I've fallen down the Magic Online rabbit hole, but I decided to come up for air today and we're gonna do baseball. Before we get back to transactions, I wanted to put my personal Hall of Fame ballot out. Better late than never, right? I covered my basic position on Hall voting here, and my point of view hasn't changed in the past year. So for the 2015 class, I would have voted for:
1. Barry Bonds. Most dominant offensive player since Babe Ruth. Maybe ever. Covered this adequately last year.
2. Roger Clemens. The best pitcher of the last generation is either Maddux, Clemens, or the next guy.
3. Randy Johnson. All hail Mr. Snappy.
4. Pedro Martinez. 1999 ALDS Game 5. Find it. Watch it. Relive it. You'll never see a better pitcher.
5. Mike Piazza. As I said last year, the catcher list goes Bench, Piazza, Berra, Fisk, Carter. You can shuffle the order any way you want and I won't argue. It's a joke that backne is keeping him out.
6. Craig Biggio. He's got the compiler numbers, plus he was one of the best five players in the game for a five-year period. That's career and peak value. He doesn't pass the sniff test for me the way my #11-13 do, but I can't argue with the facts.
7. Jeff Bagwell. Frank Thomas got in easily last year. Bagwell should get the same treatment as they're pretty much the same player. Maybe Bagwell had backne too.
8. Tim Raines. Second-best leadoff hitter of all time. Played at the same time as the first-best and therefore doesn't get in. Seems fair.
9. Alan Trammel. Probably a lost cause, but basically the same player as Barry Larkin. Like Raines suffers in comparison to Rickey, Trammel will never be Cal Ripken. That means nothing.
10. Mike Mussina. If an active pitcher approaches Mussina's 270 wins, he'll be a shoo-in. Moose was also really good for a really long time at pitching stats that actually matter. And for all the John Smoltz/Curt Schilling postseason mythology, Mussina stepped up his game in 23 playoff appearances, too.
Submitted with apologies to Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, and Edgar Martinez, who were a close 11th, 12th, and 13th. In an unlimited votes world, I would have voted for all of the above plus Gary Sheffield, Mark McGwire, and Larry Walker.
So that's that. On with the chlorophyll- Um, I mean, transaction reaction. This is Winning the Winter Part 7, aka A.J. Preller has lost his gat dang mind, aka the most anyone has ever written about the Padres without getting paid for it. This'll be a long one, because holy crap why did every team announce everything on December 19th.
12/17/14: Padres sign RHP Brandon Morrow, 1 year, $2.5M. A good risk-reward signing. If Morrow gets healthy, the switch to the NL and Petco Park could lead to a big year. Or he provides nothing, and the Padres have to find another guy to be their number 5.
12/17/14: Marlins sign 1B Mike Morse, 2 years, $16M. First base was one of a few positions where the Marlins got no production at all in 2014, so anyone with a pulse would have been an upgrade. The good news is, Morse had a fine year in a different cavernous ballpark in 2014. The bad news: he's going to be 33 when the 2015 season starts and he's always had bad K/BB rates. That's acceptable when you hit .300, something he's only done once in his career. But for that price, you're going to get a flawed player. For all his shortcomings, Morse should add some homers to the middle of the Marlins' lineup, which is what they needed. I think the Marlins did well enough here.
12/18/14: Athletics trade C Derek Norris, RHP Seth Streich, and an international bonus slot to Padres for RHPs Jesse Hahn and R.J. Alvarez. Now that the work-in-progress appears to be coming to an end in Oakland, we have some idea of what Billy Beane was up to here. I still don't get trading Norris, a pre-arb All-Star catcher who will be 26 in 2015, when your fallback options are Stephen Vogt and Josh Phegley. Yes, Oakland needed starting pitching badly and Hahn is a quality arm, but there are more Jesse Hahns in the world than there are Derek Norrises. For San Diego, this is just more selective aggression from A.J. Preller. He's aimed high in so many moves this offseason, and his success rate is kind of amazing. If this is where the Padres catcher shuffle winds up, it's a fine place to be. I don't know if the Padres look like a playoff team yet, but that it's now worth considering is a feat in and of itself.
12/18/14: Royals sign RHP Kris Medlen, 2 years, $8.5M. If Kansas City is to keep things rolling after their great 2014 run, they're going to have to add value from two sources. Improvement from their homegrown core is paramount, but striking gold on low-cost acquisitions like this one is also key. Medlen looked like a budding ace in 2012 and 2013 with the Braves before he was swept up in the Tommy John epidemic (for the second time) before the 2014 season. There's always bust potential in these cases, but I think Medlen's going to turn into an asset for the Royals. He probably won't be ready to make the rotation out of spring training this year, which is fine since he's sixth on the depth chart. Think of it as a depth signing and the Royals start to look like a solid team once again.
