Three-team trade sends Edwin Ancurna—Encanoci—Arcanac—er, Encarnacion to the Mariners and Carlos Santana back to the Indians.
(With apologies to Gary Thorne)
His record against the Yankees doesn’t mean much.
Having sdaid that, Joe Kelly just isn’t worth a big commitment. Nothing about him suggests he’s worth a multi-year deal; he is not an unusually good relief pitcher by any measure at all, isn’t young, and there is no statistical marker to suggest he will magically get better. He pitched great in the World Series, but that’s one week. Guys like Kelly are available for much more reasonable prices.
As to the Edwin trade, so let me get this straight - the Mariners have been hacking payroll like crazy to rebuild, so they went and traded for an expensive 36-year-old DH? Huh?
They’re apparently flipping him to Tampa.
The scuttlebutt on Morton is that Astros Mgmt is not convinced he will make it through another year injury free. Particularly not if they have to risk either 15 million a year or 17.8 million a year (the amount of the Qualifying Offer the Astros could have given him). IMHO, they’d have to be absolutely convinced that his arm will grenade sometime around June or July, in order to not have made a QO towards him. As it is, they have to replace 3/5 of their starting rotation, since Keuchel’s gone and McCullers is out with Tommy John surgery until 2020.
Given that, I’d have made the QO 10 times out of 10, and faded the injury risk, rather than try to replace 3 guys instead of 2 (who were good for 500 IP at about a 3.3 ERA and a 1.2 ish WHIP, IIRC.) with bullpen pitchers or rookies. Especially when SP is what carried the Astros last year. Of course, it could just be as simple as the Astros are a medium market team, with significant players approaching the end of arbitration and beginning of FA, and ownership just wants to save money now in order to later deal with trying to retain guys like Cole, Springer, and Correa.
I have another question for you all. I think we may have covered a bit of it in the past, but here goes: whose WAR calculation for pitching is considered decent these days, and what goes into calculating it? I bring this up in light of the previous Astros discussion. One of the candidates to go into the starting rotation for 2019 is Collin McHugh. He did very well in the BP for 2018 and often was the only reliable arm there.
In 2014 he came in something like 5th for RoY voting, throwing about 150 innings at a 2.7 ish ERA and a 1.0 ish WHIP. According to BBRef, this was good for 4.0 WAR. Fangraphs had him at 3.2 WAR. In 2016, he pitched about 180 innings, at around a 4.3 ERA, with a 1.4 WHIP. BBRef had him at 1.0 WAR. Fangraphs at 3.0 WAR. WTF?! Same ballpark, same team.
I get that BBRef’s defense calculations are a little spotty when it comes to dWAR, and that Fangraphs’s are supposed to be better. I am having difficulty though with the idea that you can have an ERA 1.5 greater, a WHIP 0.4 greater, and that only penalizes you about 0.2 WAR.
No argument there. I’ve posted two comments in the last couple of pages to the effect that Kelly often gets into trouble in relief, despite his blazing speed.
Michael Brantley signed with Houston but otherwise the free agent market has been relatively quiet. Sounds like it’s still pretty wide open for Harper, maybe the Phillies are the favorite, but there are a ton of teams rumored to be interested and it seems like more every day. Today I saw articles about why the Mariners and Twins should sign him.
Cubs sign Daniel Descalso to a 2-year, $5mil deal with a club option for 2021.
Donnie Murphy signs with Colorado
Who?
Oops. Daniel Murphy. Dunno where I got Donnie.
Dodgers deal Puig, Wood and Kemp. Off to the Reds in exchange for Homer Bailey, who expects to be released.
Basically a cost-cutting trade that opens up the outfield for going after Harper, for example.
I expected a trade like this, but expected the Dodgers to get some pitching in return, not someone like Bailey.
Sounds like the Dodgers. Trade one bad teammate, big bat for another ‘big bat’ (Harper’s bat hasn’t been that big lately), bad teammate that’s more expensive. And they wonder why the Series stays out of reach…
Here’s what I said in a different thread on this topic:
Seems like the Dodgers, purely on a player-skill basis, got hosed. Yeah, Bailey will get released. But the other two prospects involved aren’t nearly what LA gave up, especially with the extra money they sent to Cincinnati.
It’s gotta be a salary dump for the Dodgers. They needed payroll relief and an outfield position open if they want to seriously pursue Bryce Harper.
I’m surprised the Reds did this move, unless they plan on trading one or both somewhere else. Or maybe they’ve already ceded the division, and want to hang on to Kemp and Puig for a possible trade-deadline move for prospects
CC Sabathia has heart surgery.
Sabathia had a stent inserted to correct an arterial blockage. He’s supposed to be ready to go come spring training, but it seems unusual. I can’t remember a professional athlete having any type of heart surgery and returning to the field of play. I know baseball is different (just look at CC, lol), but still. Now more than ever the Yankees need another well above average starter in order to compete with the Red Sox, Rays, Astros and whoever else.
I really, really don’t want Machado. If Andujar had managed to be a serviceable fielder and Didi didn’t wreck his elbow, it probably wouldn’t happen. A series of unfortunate facts.
Or they think they can make a playoff run right now. If it doesn’t work out and they’re headed for another 90-loss season, they could trade both for minor league sub-phenoms.
I’m just glad the Reds did SOMETHING to get better (unlike the staid, boring, Chevy Lumina driving Bengals owner Mike Brown).
This move has obvious potential for the Reds offense. Adding two .290 outfielders that his 25 dingers a year and 90 RBI’s? Yes please.
Rumor has it that the Reds are now in hot pursuit of Cory Kluber…and we already got Wood in the Dodgers deal as well. so our rotation has been beefed up as well.
Lots of talent…we’ll see I guess.
Yeah, Machado about nothing.
It’ll be fun when the Yankees sign Machado and their fans pretend they’re disappointed.
And even funnier when Machado wilts under the booing and scorn those moron Yankee fans reign down on him the first time he doesn’t hustle. NY is probably the second worst place he could wind up on a long term contract…behind only Philly.
So… you’re pro not hustling?