MLB 17-18 Offseason: The Giants are preparing for EYBS' return

Empirical evidence from the minors shows that the pitch clock reduces the length of a game by roughly five minutes, on average.

Yep, Manfred, really going to speed the game up, there. You idiot.

 

MLB's equivalent to Jones, in terms of being an activist owner, is probably Reinsdorf or Angelos, the former of whom orchestrated the putsch of Fay Vincent and the latter of whom knows where all the bodies are buried. (I guess Hal Steinbrenner is in that conversation, too, but he's so fucking bonkers he's in his own category.) I would not object to one of them shanking Manfred, metaphorically speaking.

Also, the Giants have reportedly made an offer of Panik and two of their top prospects for Stanton and Dee Gordon, which ... seems like an awful deal for both sides. The Cardinals are also known to have made a formal trade offer (which almost certainly would involve Reyes).

 

Joe Morgan says incredibly stupid shit, sky blue, water wet.

 

It would be both; Ohtani says he won't even consider talking to teams that aren't open to him being a two-way player. But he really, really wants to play the field, which means Dipoto is already off to a bad start ... and my sides are hurting from laughter at the idea of "Nelson Cruz, outfielder."

 

Ohtani is leaving at least $100 million on the table by wanting to be posted now as opposed to in a few years, so I think it's clear how badly he wants to play in the majors.

 

At his current age, Tanaka had thrown almost twice as many innings at this point, so Ohtani has that going for him (since he doesn't / didn't play for a team that absolutely abuses pitchers like Rakuten, for whom Tanaka played). However, that being said, Ohtani has two red flags -- he's a fireballer, and velocity is absolutely the first thing to go, and his secondary pitch is a splitter, which is now believed to be as much of an elbow-killing pitch as a really hard slider or slurve. Combine that with his desire to play in the field, or at the very least hit every day he's not throwing, then that makes him a really unpredictable wild card.

Edit: He's also hard to read because he first indicated that he didn't want to play on a team that had any other Japanese players--presumably because of potential comparisons--and again because of that two-way role.

 

The Marlins have basically told Stanton to accept a trade or else he'll be the only star left on the team and he'll have to go through another rebuild.

Uh, Jeets, you might try, I don't know, not pissing people off. Maybe you should take some business and management classes.

You know, like A-Rod did.

 

Well, he has a full no-trade clause, which is the Marlins' fault, but the bigger issue is that he's made it known that he wants to go to California, where he grew up ... the problem with that, though, is that no team in California, not even the Dodgers, can afford that contract without shedding a shit-ton of salary elsewhere.

Cashman's comments have made it explicitly clear that he wants a field manager who 1) embraces analytics and 2) will do exactly what the front office tells him to do (which makes it fucking hilarious that they interviewed Wedge, who literally lost both of his locker rooms because he was so much of a raging asshole).

 

According to Jon Morosi, the Marlins would accept the Giants' offer of Panik, Beede and Shaw for Stanton, if San Francisco agrees to pay all but $45 million of what's still owed to Stanton.

That ... is such a moronic trade that I feel the league office would have to reject it. That's about as close to buying and selling a player as it gets, about as blatant as when Charlie Finley was making his ridiculous fire sale trades and Bowie Kuhn kicked him in the dick.

 

Stanton is quite probably the best player in baseball right now, so I'm not necessarily sure there is a fair trade unless, like, the Cubs cough up Rizzo, Bryant and Hendricks (as an example of top talent getting exchanged), and even then it might be a wash at best. My point is that the Giants' offer is of their top prospects, but those prospects are garbage (to the point that I don't think they'd make the top 20 of any other major league team's system). That farm is fucking barren, almost as bad as the Cubs', and it will be for a while.

And the Marlins signed him to that contract, it's their problem. Beyond that, MLB doesn't accept pure salary-dump trades anymore, or at least they haven't for a while ever since both the league and union raised holy hell over the proposed Red Sox deal for A-Rod.

In other news, absolutely shocking news, Sportsnet (Canada's version of ESPN) has fired Gregg Zaun over several complaints about inappropriate workplace behavior. I, for one, am stunned that the guy who visibly watched porn on live television got sacked for sexual harassment.