Welcome in.

It is mid December twenty twenty five, and the dust from the winter meetings is still kind of settling.

It is, but it hasn't really brought much clarity, has it.

No, not at all.

It feels like the MLB off season market has just fractured into these two completely different realities.

That's a perfect way to put it, a total fracture.

On one hand, you've got these unprecedented financial commitments.

We've seen blockbusters signing some really painful losses for certain teams, and now we're heading into this final stretch.

Yeah, where those key international deadlines are looming and teams are just fighting against the calendar to get their rosters finalized.

And you mentioned that fracture.

On one side, you have the mega markets.

LA New York, Oh yeah, the Dodgers, the Mets, the Yankees.

They're just thrown around money with the sort of strategic recklessness.

It's designed to win right now and maybe forever.

And on the other side, well, that's where you have the more cost conscious clubs, the Guardians, the Brewers, the Royals.

They're struggling to justify almost any big offensive upgrade.

They seem to just prefer to stand pat and what bet on their farm systems exactly.

So the pressure right now isn't just about signing the talent.

It's all about timing.

Especially with those Japanese posting deadlines, they're about to force some hands.

Okay, let's unpack that financial arms race first, because there's one number that came out of Los Angeles that truly just it broke my brain.

I think I know the one you're talking about.

It changes the definition of long term commitment.

We have to start with the reliever market, which the Dodgers just they completely reset it by signing Edwin Diaz.

It was a monumental deal for a closer.

It just signals that the Dodgers are willing to spend everywhere, I mean, even on positions that people usually see is really volatile.

So what are the top plane numbers?

Diaz got a three year contract worth sixty nine million dollars.

Wow, that sets a new average annual value an AAV record for any non starting pitcher.

And he's surpassing the record that well, that he himself already held from his last contract with the Mets.

And this is where the contract structure gets really interesting and frankly a little frightening.

Diaz was already guaranteed thirty eight million over the final two years with the Mets, but he opted.

Out, which was a big gamble, a huge gamble.

By testing the market and signing with LA he effectively got himself an extra year and a massive thirty one million dollars in additional guarantees.

That's a remarkable move for a closer.

And crucially, the Dodgers use their favorite financial mechanism to make it all work.

Under the competitive.

Balance tax, the deferrals.

The deferrals, They included four and a half million dollars in deferred salary every single year.

And this brings us to that astonishing number you mentioned earlier.

This is the one that Diaz deal pushes the Dodgers' total deferred money ODE to nine different players through the year twenty forty seven passed the one billion dollar mark.

After there a billion dollars with a B.

That's not a typo, right.

No typo.

We are talking about one point zero six for five billion dollars ode in deferred payments stretching out for the next twenty two years.

So what does that deferred money actually do for the team today?

I mean, how does this help them, right.

Now, that's the genius of it.

From their perspective.

The deferral lowers the immediate hit against the competitive balance tax threshold.

So when the League calculates the AAV for the tax, they use the present day discounted value of those future payments.

Okay, So, just to be clear for everyone listening, even though Diaz is technically owed twenty three million a year, the League calculates a lower number for luxury tax purposes because they're paying a chunk of that the four and a half million years and years from now.

Precisely, it's an accounting maneuver, a brilliant one, really.

It lets them assemble all this superstar talent while on paper minimizing the immediate CBT penalty.

And that billion dollar figure includes some other huge names obviously.

Well, of course it's anchored by Shoheo Tani's unprecedented six hundred and eighty million dollar deferral.

Then you've got Mookie Bets at one hundred and fifteen million, Blake Snell at sixty six million, Freddie Freeman at fifty seven million.

So when does Diaz actually see his deferred money.

His thirteen and a half million will be paid out in ten equal installments starting in twenty thirty six, twenty thirty six, and it runs all the way through twenty forty seven.

The Dodgers are building a roster that literally future generations of team owners will still be paying for.

Meanwhile, if you are a Mets fan, you're looking at that news and just experiencing the definition of competitive pain.

Oh.

Absolutely.

David Stearns came in promising discipline, but that discipline cost them their cornerstone closer after they already lost their home run king Pete Alonzo and traded their star outfielder Brandon Nimo.

It has been an emotionally brutal off season for the Mets.

Just devastating, losing three core mainstays Nimo, Alonzo, and now Diez.

To the rival two time defending champion Dodgers.

