Treinen and Jurkstore are still likely to be non-tendered if they are not traded before the deadline today, with Phegley and Buchter also possibilities, per Slusser.
Other candidates around the league include Addison Russell, who the A’s wisely gave up as part of a brilliant plan to acquire Marcus Semien, and has had issues on and off the field, and, for some reason, Jonathan Villar, who might be a good option for 2B if our owners were willing to spend any money at all.
And it seems as I was writing that, we traded Profar to the Padres:
I’m surprised they managed to trade Profar. Tbh, I would rather tender him than Grossman and put Profar in left field, but the preferred option is neither. I really don’t want Grossman next year at the 4 million he’s projected to get.
Villar is an intriguing option, who’s put up 3.0, 2.0, and 4.0 fWAR in 3 of the last 4 years (with the one bad year being negative WAR), but it’s interesting in that no one seems to want to pay him his arb figure of 10 million.
Agree with Villar. Seems like a better bet than what we have to be above average.
Considering that the A’s usually waste at least $5M on a bad reliever (Casilla, Rodney), $1.8M is pocket change. And they can still blow $3M or so on somebody else!
Diekman just claimed this money.
I was going to comment “great trade; who’d we get” but this seems like an actual great trade.
The Padres AAA team hit .299/.367/.530 overall (roughly in line with the Aviators’ numbers) so those numbers are probably to be taken with a grain of salt. But he can probably still hit a little and while defensively challenged, he should at least be capable of being a left handed Phegley.
On the rosterbation tip, anyone know what the official (non-September) roster rules are for next season? My googling suggests that it is 26 players, with a max of 13 pitchers, but I’m not sure whether that second part is official.
I guess I’m not the only one who isn’t sure what the official rules are for the coming season.
It’s a stupid rule that actually changes the entirety of how the game is played. And not for any improvement of the game but I theoretically speeding up of the game. Which is no guarantee if you leave a shitty pitcher in for 3 batters rather than immediately replace him. I do hope they make concessions for between innings (i.e. if the inning ends, you can replace them regardless of how many hitters they’ve faced) if they apply it.
Three batters or the end of the inning is what has been proposed. I agree that it won’t speed things up significantly.
The roster restriction is even worse. Here’s an extra roster spot, but you can only use it in a way that almost every team thinks is suboptimal.
I don’t think I caught the roster rule.
What GM said above:
Mariners non-tender Domingo Santana and Tim Beckham, the two guys who killed us in the opening series last year.
Beckham is going to be suspended for a substantial portion of next year
I still don’t understand Grossman being tendered though.
GOLD GLOVE NOMINEE Grossman, you mean.
Thanks, and go As.
Diekman 7.1 BB/9
Treinen 5.7 BB/9
Buchter 4.6 BB/9 (but man that one seemed higher)
I hope Lou at 4.7 BB/9 gets that message.
Somebody will surely snap up Treinen but Billy and Forst evidently decided they got lucky with the Dexys Midnight Runners of relievers.
Dexy’s Midnight Runners? You haven’t heard the last of them
Indeed…
What? Why?
opposing batters aren’t going to walk themselves, duh.
I guess I can sort of understand it. With the 3 batter minimum rule, Diekman has some value in that he’s a LH reliever who’s equally good (or equally bad based on your perspective) against righties and lefties. And it’s not a lot of money.
But the best thing you can say about Diekman is that you just don’t know what you’re going to get (except lots of walks). And between McFarland/Diekman, there’s a real chance you just set ~6 million on fire and you find yourself in the same position at the trade deadline – in need of a decent LH reliever. It’s a continuation of that line of questionable spending on relievers of which Rodney, Casilla, Axford, etc are prime examples of. Penny-wise in that you could justify each of them individually as “not a lot of money”; pound foolish in that what kind of real performance gain are you getting?
Of course, what a normal team in our position (young, cheap, good with few holes to cover) would do is shell out for the best available options for the few holes needed to fill. Like the Braves did with Will Smith.
Diekman forever! Buchter never!
ugggh no. I went to the A’s site to buy spring training tickets and got this punch in the mouth instead.
