2020 Off-Season Rumors/News

Andrew Scheid said:

Yeah, because attendance is the only revenue stream for teams.
Make sure to wear your best suit when your silver spoon, Cable television negotiation failure accepts his prestigious award at the Cleveland Sports Awards ceremony.
I'm sure you'll tear up with pride and rise to your feet for a standing ovation when he utters the phrase "realities of our market" a dozen times.
Enjoy your special night.

Guaranteeing $18 million for a player whose projected WAR exceeds the entire outfield isn't crazy unless you guard Pauly's money like a mother cougar guards her cubs.

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I get we’re all frustrated about the limitations of this team financially.

But if you want to be taken seriously, or anyone be taken seriously for that matter in here, you gotta stop going to the extreme on people who don’t have the same views as you.

No one in here, not even the most ardent Indians homers, are happy that we have to let talent walk or are happy that we have to watch division opponents signing people while we’re cutting payroll.

Saying something positive about the Indians doesn’t make you Paul Dolan’s secret gay lover.

Saying something negative doesn’t make you an idiot or troll.

Too much extremism on the outlook of how the Indians have to operate in here. Literally leads to no conversation of value and pages of bickering non-posters have to flip through. As someone who is posting less and less, threads being readable means more to me, and these back and forth’s literally do nothing for me.

RCF bet that Luplow is more valuable than Ozuna this year according to fangraphs?

It was 2.6 to 2.2 in favor of Ozuna last year, but Luplow also only got half the plate appearances.

Huber. said:

Atlanta not having 9 months of winter probably sold him.

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This is no longer an issue thanks to climate change.

Andrew Scheid said:

This is upsetting.
The Indians really couldn't match $18 million guaranteed for Ozuna?
I'm sure I'll be told what a stain on the human race I am for criticizing Tribe ownership for not matching this offer.

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So what's your belief here? We had to match the offer? That's not how bidding works, you know. That all we had to do was offer $18,000,001 and he was ours? See, this is where it goes from one year, to multiple years. Or from $18 million to $19 million. For all we know, the Indians offered $17 million and were out bid by Atlanta, who was the only team willing to go to $18 million.

As someone pointed out, have you not been paying attention to whats going on? You really think the Indians are going to pay a FA this kind of money? Really?

You're not a stain on the human race, though my eye balls itch sometimes when reading your posts.

Andrew Scheid said:

This is such a strawman argument. The vast majority of fans aren't bitching that the team didn't sign Anthony Rendon or any high price free agent. The frustration from this offseason is due to watching the team have the Kipnis, Kluber and Salazar contracts come off the board and the team not use that money to reinvest into a contending roster that could use improvement in the outfield. I'm not asking them to spend the necessary money to get Rondon, Donaldson or even Castellanos. But when a player like Ozuna-who the Indians have had interest I going back to 2015--is available for roughly what they saved in trading Kluber, then it's extremely frustrating when they don't sign him.

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"Savings from trading Kluber." That right there is your flaw. You think this is some freed cash flow that they now have to spend. Find me one quote where the FO has said this is a salary we can now spend on another player.

Andrew Scheid said:

Yeah, because attendance is the only revenue stream for teams.
Make sure to wear your best suit when your silver spoon, Cable television negotiation failure accepts his prestigious award at the Cleveland Sports Awards ceremony.
I'm sure you'll tear up with pride and rise to your feet for a standing ovation when he utters the phrase "realities of our market" a dozen times.
Enjoy your special night.

Guaranteeing $18 million for a player whose projected WAR exceeds the entire outfield isn't crazy unless you guard Pauly's money like a mother cougar guards her cubs.

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You wanna talk about Forbes and their financial break down of the Indians?

None of you do, you hide from it, even when you are called out directly.

Don't mention anything financial, unless you are willing to talk about the best source on what the financials really are.

Obscured By Clouds said:

You wanna talk about Forbes and their financial break down of the Indians?

None of you do, you hide from it, even when you are called out directly.

Don't mention anything financial, unless you are willing to talk about the best source on what the financials really are.

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What makes that the best source to you?

