Hot Stove 2023-2024

Good point but very different story batters to hitters. Yes Sale seems like a cranky old man who wouldn’t bite for this at all, but considering the general case I think if a manager showed a pitcher their last three seasons where they pitched 10/50/100 innings and said “uuuuhhhh hey look buddy, we’d prefer you to pitch those innings in October rather than April so none of this “push through the pain for the team” or “this year is different, at the age of 36 now I will pitch 200 innings no injuries for sure for sure” business…. You’re not going to go over your 100 innings pitched last year whether you like it or not because we want to get a ring and you being healthy will play into that…. Seems like maybe a strategy that could get some buy-in?

*Batters to pitchers

Being traded from a “long shot” to a “literally top mlb ranked team” a big factor too. It honestly doesn’t seem like a hard sell for the Braves at all. “Hey Chris, wanna pitch for the Red Sox, probably pitching no more than 100 innings based on your recent track record let’s all be honest here? Or want to pitch for us, we’ll cap you at that 100, and win a World Series together”. The risk of “what if I could have pitched 150+ innings this season” to the reward of “get a ring, be the post season superstar, have a lower stakes/lower stress regular season, don’t ruin my finite aging body…. I’d take that deal

Analyzing this Seattle/San Francisco trade a bit.

Don't know Robbie Ray and was good in the past but is out for most of this year. This is for '24 and '25 and who knows if he will bounce back. This one is a gamble but the Giants have the money so why not?

For the Giants, Mitch Haniger and Anthony DeSclafani provided nothing as they were never healthy. Giants needed to clear the outfield log jam too. But these were expiring contracts next year and this year.

Meant '25 and '26, we are in the new year apparently.

BREAKING: Outfielder Teoscar Hernández and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in agreement on a one-year, $23.5 million contract, sources tell ESPN. Hernández joins Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow on the new-look Dodgers, who add another All-Star bat to the lineup.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 8, 2024

Deferrals strike again!

Of the $23.5 million in Teoscar Hernández's deal with the Dodgers, $8.5 million will be deferred, to be paid out from 2030 to 2039, sources tell ESPN. The corner-outfield market is tough, and Hernández opted for a big one-year deal with the best team over other multiyear offers.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 8, 2024

it would be so amazing if the dodgers keep losing in the playoffs and then all these bills come due

The sour grapes bite again!

On the bright side for non dodgers fans, I think this takes them to the Steve Cohen tax so you can expect the rest of this off season to be Dodger-free

Also makes it slightly more unlikely that Kershaw comes back…. Though I can see the Dodgers willing to pay the tax for him

I cannot imagine him landing anywhere else.

why not have kershaw, as a little treat

Every year there’s talk about the Rangers. He’s a Texas boy and seemingly wants to retire there. I feel the same but that can mostly be chalked up to wish fulfilment; it could happen

you’re a texas boy?

That last sentence was in response to Thermo Thinwall

FG released updated LAD ZIPS this am and projected the entire pitching staff at 18.4 fWAR for 2024:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-zips-projections-los-angeles-dodgers/

If backdating to 2023, 18.4 fWAR would rate them as the 6th best staff in MLB behind PHI, TBR, SEA, MIN & TOR. 2023 LAD pitchers were 10th at 16.8 so that is a slight improvement.

2024 LAD offense projects to 29.3fWAR (#5 in MLB) which is a significant decrease from 2023 (34.4, #2 behind ATL).

If backdating to 2023, 18.4 fWAR would rate them as the 6th best staff in MLB behind PHI, TBR, SEA, MIN & TOR

i would say if the mean projection (what zips gives you - the median/mean projection out of all the millions of projected seasons it runs) for the dodgers would rank 6th in baseball, that is a very very good pitching staff. if they perform at their projected level, their 50th percentile projection, they'll be one of the staffs in baseball, and in 50% of the projected seasons, the 51st through 100th percentile projected seasons, they do even better than that.

(same with offense - a 50th percentile projection of having the #5 offense in baseball is very excellent - that means they have a 50% chance of having the #1-#5 offense in baseball

another hilarious thing with team projections is that so much depends on how the team is doing at the trade deadline. if they're already good, they'll likely get even better by loading up for postseason. if a team is already sucking badly, they might get even worse if the team goes full rebuild

NEWS: The St. Louis Cardinals are set to announce the hiring of Chaim Bloom to the front office in an advisory role, sources tell The Athletic. The Cardinals had been linked to the former Red Sox exec dating back to the beginning of the offseason. #STLCards

— Katie Woo (@katiejwoo) January 8, 2024

Looking back on 2023, 2022 and 2021, dodgers always overshot their fangraph projected win total, even when it was as high as 99 they totalled 106 in 2021, and in last years 91 projection they hit a round 100 (the pad’s also were projected to win 91 last year). I bring it up to say, Dave Roberts is an absolutely incredible regular season manager, the whole managerial staff + front office really, and those factors don’t get applied to zips projections. There weren’t any blockbuster trades last season to give the dodgers 9 extra wins, but the team keeps finding ways to make the projections look Uber-conservative. I didn’t realise it till now but I’ve always looked at these projections and thought for the Dodgers “add another 5 war to pitching and another 5 to hitting somewhere on average and that’ll be about where they’ll end up” which isn’t too far off base.

