2024-2025 offseason

[phins]

Ha! So we actually got a higher draft pick this year?? #5 baby

@phins Lay it on us man, tell us good news about the abundance of riches that await.

A baseball draft will change a lot between now and the time it takes place, but this is a pretty solid draft.

Lots of college players with real talent up top. At this time last year, many people would've said there's a Harper/Strasburg type talent in it, but that talk has cooled a bit. Ethan Holliday (yes, another one) is still talked about in some circles as the #1 guy, but not like it was a year ago.

He's grown, tightened up physically, and demonstrated swing and miss issues. Immense power and will have to play a corner. Some chance it's even 1B. He's a guy to dream on.

Jamie Arnold is a LHP from Florida State. He's a legit arm on the Hagen Smith scale currently. There's a RHP from UC-Santa Barbara that is a stud.

At 5, a strong chance for a 50 prospect or higher, which is generally a top-100 prospect.

[mikechamp]

Sasaki's agent held a press conference today and shared some high-level insight. Interpret how you want:

Agent Joel Wolfe On Roki Sasaki’s Free Agency

Agent Joel Wolfe of Wasserman held court with the media at this week’s Winter Meetings in Dallas to discuss a variety of topics, headlined by an overview of the plan for newly posted right-hander Roki Sasaki. MLBTR was on hand as Wolfe discussed Sasaki, the 23-year-old ace of Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines, who is now eligible to negotiate with all major league teams.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/ ... arket.html

[Magneto2.0]

Red Sox sign Walker Buehler to 1 year/21 Million dollar deal

[TGantz]

How are teams not jumping at Fedde $8M or Matz $12M?

Hell, there's a good chance that Mikolas provides more value at $18M when he pitches 100 more innings than Buehler.

[ghostrunner]

Didn’t realize the Dodgers were at 110% luxury tax.

[cardsfantx]

Didn’t realize the Dodgers were at 110% luxury tax.

their luxury tax penalty is damn near what our payroll will be lol (if we can trade who we're trying to)

[phins]

How are teams not jumping at Fedde $8M or Matz $12M?

Hell, there's a good chance that Mikolas provides more value at $18M when he pitches 100 more innings than Buehler.

Teams aren't really looking at it like this any more. Bulk innings, or innings just to cover innings have lost much to most of their value to contending teams.

What they value- or their actions say they value- are upside innings in October. Like Buehler gave last year.

Giving horse crap awful innings with no walks is not really valuable any more. The Cardinals were holding on to a dying strategy.

[MrCrowesGarden]

[quote=TGantz post_id=2135832 time=<a href="tel:1734971472">1734971472</a> user_id=411]
How are teams not jumping at Fedde $8M or Matz $12M?

Hell, there's a good chance that Mikolas provides more value at $18M when he pitches 100 more innings than Buehler.

Teams aren't really looking at it like this any more. Bulk innings, or innings just to cover innings have lost much to most of their value to contending teams.

What they value- or their actions say they value- are upside innings in October. Like Buehler gave last year.

Giving horse crap awful innings with no walks is not really valuable any more. The Cardinals were holding on to a dying strategy.
[/quote]

I wanted to find the nice way to say this. I’m glad you did it.

[Popeye_Card]

I don’t think it is a dying strategy. It is just a strategy that needs to be paired with a good offense. If you pair a mediocre offense with a mediocre pitching staff, you can probably figure out where that will lead. A team like Baltimore should absolutely be looking at stabilizing their pitching floor.

But guys like that also aren’t super valuable in an offseason trade, when you could just sign a Gibson type instead.

[MrCrowesGarden]

Kyle Gibson had a very Kyle Gibson-esque season last year. Nothing out of the ordinary for his career. Still a free agent and probably not going to be snatched up by anyone any time soon.

At this time in 2023 he had been a Cardinal for more than a month because no one else loves mediocre innings quite like them.