Exactly, it's catastrophic te morele for depth, for everything, and that discipline Stern showed with Diaz was I think a defining moment for his tenure.

What was the Mets offer?

How close were they?

They offered three years and sixty six million, so pretty close on the surface, but they deferred a staggering twenty one million dollars over fifteen years.

And Diaz's camp obviously balked at that.

What was the specific sticking point that lit the Dodgers sneak in.

He was looking for a much shorter deferral period.

The ideal was five to seven years, and he wanted a higher annual value after you accounted for the deferrals.

And Stern's just wouldn't.

Butch he wouldn't.

He held firm on the team's new financial structure.

The priority for them is minimizing long term debt and maximizing CBT flexibility.

He chose financial discipline over the immediate emotional need to keep a fan favorite, and we lost him.

He lost him to the team that was willing to eat that shorter deferral.

So the immediate response from the Mets has been a pivot.

They've made two big signings, right.

They replaced Dias with closer Devin Williams on a three year, fifty one million dollar deal.

And they added veteran infielder Jorge.

Polanco two years, forty million for Polanco.

So what's the analysis on those moves?

Is it enough?

Well, Williams immediately steps into the closer role.

Stearns is betting on elite quality over familiarity.

Williams has performed at a very, very high level.

He has that incredible change up the airbender.

The organization believes he can get back to his dominant form and be one of the top relievers in baseball again.

And Polanco, He's mostly a second baseman, but the Mets need a first baseman Dyah now that Alonso was gone.

The Polanco signing is the direct Alonzo replacement.

He's a veteran switch hitter and the plan is for him to play primarily first base.

And DH so he provides some stability.

He does professional at bats.

But, and this is a big bet.

Even with these two signings, the Mets still desperately need to address their starting rotation.

It's thin and their outfield depth is a problem, especially after treating Nimo.

Speaking of rotation holes, let's look at across town.

The Yankees are facing a pretty scary and immediate pitching crisis to start the twenty twenty sixth season.

Crisis is the right word.

Max Fried who they got last year, is penciled in as their only healthy, established ace, and behind him it is a land of enormous question marks.

Jarrett Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Clark Schmidt are all expected to miss the start of the season.

They're all recovering from various elbow surgeries.

So the depths just falls off a cliff completely.

You're immediately looking at guys who are largely unproven, Cam Schlitzler, Lewis Gill, Will Warren good Arms, but not who you want filling out two thirds of your rotation.

Which makes their pursuit of former Yankee Michael King much much more urgent than they might admit publicly.

Absolutely, King is projected for a significant contract, probably four years, maybe eighty million dollars, and he's narrowed his search to three Al East rivals.

The Yankees, Red Sox, and Orioles.

The connection to the East Coast is potent.

He's a Rhode Island native, went to Boston College, which obviously agellus to the Red Sox.

And for the Yankees, it's a reunion.

It is it's a reunion with a player they had developed and then traded away, who has now become a legitimate starter, you know, capable of logging one hundred and eighty plus innings.

But the Yankees have to be looking at the risk profile here, especially with all their current.

Injuries, So risk is huge.

You have to acknowledge it.

Explain that risk for us.

Yeah, we know he had that dominant tummy twenty four.

He was cy young caliber in twenty four, a fantastic two point nine to five ERA over almost one hundred and seventy four innings.

But in twenty twenty five, injuries just crushed him, limited him to only fifteen starts, and it all ended with a nerve issue in his shoulder, and when he came back, performance just cratered.

His final five appearances were really rough, a six point one to one er, his strikeout rates were way down.

So the risk is immense.

Are you buying the twenty twenty four ace or the guy who finished twenty twenty five struggling with nerve issues.

That's the eighty million dollar question.

If the Yankees commit that money, they are gambling entirely on the upside, and it's a gamble driven by just sheer necessity, and.

That kind of immediate need is just amplified by the fact that the entire market seems anchored right now by the few remaining big offensive free agents.

Right Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger and Alex Bregman.

The Yankees and Mets are both reportedly deep in the mix for Tucker and Bellinger.

And that's the decision matrix for the Yankees.

It's why this market is so tense.

Do you go for a high end starter, maybe Japanese ace tatsu Yaimi, or a high end hitter like Bellinger.

Bellinger's coming off a great year.

Arguably his best season since his twenty nineteen MVP campaign.

He gave them five point one wins above replacement.

