DODGERS NEWS/RUMORS Thread

A few late night notes

• There is speculation that the Dodgers could be kicking around on Josh Donaldson again. Word is the Twins and Nats are out on him, the Rangers are said to be more focused on Castellanos and if the Braves had really offered 4 yrs and $100M, he would have signed already. Belief is the offers are really in the 3 year, $60ish Million range and if that’s the case, the Dodgers could be back involved. A lot of the speculation is due to Kasten’s recent comments.
• The Reds have supposedly been kicking around on Seager all offseason, but the Dodgers have shown no interest in moving him. They would likely not do anything with him without an immediate replacement/upgrade on the way.
• Sounds like the chances of a Lindor/Betts trade at this point are incredibly unlikely.
• There is speculation that the Dodgers have now moved on to Kris Bryant in their fruitless search to upgrade the roster. The Bryant/Cubs divorce is expected whenever his mediation is settled in the coming weeks. The Cubs offered long term contracts to each of their young stars and all said “no thanks”. Acquiring Bryant would allow the Dodgers to keep a majority of their roster intact as he would be kept in LF.
  
• Tonight’s Rays/Cards trade is raising a lot of eyebrows. It likely means a return to StL for Ozuna, but word is the prospect in the deal, Liebertore is someone the Rockies are very fond of. The Rockies have a history of sending their star players to the Cards(Larry Walker and Matt Holliday). St Louis also has shown interest in Charlie Blackmon in the past.

 

Max Muncy 2B
Cody Bellinger CF
Justin Turner 1B
Chris Bryant LF
Josh Donaldson 3B
Gavin Lux RF
Will Smith C
Pitcher
Corey Seager SS

 

Like Lux?

So weird. All off-season long we've had to eat reports of how the FO believes Lux is going to be great and an all-star caliber SS.

 

I’m going to add that I don’t believe any of this “Dodgers have interest” shit anymore. I think they know what the roster is gonna be and they’re fine with it. Though I don’t doubt the Reds being interested in Seager.

 

Replacement for the caliber of player that Seager is. They aren’t going to trade him for prospects and then call it a day is what I was saying. So if they were to move him, they would probably have a 5+ WAR guy coming in to replace his bat. Lux gives them versatility to fill that vacancy at multiple different positions, but trading Seager without a viable bat coming in to replace him would be a mistake.

 

The caliber of player that Seager is now? Or the caliber of player that Seager was? We lauded the LAD/Cincy trade last off-season and the fruit they were able to attain in that trade. Would they not be able to get a solid return for the player that Seager is now? If they believe Lux is a superstar caliber SS stepping in for Seager - and they're not overly concerned with winning the World Series next season (what we know to be fact) - what's the problem? Seager, who's had hip surgery, elbow surgery, and hamstring issues among other performance related issues..Seager that offered a little over a 3 fWAR last season. Really no reason to expect much more than that. Projections have Seager @ a 4 WAR in 2020.

If $50M Pollock were to do more (what they'd better expect), if Verdugo were to stay healthy, yadda yadda yadda. I don't see what the issue is. They're going to pass on moving Lux for Lindor because they believe Lux is a superstar SS, but then also tell us that Lux isn't a viable bat to replace Seager's @ SS? This shit is a fuckin wild goose chase.

 

I’ll then we all woke up lol

 

I've always thought Bryant was the catalyst for all trades. His arbitration hearing has been an unknown variable in the trade market. The Dodgers like to do their due diligence prior to making any more and im sure they have been less willing to make any trade without comparing notes on Bryant.

 

I feel like Bryant will be the name if we get anyone. Cubs seem like they want to move him, Bryant has positional versatility (something the Dodgers love), and the Cubs aren't rebuilding and the Dodgers can offer other players besides just prospects.

 

There is definitely cause to believe that Seager will be better in his second full year back from TJ. It has been talked about quite a bit that his 2019 was a success as most players don't generally come back from that injury and have productive seasons. He put up a career high in doubles and was still close to career norms in HR's while falling 70 PA's shy of his 2017. OB% was way down and that is usually the most common theme for batters that miss a whole year, as well as a drop in power. His defense was critiqued hard, but he still ranked 11th in the league for SS's based on OAA and of the players ahead of him, only Baez, Story and Lindor had better offensive seasons. Those are all positive signs for him going forward, so if you predict another step up from him, that is a big loss to a lineup.

While the org has done a great job of pilfering the Reds in their deals, it is also looking like that org blows at development. Entering 2019, they were believed to have one of the best up and coming systems in baseball, now a year later, ehhh.... I don't know what they could get from the Reds at this point that would be worth giving up Seager over. Granted they could see something that I don't, but the pieces don't really seem to be there. Hunter Greene has been hurt for 2 years and even before that there were questions about just how good he'd be as a starter, Lodolo could be interesting, but he is still too far away to be a centerpiece in a deal for a player of Seager's stature, India has been underwhelming and the rest are a bunch of "meh's". So doing a deal just cause the last one worked doesn't seem to be the best route. If the Dodgers really are telling the Reds they're not interested in talking Seager that could also be for a couple of reasons, they want to keep Seager in the org regardless as they see his upside, or they look at the Reds system and don't see the worthwhile risk compared to Seager.

There is no correlation to wanting to replace Seager with an equal or better player and not trusting Lux. If they really didn't trust Lux or at least believe in his upside, then he would have been traded by now. There are a lot of other teams that look at him as a potential star. Removing Seager in a trade for prospects and replacing him with Lux while not adding anyone to the lineup is a lateral move and then we are no better than the team that was out in the NLDS. This team was not able to get over the hump when Seager was an MVP caliber player, so then just replacing him with Lux and saying "let's see if this works", doesn't work. Maybe they do see Lux as a superstar in the making, but are also saying "what could this team do with ANOTHER superstar" in the lineup. Whether that be rolling the dice on Seager another year removed from TJ/back surgery or bringing in someone else that could replace him.