12/19/14: Marlins trade RHP Nate Eovaldi, RHP Domingo German, and 1B Garrett Jones to Yankees for IF Martin Prado, RHP David Phelps, and $6M. When the Marlins sell, they sell well. The transaction tree from their 2012-13 fire sale built an entire average team from nothing but Giancarlo and Jose Fernandez. But when they buy, it always looks like they throw in one too many good players. Prado's a worthwhile bat and he plays an acceptable third base, but two years of him vs. three years of Eovaldi seems almost even to me, given that those three years are likely to be Eovaldi's best and Prado won't do anything better than stay the same. Jones and Phelps- whatever, they aren't a big deal. Jones was included as a salary dump and Phelps is the guy you give a spot start to when you have nobody else. So where's the part where the Marlins said "You know what, it's so important we get this deal done, we're going to throw in a kid with a mid-90's fastball and good control."? I like the Yankees' end for that reason, and while I'm still doing my best to be optimistic about this latest episode of "Jeffrey Loria briefly decides he wants to win", I cringe a little every time I see them trade a guy like German. So I've cringed a few times over the past 12 months. Heaney hurt the most because I think that's a trade that makes both the present and the future worse. This is the second worst because it feels like they just tipped the Yankees a prospect for the right to trade with them. Marisnick and Moran I understood- at least I know Cosart is close to worth it- but Moran's one of the guys I think you keep. As with everything the Marlins do, the construction of the 2015 team is highly suspect. Almost like they expect to break it all apart again in ten months.
12/19/14: Marlins trade 3B Casey McGehee to Giants for RHPs Kendry Flores and Luis Castillo. McGehee rode a fluky BABiP to a strong OBP in 2014, and the Marlins got someone to bite after they acquired Prado. The pitchers Miami got aren't making prospect lists but they both look decent enough to me, per K rate. Flores is a 23 year old starter, Castillo two years younger and a reliever. Both pitched in A-ball in 2014. Maybe McGehee is the latest in a long line of mediocre players who Bruce Bochy gets a good year out of, or maybe the Marlins got something for nothing. I think it's the second one.
12/19/14: In a three-way trade, Rays send OF Wil Myers, C Ryan Hanigan, LHP Jose Castillo, and RHP Gerardo Reyes to Padres. Padres send C Rene Rivera, RHP Burch Smith, and 1B Jake Bauers to Rays and RHP Joe Ross and SS Trea Turner to Nationals. Nationals send OF Steven Souza and LHP Travis Ott to Rays. OK, this is a head-exploder, so I'll break it down completely for funsies. Let's look at the Padres' end first because it's got the most names people know. Myers is a former top prospect and a pretty big get for a team that's suddenly in win-now mode. In barely over a season's worth of ABs over two years, Myers has been a slightly above league-average hitter at ages 22 and 23 and people think he's got much more ability than he's showed so far. Hanigan looked like a Rivera replacement, but he got spun to the Red Sox pretty quick so we'll worry about that next. Castillo and Reyes are young lottery ticket types. For this, San Diego gave up Smith, Ross and Turner (three highly-rated prospects), Rene Rivera (an asset both at the plate and behind it, though at 31 his shelf life is limited), and Bauers (a wild card). The Nats turned Souza (a 25-year-old who crushed triple-A pitching last year before scuffling in the bigs) and Ott (a 20-year-old lefty) into Joe Ross and Trea Turner. Whew. OK. Both Turner and Ross have a pretty good chance of being better than either of the guys the Nats gave up. Why the Rays felt the need to involve Washington at all, I don't know. If this was just a 4-for-5 two team deal, it'd be a total crapshoot on which group of young players is going to pan out better. But it looks like Tampa Bay gave up a significant chunk of that future value in exchange for Souza, who I guess will replace Myers and maybe play like crap? I think the Rays lose and the Nats win outright, but it's hard to evaluate San Diego's end yet. Way too many moving parts. I think they did okay, because I think Wil Myers is a real player. Myers' development and the Padres' record in 2015 are going to be the deciders, because if you look at what they gave up in total, it's a significant hit to their farm system. If people refer to this as the Wil Myers trade in five years, it was good for San Diego. But we might be calling it the Trea Turner trade. If we're calling it the Steven Souza trade, I'll laugh pretty hard.
