ewen21

I don't understand all the consternation about the bullpen while our system has developed practically no starting pitching for over a dozen seasons until Berrios finally emerged. Isn't this a far bigger issue than us not raiding the reliever market this offseason? TO me it is. We rolled the dice trying to build our bullpen last season and some of the deals looked good at first and they turned out to be crap. Relievers are not a set commodity. THey are so up and freakin down it's ridiculous. See Brad Lidge. Relievers, for the most part, are failed starters. To carry on about getting veteran reliever X and Y seems like a waste of time when we can't develop pitching ourselves. Maybe I am not on this bandwagon to grouse about adding relievers is that I am not expecting too much out of this team. I want to see certain players develop and then if that happens I would like us to be more aggressive at the trade deadline. I know some posters hate this philosophy, but quite frankly, signing a Boxberger or some other ham and egger reliever isn't going to get me pumped and it won't turn us around. What is the solution? Dump most of the bullpen and replace them with new guys? I like the idea of Romero starting in the pen. I will hope Hildy and Reed can do better than they did last year. I am not going to go crazy over the pen. In 2002 we had Romero, Hawkins, Fiori (and Santana some of the time) all emerge to make for a solid pen. Very few relievers are to be counted on to perform at a consistent level year after year. I am far more worried about the rotation and everyone else should be as well

I chose neither the players or the owners. I will say the owners do, however, put up the capital and take the risks. I have seen a lot of people here saying there are no risks running a sports franchise but they are going to need to tell the six franchises that had a negative operating income last year. That accounts for 20% of the league's franchises losing money. At this point, there are risks in purchasing a major league franchise. There seems to be a pervasive myth around here that there is no saturation in this industry. EVERY market has a saturation point and market has it's own economy. When you have an industry that raised the median salary by over 200% during a 15 year period not long ago in this environment it is foolish to think there isn't going to be a correction. Ballplayers act like shareholders that aren't allowed to lose money. Pay us when the money comes in, but when you lose money pay me anyway.

You are not using logic if this is the kind of connection you want to make.

Is it a coincidence that Astudillo has the word STUD inside of it? I think not

I live in a small village that has a couple of watering holes. I was able to "social drink" then walk home in the snow. Funny thing is I was in a good mood! I like Willians, too.....but it almost feels like the guy is being lampooned by the press.

I like WIllians, by the way.

A friend of mine finally landed a new job yesterday after months and months of uncertainty. I don't think I have done shots in a couple of years and I did several + several more last night. A rare ocassion indeed. Ugh

Hard to say Hildy or others like him need to "bounce back" when he only pitched 42 major league innings prior to last season

Yup. Lose.

By the same token, how is not knowing what really happened a good thing? This is the age of information and people in his spot can't quite fly under the radar anymore. If it had to do with some kind of foolish behavior it would help to know. I'll try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but since he's amassed some pretty silly incidents off the field and you wonder if poor decision-making will sabotage his career eventually. I have tried to give him credit for the work he apparently did this offseason. Hard to imagine this didn't involve some stupidity/hijinks on his part. More than likely, information is being suppressed to protect him. Not sure if that is helping him

I'll blame it on the Jamesons. Sorry folks

I'm joking. But seriously...shouldn't we want Berrios to own him?

Not exactly dazzled by the "celebration" How about the guy ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING first? Nice fat body and and hair. Am I supposed to go all in on this cutsie-poo garbage?

If only the owners could have given him another guaranteed million this would have never happened.

And what has the MLPA done for them?

Would be nice to see the MLPA actually advocate for minor leaguers. They can effect change in that realm

SO a lot of the money the owners made didn't necessarily come from the baseball players. In many successful cases it comes from how they operated other areas of the business. Owners are not making money hand over fist in many cases, as seems to be the prevailing thought in this thread (at least up until your post). Six teams had negative operating incomes last year: https://www.forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/#header:operatingIncome The players just play the game. The owners run the business, put up the capital and if they make money by doing deals that go beyond baseball then good for them. They don't necessarily need to take that money and pump it into ballplayer salaries. I would like it if they did, but how about this for a concept.. What if players agreed to donate 2% of their salaries to guys in the high minors so they can make some money? Maybe advocate for them a little more? Seems to me a lot of people are advocating for the players to make every penny and I never hear BOO about minor league players

No thank you. Why look bother analyzing. And when you say things like this: Fangraphs has never advocated Dozier to receive anything approaching $46 mil for a single year of his services What are you really saying about this methodology I need to look at more closely? To what end? If it doesn't serve too deal terms applicable to reality I cannot bother with it. Moreover, how can you use the Michael Brantley example over and over again to give it validity when you say what is in bold above? I will try to answer all your questions but you have ignored all of mine thus far Have a good day. Maybe we can pick this up next week. I have things do as I have an extended weekend and places to go

As great as Mookie Betts was last year are we going so insane as to believe he is worth $83 million for a 1 year deal in the open market?

You are isolating a detail of little consequence and ignoring the fact that I already acknowledged 20 million was Max's alleged value in the market. Why keep pursuing this?

FWIW, he would likely be on the sideline with Manny and Bryce waiting to get his money. Seven years for Max Kepler after last year? The Twins clearly like him and trust him. I can't see him getting that kind of security from an organization that didn't raise him. This contract is unique. We could benefit enormously from it, but I cannot agree with anyone who says he'd get 7 years in the open market. Not until these kinds of contracts for 25 year old guys who hit .224 the season prior become the norm.

I did clearly express this value assumes Max in the FA market so it is perplexing to me why you would feel the need to explain this to me And it is still the average salary. If you want to subtract out all players that are pre-free agent eligible you actually further my case

Player salaries resemble to me the way homes were priced in the mid-2000s. The way the stock market was as we moved toward Y2K. The writing has been on the wall for a while. These contracts just don't work and corrections happen. FanGraphs has a valuation model that needs to be adjusted because in no way does it reflect REALITY when it comes to what players get on the open market as free agents. This begs the question..... How much longer did player salaries need to increase at ridiculous rates? Average player salaries increased by over 100% from 2001 to 2015. Was this supposed to continue until the end of time?

I could care less about the methodology used to arrive at this absurdity. When they are telling me that Dozier "could be worth" 46,000,000 dollars in the open market for a one year deal I stop listening. It has nothing to do with reality no matter how clever and detailed it might be.

A right fielder averages about 2 putouts a game. They can go weeks without having an opportunity to make a great play in even then it isn't a guarantee it's a game changer. Defensive value among major league outfielders really is difficult to pin down. A great outfielder doesn't get to do that much more than an average one, whereas a great hitter has so so many more opportunities to shine. Defense is definitely important, but a single player rarely gets to change games with his glove and Max Kepler isn't that guy to me. I became increasingly concerned with his bat. A .224 average or whatever he hit last year isn't good from any angle. Kind of odd that he gets this contract after that kind of season, but whatever