Butcher'd

I would not trade away Heaney. Top 30 prospect with 6 years of club control is something you hang onto. As Stradling said, trading for Zobrist would be a better option. The Rays are not competing this year

I would not trade away Heaney. Top 30 prospect with 6 years of club control is something you hang onto. As Stradling said, trading for Zobrist would be a better option. The Rays are not competing this year

I would not trade away Heaney. Top 30 prospect with 6 years of club control is something you hang onto. As Stradling said, trading for Zobrist would be a better option. The Rays are not competing this year

I would rather they try and trade for Zobrist.

and at any rate, josh hamilton can get us some.

Again, posters on here severely overestimate Howie's value

There are no comps for what Albert is doing.  Thru his first ten seasons he was an inner circle guy.  There has never been a player that I can recall to do what he did for the first ten years of his career and then drop off so drastically.  
 
Even though one can speculate that his sharp decline could be related to an age discrepancy, even if he were a couple of years older than stated, all of the other inner circle guys were productive. well into their late 30's and beyond.  Could it be a combo of age and not having 'enhancements'? Maybe.  
 
But what I see more than anything is stubbornness.  Every player loses a little over time but the very best of them learned how to make up for it in other ways.  They recognized what they could and couldn't do and evolved.  
 
One of the most telling things to me is that his k rate last year was about on his career avg, or at least very close.  Yet his BB rate has steadily declined now to the point where it was about half his career avg. last season.  
 
Ever since he has been a halo, he has made a tremendous number of weak outs and his BABIP keeps going down.  
 
I would like to see him acknowledge that there are pitches he used to be able to square up that he no longer can.  I would like to see him let those pitches go and become more selective.  
 
Even if his power isn't what it used to be, an additional 20-30 walks would make a huge difference.  It would also make it so pitchers would approach him differently.  Yet even without that, if you take his 2014 numbers and subtract 20 outs for 20 walks you get the following:
 
actual:  
.272/.324/.466/.790
 
with 22 more walks ( to give him 70 instead of 48)
.282/.356/.466/..822
 
Frankly, I feel like his slg would go up as well because if he layed off certain pitcher he would actually hit more xbh.  but I would take an ops of .820 from him nonetheless.  

You're the best man....I think we should all bow down to your genius behind our computer screens. 

You're the best man....I think we should all bow down to your genius behind our computer screens. 

The Yankees don't have the prospects to get Tulo. The Red Sox absolutely do, but they might be happy with Boegarts at shortstop. I think Boegarts, Betts, and their best pitching prospect probably gets it done. Colorado isn't close to contending and needs to get value for Tulo while they can
 
Edit: Forgot the Red Sox signed Hanley Ramirez. Boy are they stupid for giving that contract...Hanley is a horrible defender at short

the rotation still scares me. You're counting on Richards and Shoe being at least as good as they were last year, if not better. Both are young and could regress a bit - particularly Shoe. And everyone seems to be assuming Wlison will bounce back. Why? If he pitches like he did the second half last year, he'll be out of baseball before August.
Offensively, this team has no clean up hitter. If it's hanilton and he bounces back somewhat, great. If not, and let's face it the chances are not great, it's Kendrick? Who has very little power. A full season of that is a problem IMO. And Kendrys Morales isn't the answer.

Yeah you almost never see teams go all the way with average to weak offenses. Just ask the Giants and Royals.

At least hockey started at a perfect time

So basically we are already "all in" and any big acquisition this offseason would create a structural deficit. Poor Arte just wants to win a championship and each and every season that passes he gets burned by many of the Big Name signings that he committed to. Arte may never win a championship because he's paying for over inflated steroid era salaries while getting post-steroid era performances. Pujols and Hamilton are aging veterans and they're not going to get better. I'm not saying that they were users but they both benefited because of that era. Now Arte is stuck with the bill.

I'd be surprised if Nurse isn't withYakimov in Oklahoma City before game 9. You're absolutely right though- Yakimov at C and Nurse at D will definitely add some much needed size to the lineup.
Apparently both Nugent-Hopkins and Yakupov put ten pounds on during the offseason so at least the problem is being recognized. I assume the issue of burning the first year of entry level contracts won't be happening anymore either which is why I can see Nurse being sent back if the Oil get off to a rough start.

I don't make judgement over Hamilton's effort or lack thereof, I'll never really know. So I focus on his overall sucking.
 
But if you ever were going to question a player's effort, he's certainly a strong candidate.

Bonino looked pretty good for Vancouver against the Oilers. Gonna miss that guy in a Ducks sweater
 
 
 
As for the Oilers...I'm really liking this Yakimov guy. Big, with some obvious hockey sense and puck skills. Him and Nurse may be able to add some size that the Oil are lacking

They really need to enter Spring training with 8 or 9 guys who can start in the Major Leagues.
 
They entered this year with 6 guys (Weaver, Wilson, Richards, Santiago, Skaggs, Shoemaker) who they thought could be at least league average, and they got burned by it. Injuries happen. 
 
Wilson and Santiago both can't be starters. One of them has to go to the pen, the other will be the 5th starter. I'd sign 2 respectable starters this offseason. Then when Richards gets back someone else will probably be injured.
 
Going into a season with 3 MLB starters (Weaver, FA, Shoemaker), Wilson, and Santiago is playing with fire. Richards should be back by June but who knows
 
Dipoto is going to have to get creative

This is the answer to our problems.
 
Dodgers go out -- they knock out Mattingly -- then they turn to the halos and buyout/trade for Sosh.  
 
Ideally if we could get an arm for Sosh and a new manager, I'd forget about the last 11 years of failure in the blink of an eye.

This is more like benching Trout than Hamilton. Puig has been productive for the Dodgers during the regular season.

I know I'm going to get blasted, but here goes anyway...
 
I am the greatest Angels fan in the world and the only one who's opinion about the Angels matters.  If I think they did an awesome job then that's exactly what they did and anyone who disagrees with my assessment of the team is a ^(&ing moron.
 
I like the fact that the Angels were able to put together an amazing run in the regular season because that's 162 games of pure joy, especially when the team ends up with a winning record because, in the end, people don't ask whether or not the team won the World Series, they ask who kicked ass during the regular season.  Besides, since the playoffs are only a month long and the regular season is 6 months long, that means that the Angels are the best team in baseball in 2014.
 
Besides, we don't see Angels getting paid to play in the post season, the contracts are for the whole year. Why should it matter that 3 games into the post-season the Angels are already out, that's only bonus baseball anyway.
 
The team performed wonderfully all year long and there was never any doubt about who the best team was. The only real problem with having the best record in baseball is that, in effect, the season ends too early, they've already crossed the finish line at that point.  If anything, we were robbed of any meaningful baseball in late September.
 
And so, I'll sleep well tonight knowing that future generations will look back at 2014 and know that the Angels ruled the roost this year.
 
And if you don't agree with everything I just said, you're a ^*&(ing moron.

Lackey's career numbers in the playoffs:
 
111 innings pitched, ERA under 3. 
 
You are batshit crazy if you'd rather have CJ Wilson on the team than that guy. I don't care what you think of him as a person
 
I personally was a huge Lackey fan. The man pitched his ass off for us, and won game 7 of the world series. Nothing to be bitter about.

In 2014 Nelson Cruz gave the Orioles more than Josh Hamilton has gave us in two seasons. Pathetic!