2016 MLB Regular-Season Thread

To be fair to Girardi, it takes a special level of ineptitude to build a roster that flawed with the Yankees' resources, but Brian Cashman pulled it off. If anything, I think Girardi propped them up a bit last year.

 

It's possible that the Royals simply had a mediocre month, as teams do from time to time, rather than a collective psychological malady that lapsed sports writers can diagnose from afar.

 

I generally think Cashman is a very good GM, but holy smokes he makes some head-scratching moves. He's paying Chase Headley - Chase no-extra-fuckin'-base-hits Headley - $50 million. That's the kind of mistake that you always point to in arguments about salary cap that the Yankees can absorb, while it would cripple the Pirates. In fact, it's probably worse than that because I'm not sure even the Yankees can absorb it. They don't have any 3B prospects in the pipeline and nobody is going to take on his contract in a trade.

Girardi is fine as manager and I don't think anyone else would do any better with this roster. There's no flexibility with A-Rod working as a full-time DH. They may get some flexibility now, assuming he hits the DL with a hamstring issue after last night, but they'll be losing probably their best hitter of the last two weeks.

They're striking out like crazy, they can't drive the ball and nobody is doing anything to combat the shift. Ellsbury is killing them at the top of the lineup. He's got five walks and 16Ks. Castro is the only one who has been consistently good this season.

On top of that, they only have one starter with a sub-5.00 ERA. Severino has been a huge disappointment thus far, though I think he will get better. Eovaldi's been awful. Sabathia has been as bad as expected. And, Pineda, who I expected to be bad, has been even worse. I figured him to be a 4.00 ERA guy; he's over 6.00. He's given up at least two runs in every start, hasn't reached the sixth in three of them and hasn't thrown a pitch in the seventh inning yet this season.

They've got nearly $70M coming off the books after this season with Beltran, Teixeira, Sabathia and Pineda's contracts all expiring, so I'd expect to see them make some moves in the offseason. Conceivably, they'd be able to add salary with a big acquisition mid-season if they wanted, knowing they'll have plenty of free cash, but Cashman has been protective of his prospects the last couple of years, so I don't think he'll deal any of them this season.

 

0.84/0.74 ...

 

Strassburg to Yankees next year and Harper in 3?

 

I'll be curious to see what both of them fetch on the FA market. Strasburg is only making $10M this year. I'd expect that to go up, but he's not nearly as dominant as I think everyone expected him to be. And a career 3.05 ERA in the NL means probably somewhere around a 3.50 in the AL.

Harper will probably sign the first $400M contract.

 

If SS cones out of this season without injury, 30 starts, a sub 3.00 ERA and doesn't shit the post season bed, you can heavily discount his career numbers. So far he's been better than very good. 7-10 years. 200-300 contract. Unless each team independently decides that no pitcher ought to get more than 6 years on a contract.

 

I doubt he'd get more than seven years on a deal. Nobody is giving an injury prone pitcher 10 years, particularly not one who will be 39 by the end of the contract.

 

Jeff freaking Samardzija received insane money and is, so far, delivering on it.

Stephen Strasburg is going to get paid.

 

Samardzija doesn't have the injury history.

Speaking of ... he expects quite a lot from himself at the plate too.

Samardzija Breaks Bat over Knee After Striking out

 

What do Kenny Lofton and Jeff Samardzija have in common?

Neither was my old shop's Athlete of the Year in high school.

 

Tim Lincecum's Giants career: not dead yet? He has a showcase Friday, and Bochy says there could be a role for him somewhere on the staff, likely as a reliever.

Bochy: Giants see a role for Tim Lincecum on big league staff - Giants Extra

And that was before Peavy got bombed out of another game today, leaving him with a 9.00 ERA in six starts. Cain is also a good bet to come up short every time out and has a 7.00 ERA.