Finally! Official Hot Stove League thread!

[bpj]

Rhys Hoskins and Lane Thomas seem like Dipoto guys.

Yandy Diaz is probably too good at hitting to be on Dipoto's radar, but he'd be a nice fit imo.

[D-train]

And that's the reason they didn't offer it. Dipoto saying they wanted to go after a different type of hitter. The follow up question being what was the chance of his accepting it? I think Dipoto's reply is, I don't know but I'm not willing to bet my off season on it. Because if he did, that's their off season

I don't know. Holy fucking shit, it is his job to know and if he thinks he would have accepted he is the dumbest Clown on the planet.

It's all that "Marine air" that affects the flight of the baseball. Except experts aren't smart enough to figure that out yet. The Kingdome was an indoor band box compared to the open outdoor Marine air of the PNW. The only reason we were hitting bombs in the 90s was because of the steroid era. That's why hitters struggle when they come here. At least that's part of my theory anyways.

T Mobile isn't great to hit HRs but not terrible either. 18th of 30. But it somehow terrible to hit singles double and triples (29th,30th and 27th). Whoever figures out why should win a Nobel prize.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderbo ... rtDir=desc

[D-train]

Would anyone trade Marco Gonzales and Taylor Trammell to the White Sox for Eloy Jimenez and lefty reliever Garrett Crochet?

Baseball Trade Values calls it an even trade highlighted by the negative values of Gonzales, Jimenez and Crochet.

https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades/146753

Gonzales and Jimenez have similar contracts through 2024. Gonzales has a 2024 salary of $12 million with a $15 million club option (and no buyout) for 2025. Jimenez has a 2024 salary of $13 million with a $3 million buyout of a 2025 team option for $16.5 million, and a $3 million buyout of a 2026 team option for $18.5 million. In other words, Jimenez is guaranteed $16 million.

This season the 31-year-old Gonzales posted 0.6 fWAR in 10 starts before being shut down while Jimenez, who turns 27 years old this month, posted 0.4 fWAR in 120 games. FanGraphs projects Gonzales with a 2024 WAR of 0.4 in 21 starts and Jimenez with 2.1 WAR in 141 games.

Roster Resource currently lists Touki Toussaint, Jesse Scholtens and Nick Nastrini as the No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 White Sox starters behind Dylan Cease and Michael Kopech.

A buy-low candidate with flaws, Jimenez posted a 19 percent strikeout rate this year in stark contrast with this year's 31 percent strikeout rate from Teoscar Hernandez. Seattle executive Jerry Dipoto reportedly is looking for a righthanded contact hitter.

Crochet is a hard-throwing, but wild, lefthander who is projected to earn $900,000 next year in his first arbitration season. Trammell's salary remains at the league minimum.

The White Sox should be wary of Gonzales and his shoulder issues but perhaps the Sox are prepared to move on from Jimenez. And the Mariners could acquire a big-bat lottery ticket without surrendering Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller or Bryan Woo.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/marco ... position=P

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/taylo ... osition=OF

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/eloy- ... tion=DH/OF

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/garre ... position=P

Absolutely.

[D-train]

Crochet had TJ surgery in 2022. Crochet could be a nice pickup

It's surprising that Baseball Trade Values assigns Garrett Crochet a negative $300,000 value when the lefthander is projected to earn only $900,000 next year in his first arbitration season.

Yeah I wouldn't let that hold up the Marco for Jimenez trade....

[D-train]

I know we talked about him in previous years but what about a trade for the Giants
Wilmer Flores He plays 1B, 2B, 3B and DH.
2023 .284 .355 .509 .863 136 OPS+ in 126 games.

Since 2016 he has not had a season under 100 OPS+. He is owed 6.5 M in 2024 with a 3.5M player option or a 8.5M club option for 2025.

The Giants were a 79-win club in 2023 with the Padres, LAD, and D-Backs all over their heads. They need to do a rebuild.

Flores does not strike out a lot throwing out his 27-game rookie year his K-rate has been between 9.8% and 17.1%. Meanwhile although his career walk rate has only been 6.9%, but he has been at least 9% the last three years in a row. He is a player on the ascent at age 31. The last 3 years in a row he either tied or set new career highs in HR's. And that .509 slugging is his career high.
I could talk myself into going with Flores, Harmony's trade for Eloy J. and then either a trade for one of the Cards guys, or better yet sign Ohtani, or Cody B.

If I needed a higher return, I could make the headliner that 2024 comp Rd. pick 6.2 M value vs Marlow.

Anyhow, what do you think about Wilmer F. being the 2nd or third best bat you bring in.

Wild that he has played about 2k innings at all three of 1B, 2B and 3B. I wouldn't hate it but would worry he goes back to his 2022 .710 OPS.

