75 days until Pitchers and Catchers report...
The Twins and Phil Hughes agreed to a 3 / 24 deal.
What the fuck.
Yeah, no kidding. I never really gave up on Phil like I did Jaba, he just was never the same again after the surgury.
I'm assuming there has to be some performance clauses in there.
Good kid, hard worker.
You can have performance-based bonuses in a contract, but it can't be part of the base salary. That $24 million is guaranteed, which is balls-out insane, considering you can make an argument that he was the worst pitcher in baseball last year. Taking a quick look at B-R, 139 pitchers have thrown 300 or more innings over the past three seasons. Among those 139, Phil Hughes ranks 128th in ERA and 135th in home run rate. If you prefer ERA+, his is 86; if you prefer bWAR, he's at 1.1 for the three seasons. Even in his best season in that span, he was the second most dinger-prone starting pitcher in baseball, only behind Ervin Santana's historically awful season as a launching pad. Long story short is, he sucks.
I don't get the Twins' play here, considering they signed Nolasco just a few days ago. Is it to sign a bunch of mediocre 4/5 starters? OK, that's still insane, but Hughes isn't even mediocre; he's a scrapheap reclamation project (except he's being paid a shitload of money because he used to be a name prospect a million years ago and he had some shiny win totals pitching for a great team).
Between the Twins' deals for Nolasco and Hughes, and the money Vargas got from Kansas City, Rube's signing of Marlon Byrd almost looks shrewd.
Almost.
Doug Fister to...the Nats??
I think part of the issue with Hughes is a little bit of supply and demand. The SP free agent market kinda sucks, and the Twins really need pitching. Of course, they'll never be willing to buy someone that actually counts, but the fact that they are spending anything and not just trading at least seems somewhat promising. Because Twins pitching is absolutely dreadful.
And yeah, Hughes may have sucked in NY, but his stats on the road were better. If he's a fly-ball pitcher, then Target Field is a better venue than NY. He'll be likely to give up a few less home runs. Also, the AL East is ridiculous with the home run hitting, where as the AL Central is really pathetic aside from Detroit (and with Fielder gone, they likely won't have the same punch). I'm guessing he'll do better in Minnesota, and is likely to do better than most of the chumps pitching for us last year.
Ellsbury to the Yankees, 7/153M. Option to make it 8/169M! Good player, but huge overpay IMO. Especially when he's just a slightly better Gardner, but for more than 20M/year...
not convinced much was added. compared to Granderson, most of your CF numbers just went DOWN...
Ellsbury brings a higher on base percentage, less strike-outs, more stolen bases and you don't loose much pop.
Ellsbury brings a higher on base percentage, less strike-outs, more stolen bases and you don't loose much pop.
Fun fact: If Ellsbury had hit one fewer home run this past season, his 2011 season would comprise exactly half of his career total. Remove 2011 from the equation (because he's never going to repeat that), and he averages about eight dingers a season. Ellsbury has very little pop; he's basically Carl Crawford 2.0 (except he's somehow getting paid more). Ellsbury is not elite talent, and there's no reason to pay him like he is.
The other interesting factor in play here is that the Yankees are still desperately trying to get under the luxury tax threshold and reports say they haven't given up on Cano, which would suggest they're expecting a Christmas present in the form of a lengthy Alex Rodriguez suspension.
Well, they were rumored to be in on Ells, so now that that money is available again, it's not that far fetched. They've got some pitching, need some bats.
And for all the people the Yanks are bringing in, pitching remains their biggest problem, and they've done nothing about that. good luck there...
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