DODGERS NEWS/RUMORS thread

If we get Harper and make a nice trade, it will be easier to get amped for 2019. Losing two WS in a row, it's really difficult to get excited for another 162 games.

 

I've got a chubby.

 

Barnes sucks

 

Just preparing for ultimate off season disappointment.

 

Irish - great list but you forgot some other crucial points:

Parking fee raised to $75 per game

Concession prices raised by 20%

GuGGs announces Season Ticket License fee, paid retroactive back to 1955

Andrew Friedman signs endorsement deal with Swill Lake Michigan Water Co.

Todd Boehly dies suddenly of a massive heart attack while madly jerking off over his bank statement...
EXCLUSIVE footage to be seen only by the 181 remaining Spectrum subscribers on Backstage Dodgers.

Rube, Villar, Jamie McCourt, Magic Johnson's tranny kid, Harold Reynolds and
BJ King carry Boehly's pine box to unmarked, shallow grave.

FW's mom caters the wake which he attends, without a date..

 

Bs walks Harper talks

 

Douchey Dodgers...so sick of inevitable failures year after year. Fuck it.

A blonde is at a vending machine feeding money after money into it, and getting the cans out and lining them up...and the guy behind her says " hey, lady...can you hurry it up? "
And she replies, " don't rush me- can't you see I'm winning? "

 

Morosi reported tonight that the Dodgers and Indians are still talking about a Kluber deal, but they’re not making any progress. The Indians are expecting a “Sale-esque” return which... yeah that ain’t gonna happen.

 

I'm getting the sense that this FO does not want to have an Albert Puljos type contract on their hands, and are so freaked about that possibility, that they are no longer willing to take on any risk.

I hope they realize that this team, with all the formerly vaunted youth, is maxed out. They have been to 2 WS and did not get over the hump. What makes them think that being stingy will somehow push them over the top?

Thing is, going all out this year will engender a lot if goodwill from the fanbase.....and winning just one will secure this ownership and FO legacy. I don't understand why they don't seem to realize that.

This FO is not the smartest people in the room as they have been out maneuvered by other teams for the past 21 years....including the past 5.

I really hope they wake up.

 

LOL - On that note....

Q: What's the difference between a blonde and a toilet?
A: A toilet won't follow you around for 2 weeks after you use it.

Guy sitting next to a blonde in the airport reading a newspaper with the headline "TEN BRAZILIAN SOLDIERS KILLED"

She leans over and says to him " How many is a Brazilian?"

They are fund consisting of leveraged insurance investments, which means everything they do is stemming from statistics and actuarial tables... and not only are they in a contract that guarantees almost double their payroll outlay, they already lead the league in attendance every year. Also, to make matters worse, their lower payroll projections were leaked in that document and they were already slammed by their own members for doing the deal and spending on payroll in the first place!!!

Bottom line - It appears they were forced into a spending moratorium and they don't need to GAF .................but we all wish they did! Sad but true. The delusions of huge F/A signings and payroll grandeur were short lived. This is who we are. If/when we ever win one it'll be because of luck, injuries to other team members and/or overachievers.

 

Dark day ehh?

Scratch that.. damn doooooooood you HAD to go too far didn't you? We're babies blood-let during that rant?
Talk about dark.. making @irish look light hearted took you zero effort didn't it??

 

They call me darth......

 

I think it is a bit more than that. Harper is getting 10 years......the question is will the team that signs him get 10 years of production out of him......statistically im pretty sure the answer is no. So the question is will 5 years of Pollock and 5 years of someone else give you more production than say 6 good years out of 10 for Harper???? One team in MLB is going to make that offer. So does Dodger MGT take that risk.

 

Monday Morning Notes:

• One executive told Ken Rosenthal that teams aren't asking the Dodgers for Ruiz or Verdugo as much as they are Gavin Lux and Dustin May. BA ranked Lux and May #'s 3 and 4 in their top prospect list that came out on Friday. Both are Top 100 prospects, but have not had the prolong success of the other two. Lux and May took giant leaps forward in 2018 and while Lux is now viewed as a potential All Star up the middle, more people think May is in line for the middle of the rotation unless he starts to see more success with his secondaries and maybe can add another tick or two to his strengthening FB(all plausible with what he has shown thus far). The Dodgers depth up the middle is incredibly weak outside of Lux and recent addition Jeter Downs, while the Dodgers pitching depth is still considerable even after recent graduations and trades, but currently lacks front line starter upside. The club has been said in the past unwilling to consider moving Lux in certain deals and have been reluctant to move May as well though no real "untouchable" talk has been referred to. The Dodgers FO has a solid track record when they have labeled a player as "untouchable". Others to have publicly made that list have been Buehler, Urias, Seager, Bellinger and Ruiz.