12/19/14: Padres trade C Ryan Hanigan to Red Sox for 3B Will Middlebrooks. Hanigan will be the wise veteran mentor for Christian Vazquez and, soon enough, Blake Swihart. Middlebrooks hasn't managed to capture the magic he showed in a brilliant half-season in 2012, and now he'll have to try to do it in Petco. His prospect pedigree is good, and Hanigan wasn't essential after the Norris deal, so I like this as an upside play for the Padres. If you told me two years ago that Middlebrooks and Myers were both going to be on the Padres in 2015, it would have sounded a lot more impressive than it does now. But it's still kind of impressive.
12/19/14: Dodgers trade OF Matt Kemp, C Tim Federowicz and $32M to Padres for C Yasmani Grandal, RHP Joe Wieland, and RHP Zach Eflin. And this is how a GM announces his presence with authority. Kemp is coming off his first healthy season since 2011's should-have-been-MVP year, and it was an unexpected return to form- good enough to convince the Padres to take on $15M a year for the next five years. That the Dodgers dumped that much money would have been unthinkable as recently as six months ago, especially in a deal with San Diego. That they added three useful pieces in return is just as dumbfounding. Eflin, just 20, profiles as a mid-rotation starter. Wieland is 24, successfully returned from Tommy John in 2014, and is probably next in line as soon as Brandon McCarthy or Brett Anderson get hurt. And Grandal is a 25-year-old catcher with pop. He's not the best defensive backstop- in some ways he might be the worst- but still. 4 years of team control, power, draws walks, can maybe sort of catch, for some definitions of the term. Value. So did the Padres get fleeced? Rationally speaking, it kind of looks that way. But what if Matt Kemp isn't as done as he looked a year ago? What if the Padres just got a legit elite bat that will play at Petco? Not saying that's what happened. Just saying it might be.
12/19/14: Phillies trade SS Jimmy Rollins to Dodgers for RHP Zach Eflin and LHP Tom Windle. So Byrd, Bastardo, and now Rollins are leaving Philly, and Ruben Amaro got a pretty strong return for each. See above for Eflin. Windle is one of countless minor leaguers who could be good starters if they develop a third pitch, and if not, will be perfectly fine relievers. For one year of a 36-year-old shortstop, that's not bad. Rollins still plays an adequate shortstop and still hits like an average big leaguer, so the Dodgers are probably going to be happy with the return this year. And after that, they think Corey Seager will be ready to take over. It's hard to poke holes in the Dodgers' offseason strategy, but I have to say I'm rather impressed with Amaro's work. At this point I wouldn't even be shocked if he finds a way to move Ryan Howard in the next month or two.
12/19/14: Royals sign OF Alex Rios, 1 year, $11M. First of all, he'll always be Alexis Rios to me. Great baseball name. Secondly, he hits for average, runs a lot, and doesn't walk or hit homers, so he's kind of always been a Royal. Keeping in mind that he's 33 and this will be his first year playing half his games in a pitcher-friendly ballpark, we shouldn't be surprised if he goes from "just barely average thanks to batting average" to "barely playable". The Royals will sink or swim based on other players, but I don't think is any help.
12/19/14: Braves trade OF Justin Upton and RHP Aaron Northcraft to Padres for LHP Max Fried, IFs Jace Peterson and Dustin Peterson, OF Mallex Smith, and an international bonus pool slot. And we'll wrap this insanely long wall of text with yet another blockbuster. I thought the Braves did well in the Jason Heyward trade, but in its own way this is a better haul for a lesser player. Fried was the Padres' best or second best pitching prospect, but he snapped a ligament in August and that made him available. Now he's the Braves' #3 prospect. Dustin Peterson and Smith both fall somewhere in Atlanta's top 20 as well. Jace Peterson doesn't, but he's a major league-ready second baseman with strong plate discipline. So what did the Padres get? Another outfielder, to go with Kemp and Myers, who shouldn't play center field but can hit like crazy. Apart from perpetually high strikeout totals, Upton does everything you could want. Homers, doubles, walks, passable corner outfield defense. The Padres got a really good player in his prime. As much or more than the Matt Kemp deal, I think this legitimizes the Padres as a team for 2015. And while the Braves kind of look a mess right now, don't forget they still have lots of young and talented starting pitching, half a good lineup, and after trading Upton and Heyward, they even have a farm system. If the Braves suck, it won't be for too long. Is there really a winner here? I think it's the Braves. This is more talent than a team should get for trading one year of anybody.