On another note: the dodgers were insanely full of holes at the end of last season. Maybe had one legit okay healthy starter (rookie bobby miller, but even he imploded towards the end of season), and a lineup that kinda died after 1-6. Dodger fans were calling it the worst team of the Friedman era before the season started, but with an understanding that it was for the purpose of keeping the coffers stocked up for the Ohtani off season, so no ill will meant in the claim. They filled some (some) of those holes with this off-season, but even those gargantuan moves haven’t yet made them a definitively better team than the 2017-2022 dodgers (sans 2018, they were pretty splotchy that year).

https://Twitter.com/JimBowdenGM/status/1744915164476936406?s=20

According to club source #Cubs deal with Imanaga is something close to 2 yrs 30 can grow to 4 yrs 60 and can even reach 80 m with multiple opt outs ...deal is Very Complicated. Player/Team Options/Escalators…etc but thats the general ball park agreement

— Jim Bowden⚾️🏈 (@JimBowdenGM) January 10, 2024

Seems like a great deal

Imanaga signing is really strange. The AAV isn’t that high, for one thing, and it’s so close to his deadline which needs to include a medical? SF would certainly have paid more for him than that bearing in mind they have money and really no pitching atm, plus Oracle would flatter his numbers a lot (a lefty pitching in Oracle isn’t as protected as they once were but Triples Alley still eats a lot of homers). That would be ideal for a fly ball guy.

It feels like a small move for the Cubs themselves, who haven’t done anything with free agents. I don’t know. It feels weird.

Actually this whole free agent class is underwhelming. Loads of the top guys still out there, most of the contracts given out so far are short.

lmao

Jon Heyman said on @670TheScore that an Imanaga suitor was willing to double the Cubs' contractual guarantee. He chose Chicago.

— Steven (@GoCubs49) January 10, 2024

Here is the exact clip for anyone curious.

Heyman actually said “more than double.” pic.twitter.com/CuApmyu4jU

— Steven (@GoCubs49) January 10, 2024

maybe he heard there's an alamo drafthouse across the street from wrigley field now

i don't really know what the cubs' plan is ... the counsell hiring seemed to suggest some further big spending and then they've done almost nothing. i'm guessing they're still trying to get bellinger back (and will probably overpay) and hoping the NL central stays weak, but i wouldn't bet on the cardinals being as bad this year

i guess in hindsight the counsell hiring was more opportunistic than phase 1 of an ambitious plan

Cardinals are definitely not as bad this year, though that Palacios trade seemed unpopular. Wondering if the Cubs want Stroman back, but not at his price.

so they'll sign bellinger and stroman and be ... approximately as good as they were last year. cool.

I mean they wildly undershot their X-W/L, had a better run differential than the brewers and even with their crazy W-L underperformance, they were still one win away from the wildcard. Running it back and hoping for a regression to the mean on W/L with their new (much better) managerial hire honestly isn't the worst plan.

All that said, I fully expect the Brewers to turn on the burners every game with the Cubs this season and really sock it to them. They are going to be some fun games

hoping the NL central stays weak, but i wouldn't bet on the cardinals being as bad this year

the NL central will definitely stay weak, and even a ten-game improvement only gets the cardinals to .500

i mean, the cardinals have lovely uniforms and the Best Fans In Baseball, but they're not immune to sucking just because they haven't in quite a while

That would be true except I attended a devil magic gathering last night and a lot of weird stuff from the woods entered the stew.

Cardinals will make the WS but not win it in 2024

I would not have guessed that the other team that offered Imanaga more was the Pirates?

The Pittsburgh Pirates also had some interest in Imanaga, according to sources, but ultimately the lefty chose Chicago, where he has been based since Christmas.

pretty surprising number. i guess perfect storm for the Cubs in that maybe all the teams that are set to spend have either already spent (Dodgers) or are looking to fill other gaps (Jays). cut it as close as possible to the signing window, so maybe not enough time for fence sitting teams to figure things out (Yankees)? and i guess this whole TV contract debacle has put the chill on spending for a lot of mid market teams?

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39287711/sources-cubs-acquire-michael-busch-4-player-trade-dodgers

https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2023/10/24/23928402/breaking-down-offseason-targets-shota-imanaga

this gets into his hr/9 which partially explains the low contract. Other NPB pitchers that have come over have a hr/9 of .25~. Imanaga has a hr/9 of 1.0. Other pitchers have their .25~ shoot up to 1.0+ when they get to MLB. So there is some legitimate fear Imanaga could get absolutely torched on the long ball. If he can figure out a way to keep his long ball stats the same as they were in the NPB then great, absolute steal of a contract for the cubs. But that hypothetical seems plenty unlikely

^^Dodgers needed one extra space on the 40-man for Teoscar but they just opened two extra spaces with that trade..... Scratch my post about no more Dodgers moves this off-season

Rays lock up McLanahan for 2 years/$7.2M

Could this be... dare I say it... their year?

If he stays healthy I guess? But they’ve lost a few players and not made many moves.

I uhhh….. think that one was a joke

Or was it...? ...?

...?

Steve I need to know if you have a chapter in your injuries notebook dedicated to Tampa pitchers and their pulled pork arms

The real joke is that the Rays could trade a bag of peanuts for a smelly sock in the off-season and would still end up being one of the trade-winners with a locked post-season spot before April is finished.
Those pesky bastards are unstoppable

Tis the season

Star outfielder Juan Soto and the New York Yankees are in agreement on a one-year, $31M contract, sources tell ESPN. Soto sets a new record for an arbitration-eligible player, beating Shohei Ohtani's $30M last year. Soto will be a free agent after '24. @Joelsherman1 was on it.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 12, 2024

Ok

Right-hander Marcus Stroman and the New York Yankees are in agreement on a contract, sources tell ESPN. Stroman, 32, was an All-Star with the Cubs in 2023 and had a great first half but struggled down the stretch and finished with a 3.95 ERA.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 12, 2024

I can't remember if he's ever started a game back at Rogers since leaving; if not, and under the assumption he will this year, that'll be something to see.