Finally! Official Hot Stove League Thread

[D-train]

No here is a pitcher move that I could get behind:

[Seattle or Bust]

10:30 pm

I was close. Can you watch it?

Jerry Dipoto pours cold water on signing one of the Big free agent shortstops.

https://www.mlb.com/news/jerry-dipoto-a ... m-meetings

Honestly, I don't care how we get better, so long as it's just as significant to if we went out and signed a Bogaerts and/or Nimmo.

I just don't see the point in paying a shortstop $30 million per year to hang a .800-.830 OPS. It's fun that a guy might put up some inflated WAR at SS... but that sort of a bat just does so little to move the needle for our offense. We need serious run producers and these guys are good there, but not elite.

I'm still very much in the camp of trading for Tim Anderson... move some of our pitching depth to get it done. He's set to make $12 to $15 million over the next 2 seasons... the M's could also extend him on arrival for far cheaper than what these guys make. He'd also be a far better candidate than these SS's to move over to 2B.

[Big_Maple]

I'm still very much in the camp of trading for Tim Anderson... move some of our pitching depth to get it done. He's set to make $12 to $15 million over the next 2 seasons... the M's could also extend him on arrival for far cheaper than what these guys make. He'd also be a far better candidate than these SS's to move over to 2B.

And the guy has wheels. He's crazy fast. I know this skill is fungible, but it is just one more arrow in his quiver.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/byron-buxto ... -of-speed/

[Seattle or Bust]

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????

While this doesn't involve Flexen.

When I was looking at position players I'd like from the Rockies (there really are none)... I stumbled upon Carlos Esteves. He's a free agent reliever who has gotten absolutely killed at Coors field but has a career 3.51 ERA on the road. In 2022 he hung an ERA+ of 135 after he balanced those stats out. He throws 96-100 from the right side. He tends to walk a bit too many but he's a guy the M's could mold a bit and would surely benefit from pitching at TMobile and the AL West.

Anyway... cheap power arm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu6uTz393nk&t=28s

[Seattle or Bust]

A segment from Passan's free agent article this morning:

"Are there lessons from the Astros' (or Phillies') run that other teams could follow this offseason?

Spend a lot of money.

The Phillies' $240 million-plus payroll ranked fourth in MLB. The Astros, at around $210 million, were ninth. Here are the payroll rankings of this year's 12 postseason teams: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 15th, 21st, 23rd, 27th. The four teams in the league championship series were 3rd, 4th, 6th and 9th.

It's a frustrating reality with which fans of lower revenue teams must grapple. Yes, teams like the Rays (23rd) or Cleveland Guardians (27th) can succeed. But it's simply a fact that payroll and success correlate rather strongly, and as much as one might try to take lessons from the teams in the World Series -- from the Astros, it's "develop well," and from the Phillies, it's "get stars" -- nothing novel revealed itself this October."

He also lists the M's among the 12 teams he expects to be most active this Winter.

[Juliooooo]

A segment from Passan's free agent article this morning:

"Are there lessons from the Astros' (or Phillies') run that other teams could follow this offseason?

Spend a lot of money.

The Phillies' $240 million-plus payroll ranked fourth in MLB. The Astros, at around $210 million, were ninth. Here are the payroll rankings of this year's 12 postseason teams: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 15th, 21st, 23rd, 27th. The four teams in the league championship series were 3rd, 4th, 6th and 9th.

It's a frustrating reality with which fans of lower revenue teams must grapple. Yes, teams like the Rays (23rd) or Cleveland Guardians (27th) can succeed. But it's simply a fact that payroll and success correlate rather strongly, and as much as one might try to take lessons from the teams in the World Series -- from the Astros, it's "develop well," and from the Phillies, it's "get stars" -- nothing novel revealed itself this October."

He also lists the M's among the 12 teams he expects to be most active this Winter.

One of the top 12 most active! Yes!

[D-train]

Active in terms of quantity of moves or quantity of dollars....

[ice99]

Active in terms of quantity of moves or quantity of dollars....

He got Luke Weaver didn't he?

It's probably one of those articles aimed to get a lot of clicks.

[D-train]

[Seattle or Bust]

Active in terms of quantity of moves or quantity of dollars....

God knows...

But Mike Salk wrote an article today where he thinks the M's should go the Astros route and try to acquire big pieces from small market teams who want to offload their players before they get expensive.

That's a fine idea until you realize that the M's haven't built nearly the same farm depth that the Astros did when they tanked for a half decade. To acquire CarGo, McCann, Gattis, Giles, Liriano, Verlander, Cole, Osuna, Greinke the Astros offloaded some 30 (!!!) prospects over a span of 4 years... well over half of those prospects were in their org. top 10 from classes that were usually at least top 15 (we're currently bottom 10).

If the M's can somehow acquire Bryan Reynolds and Tim Anderson... and then offer them extensions in the range of what Luis Castillo got... you won't hear a peep from me from me about spending money. That is a perfectly sensible way to add payroll and not have to overpay for big stars.

But that's also a far cry from Dipoto stating like a year ago that trades from the farm are going to be tough as they have so many untouchables.

The M's are so weird. Always so much mixed messaging.