Bad betting weekend for me, with misses across the board. I did, however, have two pints of Ben & Jerry’s, so I can’t say the hedonism was a total loss.
I don’t think I’ll make fun of this comment from Pirates’ owner Bob Nutting – being in “striking distance of a good team” is kind of a funny assessment though – because it just seems to be a clear-eyed recognition of where they are (though they could be further along if he, you knew, spent money). From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
“I’m not gonna pick a number of games or wins, but for the first time in what feels like a decade and maybe on the calendar is 6-7 years, we’re within striking distance of a good team. We’re short of that still, but the progression is clearly going in the right direction. My expectation is we take another meaningful step forward [in 2024]. With the current playoff system, another step forward means we can be in contention throughout the season. That’s a minimum expectation we should have and one we should be building on.”
It does sound like the Pirates are expecting to accomplish more this offseason, by the way. When you look at their roster, you can certainly do the thing where you find 88 wins if this and this and this and this and this all happen. The big ones would be Ke’Bryan Hayes finally breaking out, Oneil Cruz returning healthy and exploding, Bryan Reynolds getting back to being a star, and then a bunch of the young pitching all turning it on at once (Mitch Keller, Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, Anthony Solometo, etc.). It’s unlikely it all comes together at the same time in the same season, but the Pirates have had YEARS of stockpiling young talent via trades, high draft picks, and top international dollars. Eventually, they’re going to be decent again.
Great point here from Arizona Phil about how Scott Boras could be holding things up in free agency above and beyond his usual style:
“Not even considering Boras’s specific, peculiar, and somewhat unique characteristics as an agent, for one agent to be representing all six of the best available free agents gives that agent a tremendous advantage, because normally one agent does not know what another agent has discussed with a particular club. But Boras knows everything there is to know about all six of his players and the expressed needs, desires, and financial restrictions of all 30 clubs. No matter who signs who, Boras will know that he has taken the best deal he can possibly get for each of the six players, because he doesn’t have to worry about another agent cutting a deal or a club using him as a stalking horse.”
Probably all the better reason for the Cubs to play it cool on Cody Bellinger, because they could be at even more of an information disadvantage than usual at this stage in the offseason (the Cubs can’t claim they’re way more interested in some other of Boras’s clients in order to hold the line on Bellinger, because he’ll know if that’s actually true or not!). Of course, the counter to that is that the Michael Busch trade probably REALLY helped them on this front: now their need/fit for both of Bellinger and Rhys Hoskins, for example just isn’t there. So Boras can’t use the duo to drive up the price on the Cubs quite as easily, because he’s gotta find homes for them both, and only one could go to the Cubs.
Speaking of which, if you missed it this weekend, the Cubs are still viewed as the likely landing spot for Bellinger when all is said and done.
General baseball prediction for 2024: a lot of pitchers who developed and worked on sweepers in 2022 and 2023 are going to go back to a gyro slider in 2024. This will be a national baseball nerd talking point by June.
Anthony Rendon continues to get attention for the wrong reasons:
Dude hasn’t played more than 58 games in a season since 2019 and he’s complaining that the season is too long. Got it. I guess an important part of any serious free agent decision: make sure the guy you’re signing for over $200 million actually likes the sport.
Just having a little fun:
And to be clear, it often works out! These are low-risk moves, so why not keep taking the shots. Julian Merryweather was exactly that guy.
Ben Grieve had only just turned 29 when he was with the Cubs in 2005:
Grieve was a nice hitter for eight years in his 20s, including a month with the Cubs at the end of 2004 (.269/.367/.443/113 wRC+ overall). He had to take a minor league deal thereafter with the Pirates, eventually wound up back with the Cubs on a minor league deal, and couldn’t hit that year. And that was it. Didn’t play a game of professional baseball in his 30s. Definitely an unusually early peak (his best years by far were ages 21 to 24), and an unusually early end.
This is just egregiously bad:
And this isn’t much better:
This, by contrast, is looking pretty good – it’s a team that probably should add another starter and reliever this offseason to really shore it up:
Speaking of AL East teams that could still add pitching, this read on the Orioles’ offseason has to be pretty maddening if you’re an O’s fan. It is mind-boggling that they haven’t signed someone like Jordan Montgomery. It is such an obvious, obvious, obvious need and fit at this moment in time. Maybe they will wind up being the surprise team to jump in on someone like Montgomery or Blake Snell.
It’s Travis Wood:
NEWSLETTER