Free agents still out there:

Nicholas Castellenos
Yasiel Puig
Matt Joyce
Hunter Pence
Brock Holt
Ben Zobrist
Domingo Santana
Kevin Pillar
Melky Cabrera
Lonnie Chisenhall
Steven Souza Jr.

I list Lonnie and Melky because I'd be fine giving either guy a minor league deal with a camp invite.

In terms of pen arms, there are a ton of vets still available:

Sam Dyson
Brandon Kintzler
Yoshihisa Hirano
Robbie Erlin
Collin McHugh
Juan Nicasio
Javy Guerra
Tony Sipp
David Hernandez
Francisco Liriano
Jeremy Jeffress
Josh Tomlin
Luke Gregerson
Trevor Hildenberger
Nick Vincent
Pedro Strop
Greg Holland
Ryan Buchter
Arodys Vizcaíno
Pat Neshek
Trevor Rosenthal
Jared Hughes
Anthony Swarzak
Cody Allen
Brandon Morrow

BimboColesHair said:

I get we’re all frustrated about the limitations of this team financially.

But if you want to be taken seriously, or anyone be taken seriously for that matter in here, you gotta stop going to the extreme on people who don’t have the same views as you.

No one in here, not even the most ardent Indians homers, are happy that we have to let talent walk or are happy that we have to watch division opponents signing people while we’re cutting payroll.

Saying something positive about the Indians doesn’t make you Paul Dolan’s secret gay lover.

Saying something negative doesn’t make you an idiot or troll.

Too much extremism on the outlook of how the Indians have to operate in here. Literally leads to no conversation of value and pages of bickering non-posters have to flip through. As someone who is posting less and less, threads being readable means more to me, and these back and forth’s literally do nothing for me.

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To be fair, every time I post something critical about ownership--usually a frustrated reaction that a reasonable free agent didn't sign in Cleveland-I am immediately told how unsophisticated my knowledge is about economics, and how my aggravation should be directed at the fan base for not showing up to more games.

I have cited numbers from Baseball Reference showing how much teams are raking in from revenue sharing, and then am told that I don't " talk about the best source on what the financials really are."
Well, the best source for those numbers would be ownership, but we all know they're not opening up their books anytime soon.
Yesterday, I shared a really thoughtful column from Fangraphs--one of the best baseball sites in the world--about how the onus should be on ownership to explain why austerity measures are necessary during a time contention.
If I was clogging up this forum with comments like, "SIGN RENDON AND TRADE 4 MOOKIE BETTS NOW!" then I'd understand the negative feedback from the majority of users.
But expressing frustration by using a mixture of numbers, statistics, comic hyperbole (debatable whether or not it's funny, obviously) and Fangraphs columns doesn't constitute trolling or bickering.

Once the season starts, I'm sure the discourse on here will shift to the game-to-game activity, but during the frozen months of offseason inactivity/austerity, it's reasonable to expect that the lack of additions to a contending team will be a focus of discussion on here.

Andrew Scheid said:

To be fair, every time I post something critical about ownership--usually a frustrated reaction that a reasonable free agent didn't sign in Cleveland-I am immediately told how unsophisticated my knowledge is about economics, and how my aggravation should be directed at the fan base for not showing up to more games.

I have cited numbers from Baseball Reference showing how much teams are raking in from revenue sharing, and then am told that I don't " talk about the best source on what the financials really are."
Well, the best source for those numbers would be ownership, but we all know they're not opening up their books anytime soon.
Yesterday, I shared a really thoughtful column from Fangraphs--one of the best baseball sites in the world--about how the onus should be on ownership to explain why austerity measures are necessary during a time contention.
If I was clogging up this forum with comments like, "SIGN RENDON AND TRADE 4 MOOKIE BETTS NOW!" then I'd understand the negative feedback from the majority of users.
But expressing frustration by using a mixture of numbers, statistics, comic hyperbole (debatable whether or not it's funny, obviously) and Fangraphs columns doesn't constitute trolling or bickering.

Once the season starts, I'm sure the discourse on here will shift to the game-to-game activity, but during the frozen months of offseason inactivity/austerity, it's reasonable to expect that the lack of additions to a contending team will be a focus of discussion on here.

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Get all the revenue sharing you want, it’s expensive to own and operate an empty stadium.

