"not worthy of its own thread" offseason thread

[CardsofSTL]

Can't trust Nightengale

[Jocephus]

Cardinals and OF Randal Grichuk avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $2.6 million contract.
It's a nice first-year arbitration raise for the 26-year-old outfielder, who made $557,000 last season while tallying 22 home runs and 59 RBI in 122 games. Grichuk will serve as the Cardinals' fourth outfielder in 2018, behind starters Dexter Fowler, Tommy Pham, and Marcell Ozuna.
Source: Bob Nightengale on Twitter
Jan 11 - 3:01 PM

[MinorLeagueGuy]

Cardinals and OF Randal Grichuk avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $2.6 million contract.
It's a nice first-year arbitration raise for the 26-year-old outfielder, who made $557,000 last season while tallying 22 home runs and 59 RBI in 122 games. Grichuk will serve as the Cardinals' fourth outfielder in 2018, behind starters Dexter Fowler, Tommy Pham, and Marcell Ozuna.
Source: Bob Nightengale on Twitter
Jan 11 - 3:01 PM

#Ferrari

[Tim]

#Ferrari

I thought that was Joe Kelly Jr

[Big Amoco Sign]

Now trade him.

He can go whiff somewhere else.

[Big Amoco Sign]

How the hell does Russell Martin have more career fWAR than Molina and he's one year younger...?

Surprised me that Posey is already far ahead of him in fWAR too.

[TheoSqua]

How the hell does Russell Martin have more career fWAR than Molina and he's one year younger...?

Surprised me that Posey is already far ahead of him in fWAR too.

WAR always tends to value offense a bit more than defense.

Molina had a season with a wRC+ of 54. fifty four

Posey has never had a wRC+ under 115, and Martin only has three seasons under 100 which were 87,90, 95.

Molina has eight seasons under 100: 77, 71, 54, 86, 97, 84, 81, 94

With offense like that he'd would have to have been playing at an ozzie-esque defensive ability to outpace other good catchers. And while Yadi has been fantastic defensively in his career, he hasn't been that much better than other league bests to compensate for his awful offense.

[Fat Strat]

Biggest surprise of the offseason. I never would have believed that we would bring Grichuk back. Guessing that some of the deals we planned to use him in never materialized, particularly with Tampa Bay and Toronto.

[Famous Mortimer]

everyones favorite cave dameron with a take

The potential culprits are numerous. If you’re inclined to see owners as evil profiteers, it’s easy to talk yourself into a collusion theory. Or this is the consequence of the Players Association accepting a luxury tax that might be acting as a de facto salary cap. Or maybe it’s just that every team has figured out that prices go down as spring training draws closer, so now everyone is trying the same wait-it-out game plan. Or maybe these particular free agents just aren’t that good. Or maybe it’s that next year’s free agents are too good.

Each of those theories seem to have some validity, and I think there’s probably a bit of most of that going on. But I think there’s also an explanation that makes everyone’s passivity perfectly rational: a lack of sufficient divisional competition to create the sort of pressure that justifies high-risk free-agent signings.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/maybe-s ... ff-season/

I'd filter most things that Cameron has written through the knowledge that he's just been hired by the Padres, and wouldn't have been if he didn't consistently put forward a pro-ownership agenda. I don't think the owners are "evil", particularly, but every single one of them is more interested in making a profit than they are about baseball.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Biggest surprise of the offseason. I never would have believed that we would bring Grichuk back. Guessing that some of the deals we planned to use him in never materialized, particularly with Tampa Bay and Toronto.

Before now, wouldn't the receiving team have had to negotiate with Grichuk? Perhaps he's a better commodity with a known price tag.