Sounding like Ozuna is going to end up on the Cards

Yeah, looks like for a package involving Sandy Alcantara and some lesser prospects. I like the move. As much as Stanton is a stud, I think I'd rather have the younger and cheaper Ozuna (who still hit 37 bombs with a .924 OPS).

I'm really worried that the ball will change again and the HR numbers will drop league wide. I wouldn't want to commit much money to guys that had career years in 2017.

Yeah, Ozuna is amazing. Bummed the Giants' farm is so thin they couldn't get him - he's exactly perfect for what the Giants need.

Im hearing Piscotty to the As

Cards OF is clogged. Like 10 deep. They are not done by a long shot.

Yeah, but Ozuna hit .312 last year as well and plays great defense - so he's not just power. At an arbitration deal of around $10 mil for next year (and then under control for 19 as well), it seems like a pretty solid move. If he does really well next season, they can try to extend him. Worst case, he comes off the books after 19.

Yeah, I was speaking more generally. Some people are going to cash in this year and the revert back to 2016 stats and look like busts.

Im surprised they would go away from a juiced ball. MLB is always talking about getting fans and keeping them. I know they realize scoring and home runs attracts the average fan.
Why would they go away from that?

They might not. The problem is that it's an unknown as to how juiced the ball will be. It makes things very unpredictable.

I like it! Stanton was a ton of $$$$$ so I hope we are not done. We need a closer badly and probably another SP at the very least.

Cards just traded Piscotty to the A's for SS Yairo Munoz and 2B Max Schrock. Munoz hit hit .300/.330/.464 in a season spent at Class AA and Class AAA. He hit 13 home runs this past year, drove in 68 runs, and played 112 games. MiLB.com ranked him the 13th-best prospect in the Oakland A's organization.

Seems like a solid move. Piscotty was going to be a bench player with a history of injuries (and a new $33 mil contract). I'd rather use his money on an infielder like Evan Longoria.

Totally agree.

Ozuna - Fowler - Pham (looking like a good OF there)

If we can end up pulling off Grichek, C Kelly and some prospects for one of Archer/Colome and Longoria - I will be thrilled.

These Marlins trades are quite comical. I feel bad for the city of Miami right now.

They have not managed to get a single top 100 prospect in any of these trades. Seems like they were just rushing to get rid of players. Had they taken their time I would think they could have gotten a better ROI.

I think the Yanks will probably pull off a Josh Harrison/ Gerrit Cole combo. The pirates would probably like to have Clint Frazier and then could flip Cutch somewhere for a few more kids.

I like Frazier, but that trade makes some sense, though the Yanks have two solid IF prospects that may be ready to step in. Of course here they don't bother to try and sign Todd Frazier to open up room for Gleyber as the utility guy, or outright starter at 3B.

I doubt we trade Kelly. He is the heir apparent. And with Matheny as manager, he will stay. Maybe Yadi to 1st?

Im hoping for 2 more big bats. Longoria and Machado?

Cards have an offer on the table for Machado. Hope its a good one.

Piscottys mom just diagnosed with ALS. She is in the Bay area. Classy move by the Cardinals to get him closer to home.

They could deal Andujar and Clint Frazier and a pitcher prospect for Cole/Harrison and have Gleyber for second with Torryes and Wade also around. Harrison could play 3rd or second or just play 3-4 positions. He's cheaper than Todd Frazier and not signed as long.(Frazier will probably require 3-4 years)

Ready to abandon my Mets fandom. Might as well just jump on the Yankees bandwagon. My dad was a lifelong fan, and I go to enough AA Yankee games.

That would be a pretty solid trade as well. Lose some power, but Stanton more than makes up for that and I think it makes the Yankees much better defensively.

They have debt payments coming due soon. They have to get these assets off the books in order to make payroll.

Call me puzzled but very little of this makes much sense to me. Why did the Marlins ever think they could afford that outrageous contract in the 1st place? Why did the new owners negotiate a deal in which the balance sheet was upside down and forced them into dealing assets or risk defaulting on payments so soon?

I mean Forbes values the Marlins at 940 million and they sold for 1.2 billion. In all probability the franchise will be worth 10 times that in 20 years but this franchise is being set back 5-10 years with all of these dealings. Will new ownership even want to deal with this headache for 5 more years?

Loria never thought he could afford that contract. Loria also knew he would never have to pay out that contract either. He had to sign Stanton to that contract though. The Loria group said for years that the reason they could not spend money on the team was the horrible stadium deal. The stadium was also given as the reason no one would go to the games. The promise was that with a new stadium, the Marlins would increase payroll. The Stanton contract did just that.


Good question and one that I would love to hear a non-nefarious answer to.

One of the local sports guys did a breakdown on what Loria put in and what he got out of owning the Marlins. Here is a quick breakdown:


Now you would think that after this, MLB would make sure that whoever bought the team actually had the funding to back the team and had a plan to put competent people in charge of operation. The new Marlins owners had to take out a loan in order to meet the purchase price. Derek Jeter is in his first six weeks running the baseball and business operations along with Mike Hill who was a part of the last administration.

They didn't care about Frank McCourt buying the team, they just didn't let him gut the team like he wanted to.

