MLB NEWS/RUMORS Thread

Grandal has played 48 games at 1B in the majors. 10 games with the Dodgers. It's something he already does.

 

And sucks at

 

Playing 1B is incredibly hard.

 

I'm not sure about that, after this debacle of an off-season, we could see some guys who aren't of the top tier take that QO, especially a guy like Grandal when it will be more than twice what he has made in any one season.

 

Tell him Wash

 

I’d say Grandal is a top tier catcher. He’s definitely top 10. I’d offer him a QO.

 

Everything in baseball is incredibly hard.

no homo

 

Consider the position

 

I don't doubt that. But we just saw a pretty darn good catcher (certainly Top 10 going into 2017) get a 1 year deal at $6.5M, and Alex Avila, who is pretty darn good himself (and coming off of a good season) got a 2 year deal for peanuts. And they are all about the same age, Lucroy and Avila are 31, and Grandal will hit the Market at 30.

 

That's what it comes down to
Premium position

 

Avila was beat to hell in recent years, concussions

 

Still had a better season than Grandal, 119 OPS+ in 311 ABs, 2.7 WAR.

You kinda prove my point though, catchers get beat to shit, the only huge deals we've seen given to catchers in recent years are the 5/$80M+ the Jays gave Russ (and they surely regret) and the 3/60 retirement deal the Cardinals gave Molina, which will probably prove to a mistake as well, but it's ok because he's a franchise icon. And of course, Joe Mauer, 8/$184M, he only played catcher for the first 3 years of the deal, and since he move to 1st permanently, he's been about a 2.3 Win player. The one slam dunk however is Buster 9/$164M, in the first 5 years he's been at least a 4-Win player every time, the difference, he was 26 when it started, the others, 28 and older.

 

I think Yasmani gets at least 4/50, they will surely shoot for Russ Martin and come up shy.
It's one thing to have a shoulder here and a knee there.
Another thing entirely to be 1 more concussion away from being forced to retire, the concerns about Avila are serious.

 

That's true, and probably smart, but he's still played ~109 games per year there over of the last 3 seasons.

 

I hope he plays well enough to get that, I really do, just have major doubts that he can stay healthy and if healthy, remain consistent enough to do it.

 

BR projects 480+ PAs for Yasmani this year
Going forward, over a 3-4yr span, I'd say 400ish on average for Yasmani, he's been in a good groove from a PA standpoint since 2014 - even with the shoulder stuff a couple seasons ago
Or at the very least I think there will be a team out there that convinces themselves that Yasmani can do it, will probably be an AL team
I think if they get 300 PAs from Avila, DBacks have to be happy, but BR projects 340 this year