2011-12 MLB Off-Season

[jbergey22]

Verlander takes home the Cy Young and MVP in the American League. I have a feeling the Boston choke job cost Ellsbury the MVP award.

NL Cy Young went to Kershaw which some might find surprising.

[ry1220]

Jacoby deserves the MVP, just like Pedro did in 1999.

[Germaniac]

It appears as if Pujols is headed to the Marlins ...

... who signed Reyes to a big contract because they thought Ramirez would gladly move to third base - and now Hanley says he has no intention to go there

Oh yes, and they signed Heath Bell, and apparently they want Buehrle, too

[ZiggyPop]

Originally Posted by Germaniac

It appears as if Pujols is headed to the Marlins ...

... who signed Reyes to a big contract because they thought Ramirez would gladly move to third base - and now Hanley says he has no intention to go there

Oh yes, and they signed Heath Bell, and apparently they want Buehrle, too

Being from Montreal, hence by definition hating Jeffrey Loria, I may be biased but am I the only one who thinks this guy is just adding value to this team in order to sell it way above what he paid for?

And with the news that they will have to open their books following the "multi-million loan" from the Miami county to finance their new stadium...

It stinks in Miami.

[Germaniac]

Apparently the Cardinals went to 220mill. - ridiculous.

So Miami seems to sign Wilson and may sign Fielder ...

Loria definitely is a controversial person in baseball, but MLB doesn't care about that, just look at Jim Crane buying the Astros

[Basebrah]

Miami signs Buehrle. 4 years/ 58 mill. Now Hanley is mad because he doesn't want to move to 3b so he is now on the trading block. This is very entertaining!!

[The Chase Davis]

Bye Bye Buehrle

[David Watts]

Was really hoping Buehrle would sign with the Tigers. I guess the Tigers didn't like his demand for a no trade deal.

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by Germaniac

Apparently the Cardinals went to 220mill. - ridiculous.

Absolutley insance if this is true. They'll mortgage the team's future during the back half of the contract. Very disappointed.

I say let the Marlins spend themselves out, then offer him a 6 or 7 year deal if you really want to sign him.

[Mecza]

Originally Posted by The Chase Davis

Bye Bye Buehrle

I don't hold it against him leaving, but god damn it is going to hurt knowing that a guy you can depend on every start will not be a part of the White Sox rotation next year. With the bums we currently have in Rios, Dunn, and Peavy; I see it hard for us to compete for the next several years unless the players we already have really turn it around.

Bleh.

[kenyan_cheena]

New in MLB labor deal -- more replay, longer All-Star break - ESPN

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by kenyan_cheena

New in MLB labor deal -- more replay, longer All-Star break - ESPN

Seeing as, for a number of years now, some clubs have been getting four days off during the All-Star Break instead of three, it seems the new agreement is just going to standardize it to four days for all clubs.

The more interesting tidbit to me is this:

• Allowing teams from the same division to meet in the playoffs before the league championship series

I wonder if this will be limited to just the wild card playoff game or whether it'll apply to the Division Series as well.

One thing I'm interested in seeing in the final CBA text is the way the definition of "small" markets is handled. Will it simply be a list of specific cities/clubs? Or will it have criteria by which a market is measured in order to determine if it's small or not? The latter makes more sense, since cities can change in size over time.

[flanyboy5]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Seeing as, for a number of years now, some clubs have been getting four days off during the All-Star Break instead of three, it seems the new agreement is just going to standardize it to four days for all clubs.

The more interesting tidbit to me is this:

• Allowing teams from the same division to meet in the playoffs before the league championship series

I wonder if this will be limited to just the wild card playoff game or whether it'll apply to the Division Series as well.

One thing I'm interested in seeing in the final CBA text is the way the definition of "small" markets is handled. Will it simply be a list of specific cities/clubs? Or will it have criteria by which a market is measured in order to determine if it's small or not? The latter makes more sense, since cities can change in size over time.

To be fair the CBA's are changed over time as well so if they didn't have specific criteria it wouldn't really matter due to the fact that the CBA would likely be altered before any big changes happen for city sizes.

[kenyan_cheena]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

• Allowing teams from the same division to meet in the playoffs before the league championship series

I wonder if this will be limited to just the wild card playoff game or whether it'll apply to the Division Series as well.

They would have to be refering to the DS, because if the two wildcards are both from the same division they'll be playing each other in the WCS, anyway. However, the wildcard often has the 2nd best record in the league (behind it's division's champion) so in that situation it wouldn't make much sense for them to play each other in the DS.

I guess they're saying that if the division champ and the wildcard are from the same division and just happen to have the 1st and 4th best records of the four DS teams, then they'll play each other. Won't look too good if the WC is able to defeat the team that won it's division in a 5-game series after they weren't able to beat them during the 162-game regular season...

[magnet]

A springboard from the bad defense discussion in the Tigers' thread, here is an article on FanGraphs about the possibility of Jayson Werth playing CF for the Nats in 2012, and some data on players of his age or older switching to CF. The numbers may surprise you, as they did me.

Jayson Werth, Center Fielder? | FanGraphs Baseball

[kenyan_cheena]

I just remembered, was it midway through last season when there was a rumour that maybe the Phillies and Cardinals could do a straight trade, Howard for Pujols? In hindsight, would that have been better for the Cards than what eventuated, or worse?

[kenyan_cheena]

With the situation they'll have this season where the LDS will have a 2-3 format, couldn't they have just started the regular season three or four days earlier?

[yankeesrule]

Originally Posted by kenyan_cheena

I just remembered, was it midway through last season when there was a rumour that maybe the Phillies and Cardinals could do a straight trade, Howard for Pujols? In hindsight, would that have been better for the Cards than what eventuated, or worse?

since this has been brought back from the dead, i'd think that deal would be worse. with pujols, they won the series. w/o him, who knows what happens and instead they have a large chunk of money invested in a guy who most feel isn't worth close to what he's making.