Finally! Official Hot Stove League Thread

[D-train]

If he came back and started slow and finished hot I would be on board but he did the exact opposite of that. Do people just prefer to ignore that due to cognitive dissonance or do you think it just doesn't matter if he sucked for that last thirty games because he is a Mariner and he wrote a heard felt ode to M's fans a year ago?

[Big_Maple]

I used to agree with you but this season he twisted his ankle on a routine swing and missed half the season because of it. For whatever reason he seems to be an extremely slow healer. Also he is getting old. He will be 32 next year. We should be expecting a decline even without injury concerns just because he is moving out of his prime and his age is only going to make his potential for injury issues worse. Most of the other guys that people are looking at are a solid 2-3 years younger. Benintendi is 4 years younger. You can't discount that.

All valid points.

I thought Kyle Lewis was the slow healer!

I know that JD is opposed to a more or less full time DH, but a healthy Mitch is pretty effective at the plate. Perhaps keep him as a primary DH would keep him off the IL?

Again, I see so many of his previous injuries as just shitty luck. Maybe all injuries are, but a foul tip off the left nut just seems different to me than a finger sprain or swollen hip flexor or a strained calf muscle.

Regardless - your points are valid. He's no spring chicken.

[ice99]

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.

Yep, probably don't want a 4 year deal from Benintendi. His Steamer predicted WAR is 2.3, and Haniger's is 2.1.

[Big_Maple]

If he came back and started slow and finished hot I would be on board but he did the exact opposite of that. Do people just prefer to ignore that due to cognitive dissonance or do you think it just doesn't matter if he sucked for that last thirty games because he is a Mariner and he wrote a heard felt ode to M's fans a year ago?

The ode is what it is. At least the guy seems sincere in his desire to have the M's succeed. I'll take that over Winker's ambivalence any day.

But no - that's not why I'd be happy to see him come back. For starters, I don't see the M's going after any of the top 4 or 5 guys on your list. It's nice to dream, but we aren't getting Judge much less Nimmo. Of the guys further down the list - they all have pros and cons, and truth be told, I'd be happy with any of them. But Mitch is a known entity (to me, at least). I've seen what he can do when he's healthy, and he's a grinder, and he works his ass off. And I actually think he works hard to get healthy when he's injured. I am not sure KLew had the same work ethic or the same desire to get back in the game. I dunno. And Mitch's attitude is a helluva a lot better than Klew's or JK's who pitch hissy fits when they're sent back down to AAA.

So no, D-Train, I'm not blindsided by anything. There's no cognitive dissonance. I understand his liabilities and his age and his shortcomings, and we can swap stats all we want. But the last 4 guys on your list are equivalent to me. For my money, I'd bring back Mitch on a short contract. That's all.

[Pharmabro]

Just thinking out loud I think the Winker and either Diego, or Sewald for Glybar makes a lot of sense.

BP
Munoz, Brash, Sewald, Murfee, Diego, Festa = sucks
But prospects:
I think we see
Ike Campbell FB touches 98 sits 96 and has a good slider
And maybe
Miller who can hit 99 and has a wipe out slider
Hancock Also has the stuff that could play up in the pen

As far as free agents go I lost my Diaz plan but an alternative might be Chaffin, or even Boyd.

The non-tender on the lefty from KC had the fine fip and maybe they sign him back here for a little less than 3M? (Luke Weaver)

I think the pen has gone a long way in giving us a great record in 1 run games the last two years. We lost one of our best in the Teo trade.

2022 21-12 =.636 winning %
2021 33-19 = .635 winning %

So, BP arms always go down. Typically someone goes down in ST, others get banged up in season.

I want to see at least 6 healthy good arms in -season so we nee to ride in to ST with at least 8 or 9. As it is we have 8 and we are probably trading one of them away. And even that 8 is taking 2 extremely high end SP prospects into BP parts. +

IS anyone else at all concerned that JD may think he can just pull anyone up off the streets and turn them into a +BP guy

[harmony]

A Pinstripe Alley blogger examines Jesse Winker as a potential Yankee trade target:

https://www.pinstripealley.com/2022/11/ ... -hernandez

[ice99]

I'm not sure, but maybe the Yankees want to reduce payroll by trading Torres. Plus they have to wonder how well a player with neck and knee surgery is going to perform with playing at the Ray's and BJ's arificial turf ballparks, unless they make him DH only.

Plus maybe Kolten Wong would be better.

[GL_Storm]

I'm not sure, but maybe the Yankees want to reduce payroll by trading Torres.

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.

[ice99]

I'm not sure, but maybe the Yankees want to reduce payroll by trading Torres.

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.

[Pharmabro]

Hunter is off the table

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

126 OPS+ and a 2.7 WAR guy last year in the OF LAA is dangerous they have 2 MVP candidates at the core of their team.