Finally! Official Hot Stove League Thread

[Sexymarinersfan]

I would be thrilled if we brought Mitch back. I think the problem for Mitch has been his health - and most of this is the result of shitty luck, not because his body is prone to injury. Mitch was doing great in 2017 until he took a fastball in the face from Jacob deGrom. In 2019 he had the worst kind of bad luck when he fouled off a pitched and ruptured a testicle. I see these injuries are slightly different than pulling a hammie running to first base or blowing out an ACL chasing down a flyball.

I know you all know this, but it is worth noting that he's had a run of bad luck, and when a player is on the IL for an extended period of time, it has to interfere with whatever groove they were in prior to the injury. Coming back after being out has to be difficult, and you need a lot of PAs to get your timing back. When he's healthy, the dude is a stud. He plays hard, he has a great work ethic, and he is a leader in the clubhouse. And yeah - I know - saber metrics don't measure how nice you are, but I think that still matters.

Put it this way - all else being equal, would I rather bring in Benintendi or resign Mitch? Mitch is a known entity - we know what we're going to get with Mitch. We could wind up bringing in a dud like Winker who - despite his 2021 stats and general sense of enthusiasm around here when he was traded to the M's - is someone we all seem to want to be rid of. He is apparently a douchebag, he apparently has no work ethic, and he's a shadow of the player he was a year ago for reasons that are apparently under his control. So yeah, if we have 3 outfielders who are about the same age with about the same slash lines, I would pick Mitch every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I like Benintendi too. I'm more in favor of him than Mitch. But I wouldn't be mad either way.

[Sexymarinersfan]

Hunter is off the table

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/11/ ... ewers.html

That kinda sucks. I wonder if the M's were in on that at all? My guess is they want a lefty bat if they get another outfielder, so probably not.

The arms race is heating up. With the Angels making this move, I feel you can look at this one of two ways. Crap, the Angels are going to be tough this season. How can Jerry not pull the trigger on acquiring one of the Big 4 SS. The others identified of that coin is, maybe just maybe this light's a fire under ownership to go out and add more fire power. A lot of teams saw how close they came to making the playoffs last year. I see the Angels trading for Renfroe as a good sign for the M's. It's time to go out get another Big gun!

[Sexymarinersfan]

I think this has to be part of the motivation. I've been looking at the Yankees payroll and I don't see how they stay under the CBT threshold and also pay Judge $40 million per year or more. The latest offer I read about said they offered him something like 8 years at 42 million per year. The problem is they've got huge commitments to Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton as well, plus several other players like Rizzo, LeMahieu, and Severino are making healthy salaries, and then they have actual bad money on the books in Donaldson and Hicks.

Right now, without Judge signed, their projected CBT payroll is approximately $218 million and even removing Gleyber (9-10 mil) from the equation, they're still going to blow past the threshold. But maybe the plan is to at least hold the payroll under the $273 million threshold so they don't get penalized in the draft. If they can do that, and avoid signing QO free agents the next few years, they'll be okay.

I believe Yankees revenues are around $500 mil per year, so from a purely financial standpoint there's no issue here for them. But if it wasn't for the CBT, they'd likely be driving up the cost of other players as well. I'm sure a lot of Yankees fans wonder why they aren't trying to sign a shortstop. Well, the CBT is why.

I made the comment with regards to trading Winker and Diego to them, for Torres. I guess if the M's are sending over money with that.

If the Yankees want to salary dump Gleyber, maybe JK or TayTram would be the fit instead of Winker.

Yeah I can't see the Yankees adding payroll, or Winker, unless Seattle is taking on Donaldson or Hicks. Which nobody is touching those contracts.

[D-train]

Angels not seeming to have any trouble moving past Jo Adell.

Hopefully the Mariners can figure out a way to keep the bat out of Kelenics hands also.

Adell and Kelenic both 23, both with career 68 wRC+.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx? ... =&enddate=

And the difference is while he was bad at .224/.637 he wasn't historically mind numbing bad in 2022 like JK at .141/.534

Mike Zunino's career BA is .200, 59 points higher than JK hit this year.

JK stepped to the plate 186 times in 2022 and had 10 singles.

In August of 2004 Ichiro stepped to the plate 128 times and had 46 singles.

In his career JK has 558 PAs and 43 singles

From May 13th 2004 to Sept. 24th 2004 Ichiro had 559 PAs and 174 singles. More than 4x more.