[D-train]

I just tried to take a nap and I couldn't even sleep thinking about what a f-ing idiot Jerry is. So once again he is going to limit himself only to RH Bats for no good reason other than he is happy with the young LH Bats so no Bellinger, no Gorman and about 50% fewer options because he is happy with these three young LH Bats. This nonsense is exactly how we ended up with Pollock. Holy shit Jerry is brain dead.


lhb.JPG

I could maybe understand it if he was including Cal as a LH dominate SH, and somehow, JP's break-out year and looping those two with Marlow and JK being around a 110 OPS+, and Rojas being at a 103 OPS+ after coming over.

But, I am not liking the combination of Colby P. being right about the not offering Teo a Q.O.
Everbody in the world can see that Teo had a .600 OPS at T-mobile and a .800 something OPS on the road. He is projected to get a 4 for 80-million-dollar deal and is not the same as Mitch Haniger who might have taken the QO. But Teo was certainly going to get you a comp Picl which is a nice bonus we could have had a match to this year's (3) 1st rounders because we already have 2 between our pick and comp round A that I see listed in trade values calc.

At the end of the day that move just re-enforces what has to be a growing awareness that Mariner's owner John Stanton thinks of the MLB team as "Any other business" and keeps waiting for hat-in-hand FA's to walk up begging and that has not happened and will not happen any time soon. Cheap!

EXACTLY my point. The loss of a pick is a nuisance. The bigger picture is it reinforces how absurdly risk averse they are when it comes to money. I bet they risk adjusted him accepting the QO at 10% and STILL didn't want to risk $2M. I bet Stanton's hand was all in that cookie jar.

[Coeurd’Alene J]

I just tried to take a nap and I couldn't even sleep thinking about what a f-ing idiot Jerry is. So once again he is going to limit himself only to RH Bats for no good reason other than he is happy with the young LH Bats so no Bellinger, no Gorman and about 50% fewer options because he is happy with these three young LH Bats. This nonsense is exactly how we ended up with Pollock. Holy shit Jerry is brain dead.


lhb.JPG

You could be on to something. Last yr Jerry narrowed it down to a shortstop that had to switch to second base. What is next years excuse? It will most likely be some demand that eliminates 90% of the expensive free agents and magically those guys don’t fit.

Jerry is given a bonus to stay within the budget and be competitive. This is all on Bozo the Billionaire The tightwad John

[D-train]

I just tried to take a nap and I couldn't even sleep thinking about what a f-ing idiot Jerry is. So once again he is going to limit himself only to RH Bats for no good reason other than he is happy with the young LH Bats so no Bellinger, no Gorman and about 50% fewer options because he is happy with these three young LH Bats. This nonsense is exactly how we ended up with Pollock. Holy shit Jerry is brain dead.


lhb.JPG

You could be on to something. Last yr Jerry narrowed it down to a shortstop that had to switch to second base. What is next years excuse? It will most likely be some demand that eliminates 90% of the expensive free agents and magically those guys don’t fit.

Jerry is given a bonus to stay within the budget and be competitive. This is all on Bozo the Billionaire The tightwad John

hmm Does anyone know if Ohtani hits LH or RH?????

[Coeurd’Alene J]

I just tried to take a nap and I couldn't even sleep thinking about what a f-ing idiot Jerry is. So once again he is going to limit himself only to RH Bats for no good reason other than he is happy with the young LH Bats so no Bellinger, no Gorman and about 50% fewer options because he is happy with these three young LH Bats. This nonsense is exactly how we ended up with Pollock. Holy shit Jerry is brain dead.


lhb.JPG

You could be on to something. Last yr Jerry narrowed it down to a shortstop that had to switch to second base. What is next years excuse? It will most likely be some demand that eliminates 90% of the expensive free agents and magically those guys don’t fit.

Jerry is given a bonus to stay within the budget and be competitive. This is all on Bozo the Billionaire The tightwad John

hmm Does anyone know if Ohtani hits LH or RH?????

They already made it known that the modern day Babe Ruth wouldn’t solve our problems……………

[bpj]

I just tried to take a nap and I couldn't even sleep thinking about what a f-ing idiot Jerry is. So once again he is going to limit himself only to RH Bats for no good reason other than he is happy with the young LH Bats so no Bellinger, no Gorman and about 50% fewer options because he is happy with these three young LH Bats. This nonsense is exactly how we ended up with Pollock. Holy shit Jerry is brain dead.


lhb.JPG

You could be on to something. Last yr Jerry narrowed it down to a shortstop that had to switch to second base. What is next years excuse? It will most likely be some demand that eliminates 90% of the expensive free agents and magically those guys don’t fit.

Jerry is given a bonus to stay within the budget and be competitive. This is all on Bozo the Billionaire The tightwad John

I think that's the reason he's going after "right handed" contact hitters.

There aren't even any expensive right handed bats on the market this year.

He's already set the expectations- low.