NEWS/RUMORS Thread

too late my day is ruined

 

Is it too much to ask to pretend that a post is in the right thread?
"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination"
----------AJL

 

says the guy responsible for the whole disturbing trend

 

Haha classic. Time to return the love.

 

Guys....just get a room....

 

NZ will probably put a Taylor Swift mask on Irish and then think about baseball to prolong the pleasure.....

 

Well, the Nats gave old Dusty the boot

 

Really interesting move. The man is a great regular season manager, but has no fucking clue about what he is doing in the postseason. They get the right guy to run things there and they are going to be REALLY scary in 2018 without having to make a single move. If that was a coming out party for Taylor, then their OF is set with him in CF, Eaton in LF and Harper in RF, nothing will need to be done in the IF besides trying to improve at catcher as I'm sure they are praying that Wieters opts out. Then they have the #2 prospect in baseball there if any of the 3 OF'ers go down. They are projected at 170 Mil in payroll and I could see them easily dumping 10-20 on that bullpen and going internally to fill in the #5 spot in the rotation. If Wieters does opt out, it will be interesting to see what direction they go.

 

Have to see how Eaton comes back from the knee, but yeah, they don't lack talent. If Wieters opts out maybe they'll be interested in 1 Yasmani Grandal? Lol. Nah, but I do think that Philly could be a landing spot for Yasmani with their need for a catcher and the payroll flexibility they have to re-sign him after next season.

 

The Dodgers going to the WS is going to make for a really interesting offseason around the NL. Aside fromt the above comment in regards to the Nats, the Cubs now are going to have to likely look at their 25 man roster and detract from it to try and improve. I think the Brewers were less for real than they lead on to be. They had that hot start and the wheels came off when teams adjusted. Not to mention, that division was very weak this year which allowed for them to stay in the hunt longer. The Pirates and Reds both look like they are going to be awful again in 18, while the Cardinals are a bit of a wild card. Could be interesting to see if they try to move Fowler as he was not able to adapt to "The Cardinal Way". Their farm is fairly loaded with talent that is knocking at the door and could make for a scary opponent to the Cubs for the next few years.

Back to the Cubs, they are in no way out of the picture going forward, which is something I am seeing expressed out in the world right now. With that said, they absolutely are going to have to make some deals or risk falling behind the Dodgers, Nats, D'Backs and Rockies for top teams in the NL. Lester is getting older and coming off a bad season for him, Quintana just proved that he is not an ace and Hendricks had an up and down year that was capped by getting beat up in his final two postseason starts. The scary thing about the Cubs is that they have A TON of available salary, probably will be close to $80 million when all is said and done, so they could be players for all of the major starting pitchers on the market like Darvish, Arrieta, Lynn and Tanaka if he opts out. I could easily see them going big after those 4, most specifically Arrieta and Darvish, trying to retain a guy that they really like and potentially adding an ace in Darvish to lead them out and drop everyone else back. I also think they are going to have to do something about their logjam in the MIF and make a decision on how to go forward with Schwarber and Heyward. If it were me, I'd go into next season with the plan of Bryant moving to RF, Schwarber staying in LF, using Happ at 3B and going with a Heyward/Almora platoon in CF. That is a lineup that would be scary to maneuver and my guess is that we would see better seasons from each of Baez, Russell and Schwarber. They'll be back.

 

Haha, I typed up a bit about them being a good spot for Grandal, but then thought that it would be HIGHLY unlikely for this FO to send likely their biggest threat in 2018 a key piece for their lineup. Not to mention, he would know a lot of the Dodgers weaknesses fairly well as a catcher and make for a fairly dangerous playoff matchup. If the Nats called, I could easily see the Dodgers say, " Sure! how about Robles and a couple of other pieces in return?"

 

Yup, only for the right price is a LAD/Nats deal going down..meaning LAD would have to win handily. So its not happening, not when they could just wait a year to grab him in free agency. Nats have been willing to unhand many specs, but for guys with team control. Maybe if Yasmani and their FO came to some agreement on an extension beforehand. If the price is right, I think this FO pulls the trigger and deals with Yasmani's knowledge of the team a year ahead of time. He'll probably be valued highly due to that knowledge when he turns FA come winter of next year anyway. All told, though, long shot.