I don't know - 35% of their yearly salaries were in Dee Gordon and Stanton. Is that really a great move for a team? Gordon had suspension and injury issues while Stanton is coming off his best year and probably will regress a bit (never hit over 37 HR in his career before 2017). I don't think it's a terrible idea to move those contracts to get some flexibility for the future. This team isn't winning anything in the next 2-3 years - so why pay two guys inching closer to 30 elite money for their position? The one who is a little more questionable is Ozuna as he is still under control for between 10 and 16 mil via arb for two seasons. But, maybe they were scared he would walk and like Alcantara and Sierra as prospects. Either way, I can see the logic.

This isn't unlike what Houston did when it sold off Roy Oswalt, Hunter Pence, Michael Bourn, Brett Myers, Carlos Lee and JA Happ over a couple seasons to reset. They key will be how Miami drafts and selects prospects for these trades. Winning 70-75 games with Stanton and some other vets isn't the best way to rebuild.

Finally, the reason they couldn't get much return for Stanton was because of the no-trade and the backloaded contract. Stanton would only go to the Astros, Cubs, Dodgers and Yankees. Had he agreed to go to St. Louis or San Fran, they could have gotten a higher return. Even the Dodgers were offering more prospects, but they didn't want to take back as much of the contract - so the Yankees ended up as the only real suitor.

Trading the players is not the issue. I don't think anyone would aggressively argue that a rebuild is the right move for the Marlins especially given their woeful farm system. What's the rush, though? Is this the best deal they were ever going to get for Stanton? Ozuna? They had the option of keeping them until they got the deal they wanted. Of the players you mentioned the Astros traded, none of those players were traded in December. All were in season trades. The trades the Marlins made have a desperation to them that should not be there for a team who is supposedly taking the long approach. These were salary dumps.

The key is going to be the drafting and selecting of prospects. According to Jeter, he has someone to do that job. That would be Mike Hill, the guy who has put together the current putrid farm system. Forgive Marlins fans for not believing Hill's abilities in this area.

As far as the return for Stanton, there were reports that the first time Jeter talked to Stanton or his reps was when he demanded that Stanton accept the trade to the Giants or be stuck on a team that consisted of him and a bunch of scrubs. Probably not a good way to build a relationship given you need Stanton's approval to complete any trade.

It is still early so things can improve. However, the new ownership was supposed the opposite of the Loria/Samson regime. The new ownership has come in and been pretty much more of the same.

With Stanton, they may not be saving any money. Between the salary for Castro and the money they are kicking in, the trade is potentially revenue neutral up to the opt-out.

CC back to the Yanks on 1/10m. He's got 230ish wins. Any chance he makes the HOF with 3 more seasons and 30 more wins?

Well it appears the veteran's committee will vote anyone in so one way or another he probably gets in.

In all seriousness, it would have to be 3 seasons more like '16-'17 rather than 3 seasons like '13'-'15 to have a chance.

Cishek to the Cubs for 2 years which seems to mean Wade Davis is not coming back.

Kemp to the Dodgers

With Gonzalez being DFA'ed by Atlanta immediately upon receipt.

Kemp is reportedly going to be DFA'd as well.

Im hearing a deal is being talked about between the Cards and Rays

Weaver, Flaherty, Grichuk and another player

For

Longoria, Archer, Cologne

OMG I would take that in a heartbeat!

I assume that trade idea is coming from someone in St. Louis.

Ya, I can't imagine something like that going down outside of fantasy baseball

Longoria to the Giants

Interesting...Curious to see which CF they land now that Span is gone.

Still going to need a lot more firepower to compete in the NL.

Yeah, the #20something third baseman in the majors last year is unlikely to be a difference maker honestly.

He probably isn't good enough to make a difference but not because he's bad but because the Giants need so much. He's at worst Top 15, and arguably a top ten at 3B.

Depending on the version of WAR, he's barely been top 10 in recent years and wasn't by either version last year. He's 32 and seems to clearly be on the downside.

The All-Overrated MLB Team: Eric Hosmer, Evan Longoria, Albert Pujols lead the way - CBSSports.com

"Barely" is still top ten (plus, I said that's arguable). He's definitely better than the standard Jon applied to him and within the Top 15 I applied to him, even last year.

My reference was from the upper portion of one of several summaries of the trade I'd seen earlier in the day, which noted that Longoria was either 22nd or 23rd in some third baseman metric last year (hence me going with 20something in my post). My guess is that it was probably an oWAR calculation, since at this point his value lies in his defense.

As one of the ESPN articles summed it up, he's a superstar name but no longer a superstar player.

I saw something that said that the Giants are still the 27th ranked team based on roster and they could have the highest payroll in baseball.

I think that's fair to say, though fangraphs had him at 15th & his 2016 was much better, so I'm comfortable still saying he's above-average. But it's also fair to say that he's going to be a huge upgrade for the Giants because they were #32 by far in 3B production, at -1.8 fWAR.

Yeah, kinda saw this coming after yesterday's signing.

Pittsburgh Pirates trade RHP Gerrit Cole to Houston Astros

Horrible return. No defending the Pirates front office. Basically 2 relievers and a utility guy. May as well kept him til the deadline

Pirates are going full rebuild. They traded McCutchen to the Giants.