Around Baseball Offseason Thread

Question on Maeda. I see a lot of opinions above that suggest that he's a #2 starter, that he's clearly better than Alex Wood, etc. I've looked at his numbers with the Carp and they are impressive...but how do we know he'll make the jump and what the discount is? I mean, isn't it all an educated guess extrapolated from scout's opinions and his Japanese numbers? Has anyone looked at Nomo, and Matsuzaka, and Tanaka, and Kawakami, and the fifty other Japanese pitchers and said, okay, he slots here?
 
bravesfanMatt said:
technically, you are right. They can spend more, but have done a good job of reducing the payroll and still keeping future talent. I personally like this move for their team.. the question is will the owners feel the same come July when they are not leading the west. Will they over pay to get what they need, if that is the case.

They have a young enough team and talent in the farm that they could scrap this year, see how the chips fall and go all in next year. But not sure the Dodgers like the idea of just 'Seeing how the season plays out'..

If things fall right they have a shot..but I wouldn't want to go into a season as a legit contender saying if things fall right. So that goes back to my original statement, them having a good off season depends on what their goals were. But since they were in on Zack and tried to trade for Chapman, I would say their goal was a title in 2016.

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My thing is, are the Dodgers in better position this year than last year to contend for a title? I think the answer is a clear no. Their playoff rotation is obviously weakened with losing Greinke. Not being able to re-sign him was a big hit to that team.

Even their hitting has a lot of question marks. Adrian Gonzalez is aging, and is their best hitter. They lost Howie Kendrick who had a great season last year. Seager will be starting at SS, but is he the real deal? 3B Justin Turner, can he repeat last year? Will Puig rebound? Will Grandal rebound from that miserable 2nd half? Same question for Joc Pederson. Do 33 year old Ethier or 34 year old Crawford have anything left?

As you can see, the Dodgers with their huge payroll still have a ton of question marks.
 
NYCBrave said:
My thing is, are the Dodgers in better position this year than last year to contend for a title? I think the answer is a clear no. Their playoff rotation is obviously weakened with losing Greinke. Not being able to re-sign him was a big hit to that team.

Even their hitting has a lot of question marks. Adrian Gonzalez is aging, and is their best hitter. They lost Howie Kendrick who had a great season last year. Seager will be starting at SS, but is he the real deal? 3B Justin Turner, can he repeat last year? Will Puig rebound? Will Grandal rebound from that miserable 2nd half? Same question for Joc Pederson. Do 33 year old Ethier or 34 year old Crawford have anything left?

As you can see, the Dodgers with their huge payroll still have a ton of question marks.
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I think the strategic choice they made is to make fewer financial commitments this year in exchange for greater flexibility going forward. It probably does imply sacrificing some wins in 2016 for more in subsequent years. This is not the same as punting in 2016 since they are in a position on the expected win curve where they have a reasonable chance of making the playoffs. The Yankees seem to be making a similar strategic choice. The two teams this off-season who are making the opposite choice are the Diamondbacks and Angels. To some extent the Blue Jays are also locked into a win-now mode, but mostly due to choices made prior to the off-season.
 
nsacpi said:
I think the strategic choice they made is to make fewer financial commitments this year in exchange for greater flexibility going forward. It probably does imply sacrificing some wins in 2016 for more in subsequent years. This is not the same as punting in 2016 since they are in a position on the expected win curve where they have a reasonable chance of making the playoffs. The Yankees seem to be making a similar strategic choice. The two teams this off-season who are making the opposite choice are the Diamondbacks and Angels. To some extent the Blue Jays are also locked into a win-now mode, but mostly due to choices made prior to the off-season.
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No they are not punting this season. They have too much talent still to punt.. But I don't think they improved their 2016 team. So did they have a good off season. again.. depends on what the goal was. The Braves had a good off season but they did not improve their team per se for 2016.. Well maybe they did.. but not noticeably.
 
I think it interesting in this thread that Wood has gone from a so called potential top of the rotation talent to being an after thought of the upcoming Dodgers rotation. I'm not calling anyone in particular out. The narrative is just funny.

My problem with trading Wood was what they traded FOR which was a player who will likely be way past his prime by the time the Braves are ready to be good again (if he ever has a prime). IMO, Wood was never that great and now it appears that "board think" is beginning to come around to that as well.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
I think it interesting in this thread that Wood has gone from a so called potential top of the rotation talent to being an after thought of the upcoming Dodgers rotation. I'm not calling anyone in particular out. The narrative is just funny.