He offers elite speed, Gold Glove caliber defense in the outfield and neflexville and the flexibility to play first base if Ben Rice folters.

He just checks so many boxes.

And for the Mets, Bellinger is an even more natural fit, isn't a Oh?

Absolutely?

The Mets desperately need an outfielder, and Bellinger's ability to just seamlessly slide over to first base or DH makes him the perfect replacement bat for Pee Alonzo.

Reports are saying that the Mets are very in on Bellinger.

So they're pivoting hard to replace the production from Alonzo and Nimo aggressively.

Meanwhile, Tucker, who's the youngest, and you could argue has the highest upside of all of them.

He's just waiting for one of these teams to set the price ceiling for the rest of the market.

Okay, moving beyond the two behemoths spending billions, let's turn our attention to the teams that are focusing on more tactical, short term.

Fixes right in the trade and shorter term free agent markets.

And we saw two really intriguing outfield signings that act as perfect case studies in modern free agency, hassing Kim going back to Atlanta and Adulas Garcia heading Philadelphia.

The braves re signing of Hassan Kim was just a clinic in how to manage Scott Boris and avoid a long term anchor.

So Kim declined his sixteen million dollar player option right.

He was hoping for a big, multi year deal on what everyone saw as a pretty shallow shortstop market.

But the Braves were aggressive.

They were They successfully maneuvered to bring him back on a high aav one year contract twenty million dollars, so they paid a four million dollar premium over his option, but they avoided that long term commitment he was looking.

For, and for the Braves, what kind of performance upgrade does Kim represent, I mean, how bad were they at shortstop in twenty twenty five.

It's a massive, massive, and necessary upgrade the Braves suffered through Nick Allen at shortstop in twenty twenty five.

He put up an unplayable fifty three ops plus.

Kim, could you just quickly define ops plus for our listeners who might not track that specific metric.

Of course, ops plus is just a measure of offensive performance that's adjusted for the ballparky play in one hundred is league average.

So Nick Allen's fifty three ops plus means he was what almost half as good as an average.

Hitter, exactly offensively half as good as the average league shortstop.

Kim, even in his injury plague twenty twenty five, is a vastly superior defensive shortstop who was averaging nearly four wins above replacement per season before that, and.

This lets Mauricio dubond and slide back into that super utility role he's best at.

Precisely so.

The broader implication here is this continuation of the Boras pivot accepting these high AAV short term deals when the nine figure long term contracts just don't show.

Up exactly we saw it with Alonso and Bregman too.

The high aav short term contract has become the default compromise for his clients when the market doesn't produce that mega deal they expected.

It gives the player a chance to re enter the market faster, and it.

Gives the club flexibility.

It changes the risk profile for everyone involved.

Then you have the Phillies signing a doles Garcia one year, ten million dollars to play right field.

This seems less about offense and almost entirely about defense.

It's paving the way for Nick Cassianas's exit.

Right a trade to release seems inevitable now.

It is purely a defensive calculation, but it's one that results in a huge improvement and run prevention for them.

Garcia posted an elite plus sixteen defensive run saved or DRS in twenty.

Twenty five, and Casianos.

For contact, Castianas posted a terrible minus eleven drs.

Wow, that's the twenty seven run swing.

It's a gurgantuan shift in run prevention.

Castianas, who's owed twenty million in twenty twenty six, is now almost certainly going to be traded or released.

He's clearly a DH only player at this.

Point, But the financial implications of Garcia as ten million dollar deal tell a much different story than just that sticker price.

Oh this is where the CBT rules become absolutely critical.

Because the Phillies are deep into the luxury.

Tax, very deep.

They fall into the third tier of penalties, and they're nearing the fourth, So they will pay a ninety five percent tax on Garcia's annual value.

Can you walk us through that specific tax calculation quickly?

Certainly so.

Once a team crosses that initial CBT threshold, they pay increasing penalty percentages on every single dollar they spend above that line.

And the Phillies are so far over that line.

That nearly every dollar they spend on a player has to be matched by ninety five cents paid to the league as a penalty, which means that ten million dollar contract for Garcia actually cost the Phillies roughly nineteen and a half million dollars overall.

Wow, if they're paying nineteen and a half million for a player whose ops was sub point seven zero zero zero zeros over the past two seasons, aren't they letting defensive desperation just override sound judgment?

That's a very valid criticism.

