My plan: Sign Judge, put Stanton back in left and empty the farm for Ohtani.
Even with Judge, the Yankees offense can’t carry the dead weight of Trevino, IKF and Donaldson. Not to mention Hicks.
Hicks has to go. That is too dead of a dead spot. If you have to eat the salary it is time to do so.
Donaldson is tricky as the best option for third is DJ then and Oswaldo Cabrera is the other choice. I could live with that but moving Donaldson will be near impossible I think. Maybe if a team loses their 3B and the Yanks add some money to the trade?
Do you know what the Angels are likely to get for Ohtani? They’ll probably expect 3 top 100 prospects minimum. I suspect Torres might also need to be included. All this for a 1 year rental at $30m?
An extension would be required to seal the deal. A pipe dream, I know. Ohtani would solve a lot ot teams shortcomings, on both sides of the ball.
1B is safe with Rizzo. Good signing there.
2B gotta stay with Torres. Seems to get timely hits, something the team needs
SS Put Peraza there, let IKF be a utility sub
3B If he’s healthy, let DJ play there. Donaldson is well past his expiration date.
LF If Judge comes back, let Stanton and Cabrera take turns
CF Bader, no matter what else
RF Gotta sign Judge, else Stanton or an acquisition
C Trevino and Higgy are both quality defenders, but neither is an offensive threat. I don’t have a problem with staying the course until the prospects mature.
P- starting pitching I think is solid enough- I’ll take Cole, Cortes, Severino, Schmidt plus one other. The bullpen needs a healthy Holmes and an absent Chapman and Boone to learn to leave well enough alone if someone has a strong 8th inning and not bring in someone from the bullpen to blow the game.
If the Yanks are stuck with Donaldson, then sign Trea Turner, trade Gleyber (it would hurt, but he’s a 4 WAR guy with two years of control) for either a starter or two relievers. I don’t have faith in Schmidt, Nestor is a five inning pitcher (and very good at it), and Sevy hasn’t proved durable, yet. Put DJ at second, his best defensive position.
Oh yeah, forgot about Montas. Maybe Blake can work some magic. Crap, Blake is a free agent too, unless they re-signed him already.
Today is Ken Griffey Jr.’s birthday, making him at least the 2nd best outfielder born on November 21 in Donora PA.
While the possibility of his being healthy for enough starts to make a a difference in any one season can’t be entirely excluded, the Texas Rangers’ signing DeGrom to a 5-year, $185 million deal seems insane.
It’ll be hilarious if he continues to average 13 starts a year.
Which is actually a very safe over/under bet for the entirety of this contract.
IT’s a HORRIBLE deal. Maybe Texas has lots of money to burn, I don’t know - if you’re rich enough, what difference does it make, it’s a free resource in the MLB system - but the odds they will get $185 million worth out of this are very remote. DeGrom is made of glass and he’s already 35 years old.
Texas spent $500 million on their middle infield last year, too. Semien and Seager actually played very well, but they still lost 94 games, so this team is a lot more than 19 starts of Jake DeGrom from being a serious contender.
Musial was fortunate to get out of Donora before this happened.
Fun fact: Ken Griffey Sr.'s father Buddy played on the same Donora High School baseball team as Stan Musial.
It’ll be interesting if new pitching coach Mike Maddux has a rabbit up his sleeve to deal with deGrom, but I agree - it’s a terrible deal. I was talking with my friend who is a big Mets fan, who’s upset they lost JDG, but it’s a good thing. I put the over/under on 85 starts over the 5 year contract, and there’s no way he’s worth it (aside from the fact that baseball owners have far more money to spend than they actually do). I’m sure Cohen will back the money truck up to Verlander, Rodon and Senga’s accountants and quickly fill the 15 start hole deGrom’s departure left. (To be fair, the Mets rotation is really thin at the moment, and they do need to make a splash).
Fred McGriff was selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday, as a unanimous choice of 16 members of the Hall’s “contemporary committee,” which considered eight players whose contributions were primarily after 1980.
No other player reached the 75% threshold for admission; Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens each received fewer than four votes.
McGriff, who’d topped out at 40% of votes when he was considered by the broader BBWAA panel, hit 493 career home runs, including hitting 30+ HRs in a season for five different teams.
Don Mattingly got the next highest number of votes. It’s old hat to mention that his peak was HOF-worthy, but cut short due to injuries. He may slip in with this new committee. I never thought of McGriff as a HOFer. Good, steady player. Not dominating.
Agreed – excellent player, consistent performer, but not quite at the level where I would have expected him to make the Hall. The “Hall of Fame Statistics” section of his Baseball Reference page seems to indicate that his stats were, at best, right on the cusp of “likely HOFer” (and, of course, he’s now in).
My suspicion (and as discussed in the ESPN article) is that he made it in because of his consistency, character, and lack of controversy; I also suspect that, especially compared to Schilling, Clemens, etc., he’s well-liked by the former players and team executives who make up the majority of the panel.
As a Blue Jays fan I’m obviously happy for Fred, but he is way down the list of Hall of Famers. He was a good player for a long time, but his career numbers are a bit inflated by the era in which he compiled a lot of them.
Early in his career he was putting up some impressive years but after 1992 the offense started really inflating, and it kept his numbers up. Take 2000; he hit .277 with 27 bombs and 106 RBI. That looks really good, but consider this; he was only 10 percent better than the average hitter at ANY position, and McGriff was a mediocre first baseman. In truth he wasn’t really helping the Rays at all. Everyone thought Vladdy Guerrero was a disappointment in 2022 batting .274 with 32 homers and a lower on base percentage than Fred in 2000, but in fact Vladdy had a WAY better year. Miles better.
Again, Fred was a really, really good player, and this choice wasn’t anywhere near as terrible as the Harold Baines choice, but even without getting into the Bonds/Clemens thing, there are a LOT of guys whose qualifications are just as good or better. A lot. If Fred McGriff is in, there is no rational reason to leave out John Olerud or Will Clark. Bobby Bonds was just as good a player, and so were Dwight Evans, Lou Whitaker, and Vada Pinson.
Shortstop Trea Turner, who’d been traded by the Nationals to the Dodgers in mid-2021, is heading back to the NL East; he has reportedly signed an 11-year, $300 million contract with the Phillies.
Huh. Okay.
I didn’t have Trea Turner on my “$300 million guys” list.
Seems like another round of player salary inflation is going on.
I’m scared to see what Judge is going to get. It is looking like it will be a 9 year deal.