• The Yankees are reportedly out on Machado and are said to be unwilling to go over $200M for him and have never been serious about Harper according to those with sources close to the FO. There is always the chance of a surprise last second run, but it seems unlikely with some other things going on with them, such as...

• The Yankees and Phillies among others are said to still be in on Adam Ottavino. The Yanks are considered the favorite at this time even after the signing of Britton as they are also his hometown team. The Yankees are already projected to be $1.2M over the tax and are not expected to go much higher with very little coming off the books after 2019 in terms of contract relief.

• The Sonny Gray trade talks seemingly died soon after CC Sabathia had his emergency heart surgery. The Yankees are thin on starting pitching depth as it is and now are looking to start the season with Gray potentially back in the rotation.

• Ken Rosenthal had a report this morning about the Cubs and how they are in a bit of trouble with their salary figures. They are already $20M over the tax for 2019 and their ownership wants them to cut spending. They do not have many great tradable options at this current time that make sense for the club. He said that the Cubs being a potential landing spot for Bryce Harper is viewed as laughable unless someone gets duped into taking on some of their horrible long term contracts.

• The Padres and Indians have seemingly gone their separate ways in Kluber talks. As I mentioned last night, the Tribe are said to want a hefty haul that would in all likelihood include Fernando Tatis Jr, who many folks feel is going to be an absolute monster. The Padres are said to be focusing more on Gray at this time, but those talks seem to be going nowhere.

• Morosi reported today that the Brewers have been the most active team in pursuing Madison Bumgarner and if the Giants ultimately elect to move him, that is probably his likely destination. The Brewers only have one returning starter from last year and that is Chacin, a player unlikely to replicate his impressive 2018. The Giants though still seem intent on bring MadBum back to start the season to show that he is more than the pitcher he has shown to be over the last two seasons.

• The Rockies are said to be one of the clubs heavily pursuing Brian Dozier. If he bounces back in 2019, he would be a lot of trouble in the middle of a now intriguing Rockies lineup that lacked impact after the cleanup spot.

• BA dropped the Giants top prospects list today. They appear to be ahead of the D'Backs, but behind us on the surface. At the top they have star level ceiling prospects, but outside of Joey Bart, the floors are also low and they are all 2+ years away. After that, the system is pretty weak. If the Giants falter again in 2019, they could still have a few seasons before climbing back into the picture.

• We all know that the sweepstakes for Machado and Harper have been major roadblocks to getting things really going this offseason, but apparently there is another culprit to this boring-as-fuck winter... the Phillies are the 3rd contributor to all this mess. When their owner said they were going to spend "stupid money" it opened the door to possible inflated deals to other FA's if the club were to miss on Bryce and/or Machado, plus teams that are maybe a bit overloaded at certain positions have a landing spot for one of those players. So if the two superstars pass on Philly, things could still be relatively off until the Phillies decide to push their chips to the center of the table, which would include players such as...

• Dallas Keuchel has had a fairly quiet start to his free agency. It is said that the Reds have him atop their wish list, but he has not been ready to move on their rumored offer. He is said to prefer going to a contender if one were to show interest.

 

I think Kelly’s contract might be my favorite one given to a RP this offseason, other than maybe Andrew Miller. Britton’s is the worst.

 

There was an interesting article over the weekend that talked about how risk averse teams have gotten and how foolish it looks over the full length of these long term contracts instead of just how it is at the end. Yes, the end of these 7-10 year contracts almost always look terrible, but for some of these superstars, they greatly outperform the contracts in the early years and in the end they basically even themselves out. With what 1 WAR seemingly costs nowadays (FG has it at $10.5M per Win in 2017), if Harper just put up his basic 4 WAR seasons through his say age 31 season(6 years), that would be worth $252M. So for him to be worth say $300M over 10 years, he would have to produce an average WAR of basically 1 win of value the final 4 seasons. That doesn't even take into account inflation as a win, according to FG, is expected to top $13M within a couple of seasons.

This is only considering that Harper maintains a career average trajectory, if he were to have a just one year close to what he had in 2015 (9.3 WAR), he would only need to average basically 2 WAR every other year for the life of that contract to make it worthwhile. I would guess with the Dodgers advanced scouting, his defensive numbers in LF would greatly increase over what he has been doing in RF with the Nats and his offensive numbers would certainly play there where 4WAR would easily be in his wheelhouse if he stayed healthy with 5-6 WAR a year through his age 30 season(5 years and 262M worth of value). It makes too much sense the deeper I dive into this to pursue Harper.

 

ala Dodgers/Kershaw as well
I want to know who else was in on Kershaw.