It's a very costly one year gamble.

They're hoping to catch his twenty twenty three World Series form rather than his recent downturn where his chase rate just spite.

So they're betting on their hitting coach, Kevin Long heavily.

They're betting he can fix the swing and misissues.

But you know, even if the offense stays below average, they've secured the elite defensive floor they so desperately needed in right field.

Let's pivot to the trade market, which is where a lot of these mid market teams are trying to find their needle movers.

The Seattle Mariners are looking for a veteran infielder after losing Jorge Polanco, and the debate seems to center around Kill Marte the d Backs and Brendan Donovan of the Cardinals.

This is a classic high rate, high reward decision for Seattle's front office.

It's the definition of go big or go home.

And you tell Marte is the high end target.

He is switch hitter fresh off two silver sluggers.

The problem is leverage.

The d Backs have massive leverage right now, but that leverage completely vanishes in early twenty twenty six, because.

That's when he gets his ten and five rights.

For those unfamiliar, what exactly are ten and five rights and why do they impact the trade market so much so?

A player gets ten and five rights when they have ten years of major league service time and have spent at least five consecutive years with their current team, and.

That gives them a full no trade.

Class exactly, full veto power over any trade.

The d bacs know that if they wait until early twenty twenty six, Marte can block any deal and they lose all their trade leverage.

This offseason is Arizona's last best chance to maximize his value, so.

Teams like the Mariners, Red Sox, Blue Jays are all interesting.

It's deeply interested.

So if they can't get Marte, the Mariners are also looking at Brendan Donovan, who is the cheaper, more versatile option, but he still comes with a hefty prospect cost.

Donovan is younger and offers tremendous positional flexibility.

I mean, he can genuinely play everywhere in the infield and even the corners.

Of the outfield, and he's a consistent hitter.

Incredibly consistent.

His WRC plus has been between one hundred and fifteen and one to twenty seven for the last four years.

But the Cardinals are being aggressive.

They're reportedly asking for multiple top Seattle.

Prospects, specifically Lazara Montes and the switch pitcher Jerangelo Sinje.

That's the rumor.

Yeah, I have to challenge this premise, though.

If the Cardinals are demanding two top prospects for a guy like Donovan, does that acquisition really move the needle enough for Seattle to justify gutting their farm system.

That is the exact internal conflict happening in the Mariner's front office right now.

The sentiment is that Donovan doesn't provide enough of an offensive upgrade over internal options like Cole Young or Ben Williamson to justify trading top prospects.

Because they're projected to be better defensively right.

They argue that Young and Williamson are projected to out defend him and potentially approximate his offensive production within a year.

Trading for Donovan only makes sense if they absolutely cannot get Marte and feel desperate, or if the Cardinals lower their asking price a lot.

We've talked a lot about the big spenders, but what about the Al Central teams, they seem to be sticking to tighter budgets.

The Twins, fresh off a down season, just signed Josh Bell.

Minnesota made a very strategic, targeted move there.

Their biggest offensive problem last season was a lack of patience and way too many strikeouts.

They were seventeenth in the league.

I think yeah, a twenty two point six percent strikeout rate.

So Josh Bell, signed to a one year, seven million dollar deal, directly addresses that need for contact quality.

He brings a high walk rate and a low strikeout rate, which minimizes that feast or famine approach they've often had.

Is this a bet on the player as a whole or on a specific version of him?

They're specifically betting on the second half Josh Bell from twenty twenty five, after he made a miss season swing change from the left side, he slashed an impressive point two seven to two point three five seven point five zero.

Reports were his bat speed noticeably increased.

I calculated short term.

Bet exactly on one specific mechanical adjustment.

Now you contrast that with the Guardians, who were basically standing pat even after tying for last in the majors in ninetieth percentile exitvelocity last year.

That means when they hit the ball hard, they just weren't hitting it hard enough to do real damage.

And their team WRC plus was what.

Eighty six a pitofull eighty six, fourteen percent worse than league average offensively.

But the front office is preaching institutional patients.

Antonetti has been pretty clear about it.

He has stating that bringing an outside veteran bats might take away opportunities from their young hitters, and that's a risk they are not willing to take.

But is there any justification for that optimism outside of just organizational loyalty.

What did the projection say for their twenty twenty six lineup?

This is where the data gets really interesting.

The computer systems are surprisingly optimistic.

