2018-19 Off-Season Hot Stove

[realmofotalk]

The small-market Wild went full A.J. Preller by winning the offseason of 2012 when they signed the top two free agents to matching 13-year, $98 million contracts. And then the Henrys and Leos of the fan base declared that their team would win not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven...

[HollywoodLeo]

You troll the UT enough that you should know that Henry and I don’t think alike.

[realmofotalk]

Ok, I'll give you that you haven't waffled between deriding Machado as a lazy bum anytime the "not-Padres" are in the lead and hailing him as your franchise savior anytime the Padres are in the mix to sign him.

[HollywoodLeo]

I won't lie, if this were 15 years ago and the highly unlikely event that the Padres sign both were to happen I'd probably be ballyhooing about their World Series hopes. But I think a ton more cautiously now than I did when I was younger. I'd really like our chances but the games still have to be played.

That being said, if the Padres' farm is even half as good as it's supposed to be, coupling that with both of them would still raise my hopes.

But I'm at present time not convinced they sign even one of them, nevermind both.

[realmofotalk]

So Padres fans have already forgotten about the narrative that Machado is horrible in the playoffs and that the Dodgers should have traded instead for Steve Pearce who would have beaten Chris Sale and David Price and the rest of a 108-win team all by himself?

[HollywoodLeo]

If by "Padres fans" you mean Henry, then sure.

[HollywoodLeo]

I guess Henry won’t be calling him lazy anymore

[dgfred]

Goodness... I thought just mentioning the Padres was smoke and mirrors with Machado. I guess that means the Phillies will have to give Harper 10 years too. Dang it.

[realmofotalk]

If the Giants get Harper, at least the Dodgers save money for Arenado next year.

[HollywoodLeo]

Phillies signed Harper to 13 years, 330 million with no opt outs and a full NTC

Sounds like Boras got them to bid against themselves.

[dgfred]

Took it over- 4 years... 45 million each yr from LAD. Wow.

[HollywoodLeo]

Boras said he wanted to be able to be in the same place the rest of his career, which makes the lack of opt outs and full NTC also make sense.

I'm sure breaking Stanton's record was part of it as well, though

[realmofotalk]

I hate the new 3 batter minimum rule that is going into effect next year. If the Dodgers end up losing a game on a runaway inning because one of our shitty relievers gives up consecutive hits or walks a batter on 4 pitches and the rule says our manager can't pull him from the game, I swear I will quit being a fan. That isn't baseball.

This reminds me of all those fagget ballot measures (e.g. a ban on grocery plastic bags) we get in this state every election year that only a Giants fan would support.

[HollywoodLeo]

I think I'm in the minority but I like it.

LOOGYs are a stupid waste of time.

I still remember the time Bruce Bochy brought in Eddie Oropesa to intentionally walk Bonds and then pulled him.

[realmofotalk]

That's an extreme example. If our righthanded reliever can't get the first two batters out, and a dangerous lefty is coming to bat, why shouldn't we be allowed to bring in a LOOGY? Baseball is a game of percentages. This shitty rule is like forcing you to go for it on 4th down in your own territory when you want to punt.