2021-22 Offseason Thread

[LBJKB24MJ23]

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Another modest but perhaps under the radar J2 signee from 2019, Pinto has a nice set of raw tools. He’s fast, hits for a lot of contact, and is said to be almost impossible to strikeout, and is stronger than meets the eye, showing home run pop in his small 5’6″ 155 lb frame.

from
https://www.pitcherlist.com/colorado-rockies-2021-pre-season-top-50-prospects/

[SharoneWright]

Looking forward to a bit more speed in the OF. We're well below average out there.

[Davey0]

Has speed, hits Left and they get some space in there Salary Cap trading Grichuk. I like.

[Randle McMurphy]

Just looking at the deal in a vacuum and for the purposes of contending in 2022, I don't particularly like it. Tapia is a downgrade on Grichuk overall (which is important on a team with Mr. Glass in CF) and the kind of player that Montoyo would overuse to the team's detriment. Of course, they could also use Grichuk's freed up money on something else of value. Pinto also could end up being the real prize of the trade too looking at the little he's done as a pro so far, but that isn't important for this year.

[SharoneWright]

Kirk now the main DH instead of the 4th outfielder (Grichuk/Teo)?

Less likely to trade Gurriel for JRam now?

[spykelee]

Like it. Nice piece of business. Save some cash, Get a little younger, some speed, contact hitter and a flyer on a young prospect. That's a heck of alot more than I thought grichuk would get us

[pilkoids]

Kirk now the main DH instead of the 4th outfielder (Grichuk/Teo)?

Less likely to trade Gurriel for JRam now?

How's Springers knee/leg? It's nice to be able to slot in Gurriel/Teo/Grichuk for when he inevitably runs too fast and pulls something.

*edit- nm, didn't see the Grichuk trade.

[TR50]

I am assuming they have some faith in Biggio in the outfield now and then as well?

[I_Like_Dirt]

If anything i blame the Players for not asking for a Salary floor. In turn I'm sure the owners would have asked for stiffer upper limit, which is fine, LA Dodgers shouldn't be able to spend 10x more than worst team.

Salary floors should be like 60-70 mill or else you don't get revenue sharing or something along the lines.

The players did ask for a salary floor. The owners were only willing if a really harsh ceiling with extremely slow growth was implemented. The players, correctly, calculated that doing so would be a large net loss for them. So it didn't get implemented.

It isn't incumbent upon the players to prop up low-revenue markets. The owners have the tools at their disposal to do that themselves, and if they had wanted a salary floor (and I agree with a salary floor) they should have made it revenue-neutral for the players.

I get it, definitely the players calculates they rather Dodgers spend to 300 mill, then get 5 teams to spend an extra 20-30 mill, but i don't think the bottom end teams or the upper teams like Dodgers/Mets/Yanks/Boston, want an upper limit or lower limit.

So you basically have 5 teams at the top who don't want the upper limited or stiffer penalties and you got probably another 5-8 teams at the bottom that don't want a floor, so you basically need all the mid-tier teams/owners to implement a salary floor with good revenue sharing, which I doubt will ever happen from the owner side, even if they want a "Competitive" league.

I think if Players said sure we'll take the stiffer/less growth upper limit, but all teams at the bottom have to spend up to 100 mill, failing to do so, will eliminate your club from any revenue sharing for the life of CBA. These bottom teams are just spending 30-40 mill, they probably get back like 20-30 mill in taxes/revenue share and plus their local tv deal / mlb/statcast monies, are making profits on rock bottom salaries.

If the players cave and give lots of money to the owners like that, there is absolutely nothing stopping the owners from moving markets or doing some more workaround revenue-sharing stuff outside of the CBA that causes the same problem and then asking the players to pay up to fix it again. And the owners would totally do that because that's what they do. They just get fans to blame the players for all their boneheaded decisions which aren't so boneheaded because they know the fans will back them without thinking it through.

If the fans don't back them, the hold the status quo and wait for the next time to try their luck again. The owners are all about the game; no, not baseball but the leaching money game.

[Randle McMurphy]

Kirk now the main DH instead of the 4th outfielder (Grichuk/Teo)?

Less likely to trade Gurriel for JRam now?