If you look at Steamer projections for the twenty twenty six Guardians lineup with guys like Stephen Kwan, Chase de Laughter, Kyle Manzardo, the average projected WRC plus jumps dramatically to one oh six.

Point eight, as a phenomenal jump over twenty points better than last year.

Why the massive.

Projected leap, Well, the projection models anticipate that these young hitters, especially the ones who showed flashes but maybe struggled with consistency or injury last year, will realize their potential as they.

Mature, and a gain of twenty plus points would make them an immediate thread in the Al Central.

If they stay healthy and avoid that sophomore slump.

Yes.

Now, if the Guardians do decide to move off that youth trust model, the preferred trade target is definitely Wilson Contraras.

Who can split time at first and catcher.

And he's an imposing bat.

He put up a one twenty four WRC plus last year and he crushes left handed pitching.

That raises a good question about resource allocation, especially in that division.

You see the Royals showing commitment by signing Makel Garcia to that big extension.

Five years, fifty seven and a half million, locking up their gold glove third baseman who significantly improved his plate discipline last year.

So the Royals are trying to create some continuity.

And that Arcia extension was predicated entirely on complex player metrics.

His improved discipline and refined swing let him do damage on more pitches.

He went from a replacement level bat to an all star caliber performer almost overnight.

They're betting that internal data is worth a huge long term commitment.

They are.

But now let's look at the trade block, because this is where the premium starting pitching is hiding, and it presents a huge dilemma for teams like the Mets, the Giants, and the Red Sox.

The pitching trade market is fascinating.

It features two of the absolute best starters in baseball, but with completely different levels of control and cost, Freddie Peralta and Trek Scuball.

Let's start with Scooball.

He's the perceived ace of the market.

You could argue he's one of the two best pitchers in baseball right now, but he's only one one year away from free agency, which just inflates his price tag astronomically.

So you're basically renting him for one season unless.

You immediately sign him to a mega extension.

The price would be a massive haul of elite prospects, the kind of prospects the Mets have been really hesitant to part with.

And conversely, you have Freddy Peralta, who's being actively shopped by the Brewers.

Yeah, what's the appeal there?

Peralta is on the block because the Brewers are operating under tighter budget constraints, and they have outfield depth issues they need to solve via trade, the appeals the contract.

How much is he owed?

He's only owed eight million dollars in twenty twenty six, So you're getting a frontline starter for pennies on the dollar compared to free agency.

This is why teams like the Giants and Mets are so interested.

Premium performance with extreme cost control for one year.

Exactly.

It gives you a flexibility.

The Scoobale deal just does not offer.

Let's zoom in on the Al East again, specifically the Red Sox, who are trying to acquire a starter via trade, and there are rumors about a swap involving Jaron Duran and the Royals Lefty Cole Reagan's.

The Red Sox are desperate to maximize their pitching depth, which is already pretty strong after signing Sonny Gray and Johanno Viedo.

They see Duran, who's high value but kind of redundant outfielder for them, as a way to get a high end starter.

Even if it makes their offense worse, even if.

It exacerbates their offensive needs.

And yes, the rumored asking price from the Royals is Reagan's.

Tell us about Reagan's profile, why is he so coveted by a team that already has some good pitching.

He is exactly the type of gigantic, high velocity lefty that modern analytically minded front offices just drool over.

His fastball averages around ninety five, but it touches ninety nine, and he has that change up, a devastating changeup that generates swinging strikes almost thirty percent of the time against right handed hitters.

That is elite.

It puts him in the conversation with the game's best, and critically, he's under team control for three more seasons for cheap, for an estimated twelve million total across twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven, So.

The Royals see him as a potential Game one postseason starter who they don't have to pay for three more years, which explains why they don't want to move him for a position player exactly.

Dealing Duran for Reagan's would be a massive coup for the Red Sox pitching staff, but like you said, it deepens their offensive need, especially since they already missed out on guys like Alonzo and Schwarber.

So it all circles back to the pending decisions on the Japanese hitters like Kazuoma Okamoto, their continued pursuit of Michael King.

It's all connected back to Schoobel and the Tigers.

Detroit has been giving off some really conflicting signals about what they plan to do with their ace.

The signals were initially very very confusing.

On one hand, the GM was talking openly about how top prospects need to play significant roles in twenty twenty six.

Which sounds like a rebuild.

It sounded like a preparatory move for a possible mid season rebuild centered around trading Scooball.