My problem with trading Wood was what they traded FOR which was a player who will likely be way past his prime by the time the Braves are ready to be good again (if he ever has a prime). IMO, Wood was never that great and now it appears that "board think" is beginning to come around to that as well.
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I don't think it's fair to say "Wood was never that great" because the numbers speak otherwise. No he wasn't going to be an ace, but he proved valuable while with the Braves, and certainly exceeded expectations. I think the main argument is they should have valued him properly and made a team overpay since he's still so young with years left of control.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
I think it interesting in this thread that Wood has gone from a so called potential top of the rotation talent to being an after thought of the upcoming Dodgers rotation. I'm not calling anyone in particular out. The narrative is just funny.

My problem with trading Wood was what they traded FOR which was a player who will likely be way past his prime by the time the Braves are ready to be good again (if he ever has a prime). IMO, Wood was never that great and now it appears that "board think" is beginning to come around to that as well.
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There was a big difference between Wood I and Wood II. That was what concerned me.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
I think it interesting in this thread that Wood has gone from a so called potential top of the rotation talent to being an after thought of the upcoming Dodgers rotation. I'm not calling anyone in particular out. The narrative is just funny.

My problem with trading Wood was what they traded FOR which was a player who will likely be way past his prime by the time the Braves are ready to be good again (if he ever has a prime). IMO, Wood was never that great and now it appears that "board think" is beginning to come around to that as well.
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He is a Dodger now, so naturally he is going to be awful.. only Braves players are supposed to advance and become better.. or that is how I like to see it and you can't convince me otherwise..
 
Horsehide Harry said:
I think it interesting in this thread that Wood has gone from a so called potential top of the rotation talent to being an after thought of the upcoming Dodgers rotation. I'm not calling anyone in particular out. The narrative is just funny.

My problem with trading Wood was what they traded FOR which was a player who will likely be way past his prime by the time the Braves are ready to be good again (if he ever has a prime). IMO, Wood was never that great and now it appears that "board think" is beginning to come around to that as well.
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I generally agree. I'm not as down on Olivera as most, but I wasn't as high on Wood as his most ardent supporters. My biggest beef is that a lot of these Cuban players are a real crapshoot. We'll see how it all ends up.
 
50PoundHead said:
I generally agree. I'm not as down on Olivera as most, but I wasn't as high on Wood as his most ardent supporters. My biggest beef is that a lot of these Cuban players are a real crapshoot. We'll see how it all ends up.
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Completely agree on the Cuban guys. It seems to me that all of them are way overpaid based upon the fact that they ARE Cuban, like that is some kind of magic potion for success. So far, I don't see the success rate as being any better than with the top college kids...and they are paying the top college kids about 1/8th as much.

It makes you wonder what Kris Bryant would have gotten if there was no draft.
 
NYCBrave said:
I don't think it's fair to say "Wood was never that great" because the numbers speak otherwise. No he wasn't going to be an ace, but he proved valuable while with the Braves, and certainly exceeded expectations. I think the main argument is they should have valued him properly and made a team overpay since he's still so young with years left of control.
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I viewed Wood a lot like I viewed Russ Ortiz. He's a guy with some success but has the look of a player whose ceiling is the floor of an elevator coming down and whose longevity is quickly shortening as "B" approaches.
 
I understood the concern about jacking Wood back and forth between the bullpen and rotation, but watching him out of the bullpen, I always thought he was a surer bet there long term than in the rotation. Maybe that's just me and it's not like he hasn't had success as a starter, but he just as the look of a reliever to me for some reason.
 
alex Wood was very good for us. Peraza was a good piece. We had JJ. We gave all of that up for Olivera, a pitcher getting TJ w/o throwing another pitch, Bird, and a draft pick.

Last Klaw chat I saw he called Olivera a fill in guy. And he's 31. I think we fell in love with the Olivera contract and got screwed.

My only hope is that we pull someone amazing with that pick. Or by some miracle Olivera hits ok next year and we can trade him to an AL team for something useful.
 
sturg33 said:
Alex Gordon to the Royals. 4 years 72M. Probably means we're stuck with Markakis
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What a steal for the Royals. They essentially get a player similar in skillset to Heyward, but at a crazy good deal. Im not sure why everyone under values him so much. His total contract is essentially the level of production Gordon has put up the last 2 years.
 
gilesfan said:
What a steal for the Royals. They essentially get a player similar in skillset to Heyward, but at a crazy good deal. Im not sure why everyone under values him so much. His total contract is essentially the level of production Gordon has put up the last 2 years.
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Gordon is a very good player. I won't get into a Gordon v. Heyward, but Gordon is a big bargain at this price.
 
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