Kirk should always have been the primary DH on this team. Of course, knowing Montoyo, I'm sure you can expect Tapia to play all the time and come in to bunt in the late innings when he isn't starting.

[bluerap23]

I'm more excited about Pinto even though he has very little chance of making it to MLB. I found his defensive stats pretty impressive. Played the majority of his games at 2B, only 5 games at CF. Didn't commit a single error while playing 2B and CF.

1000+ OPS is pretty nice too.

Won't be able to grade this deal until we find out how much salary we are eating.

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[SharoneWright]

Ideally we're gonna need a bit of speed hitting in front of this Tapia character, considering all the contact and all the ground balls in play. If he was just a bit of a better hitter, he really profiles like a 2nd in the order bat. Doesn't K. Hits the ball behind the runner allowing for plenty of hit and run situations. But if he's hitting 9th, in front of Jansen, we may see double plays galore.

[vaff87]

A left fielder, also could make it easier to move Gurriel in a J-Ram trade.

Pinto is a Jose Altuve sized 19 year old Dominican prospect.

Pinto’s one season in the DSL looks pretty impressive. 17% walk rate, only 8% strikeout rate. Hit .360, and stole 41 bases in 54 games.

[s e n s i]

Kirk now the main DH instead of the 4th outfielder (Grichuk/Teo)?

Less likely to trade Gurriel for JRam now?

Kirk should always have been the primary DH on this team. Of course, knowing Montoyo, I'm sure you can expect Tapia to play all the time and come in to bunt in the late innings when he isn't starting.

bunting with 2 strikes in a high-leverage spot against a janky, erratic lefty, while never off the table, is now centered squarely on the table.

[vaff87]

Not a big fan of Grichuk, but on the surface this is a bit of a head scratching trade.

[bluerap23]

Not a big fan of Grichuk, but on the surface this is a bit of a head scratching trade.

Not really. They are now going to pay their 4th outfielder 4 million instead of 10 million (though we are sending some money back). Makes sense. Get a prospect as well. Pretty solid return on a salary dump.

[Randle McMurphy]

Not a big fan of Grichuk, but on the surface this is a bit of a head scratching trade.

Could be quite problematic when Springer gets his regular injury, yes. I get why the Jays didn't want to continue paying Grichuk that kind of money to be a 4th OF, but I'm not sure spending about half that on Tapia a year (apparently we're picking up about half of Grichuk's remaining contract) is a particularly good use of funds either.

Tapia brings a different batted ball profile to the table than the hitters this team has (which might have had something to do with this trade as well), but he's still just generally a bad baseball player. And you just know Montoyo is going to love using the guy in situations he has no business being in. We'll see.

[Brinbe]

absolutely hated randy's streaky hitting and abundance of SOs so I'm delighted with this deal. I'm sure he'll thrive in a lesser league and in Coors but we got two good players plus freed up some money to get help elsewhere.

[Schad]

Kirk now the main DH instead of the 4th outfielder (Grichuk/Teo)?

Less likely to trade Gurriel for JRam now?

Kirk should always have been the primary DH on this team. Of course, knowing Montoyo, I'm sure you can expect Tapia to play all the time and come in to bunt in the late innings when he isn't starting.

That's absolutely the danger here. Per MLBTR's numbers, it's effectively $2m in savings this year and $5m next season, which is probably worth doing even with nothing coming back, given that Grichuk has produced all of 1.4 fWAR over his past three seasons (a ~1400 PA sample).

But Tapia shouldn't be anything more than a bench player. He isn't a good hitter against righties (certainly not better than any of our righties), and he isn't a defensive wiz, either. Hell, if you could spin him off for nothing, you probably should; I'm really not sure why the Rockie even tendered him at $4m.

[Lateral Quicks]

Pinto is intriguing. I always like to see low K, high OBP guys, regardless of league.

We'll miss Grichuk's inevitable hot month, but for the rest of the year I'm optimistic Tapia will prove the more useful player (if used correctly). But it's likely to be a marginal difference either way. Perhaps the best part of this deal is that Montoyo won't hand Grichuk 500 PAs just because he's a veteran, freeing up more at bats for Kirk. I want Kirk in the lineup a solid 80% of the time this year to see what he can do.