 

Baseball Savant has released OAA for infield grading and this is quickly being heralded as the new standard in defensive metrics. One reason the other metrics are skewed the way they are is that they struggle analyzing players that benefit from and are hurt by the shift. For those curious, here are where Dodgers players graded out in MLB in 2019.
#9 3B Justin Turner 4 OAA
#11 SS Corey Seager 5 OAA
#7 2B Enrique Hernandez 7 OAA
#24 2B Max Muncy -1 OAA
#20 1B Max Muncy 0 OAA

2020 Dodgers that did not qualify due to lack of attempts
2B Gavin Lux 2 OAA
1B Cody Bellinger 1 OAA
SS Chris Taylor -2 OAA
2B Chris Taylor -1 OAA
1B Matt Beaty -3 OAA
1B Joc Pederson -6 OAA
3B Max Muncy 1 OAA
SS Enrique Hernandez -3 OAA

So what this does is debunk some of the things we were reading last year that really didn't fit the eye test, such as Max Muncy being a solid 2B when really he was pretty meh. Not to mention a lot of folks loving our defense. An IF of 1B Turner, 2B Lux, SS Seager and 3B Muncy would project to be pretty decently above average.

Some notes from around the division.
- The Rockies left side was the best pairing in baseball with Arenado and Story together. Not moving either this season and adding a healthy Rodgers could be interesting, though he struggled at 2B last year.
- The Padres IF was easily one of the, if not the worst in baseball defensively. Tatis Jr had a -13(he can make amazing stops, but his throws get him in trouble), Hosmer was a -6 and shockingly Machado rated out as -2 overall with a -5 at 3B and +3 at SS.
- The Giants had a solid, yet unspectacular IF with Belt and Longoria each coming in at +3, but Crawford was -4.
- For the D'Backs, they had Ahmed at +16, Walker at +9, Marte at -1 and Escobar at -4.

 

Also, the Cubs are just going to look for the best offer, not care who it comes from like the Rockies do, nor do they care about how it would look like in the eyes of the fanbase as the Indians do. The Dodgers could send a solid package that meets the Cubs organizational need of depth. I wonder if they would avoid our further away pitching prospects as they really struggle with development in that department.

 

Arb settlements are coming in. I'll update this post accordingly

• Urias settled for $1M
• Stripling at $2.1 M
• Betts at $27M
• Bryant at $18.5M
• Seager
• Muncy
• Pederson
• Bellinger
• Lindor gets $17.5M

 

In the early going, the Dodgers have already saved $1M under projections for Urias and Strip. WOO! That championship Arb belt is ours!!!

 

I agree with your takes on Seager and your reasoning on how trading him would be a backwards move. With that said, do you see any Reds prospects that would interest Cleveland as an alternative to Lux?

 

That absolutely drives me nuts, but it doesn't change the fact that he is still one of the better all-around SS's in MLB and his game translates to 3B as well. Like I said, OBP is one of the main issues for players that miss significant time, so that could still be improved on. Another thing that the Dodgers did not do a great job at last year was limiting his playing time and I think by the end of last year he wore down both mentally and physically. I remember a good amount of folks were frustrated that Lux wasn't seeing time at SS, not because they wanted him in for Seager, but that they felt Seager needed more time off since he had his prior season cut so short. The Dodgers admitted in hindsight that they didn't handle that right, but at the same time they were battling for homefield throughout, so I get needing him in there.

I should make clear that I do want to see Seager replaced in the lineup prior to the season. He is a damn good player, but he has worn on me due to is actions in the spotlight situations(though if it weren't for Jansen, we are likely talking about how Seager hit one of the biggest HR's in franchises history). Does that mean that he is still not a great player that should not net the club a very good return? Hell no. Would I rather see the club trade him for prospects and then start 2020 with Enrique Hernandez at 2B again? Double fuck no. If the club can't replace his bat in the lineup with someone better, then I would prefer to see him back. He is better than Pollock and has a higher upside than Hernandez, Taylor, Verdugo and Pederson, so moving him just to move him for prospects doesn't work.

 

Simply put, no as none of the Reds top prospects are close and the Indians still want to compete. Otherwise Cincy and Cleveland would have worked out their own trade. The only way it happens is if something like
LA Gets: Lindor, Like a Greene, India or Lodolo(since they are all further away)
CLE Gets: Pederson and a haul of Dodgers close to MLB ready prospects, and a couple further away Cincy spects.
Cincy Gets: Seager

Actually... maybe some inclusion of one of the Reds top spects could at least offset the requirement of a Lux, but the Dodgers would need to still include some of their close to MLB ready guys.

 

According to a report out of the USA Today, MLB is expected to hand out it's harshest penalty ever to the Houston Astros in the coming weeks. So.... a couple off the top of my head are
- The Braves where they were not allowed to sign any Int'l prospects for 2 years, had to forfeit the contracts of around 10-12 prospects and the GM was banned for life.
- Steinbrenner being "permanently" banned from day to day management of the Yankees(Lasted 3 years)
- ARod suspended an entire season for lying to MLB investigators.
- Pete Rose, lifetime ban for gambling.
- The Black Sox scandal that saw 8 players, including all timer "Shoeless" Joe Jackson banned for life.

MLB has a lot to live up to if they actually were to pull through on this.

 

Things are gonna get interesting.