Also pretty hard to convince a business owner to spend money on a product nobody goes to see regardless of who you sign. Resign Lindor, sign Ozuna, we already know it’s not happening.

There isn’t much difference between wanting to sign Rendon and spending $18M on a declining 2 WAR player with a low contact rate.

Doesn’t really open you up to make cringeworthy burns about “silver spoon Paul Dolan blah blah blah herp derp.”

I think we’d all be better off if you stopped trying to be funny and sarcastic when you’re not very good at it.

In any event, I hope you can stop drumming up the same nonsense argument every time a free agent signs somewhere that isn’t Cleveland

AZ_ said:

Get all the revenue sharing you want, it’s expensive to own and operate an empty stadium.

Also pretty hard to convince a business owner to spend money on a product nobody goes to see regardless of who you sign. Resign Lindor, sign Ozuna, we already know it’s not happening.

There isn’t much difference between wanting to sign Rendon and spending $18M on a declining 2 WAR player with a low contact rate.

Doesn’t really open you up to make cringeworthy burns about “silver spoon Paul Dolan blah blah blah herp derp.”

I think we’d all be better off if you stopped trying to be funny and sarcastic when you’re not very good at it.

In any event, I hope you can stop drumming up the same nonsense argument every time a free agent signs somewhere that isn’t Cleveland

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Who are you to speak for everyone and tell me how I should write on an open forum?
Does having a Randy Marsh avatar give you autocratic powers?
If you don't like what I have to write, then you don't have to engage and inform me of how my mere existence is a burden.

"There isn’t much difference between wanting to sign Rendon and spending $18M"
There is exactly a $227 million difference.

Andrew Scheid said:

Who are you to speak for everyone and tell me how I should write on an open forum?
Does having a Randy Marsh avatar give you autocratic powers?
If you don't like what I have to write, then you don't have to engage and inform me of how my mere existence is a burden.

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This is not usually how conversation/debates go in here. If you don't like the response of some posters, you may want to be proactive and put them on ignore.

Andrew Scheid said:

Who are you to speak for everyone and tell me how I should write on an open forum?

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Well, I mean there are pretty clear rules and guidelines on the nonsense personal attacks and cringeworthy shit like you posted earlier.

Nobody would know that better than me, and I'm trying desperately not to return fire.

But you're making it increasingly difficult, and I hope you'll at least try to move beyond trying to be funny when its become obvious that you're not good at it.

Andrew Scheid said:

Does having a Randy Marsh avatar give you autocratic powers?

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No, but this is what I'm talking about.

Andrew Scheid said:

If you don't like what I have to write, then you don't have to engage and inform me of how my mere existence is a burden.

"There isn’t much difference between wanting to sign Rendon and spending $18M"
There is exactly a $227 million difference.

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Sure, I don't have to, but its easy to just put this type of nonsense down with the reasoned arguments that you seem to consistently lack.

I notice you didn't understand my point about there being little difference between Ozuna and Rendon.

There is little difference because there is almost no benefit to signing someone like Ozuna, or Rendon for that matter, at such a price. Signing Ozuna will not bring people to the stadium, his value to the team relies solely on his skillset, which has objectively declined in three consecutive seasons. As a 2 WAR player, you're paying a well above average price for pretty average production which likely doesn't earn you much in the way of win shares.

Not only that, but you seem to assume that Ozuna has any interest in playing for Cleveland, a cold weather city with a shitty fan base who doesn't support their team in spite of being one of the best, most well run organizations in the league.

While that spurns you on to make the same, boilerplate arguments about the Dolan family, the majority of people here are pretty well saturated with explaining Economics 101 to people who have absolutely no interest in a reasoned discussion about why there is such little value in signing free agents.

What are people expecting Domingo Santana to get?

He looks like a minor league contract or small 1-year deal type guy to me.

The Indians had the opportunity to extend a qualifying offer of 1 yr $18m to Michael Brantley last year. Brantley was a homegrown talent, is a superior player to Ozuna, and would've had draft pick compensation attached to him. They didn't.

It's certainly fair to be upset that they didn't extend that offer to Brantley, but knowing what happened last offseason, there should've been 0 expectation that they would have ever been in on Ozuna. The same applies to Castellanos