical goals that you can look to achieve by acquiring a player who does those things well

Though the deal with Yoshida could be more his defense, he really sounds limited, seen him projected as a dh. He doesn't sound like he has the ability to even play left field at Safeco

Sounds like the type of outlook one would expect from a guy that thinks DH is for resting regulars so you can get your bench players in the game.

[bpj]

Judging from this clip, Hunter Renfroe and Kolten Wong would be perfect fits.

Mariners part of the video with Dipoto interview begins about 6:30. Very happy to see he recognizes corner outfield is great place to add bats. Sad he continues to ignore DH as such.

They're focused on adding "impact"

https://youtu.be/KVcFMvwPltU

[D-train]

More Jerry Dipoto quotes from columnist Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic:

The Mariners have two such pitchers, Chris Flexen and Marco Gonzales, and president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said other teams are already calling on a number of his club’s pitchers.

“We’re getting hit constantly, up and down, with our bullpen, our starters,” Dipoto said. “We’re unlikely to be too aggressive in moving away from our bullpen. We want to add to it, not necessarily subtract from it.

“With what might be some type of pitching surplus, we will if we can put that into play to answer other needs, even in part to try and fill some of the holes we have on our team right now, which are a middle infielder and potentially two corner outfielders.”

https://theathletic.com/3777480/2022/11 ... rs-correa/

Does that mean the Mariners may pursue 29-year-old Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida to be the high-OBP potential leadoff batter if posted?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... shid002mas

Yoshida walks it off with two homers in this year's Japan Series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDGiTnuiIuQ

Yoshida has played seven seasons with the Orix Buffaloes, the offspring of the Orix Blue Wave team that for nine seasons had Ichiro, another diminutive lefthand-hitting, righthand-throwing outfielder.

Love that he says TWO COFs that is encouraging.

[D-train]

This kid has almost 7k followers. I don't get it. Not that he is dumb but rarely anything interesting. This is a typical tweet from him. Almost 7k people want to make sure they don't miss out on the content????

[D-train]