But then on the other hand, they went out and signed veteran closer Kenley Jansen to a one year.

Deal, and the Jansen signing now seems to be the defining signal of their twenty twenty six intentions.

It is a loud, unequivocal signal that they intend to compete right now.

Jansen is thirty eight years old, he had twenty nine saves in a two point five to nine ERA last year, and.

He's close to a huge milestone.

Just two saves.

Shy of passing Lee Smith for third on the all time saves list.

He is fiercely protecting his Hall of Fame resume and would only sign somewhere where he is the unquestioned closer and where the team intends to genuinely contend.

So by signing Jansen, Detroit is signaling their keeping Scoobule and going for the ale Central crown.

It strongly suggests it, and this move likely torpedoes the Dodgers and Mets dreams of acquiring Schooble this winter.

Well, the Tigers are solidifying their core.

Let's briefly look at Oakland situation.

They acquired JG.

Blopez earlier this offseason.

What was his twenty twenty five like and what's his status for twenty twenty six.

Lopez was acquired from the Rays back in December twenty twenty four.

He showed some flashes of real potential in twenty twenty five, a seven to seven record, four point eight eight ERA, struck out one hundred and thirteen batters in about ninety two innings.

He had that great start in August he did.

He tossed seven and two third shutout innings with ten strikeouts, But his season ended abruptly due to a left elbow flexer strain late that month.

He's a massive potential contributor if he's healthy, but that elbow strain makes his health the major question mark heading into spring training.

Let's pivot to the international market, which has several hard deadlines coming up fast.

We're talking about two major Japanese hitters, Munataka Morikami and Kazuma Okamoto, and the top pitcher Tatsimi.

The drama is peaking because the deadlines are right before or just after the new year.

Munataka Maakami's posting window closes on December twenty second.

He has lethal power.

Lethal power.

He averaged over thirty three home runs a year in Japan, but there are significant questions about his high strikeout rates and his defense at third base.

Most clubs project him as a first baseman in MLB, and.

The other hitter, Okamoto.

Kazuma Okamoto has until January fourth.

He is generally considered the more complete hitter than Wakami, better contact, better defense, though his fit at third is also.

Debated, and he's already been linked to the Red Sox Yes.

Who could use his right handed power to target the Green Monster and offset any lost offense from potential.

Trades, and the pitcher Imai, who is a major target for the Yankees and Mets.

Pat Suyemi's window closes January second.

He's the pitching star who put up a phenomenal one point nine to ERA with one hundred and seventy eight strikeouts in the NPB and twenty twenty five.

The Yankees have to be all over him.

Given their starting pitching injuries.

They're reportedly among the expected suitors.

They have the budget for the nine figure deal he's expected to command.

The Mets are interested too, although Stearns is famously reluctant to give long term deals to pitchers in their late twenties or thirties.

Let's pivot to management and organizational challenges.

We need to talk about the Los Angeles Angels, who seem to have lost all the optimism they had just a few weeks ago.

Jos off season has been an organizational free fall.

They just hired a new manager with a rather unusual resume.

They hired Maui native Kurt Suzuki as manager despite him having literally no professional or college managerial experience.

His qualifications rest solely on his sixteen years as a big league catcher.

Which requires a high baseball likeq it.

Does, and his three years as a front office consultant.

But he was given a one year contract.

What is that signal?

Is that commitment or is that the Angels hedging their bets?

It absolutely signals uncertainty and a lack of organizational stability.

Suzuki himself said he isn't concerned about the short deal, but this hiring is directly connected to the larger chaos.

GM perrimanation has been pretty quiet.

He's only acquired von Grissom, he failed to keep Kenley Jansen, and the front office is being questioned on whether their promise of increased parroll flexibility was just you know, smoke and mirrors.

So signing Suzuki is a hail Mary for stability.

It feels like it.

The hope is that a guy known for his or with pitching staffs might stabilize the team while they still desperately pursue star free agents like Tucker Bellinger or pitcher like Zach Gallon.

Let's talk about the Cincinnati Reds.

They are facing a serious identity crisis after their entire hitting philosophy just fell completely flat last season.

The twenty twenty five, Reds focused on hitting line drives and prioritizing contact, often at the purposeful expense of true power.

Shortened swings, minimize strikeouts, put the ball in play.

The philosophy was simple, but the results were disastrous.

