Sports Guy

Well first of all, how are you defining an impact starter? I would guess you didn’t think Bradish would make an impact. I think out of Povich or McDermott that one of them can give us good enough starter innings. How much of an impact? Who knows. Ceiling is definitely higher with them than Kremer though. Is Kremer an impact guy. Did you think he would be 2-3 years ago? Now, a guy like Luis DeLeon? High impact potential there. And we will see with guys like Baumeister, who we have seen so little of so far. You don’t have to spend 9 figures to invest in pitching. You can trade for it. That’s an investment. You can make more sensible FA signings.

The rotation will be homegrown too…with a sprinkling in of a 2-4 year type FA deal, ala Bassitt, Gray, Eovaldi, etc… I think the thing people have to remember is the Intl FA side of things. They will bare some fruit from that eventually…and maybe very soon. But this is also why you move guys like Santander a year early..or Mullins or Mountcastle..guys that you shouldn’t pay arb 2 and especially arb 3 money for. Let someone else buy into those years and obtain arms that way.

I think the whole key to this is Elias, not Rubenstein and I think that’s the part everyone is missing. And I don’t think Elias would sign off on a deal like that.

I don’t see the point. By and large, I think these extensions are very overrated by fans. I think it gives you a nice, warm and fuzzy feeling that your favorite players are locked in but for the team, unless you are getting a big discount, they don’t make a ton of sense. For a pitcher, who you have for another 4 years after this one, I don’t see it making sense unless he’s signing for real cheap. (Ie, I’m getting 2 FA years for 25M a year or less) If I’m getting that, I do it. But I think GRod has TJ surgery sometime in the next 3 years, so I’m really wary about it.

The problem with Adley is that you are going to have to extend him until he’s 33-35 years old. His bat is good but not great…or to say it a different way, I think we will want a better bat at first or DH than what 32-35 y/o Adley gives you. I will still extend him because I think he’s the most important player on the team and will stay that way for a long time but he’s a distant third for me because of his age and position.

I will keep saying it but either say no to an extension if the right deal is on the table. Im also not sure I agree he’s the best..he is today but not sure that will be the case long term.

I think the assumption people have is that since this ownership group has more money that they would be “ok” with a contract that goes bad. I tend to doubt that but maybe they are more willing to take that risk and if it blows up in their face, not allow it to hurt how they do business.

Gunnar, Holliday, Adley and no thanks to Burnes in that order.

Something I see from many people is that we should extend Burnes. The argument is, well we have different owners and we think they will spend and the team can afford to do it on occasion, with Burnes being the type of guy you do that for. Another argument, which I have made in the past, is that when your team has so many cheap/high surplus value players for so many years that you can take advantage of that by signing a larger deal that perhaps you normally wouldn’t sign. This is kind of the same effect as a star QB on a rookie contract. However, even if you have those things going for you, is that reason to sign a contract that is very likely to blow up in your face over the long haul? For me, if Burnes was 2-3 years younger, I would really consider the long term deal even though I hate them for a pitcher but if you told me I could get 2-3 CY caliber years and 2-3 good years, I would the take 2-3 mediocre or worse seasons and just treat them as a sunk cost. But at age 30, I’m not sure you can get those 4-6 really good years out of him. That combined with the injury risk would cause me to pass on extending Burnes or signing him as a FA. I don’t think ownership would change how I would look at these things and I’m fairly confident it won’t change Elias either. Please note that I’m not talking about extensions for pre arb guys in this thread. This is talking the merits of larger FA (or walk year) contracts.

Vegas has bets on fWAR?

Yep. That surprised me too. I think the twitter response is more representative of reality to be honest. Basically, it’s a toss up imo. I felt he would be a 3.5-4 WAR guy this year but he didn’t come up on OD and he has struggled early on. So, that may be a little lofty but I don’t think it’s going to be off by much, if anything, at all.

I didn’t try to give him away for a bag of balls but I would have happily traded Kremer…and I still would happily trade him. Of course, I also wanted to trade Kremer while upgrading on him with a guy like Cease, so you need to make sure you don’t leave out the complete context of the decision making.

The poll I did on twitter received 102 votes and it ended up 53% over and 47% under.

It’s getting to the point where I’m going to be surprised when GRod gives up even 4 runs in a start. Its obviously going to happen but I think he has reached that point of expecting an ace level start every time out.

What is the ranking Moose? Is Sarris saying Burnes is the best and GRod is the 6th best overall starter or is it Stuff+?