Theoretical (not likely to happen) question... Machado/Arenado

[Stradling]

That and he had an inflated opinion of himself defensively.   Maybe he figured out that he’s a horrible SS. 

[wopphil]

An outfield of Harper, Trout and Upton would be insane. Add Ohtani into the mix and you have a 2-5 lineup that stacks up with the best in baseball.

 

[Jeff Fletcher]

1 hour ago, wopphil said:

An outfield of Harper, Trout and Upton would be insane. Add Ohtani into the mix and you have a 2-5 lineup that stacks up with the best in baseball.

 

I just looked it up. Bryce Harper’s OPS+ for the last three years is 18th in the majors.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/kIulk

His value, and the reason he’ll go so much money is that he’s so young, so you can lock in a bunch of good to very good seasons. 

However, he is not a great player who is going to make your team all that much better the day you sign him. 

Thats why I don’t think the Angels would sign him. They’d use up all their money and not be that much better. 

Obviously swapping Bryce Harper for Kole Calhoun and getting even a bad Harper year is a big improvement, but if they can’t address the pitching or their other holes, they’ve just gone from 80 to 84-85 wins, or something like that.

Going off on a tangent here....

Unless you can have a $300M payroll you need some surplus value to be a good team (guys who play much better than their salary). Premium free agents never offer you surplus value because you’re usually paying for their best-case scenario season, and often (although not as much in Harper’s case) when they’re at an age that you aren’t getting that any more. 

So the ideal is to have most of your guys be young and homegrown (tons of surplus value) and then only pay the premium for a top FA if he’s the cherry on top to make you a WS caliber team.

 

[Angel Oracle]

Arenado is the only cherry on top, in my mind anyway.

[martinpa25]

3 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

I just looked it up. Bryce Harper’s OPS+ for the last three years is 18th in the majors.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/kIulk

His value, and the reason he’ll go so much money is that he’s so young, so you can lock in a bunch of good to very good seasons. 

However, he is not a great player who is going to make your team all that much better the day you sign him. 

Thats why I don’t think the Angels would sign him. They’d use up all their money and not be that much better. 

Obviously swapping Bryce Harper for Kole Calhoun and getting even a bad Harper year is a big improvement, but if they can’t address the pitching or their other holes, they’ve just gone from 80 to 84-85 wins, or something like that.

Going off on a tangent here....

Unless you can have a $300M payroll you need some surplus value to be a good team (guys who play much better than their salary). Premium free agents never offer you surplus value because you’re usually paying for their best-case scenario season, and often (although not as much in Harper’s case) when they’re at an age that you aren’t getting that any more. 

So the ideal is to have most of your guys be young and homegrown (tons of surplus value) and then only pay the premium for a top FA if he’s the cherry on top to make you a WS caliber team.

 

Aka Machado

[Jeff Fletcher]

3 minutes ago, martinpa25 said:

Aka Machado

He’s 27th.

[Lou]

[ukyah]

6 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

 

Going off on a tangent here....

Unless you can have a $300M payroll you need some surplus value to be a good team (guys who play much better than their salary). Premium free agents never offer you surplus value because you’re usually paying for their best-case scenario season, and often (although not as much in Harper’s case) when they’re at an age that you aren’t getting that any more. 

So the ideal is to have most of your guys be young and homegrown (tons of surplus value) and then only pay the premium for a top FA if he’s the cherry on top to make you a WS caliber team.

 

former is the braves.

latter is verlander and the astros