Winter Meetings Thread

[oriolediehard]

20 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I see Angelos as not spending on both.   Each one made 10M last year.

So far it is only a rumor! I will believe it when JA will sign anyone.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well, I’m not super stoked but he’s fine. Some of those numbers you said are misleading, as I showed last week.

A lot of that “drop off” was really just a few bad outings that skew things.  Overall, he’s fine but I don’t think he’s overly exciting either.

When players pitch in one inning bursts you are going to see that type of drop off.  You can't have a string of 5IP 4ER allowed.  You are either going to get a 0 ERA outing or an at least 9 ERA outing.

He got blown up in the playoffs in 2023, he was removed from the playoff roster in 2022.

The O's should be looking to do better.

[wildcard]

17 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

When players pitch in one inning bursts you are going to see that type of drop off.  You can't have a string of 5IP 4ER allowed.  You are either going to get a 0 ERA outing or an at least 9 ERA outing.

He got blown up in the playoffs in 2023, he was removed from the playoff roster in 2022.

The O's should be looking to do better.

Probably want to groom Hall as a closer during the regular season so he can close in the playoffs.

[HakunaSakata]

8 hours ago, interloper said:

Joel Sherman says we're in on Kimbrel. 

https://www.threads.net/@joel__sherman/post/C0f-c0DM76n/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

[Sports Guy]

23 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

When players pitch in one inning bursts you are going to see that type of drop off.  You can't have a string of 5IP 4ER allowed.  You are either going to get a 0 ERA outing or an at least 9 ERA outing.

He got blown up in the playoffs in 2023, he was removed from the playoff roster in 2022.

The O's should be looking to do better.

Of course they should be looking to do better but ownership doesn’t care about that.

Of course, the other side to that is “who is better”? 

[RZNJ]

20 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

When players pitch in one inning bursts you are going to see that type of drop off.  You can't have a string of 5IP 4ER allowed.  You are either going to get a 0 ERA outing or an at least 9 ERA outing.

He got blown up in the playoffs in 2023, he was removed from the playoff roster in 2022.

The O's should be looking to do better.

Agreed but we knew Josh Hader wasn’t coming.  Stephenson is risky.  Hicks is probably not as good as Kimbrel.   I would have preferred taking the risk on the upside play in Stephenson but Elias risk averse strategy has played pretty well so far.

[HakunaSakata]

23 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

When players pitch in one inning bursts you are going to see that type of drop off.  You can't have a string of 5IP 4ER allowed.  You are either going to get a 0 ERA outing or an at least 9 ERA outing.

He got blown up in the playoffs in 2023, he was removed from the playoff roster in 2022.

The O's should be looking to do better.

...and Kimbrel was also temporarily removed the closer role last season and only regained the role after Jose Alvarado, a significantly better pitcher at the time, was placed on the IL.

I also think they should be looking to do better. I'd personally take a better pitcher with less closing experience over Kimbrel in a heartbeat. The only argument I can see for signing him is the possible benefits of adding another veteran presence to the young core.  

[HakunaSakata]

7 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Agreed but we knew Josh Hader wasn’t coming.  Stephenson is risky.  Hicks is probably not as good as Kimbrel.   I would have preferred taking the risk on the upside play in Stephenson but Elias risk averse strategy has played pretty well so far.

I'd take a 27 year old Hicks over a 25 year old Kimbrel all day (and I'm not even a huge fan of Hicks). 

[RZNJ]

Talk about having a source.  Check out this Jon Herman column in the NY Post regarding a potential Soto trade.  Sounds like he was a fly on the wall.

https://nypost.com/2023/12/05/sports/yankees-michael-king-a-key-to-potential-juan-soto-trade/

[Sanity Check]

Just now, HakunaSakata said:

I'd take a 27 year old Hicks over a 25 year old Kimbrel all day (and I'm not even a huge fan of Hicks). 

25 year old Kimbrel was really good, though.

[HakunaSakata]

16 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Probably want to groom Hall as a closer during the regular season so he can close in the playoffs.

Possibly, but Kimbrel doesn't exactly seem like the mentor type to me.  Or maybe he's mellowed out in his old age. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[HakunaSakata]

1 minute ago, Sanity Check said:

25 year old Kimbrel was really good, though.

Whoops. My typo shaved 10 years off his life. If only the secret to aging was that simple!

[RZNJ]

1 minute ago, HakunaSakata said:

I'd take a 27 year old Hicks over a 25 year old Kimbrel all day (and I'm not even a huge fan of Hicks). 

3-4 years of Hicks versus 1 of Kimbrel.  It’s debatable which one is better this year.  I’ll go with the one year contact.

[Sports Guy]

Kimbrel for one year vs Hicks for 4 is an easy decision.  Kimbrel all day long.

Hick is so overrated.

[HakunaSakata]

3 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

3-4 years of Hicks versus 1 of Kimbrel.  It’s debatable which one is better this year.  I’ll go with the one year contact.

If you factor in those years it's definitely closer. I'm not sure why, but I just have a gut feeling that someone is going to give Kimbrel a two year deal. If that's the case then it would really swing my favor to Hicks over Kimbrel.