Pancake Bear

Agree on trading. If you go get Cole *and* Rendon, you maybe have moveable capital to trade. If not, I don’t really want to move any of our top prospects and don’t think we’d get enough back for any of them to make it worthwhile. Rendon makes sense to me because he wants a higher aav and lower years. There’s less risk there.

Supposedly Bumgarner is going for equal money to Wheeler. That’s insane. If he gets 100m or more, gonna be some serious buyer’s remorse.

I wouldn’t give either of them more than 3 years, I wouldn’t be excited for more than 2. Ryu I’d be cautiously optimistic that he’d be healthy, but he’ll get paid for 2019. His health still seems a risk to me. Still, I’d much rather bet on Ryu (no QO, too) over either of those two, especially if you can get him at a decent deal. I wouldn’t go over 3 years for him, though.

There’s a genuine question how good Bum will be. His road splits last year were awful. Giants park is the most pitcher friendly in baseball.

Arte is a billionaire. The team’s value has gone up big time since he purchased the team. He can sell it for far more than he spent. Whether he’s overspending what the team takes in or not, if he’s serious about winning and not wasting Trout’s career, he needs to step up and be willing to pass the luxury tax. This is a key window. If Arte waits, the Trout window will be gone. Spend less and make more later. Go big or quit talking about trying to win. He went out and got Maddon. He extended Trout. All of that is pointless if you’re going to be principled and cautious financially now. Don’t leave the job half done. Don’t be outbid on Cole. The Yankees don’t have our desperation. If you have to outspend them by 20m, do it. Then go and sign Rendon or Strasburg. It’s as simple as that. This is Arte’s shot, he needs to not blow it. It’s about legacy - which he supposedly used to care about.

How so? Contact: Weaver. K: Scherzer, Verlander. Counter examples? Pretty much this. Ohtani could be an ace, but it’s asking too much for that this season. He’s coming off of TJ surgery and at the very least will be on an innings leash. If we grab some mid rotation dude as our second pitcher and Eppler gives us a song and dance about Ohtani being our ace, I’m done.

Yankee fans are easily the most entitled in baseball. Maybe in all sports. They think they deserve everything because they’re the bloody Yankees. Players will line up to play for them because they’re the Yankees and any who don’t are cowards who don’t care about winning. No fans I hate more. Absolute worst.

You forgot the cameraman.

Skipping Cole to sign two “good” pitchers reminds me of Bavasi’s line about replacing Nolan Ryan because he was gonna cost too much. The reality is that looking around the league right now, if you don’t have an ace, you cannot be competitive in the playoffs. This isn’t 2002. FontSize Ryu averaged 105ish innings between 2017-18. He basically didn’t pitch at all in 2015-16. Given our luck with injuries, I avoid Ryu. Yeah, there’s a lot of upside, but he’s a huge health risk and his skill is inducing favorable contact, to strikeouts. Not sure how well that’s gonna age. But he’s coming off a career year.

Good luck finding a pitcher who agrees with you. The notion that only offense matters is old school and largely disproved although calling a game is still difficult to quantify in value. But the difference between a .220 hitter and a .250 hitter isn’t much.

Don’t want Bumgarner; Ryu is a huge injury risk. Cole, easily.

Pitching is a bigger problem than a minor upgrade at that plate. I’m more concerned with getting the most out of our pitchers. Most catchers suck offensively. Having one who is a bit worse than other options isn’t that big of a deal if it improves the staff.

We won one championship in that amount of time. It's very hard to win without an ace. We don't have one. We don't have one in the pipeline. The team isn't deep enough to be successful unless we make a move for one.

Wouldn't be that big of a surprise. It's guys with a poor track record that fall off. Cole doesn't have a poor track record. He compares very favorably with guys like Scherzer, Verlander, and Greinke through his career to date. Obviously he could, there is always a risk, but unless you're just wanting to be a Johnny Raincloud, there's no real reason to imagine he can't be still pitching at a high level in 5-6 or possibly even 7 years.

Most are bad pitchers. Compare his career to date with other top aces. This just isn’t a convincing argument.

Better coaching. Unlocking what was already there. The Angels now have arguably one of the best pitching coaches and managers in the league with Callaway and Maddon. No reason he should regress. Also, it’s not like he’ll suddenly forget whatever he learned in Houston that unlocked the improvement. The notion that somehow the Astros got something out of him that no one else could and that he’ll turn into a pumpkin wherever he lands next makes zero sense to me. Perhaps you can enlighten me on why you think he can’t sustain his improvement.

Or trade for an arbitration guy from the Padres or something.

Right now, I’d be happy just getting one (preferably Cole). If we got both, after the initial freak out, I’d probably be concerned about long term effects on the payroll and how Stras will hold up over the course of the contract (Cole, too, although to a lesser degree). Plus, with multiple teams in on both, I just don’t see Arte having the desperation to do whatever it takes to sign both.

This is the way.

They are interested in both. They just probably won’t sign both.

Unless my estimate is wrong, the difference in taxes between NY and CA is low. The quick search I did came up with 13.3 vs 12.7 for people making over 1m a year. For 250m, that comes out to roughly 1.5m. That’s virtually even. Am I missing something?

14 WAR over the last 3 years. That’s over 100m in value for years. Even if you expect him to get worse fairly quickly, it’s ridiculous to say he’s only worth 10m.

Considering how much money they have on the books, how good they already are, and how much restraint they’ve showed towards overpaying since Steinbrenner Jr. took over, it’s a surprise to me. Comparing our situation with theirs, we have a lot more desperation (or should), but it just depends how far Arte and the Yanks are each prepared to go. If Cole really is more concerned about contending every year, we may have to overpay by a good margin to bring him in.

For me: - Plan A: Sign Cole. - Plan B: Strasburg - Plan C : Rendon; + trade a middle infielder(/2); Sign/trade for a second tier pitcher.

The Yankees deciding they’re going to be in is lousy news. I’m genuinely surprised. They’re already the best team in the AL. Signing Cole to 8 years is a desperation move. Steinbrenner must’ve gotten pissed about no WS appearances in the 2010’s.