The team tied for last in the Majors with the Guardians, with a ninetieth percentile exit velocity of just one hundred and three point seven miles per hour.

What does that number one or three point seven mean in practical terms for the Reds.

It means that even when their hitters did connect well, they weren't hitting the ball hard enough to turn fly balls into home runs or hardline drives into doubles.

They were sacrificing slugging for singles.

And that lack of gap power is alarming for a team with playoff assetions.

Especially with a guy like Ellie de la Cruz who can knock the snot out of the ball, but they lacked that consistent threat to clear the fences.

Now they're facing a make or break twenty twenty six for a couple of talented but inconsistent players who have to prove that philosophical failure wasn't their fault.

Two names really stand out, starting with right hander Lion Richardson.

He's a former second round pick and he is now out of options.

And for those who don't track the option system, why is being out of options such a critical deadline for a player like him?

It means he can no longer be sent down to the minor leagues without first clearing waivers.

So he absolutely must prove his value as an MLB player right now or the Reds risk losing him for nothing to another team.

And he was so inconsistent last year.

He flashed electric stuff early in twenty twenty five with a one point eighty five ERA over about twenty four innings, but then he just completely fell apart gave up fourteen earned runs over his final thirteen innings.

The Reds need him to harness that potential.

On the offensive side.

We have out Fielderrhese Hinz.

Heines still has one option left, but he's twenty six.

The power prospect needs to make his mark immediately.

He's known for prodigious power and speed.

He had that absurd debut in twenty twenty.

Four, Yeah six games, five homers, n L Player of the Week.

Crucially in Triple A and twenty twenty five, he cut his strikeout rates significantly while maintaining power.

Hit twenty four homers and swiped twenty one bags.

So the Reds are banking on that maturity translating to the majors.

They need it to.

They need him to provide that ideal power thread for the outfield.

Shifting over to the NL East, we need to discuss a major performance decline in Atlanta Ozzi Albi's.

The picture of his twenty twenty five season is pretty bleak.

It was a deeply disappointing year for Albe's, especially given the offensive expectations for him as a key fixture in that lineup.

He posted a career worst eighty seven WRC plus and got only one point three f war over a heavy six hundred and sixty seven played appearances.

So he took way more plate appearances to produce the same value as the year.

Before, nearly two hundred fifty more.

What went wrong with his swing?

The key problem was a change in approach that seemed to just rob him of his effectiveness.

He posted a career low barrel rate and had diminished exit velocity compared to previous years.

The Braves wanted him to walk more.

They did, and he did for the first time since his rookie season, but it came at the cost of severely compromised contact quality and a noticeably slower swing.

His expected weighted on base average against fastballs was the second worst of his career.

But wasn't his historical strength hitting left handed pitching.

Yes, and that failed him completely.

Perhaps the biggest issue was his failure to crush left handed pitching, which has historically been his bread and butter, and.

When you combine those offensive issues with the defensive and speed decline, it.

Created real internal questions about whether exercising his seven million dollar club option for twenty twenty six was even worthwhile.

They ultimately did, but it was a conversation.

That's a huge commitment to a player who seems to be physically declining too.

The note on his sprint speed.

It's noticeable on the field, his arm strength continued to be terrible, resulting in his third consecutive below average defensive year at second and Yeah, his sprint speed has suffered a pretty steep decline from the eighty ninth percentile when he came up to the forty fourth percentile.

Now that's a crucial metric for a second baseman who relies on range.

A huge one.

Atlanta is betting heavily on a mechanical correction this winter.

Let's transition to a broader cultural discussion how baseball values the people running the game and how it decides who gets memorialized forever.

Starting with manager compensation, which is still such an anomaly in professional sports.

Managerial salaries remain a fascinating imbalance.

The role has evolved so much, it's more demanding, it's intertwined with complex metrics and front office strategy.

And yet the pay legs way behind the NBA.

And NFL significantly.

For example, the highest manager salary at MLB belongs to the Dodgers Dave Roberts at eight point one million a year.

That is less than half of what the top coaches in the other leagues make.

And this issue is highlighted perfectly by the situation in Milwaukee with Pat Murphy.

Murphy won the NL Manager of the Year in back to back seasons, bringing the Brewers into contention despite a really tight payroll.

His contract is set to expire after the twenty twenty six.

Season, which puts the Brewers in the exact same position they were in when they lost Craig Council of the.