[D-train]

I would be thrilled if we brought Mitch back. I think the problem for Mitch has been his health - and most of this is the result of shitty luck, not because his body is prone to injury. Mitch was doing great in 2017 until he took a fastball in the face from Jacob deGrom. In 2019 he had the worst kind of bad luck when he fouled off a pitched and ruptured a testicle. I see these injuries are slightly different than pulling a hammie running to first base or blowing out an ACL chasing down a flyball.

I know you all know this, but it is worth noting that he's had a run of bad luck, and when a player is on the IL for an extended period of time, it has to interfere with whatever groove they were in prior to the injury. Coming back after being out has to be difficult, and you need a lot of PAs to get your timing back. When he's healthy, the dude is a stud. He plays hard, he has a great work ethic, and he is a leader in the clubhouse. And yeah - I know - saber metrics don't measure how nice you are, but I think that still matters.

Put it this way - all else being equal, would I rather bring in Benintendi or resign Mitch? Mitch is a known entity - we know what we're going to get with Mitch. We could wind up bringing in a dud like Winker who - despite his 2021 stats and general sense of enthusiasm around here when he was traded to the M's - is someone we all seem to want to be rid of. He is apparently a douchebag, he apparently has no work ethic, and he's a shadow of the player he was a year ago for reasons that are apparently under his control. So yeah, if we have 3 outfielders who are about the same age with about the same slash lines, I would pick Mitch every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I like Benintendi too. I'm more in favor of him than Mitch. But I wouldn't be mad either way.

I would say there is a 50% chance Mitch stays healthy and a 50% chance he is productive enough to warrant being a COFer. Combined that is only 25% chance. I just don't like those odds in a season we are trying to catch the Astros.....

[D-train]

100% of the time I see a tweet like this the person is compelled to open with the completely unnecessary, "I have personal news to share". Why?

Like if he didn't do it everyone would have thought that Cedric Mullens or Adley R. was the new beat reporter for MLB.com?

[D-train]

Morosi. So what happens if Torres and Wong get traded to other teams BEFORE then FA SSs sign? Then what.

https://sports.mynorthwest.com/1699593/ ... e-infield/

[D-train]

[harmony]

Yankee podcasters discuss a proposed trade of Gleyber Torres to the Mariners for reliever Matt Festa, outfielder Jonatan Clase and righthander Prelander Berroa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJCcht7IAO8

https://empiresportsmedia.com/new-york- ... -mariners/

Proposed trades from Yankee forums:

Gleyber Torres for George Kirby and "a lefty hitting prospect like Jonathan Clase or Starlin Águilar. Probably too much to ask for Lazaro Montas instead."

https://www.pinstripealley.com/2022/11/ ... s-reaction

Baseball Trade Values assigns Kirby 20 times the trade value of Torres.

Gleyber Torres, lefty reliever Lucas Luetge, righthander Deivi Garcia, catcher Antonio Gomez, outfielder Aaron Hicks and $11 million for Cal Raleigh and Jarred Kelenic.

https://nyyfansforum.sny.tv/forum/forum ... son-thread

Baseball Trade Values assigns the Seattle package 10 times the value of the Yankee package.

We're all homers.

[Seattle or Bust]

Yankee podcasters discuss a proposed trade of Gleyber Torres to the Mariners for reliever Matt Festa, outfielder Jonatan Clase and righthander Prelander Berroa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJCcht7IAO8

https://empiresportsmedia.com/new-york- ... -mariners/

Proposed trades from Yankee forums:

Gleyber Torres for George Kirby and "a lefty hitting prospect like Jonathan Clase or Starlin Águilar. Probably too much to ask for Lazaro Montas instead."

https://www.pinstripealley.com/2022/11/ ... s-reaction

Baseball Trade Values assigns Kirby 20 times the trade value of Torres.

Gleyber Torres, lefty reliever Lucas Luetge, righthander Deivi Garcia, catcher Antonio Gomez, outfielder Aaron Hicks and $11 million for Cal Raleigh and Jarred Kelenic.

https://nyyfansforum.sny.tv/forum/forum ... son-thread

Baseball Trade Values assigns the Seattle package 10 times the value of the Yankee package.

We're all homers.

I wouldn't call that homerism...

Just people who have zero clue what they're talking about.