That may be true, but if the champs are calling and asking you to take 5 million to pitch 50 innings and be starter insurance maybe you consider... Just saying there's no cost to ask...
I think the Giants swoop in on Correa now... the chance to run him out there against the Dodgers is too enticing... Huge disappointment if they get no one outside of Joc or Haniger...
Exactly. Vazquez is right there with Maldonado defensively. And yeah he just called a game in the WS with 4 different pitchers that completed only the second no hitter in WS history. He'll bat .280, drive in 65 runs. That's pretty damn good offense from a catcher. On a team already littered with good/great hitters. And chemistry wise, it's off the charts. And you can get him for half the price of Contreras.
Vasquez had everything you need, but he was not happy playing second fiddle. And THAT has always been the problem bringing him back. If he could accept splitting 2023 and Primary in 2024 and 2025, we'd have a match. If Baker agreed. Vasquez gives you league average hitting, about 100 ops+ and 2.0 WAR. Contreras gives you more offensively at a cost of defense and Prep intangibles.
Vasquez wants to start, but I think he does like playing for Houston, which is the reason why they are still in contact. I also think Contreras is option A, so until Contreras says yes to someone , Vasquez is in a holding pattern.
He's a career .695 OPS hitter that is on the wrong side of 30 already. There's nothing "nice" about it if he's the best we can do. You might as well roll the dice with Lee than waste money on Vazquez.
So somebody says the tweet was referring to Bellinger and this is your bizarre response? I swear you have these stream of consciousness cryptic posts. You managed to reference the Yankees, Cubs and White Sox in the same post.
Spoiler https://theathletic.com/3977016/2022/12/07/mlb-free-agency-aaron-judge/ The Astros won another World Series after their cheating scandal, and then owner Jim Crane fired GM James Click. How would you describe Houston’s operation? “Unconventional.” “Unstable.” “Crane is running the show. Honestly, it’s too easy, from an agent’s perspective, to take advantage of that.” “You hear about how the Astros had a chance to acquire (Willson) Contreras from the Cubs and Crane comes in and vetoes that deal. So they pivot and get Christian Vázquez. The Monday morning quarterback would say, ‘Hey, they won the World Series. Whatever happened, happened, and it all worked out.’ I would argue that you should just watch the free-agent market between Contreras and Christian Vázquez unfold, and you tell me who’s a more coveted and better catcher. You could have had Contreras. It’s mind-blowing to me that you’d want to get involved at that level (as an owner). Now I could understand if you’re trying to trade (Alex) Bregman or somebody that’s more of a luminary figure in that city. That’s more of an ownership discussion. But stuff like that, if I’m Click, I’m like, ‘Get me the f— out of here, man. I don’t want to work for Mark Cuban or Jerry Jones.;” “We met with the Astros in Vegas (during the GM meetings). Click wasn’t there. Supposedly, he was sick. Maybe he was sick, I don’t know. But they told us he was really under the weather coming off the parade. We met with three guys, and 24 hours later, one of them got s—canned, and we didn’t know what was going to happen with the other two. Jim Crane really runs the show, anyway. But I think they’re going to be fine. They got a great f—ing team. Their pitching is just ridiculous.” “Houston does not run their team with emotion. Their ownership group runs it like a business. And when I say business, I mean a cutthroat business. They feel like they can interchange people into their system and win. Quite frankly, I’m not sure that anything has shown that they can’t. This has been across the board for the last couple years where their system works. James did a really good job, obviously, but they feel like they can plug somebody else in there and win. And they might not be wrong. It stinks because that completely devalues the human element, the loyalty, and some of those things. I don’t like it. There’s a lot of baseball people that don’t like the way that they have operated. But you cannot argue with results.” “Can I say clusterf—? This is The Athletic, so yes, right? They’re a clusterf—. But they’re too talented for Jim Crane to mess up, and they will be for a while.” … If you bought an MLB franchise, who would you want to hire to run baseball operations? Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti (3 votes): “But you could never get him to leave Cleveland, so it doesn’t matter.” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman (3): “He’s built a juggernaut and not just with the big league club.” Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander (3): “Imagine what that guy can do with a payroll.” Brewers advisor David Stearns (3) Other responses: “It used to be David Stearns until he started b****ing about work-life balance.” Yankees assistant GM Jean Afterman Orioles GM Mike Elias Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak: “He’s not extra warm to deal with, but can you dispute what he has done year in and year out?” Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye Diamondbacks special assistant Jason McLeod MLB consultant Theo Epstein: “Would he do it again? Probably not, but worth a shot.” Who are the best and worst managers in the game? Best: Terry Francona (7 votes), Dusty Baker (4), Kevin Cash (2), A.J. Hinch (2), Dave Roberts, Brian Snitker, Craig Counsell (“most underrated guy going”). “Francona just gets it.” “This is a people business and Francona is a master at handling and managing personalities.” Worst “Think about what happened to Joe Maddon in Anaheim. They wouldn’t let him manage. Did he do a bad job or were his hands tied? We’ve got players on that team, and even after Joe got fired, the players were like, ‘F— that, we’re in it with Joe. He’s the guy.’ His hands were tied.” “Whoever’s running the Marlins at any given time is probably the worst.” Gabe Kapler Tony La Russa: “He’s not managing right now, but this season, he was the worst manager in the game” “Most of the worst ones have been replaced, (but) it would’ve been La Russa.”
