Comments on: M’s Add Bill Hall

By: NBarnes

NBarnes — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:15:29 +0000

And heâ€™s arguably better than that: by Fangraphâ€™s calculations Gutierrez is the 3rd most valuable CF in baseball. (And the 9th most valuable outfielder and the 24th most valuable position player, right on par with MVP Pedroia and multi-million-dollar Teixeira)

Well, I was pulling numbers out of my ass for the sake of the argument, so I was a little conservative. I think we can agree on the bottom line: Guti is really good.

By: joser

joser — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:14:34 +0000

Count me among those who donâ€™t see this as the Mâ€™s closing the door on Beltre, but it certainly gives them another direction if Beltre chooses to go elsewhere (as I think is more likely than not). Thatâ€™s smart.

Especially when his agent is Scott Boras. You're always strongest in a negotiation when you have a perfectly viable "Plan B" so you're in a position to walk away with no regret... and make sure the other side knows it.

I really doubt that prior to this year, youâ€™d have pointed at Guti as the fifth or sixth best CF in MLB,

And he's arguably better than that: by Fangraph's calculations Gutierrez is the 3rd most valuable CF in baseball. (And the 9th most valuable outfielder and the 24th most valuable position player, right on par with MVP Pedroia and multi-million-dollar Teixeira)

By: joser

joser — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:54:07 +0000

Wait, so the M’s fortunes over the past five years were all due to Beltre? Here I thought it was Bavasi giving out ridiculous contracts and trading too much for too little, and Hargrove deciding to stick to “roles” when bringing in flammable relievers and writing useless veterans into the lineup. But it was all Beltre all this time? My god, man, you’ve cracked the case!

By: Bandit24

Bandit24 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:42:04 +0000

I love this move! Getting upside like Bill Hall has for basically nothing. How can anyone not like this move? Are you for real Curveballlee? This is the same type of move as the Branyan one you like………

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:16:14 +0000

And we have a winner in the “dumbest thing posted on the site today” contest.

By: Sriram

Sriram — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:36:03 +0000

Good riddance to Adrian Beltre and his wild swings on pitches WAY outside the strikezone. We did not go anywhere in all of the 5 seasons he played here. Beltre is good, but not at $13million a year. Go and suck somewhere else please.

By: TranquilPsychosis

TranquilPsychosis — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:31:12 +0000

Nice job on Branyan and Gute, but the rest of the bunch are borderline MLBâ€™ers.

Or diamonds-in-the-rough, as it were. It’s low cost with possible high upside. Would you rather see some Bavasiesque moves?

By: Pete Livengood

Pete Livengood — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:34:27 +0000

I like this move a lot.

Count me among those who don’t see this as the M’s closing the door on Beltre, but it certainly gives them another direction if Beltre chooses to go elsewhere (as I think is more likely than not). That’s smart.

As to curveballee, why on earth would you criticize a move like this? Like the Hanahan move and Langerhans before that, this is just JZ picking up marginal runs/wins at little to no cost, increasing the team’s flexibility to pursue the kind of move you say the M’s should be making. But there is a process here – you can’t just do that kind of thing overnight. Have some patience (and a little faith), man!

By: edclayton

edclayton — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:41:06 +0000

Umm, you do realize that Griffey/Sweeney have been strictly platooned the whole year, right?

I was thinking more about intra-game platooning i.e. Sweeney facing a tough RH reliever in the late innings. It seems like Wak is more likely to let him stay in the game than to bring Griffey in to pinch hit for him. Wasn’t everybody ranting about this just last week?

By: Jeff Nye

Jeff Nye — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:35:19 +0000

Even if they think Beltre is likely to resign, having a backup plan in place isn’t a bad thing.