I doubt it, I think he’s busy managing his Parkinson’s.
And, as a Cub fan, I can warn you that he has a tendency to destroy young pitching arms. Although he DID hire Mike Maddux as pitching coach, so that may offset Dusty’s misuse.
The Astros kind of have a 1B/DH power bat need. Could you imagine Kyle Schwarber hitting in the Juicebox? He’d have Barry Bonds type power numbers. However, Houston would have to totally blow Theo and company away to acquire him.
I haven’t figured out the Cubs yet. I’d like to see them resign Fowler if it’s at the right price and years. But with Bryant, Baez, Castro, Addison Russell, and Rizzo all in the majors, the Cubs have to trade someone to clear up the logjam, or move one of the kids to the outfield. Rizzo stays at first. Russell stays at SS. Keep Castro at 2nd, Baez to 3rd, Bryant to the OF? Not sure. If there’s a trade, it has to be for starting pitching. Castro’s too hit-or-miss to pull in a huge haul, but I’m reluctant to send Baez anywhere, either.
This off-season should be interesting.
Schwarber would be interesting on the Astros, and they do have some depth in pitching. McCullers straight up for Schwarber would be an interesting challenge trade, though I think a potentially top pitcher is probably more valuable than a potentially top DH.
The problem with Schwarber is that his bat dictates that he has to play. He’s too potent to stay on the bench, but I don’t know that his skill set is going to keep him in the NL. He seems like a prototypical DH. But damn, that bat can be impressive.
In a first, Astros outfielder/would-be free agent Colby Rasmus has apparently accepted a qualifying offer of $15.8 million over one year. I think that’s a fair bit more than he would have been paid per year on the open market, so pretty good for him; on the other hand, not bad for the Astros either, who don’t have to worry that they’ll be saddled paying tons to an unproductive player at the end of the contract.
Yes, I think that’s overpaying for Rasmus. And of course he accepted it because he probably wouldn’t have gotten much more than that out of a two year deal elsewhere.
Sometimes you really have to wonder what the Braves are doing. I mean, ok, stockpiling young pitching prospects may work in some occasions, but giving up arguably the best defensive player in baseball who has an affordable contract for a couple of high level pitching prospects when your farm system already has a bunch of pitching prospects? What’s the plan here?
For a minute there, I thought you were talking about last off-season’s Heyward-Miller trade.
Ha! Seriously, though. At least with Heyward he only had one year until hitting the FA market.
The Fan590, the sports radio station owned by Rogers, is already having their talking heads discuss what the Jays could get in exchange for Jose Bautista. They’re already preparing the PR blitz to trade him, as I predicted they would.
Within a month, you’ll see stories emerge and social media seeded with ideas about how he’s not a team player.
Do the Braves have a promising shortstop almost ready to be called up? I assumed it was about money as well as stockpiling talent under team control. The Braves only have to pay Aybar for one year, so that frees up 45 million over the following four years.
There is no disputing Simmons defensive brilliance, but that career .666 OPS is pretty rough.
Nope. The Braves don’t really have anyone promising at SS and while it’s a career .666 OPS, he had a 4.0 WAR last season. And Simmons is cost controlled until 2020. Considering they were asking the Dodgers for Puig and the Mets for Matz & Conforto, this haul is pretty disappointing.
Frankly, I’d have found a way to keep both Heyward last season and Simmons and build a team around Heyward-Simmons-Freeman.
At the risk of hurting his value? I’d rather max my return than make the fans feel like we won a trade.
The message sent to the fan base would be largely ignored by another GM. Baseball insiders would know if the stories sent out for public consumption were horseshit.
I found this trade a little puzzling, too, but let me see if I can present a defense of it:
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Simmons is not a good hitter.
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He is an excellent shortstop but I suspect the WAR numbers probably overstate it a little bit. Simmons isn’t Ozzie Smith, but WAR would have you believe he’s just as good if not better, even though his basic defensive statistics are not especially noteworthy.
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Simmons’s contract is back loaded, so while he is cheap now, he will become pricey later on for a guy who can’t hit much.
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This gives the Braves an opportunity to go outside of the organization in 2017 for a new shortstop.
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To be honest there is no #5. I’m not impressed with either minor leaguer. I don’t get the trade. Braves GM talked about it being an offensive upgrade, which I guess it would be in Erick Aybar was not, regrettably, Erick Aybar. Aybar is 31, has never beed a GREAT hitter, and was certainly not good last year. I’d put down even money Simmons outhits Aybar in 2016.
To be honest, I’d say Simmons is likely as good defensively as Ozzie Smith at this stage in both careers. Not just based on the numbers either. He may be even more impressive in the ‘eye test’ than his defensive numbers indicate.
The Red Sox traded four prospects to San Diego for Craig Kimbrel. I like it because they did need to beef up the bullpen and there are a few good starting pitchers (another area of need) available in free agency.
Rookie of the year: Kris Bryant unanimous, Carlos Correa in a pretty close vote over Lindor. The Correa/Lindor choice for me comes down to whether you think the defensive metrics are reliable enough to be worth a 20-point difference in OPS. I actually went counter-homer and voted Lindor in the awards thread we held a while ago.
The Cy Young Awards went to Dallas Keuchel and Jake Arrieta.
Really, I don’t see how one could have any complaint with either pick. Keuchel, IMHO, was a very clear choice. Arrieta and Greinke either would have been fine choices. Arrieta had as good a second half run as any pitcher in baseball history and that put him over the top so good for him.
Today we will find out the MVP Awards; I predict it’ll be Bryce Harper and Josh Donaldson, so of course they’ll probably shock us and pick someone else.
Donaldson for sure. I’ve heard the old argument that the Nats weren’t even a playoff team, so how valuable could Harper really be? But I do think he’ll win it, and rightfully so.