Junkballer

With 65 million committed to LF/CF, hard to see the Angels add significant payroll in the OF when they have their 3rd and 4th OFers cost controlled. I'm not sure that the Angels can reap commensurate Japanese advertising dollars to offset Seiya's posting and salary. With Ohtani, they are probably already getting all that is available out of that market. It'd be fun to see though.

With the way the Dogs like to use starters in relief in the playoffs, well, just LOL. Good luck.

I haven't thought of him as a starter since his last injury but Minasian may have had him penciled in a Sandoval/Suarez/C-Rod 3/4/5 mix. Hopefully this will lead to getting two 2/3 starters and help him make the decision not to spend big on SS so they can pay for Iglesias or other back end BP arms.

This is from MLB and covers 2017-2021. It's second selection, not 2nd round. Splitting hairs really due to the rarity of the scenario. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/qualifying-offer

I would rather have an overpaid Iglesias anchor the BP and hope Minasian's primary reliever aqcuisition(s) adequately fill the setup role, pushing Meyers, Quijada, Warren back to earlier innings. With Iglesias, I have more faith that Minasian can find an adequate setup arm and a #2 type starter, which can make the BP an area of strength and the rotation slightly above average, than him building an excellent rotation while having to fill in setup AND closer roles. Overpayment and slight downturn yes, but I see Iglesias as close to a good bet on continued performance as Minasian is likely to find in any starter. And I see the BP as their primary need for building stability being that the rotation just needs to be augmented and filling SS may be one of his easier tasks.

The way MLB.com and MLBTR states it , it is is the 2nd highest selection, which appears to mean that if a team had two 1sts, it would lose its 2nd 1st rounder. Did that change recently?

Lost scene from Caligula?

Is that a sanitized phrasing for orgy?

I think the only scenario where a team has to give up a first if they have two selections in the first round and they'd give up the second of those picks.

Sounds like SF was implementing an empathy training exercise and he got caught mid-funding stoppage. He should have checked with HQ before heading out for his final exam.

I think you mean vampire kit. The wooden stakes, vials of presumably garlic and salt, holy water. crucifixes and silver bullets (upper right corner) would suggest that. Zombie kits look more like this:

Good points. There has been talk about MLB being concerned with starters going fewer innings and the number of pitching changes per game. I've heard two things may come out of the CBA negotiations, one very plausible and another questionable. The plausible is reverting back to the 25-man roster, or setting a specific pitching roster allotment which would to some extent put back a little of the premium that starters hold. The other is attaching the double hook to the universal DH, where the DH is lost when the starter comes out. This seems less plausible but it is interesting in that it would create a NL/AL hybrid and also make it less attractive to managers to pull starters from the game. It seems likely to me at least that MLB will address the trend to use the bullpen at the expense of the rotation. Either way though, with the bullpen trend or if MLB takes some action, quality bullpen depth will remain crucial to team success, not just the closer and setup man.

We're no strangers to Weekend at Bernie's starters so this should do nicely

spendthrift

Interesting presser with Friedman yesterday. Besides essentially disavowing involvement with in-game pitching decisions and the whole Urias overuse issue, saying those were questions better proposed to Roberts and the pitching coach, he sounded non-committal towards re=signing Kershaw. No doubt there is some posturing there to let Kershaw know they aren't going to offer far above what they view as his value, and that he will have to make his own decision as to whether more money/term is worth it to him to leave the org. Tried to find the whole interview but only found this snippet of his comments on Kershaw. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVi__i3B49 (click the right arrow on the first image to get to the next image which contains the Friedman blurb)

Reminds me of the Kinison bit when love knocks on the door for the tenth time (at the 1:00 mark)

I'm not advocating Kershaw to Angels either. I'm just trying to think about what Friedman will do this off-season and where Kershaw fits in. I'm not fully sold that the Dodgers ownership is willing to live in the luxury tax in consecutive or multiple years. Not even the Dodgers can go all in each and every year. Assuming the tax threshold remains as is (who knows with the new CBA though), they have an opportunity to reset their basis to year 0. I can see them looking at 2023 as the next "all in" year, where Price comes off the books, the Bauer situation is stabilized, DeGrom is available in free agency and they've had another year to replenish a somewhat depleted farm system. They still have Buehler, Urias, Price, Bauer (?), May and Gonsolin for the rotation in 2022 and all of them save Price are set for 2023. Does Friedman see a highly paid 35 y.o. Kershaw as an asset for their 2023 run or is that 20+ mil better spent elsewhere; and how much does placating fans enter into the decision? Friedman doesn't strike me as the sentimental type. I know they'll offer him but whether that offer is a dare to move on is the question.

Maybe so but he'll have to give a hometown discount to stay with the dogs. He'll get better offers elsewhere.

He's not going to get better pitches to hit because Trout/Rendon are back. He is, at the plate, who he is, a streaky slap hitter with below average strike zone discipline. The only way he becomes a better hitter is to become more selective and draw more walks. The thing is that he's tried that before and it didn't work out so well so he went back to his natural approach.

We really don't know if this was just a go-for-broke year in a luxury tax cycle strategy. We will know more when we find out if the new CBA wipes the slate clean or not, and the Dodgers become a year 0 tax offender or if they are subject to 2nd year penalties. If the tax threshold doesn't go down and this year's tax counts against consecutive year penalties, they could stay under the cap in 2022..

Pujols comes in trollin'

The owners have been pretty vigilant in protecting one of the main benefits of having a legal monopoly, not having to open their books. Anything's possible but that seems like a line in the sand for them even if it is clearly defined as pertaining to gate and media. They likely view at as a slippery slope.

If they did actually get a guy like Stroman, that would be an amazing outlier for this org and not something that should be legitimately expected. If it does happen, expectations for that second FA arm should be pretty low, as in, probably wont happen. There's no way around depending on the health of Ohtani and having Sandoval & Suarez provide a ton of good innings. The bulk of their improvements will be in the continued development of young SPs, OFs Marsh & Adell, improved defense at SS and will largely hinge on how they cobble together an effective bullpen.