If he makes solid contact, he's great. But elite pitching won't normally give you that. In contrast, we just got the best 1B Hitter against elite pitching at the expense of a few more regular season misses against average pitching.
I think I'd go 4 years, but 5 is dicey. Catchers have a bad habit of falling off a cliff after 30. Guys who were premium offensive catchers in the past like Lucroy, Jason Kendall, even Mauer, and Buster Posey (comeback season excepted)... went from really good to sub-par really quickly. TLDR; they mad. The comment from the one person saying Crane nixing the Contreras deal was a bad move because Contreras is going to get a bigger contract than Vazquez was absurd. One would have cost an above average, starting pitcher with 3 years of control entering his prime coinciding with a wide open playoff window. The other cost a pair of scratch off tickets requiring 40 man roster spots in limited supply.
The deification of Maldonado the defensive genius is, has and always will be bullshit. He’s a horrific offensive player, he’s just fine defensively, but nothing special or otherworldly. The same bullshit that has infected our fan base at catcher recently started creeping in at 1B where, like madly, every defensive number for Yuli was ass, he was an embarrassment offensively for a 1B and I got to listen to 100 games of “but mah scoopz!” No one else can scoops the ball like Yuli- which is the same warmed over horse **** that ascribes magical powers to Maldy’s ability to call a game, all the while our other catcher actually has better numbers than him pitching staff wise. It’s absurd It needs to stop. we got lucky wining the WS with a little above average offense that was dragged down to the pits of hell by collossally bad play at 1B, Catcher and DH. We’ve solved the first and now look like we are going to solve the second and third. Sit back and enjoy it. JV left, we need to get better offensively, paying Contreras less than 20M a year for 4 or 5 years is an incredibly small price to pay. They even have enough money left over to fix DH/LF with Conforto or (ugh Benitendi).
Yeah, that makes no sense at all with regard to that quote from the article. Either that person has no business doing what he does for a living or some of that **** is simply made up.
Price has already formally announced his retirement, plus he has two rings. Don't think he can be enticed to come back. Kluber is my dream "older ring chaser" for this team. Again, I'm fine giving Garcia only (plus Perez, Meyers, Bielak-type guys) for Murphy. But not Brown/Abreu in addition. If Arizona gets another catcher see if we can add Varsho as a CF/C. Ideally we pivot to Benintendi, and for C, eiher Vazquez or Varsho.
The Contreras vs Murphy debate is interesting. If you went the Murphy route you could pivot and replace the pitcher you trade by signing Rodon. Kind of comes down to Contreras and Brown or Murphy and Rodon which pair would you rather have? (I know there would be more prospects outgoing and Rodon would cost more $ and longer years than Contreras.) Personally I wouldn’t move Brown even if you signed Rodon to replace him. Now what if the Cardinals sign Contreras would we consider Garcia and Urquidy for Murphy if you could line up Rodon and another cheaper vet like Kluber? Valdez, Rodon, Javier, LMJ, Brown, Kluber. Just some random musings while we are waiting feel free to explain how stupid it would be.
Don't you think you should reference the quote or even what article you're talking about? Unless you're just mumbling to yourself.