Cups for a reported forty million over five years, which gave Counsel the second highest managerial salary in the game.

So if Murphy continues to succeed, the Brewers will again face losing elite leadership purely because they can't afford to compete with the massive paydays from large markets.

Exactly.

Murphy says he loves Milwaukee and wants to stay, but this systemic salary cap discrepancy puts small market teams at a constant disadvantage when trying to retain elite leadership.

So even the most successful analytically driven managers are just undervalued.

Compared to the demands of the job today.

Absolutely.

Finally, we have to talk about the Hall of Fame's classic Eerk Commits vote last week, a massive rejection of two of the greatest players of their generation, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

What's so fascinating here is the context that Commissioner Manford provides, which frames this whole debate around integrity.

The committee rejected both Bonds and Clemens.

They got fewer than the five votes needed for reconsideration.

Right, despite the prevailing sentiment that maybe enough time has passed since the ped scandal, and this decision stands in stark contrast to Manfred's highly controversial move to make Pete Rose eligible for Hall of Fame consideration in twenty twenty seven, and the.

Logic Manfred used for Rose, who was banned for life for betting on games, was purely based on the fact that he died in twenty twenty four.

Yes, Manfred reasoned that since Rose died, he quote no longer posed any threat to the integrity of the sport by betting on games.

That logic created a huge cultural debate.

It did, and the committee's rejection of Bonds and Clemens in the face of this capitulation on Rose was viewed by some as a principled stand against this creeping nihilism that suggests rules and standards no longer matter once the player is retired or deceased.

And Jeff Kent was the sole player elected, he was a teammate of both Bonds and Clements.

The election of Kent simply fueled the debate that the Hall of Fame is incomplete or less legitimate as long as Bonds and Clemens remain on the outside.

It's just a constant, painful reminder of that era of.

Suspicion, and Manfred is continuing to apply that same logic to other players he is.

He's also returning shoeless Joe Jackson, banned since nineteen twenty, to the ballot, based on the same reasoning.

So we've covered the biggest swings of the offseason, the billion dollars in deferred money from the Dodgers, the mets painful pivot, the Red Sox and Yankees scrambling for rotation.

Help right, and we are heading toward those critical Japanese market deadlines.

The core tension is still that massive spending disparity exactly.

You have the Dodgers' financial depth contrasted with teams like the Brewers who are actively shopping their top affordable starter, Freddy Pearl or the Cardinals demanding top prospects for Brendan Donovan, and the free agent market still anchors on those big three bats Tucker, Bellinger, and Bregman, who are all just waiting for someone to set the price.

The Red Sox and Yankees, despite their different realities, are still trying to figure out their ultimate offensive and pitching puzzles before spring training.

What's fascinating here is just the sheer volume of player movement required to assemble a roster today.

Oh, the twenty twenty five season showed how unstable rosters have become.

We saw incredible churn.

The Baltimore Orioles used seventy different players in twenty twenty five, tying a major league record set by the twenty twenty four Marlins.

That is an astonishing reliance on deep organizational depth and constant waiver claims just to field a team for one hundred and sixty two games.

Which emphasizes why organizations have to rely so heavily on metrics and continuity.

Like the Royal showed with Makel Garcia, his five year extension was entirely predicated on his data driven improvement.

It shows that organizational belief in data can lead to massive long term commitments.

But looking ahead to the future talent pipeline, if these spending pressures and commitments continue to rise, how might international players adapt to get more control over their careers.

That raises a really important question about control versus organizational power, and we are seeing a potential new trend emerging from Japan Japanese college ace Gnas Soto, who throws a high nineties fastball and a low nineties splitter, is planning to transfer to a US school in February to become eligible for the twenty twenty seven MLB draft.

That is highly unusual.

Why would a top Japanese talent bypass the entire established posting system.

This is a deliberate atypical path that bypasses the mpb's posting system, which ties a player to their Japanese club and really limits their negotiating leverage when they finally jump to MLB.

So by going the draft route.

He'll enter MLB as a traditional amateur prospect.

It grants him full control over his negotiating rights and he avoids the posting fee entirely.

Wow.

And if Sado, who already had experienced dominating top NCAA hitters, is successful with this, we might see more international stars seeking control over their own careers.

By choosing the draft route rather than the traditional posting system.

It could fundamentally shift the power dynamic in the global talent pipeline.