2017-2018 Hot Stove

And that city is Montreal.

as a mtler i love that idea but we will let them down too. this city couldn't even support a major junior hockey team (or mlb last time lol) because it's not the montreal canadiens. and we don't have the dosh to build a stadium for a for-profit company as a lovely lil gift. i'd be here for it tho, and i'd be buying a share in a couple of season tickets in a heartbeat. even if that's the team they rolled out :/

Rays just made an alleged local deal? no?

Brooklyn needs a team, and if the Wilpons don't sell/die soon I fully support one.

- two years after receiving a $15.8m qualifying offer from houston, colby rasmus has a minor league deal with the orioles

- astros' forrest whitley, who is probably among the top three pitching prospects in the minors, suspended 50 games for a curiously undisclosed drug violation

wonder if it's an alex reyes violation

50 games is typical for a second alex reyes violation (first gets a warning) but the announcements are generally very formulaic when mentioning the details and this one has none so idk

colby rasmus has a minor league deal with the orioles

i continue to wear my 2012 rasmus jersey with pride. he's a weird dude

2011, that is

@Travis_Sawchik

The crowd predicted 2/$24m for Gomez (Boras client) ... he gets 1y/$4m

(with tampa)

yeah please no baseball in Montreal. the city has a long list of other priorities.

corey dickerson to the pirates

liriano to tigers (1 year, $4 million)

Logan Morrison to Twins

Alex Rodriguez has returned to the Yankees as a special advisor, joining Reggie Jackson, Hideki Matsui and Nick Swisher.

— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) February 25, 2018

? is he doing that in addition to broadcasting? seemed like he had quickly found his niche there

A source said Rodriguez's advisory role won't conflict with his television duties.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/22575840/alex-rodriguez-remains-new-york-yankees-special-adviser

mike napoli has a minor league deal with the indians

-0.5 WAR last year despite hitting 29 homers

tim lincecum to the rangers, supposedly

lucas duda to the royals for $3.5m . . . cheap!

not as cheap as Adrian Gonzalez, apparently

Duda, 32, has a career 121 wRC+. The 28-year-old Hosmer? 111. Duda produced 0.1 fWAR less than Hosmer since 2014. However, each signed much different contracts this offseason

— Travis Sawchik (@Travis_Sawchik) February 28, 2018

paul dejong signs 6-year extension

FanRag’s Jon Heyman tweets that DeJong will be guaranteed $26MM over a six-year term. Goold adds that the deal has a pair of club options and can max out at $51.5MM over an eight-year term. The $26MM guarantee on the extension breaks Tim Anderson’s record (six years, $25MM) for the largest sum ever guaranteed to a player with less than one full year of Major League service time (MLBTR Extension Tracker link).

locking up the age 25-30 seasons is great, and i have no doubt that he'll generate surplus WAR compared to his contract. his ceiling is kind of limited by his (til now) inability to take a walk, though.

Ichiro poised to return to Seattle

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/3/5/17081600/ichiro-suzuki-seattle-mariners-return-yayyyyyyyy

this seems like a bad idea to me

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/22653874/jon-lester-chicago-cubs-trying-jordan-pippen-bounce-unorthodox-attempt-solve-throwing-problem

Lester had a chance to try out the new approach during Sunday's spring training game against the Diamondbacks, when he fielded a comebacker off the bat of Arizona's David Peralta.

But after initially bobbling the ball, Lester bounced a throw past Cubs first baseman Efren Navarro for a two-base throwing error. Lester said after the game that he has been working on the throws with regular first baseman Anthony Rizzo and that Navarro, who is with the Cubs on a minor league deal, was not expecting the unorthodox method.

"I feel bad for the guy today," Lester said. "He had no idea what's going on. He's never been a part of it. With Rizz, probably the surprise wouldn't have been there."

imo they should let him use a giant slingshot

why not just fucking roll it

The yips is some pretty weird stuff. The 30 for 30 that goes into that with Mackie Sasser is really interesting.

rela talk, for the past couple of weeks i have been experiencing the yips but instead of for baseball it is for descending staircases and it is ruining my life

that is all

jon jay on 1-year contract to the royals

it is a little crazy that lincecum and ichiro have gotten major league deals in the current climate

They are both cheap and low risk though.

So’s the 30th guy on the 40 man

yes but they are also bad. you can at least dream on a kid coming up and maybe figuring it out -- a year ago it wasn't clear whether aaron judge was a starter! lincecum/ichiro have a ceiling that's probably below replacement-level

Moustakas (KC) and Logan Morrison (MIN) both sign for $6.5M guaranteed, one year

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/3/8/17032480/mike-moustakas-royals-contract-return

Eric Hosmer signed for more money than Mike Moustakas, Carlos Santana, Logan Morrison, Yonder Alonso, Todd Frazier, Lucas Duda, Carlos Gomez, Curtis Granderson, Howie Kendrick, Eduardo Nunez, Jon Jay, Austin Jackson, Matt Adams, and Adam Lind COMBINED.

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) March 9, 2018

i know there's a lot of chatter about free agency being weird this offseason but this class is the greatest group of potential "i knew it was wrong when i was walking down the aisle" contracts i can recollect.

Which ones, the expensive (hosmer) or the cheap (moustakas)? Or both?

the moustakas thing is really really weird

Re: Ichiro I’d imagine part of the reason is that the Mariners aren’t giving their fans any reason for optimism and nostalgia is a cheap replacement. And one of their outfielders is injured.

cynically, the mariners are probably going to make a fair amount of money off of ichiro's farewell tour regardless of his performance

yeah none of these guys are scherzer or cano or whatever, and you wouldn't want to give any of them what hosmer got, but like . . . lucas duda is a pretty good hitter and i feel confident he can put up 1 WAR this year! and he got a one-year deal worth $3.5m.

adam lind is a verified destroyer of right-handed pitching, hit .303/.362/.513 last year, and couldn't get a big-league deal. why wouldn't someone pay a couple million for that off the bench?

The Lind tepidness might be more related to his off-field character flaws?

xxxxp

i think everyone out there is a pretty major question mark, i mean for example as a Cubs fan I'm remaining optimistic as possible on Darvish but this isn't a situation where he has a history of consistent Cy Young-level performances either, aside from his second season.

i think probably the safest offseason bets in the pool as far as more high-profile types were Cain and J.D. Martinez, i'd expect Cain to basically be as good as he's ever been and maybe even better and Martinez i think is a legit beast though who knows if he's in the middle of a consistent 7-8 year stretch of tearing the cover off the ball or if he's going to wind up more a Jermaine Dye type who peaks very briefly at an MVP level and then comes back down to earth.

lance lynn to twins for 1 year, $12 million (14 with performance incentives). he declined the qualifying offer earlier this offseason, and was expected to get somewhere around 4 years, $56-60 million.

https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201802130/images/headshots/f/f125588e_mlbam.jpg

making his lance face there.

i'm surprised he didn't at least land somewhere for 2 years, $35 million. maybe he had that offer and thought he'd try his luck again next year? weird offseason.

sorry, i meant 2 years, $30