Our not very long national nightmare is back again.
Wow, Kamala crashed and burned faster than I expected. (Bonus quotes from oaktoon a few days ago.)
I saw on twitter someone point out that the deadline to drop off the california ballot is dec 26. If she is polling poorly in CA she may not want to be on a ballot here and get trounced. Not that I can see a real challenger to her senate seat in 2022, but it won’t be a good look. She had a tough race against the mayor (?) of fresno for AG.
Biden is gonna come creeping around to give her a VP position.
Abrams>>>>>>>>>>Harris
agreed
I wonder what blog oaktoon is manifesting his craziest mood swings at these days.
{insert Dylan Thomas joke}
“Do not go gentle into that good night” should be on the tip of Korach’s tongue if he hits a walkoff.
“Rage rage against the dying of the light” for fans the next time a season comes to disapppointing fruition. Or, you know, the next time the Coliseum lights fail.
I think I’d rather have Buchter than Diekman or McFarland (I don’t want Buchter.) Or Treinen even at the higher price. Also agree with most that Grossman should have been nt’d. All this seems weird and bad.
Treinen for 8M or Diekman for 7.5? I mean really.
Thanks, and go As.
I’m sure if Treinen was 4M/per for 2 years, they’d have kept him. Diekman shouldn’t have been resigned, but that doesn’t make 8M for Treinen smart.
Notable
The odds of them staying that stadium for the next 30 years is virtually nil. I’m sure this is part of a plan to build a new stadium in that location.
Zach Wheeler to the Phillies at 5/118.
I’m underwhelmed by the new Rangers uniforms.
The head-to-toe powder blue home ensemble is quite ridiculous.
Ive always thought either Texas or Anaheim should be compelled to change to a totally different color scheme. Too similar to be in the same division. MLB should force Angels to wear purple or brown.
I’m a fan of powder blue done right. This is not done right.
And yet it is the best thing I saw. Now that the Padres are back in brown I think the Rangers may be the most awful uniform set in MLB.
edit-I orgiginally added generic, but a lot of things like their font, etc are certainly not generic-just bad.
As Paul Lukas points out, they kept the bad font on most of the jerseys, but changed the player name and numbers on the back to a sort of drop shadow, while keeping the old outline on the front. Bizarre.
Using the “TX” USPS abbreviation on that alternate logo is lame, though maybe not quite as lame as certain sports franchises that use an airport code on their uniform. As he also points out, putting the little star in that logo in the vicinity of San Angelo rather than Dallas-Fort Worth makes it even worse.
“And that’s how we became the Grape Creek Rangers!”
In which we learn, among many, many other things, that Trump’s skin paint brand is “Bronx Colors”
I’ve given up saying things can’t possibly get any weirder. Still though…
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/07/30/04/18710839/4/480×480.jpg
Wait, Pom Pom got 4 years, $34 million??
I can’t really argue against any of the moves the Rays make from baseball and budget/window management standpoint, but it is pretty amazing how completely liberated they are from caring about fan reactions at all.
Yeah, tell those hosers at Tim Hortons to take off!
They are still purporting to be all in on the Montreal split fantasy:
The whole notion that they’d get two stadiums built to be shared is idiotic when you can’t even get one stadium built.
Bourenmouth should be relegated for the camera angle alone
Apparently UCSB is still alive and kicking in the NCAA tournament, only unranked team left, playing in the quarterfinals later today vs Wake Forest.
Evil Trump/Pence Medicare boss visits SF to give speech at Commonwealth Club, reports theft from car of $20,000 to police, ultimately bills HHS $47,000 for loss of items including $5,900 Ivanka-brand pendant.
$325 claim for moisturizer
those nose cancelling headphones aren’t working!!
i’m gonna run emily litella jokes into the ground.
False flag! They are just trying to generate fodder for the “California is a lawless hellhole” narrative. I’m only sort of kidding.
Then they are half assing. Even her inflated figure was less than 10% of what A-Rod lost.
lawless? not when the SLA is running the DAs office
Don’t blame me. I voted for Patty Hearst.