The Rangers beat guy says there's nothing to the rumors...we'll see.

Source: George ofman

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Probably "imminent".

_________________
Proud to be UNVERIFIED.

i'm pretty sure i said this before, but if you can get nomar mazara you do this deal with the rangers ASAP.

Nomar Mazara (205) is just one 11 players to hit 20+ HR at age-21 or younger since 2000 joining Trout, Harper, Stanton, Upton, Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, Albert Pujols, Adrian Beltre, Miguel Cabrera, and Ryan Zimmerman.

i'll take my chances with that list of players

_________________

If you look at draft history since 2001 or 2002, you'd rather have the #7 overall pick versus the #1 overall pick. Going back a little further (much further), you get Frank Thomas.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

supposedly the Blue Jays are interested in Robertson. If that is true, is there a more Kenny guy than this:

2. Anthony Alford, OF

Birthdate: 6/20/94 (22 years old)
Level(s) Played in 2016: high A
Stats in 2016: .236/.344/.378, 9 HR, 18 SB

Many considered Alford to be unsignable in the 2012 draft because he wanted to play football with Southern Miss. The Blue Jays gambled on allowing him to do both, and spent a 3rd round pick on Alford.

After three years of playing both, one year with Southern Miss and two years at Ole Miss, Alford chose to focus exclusively on baseball in 2015. He exploded onto the scene in 2015 with a big year in his first full season concentrating on baseball, hitting .298/.398/.421 across both A levels.

He returned to high A in 2016 to start in 2016, but multiple trips to the disabled list for a knee injury and a concussion, respectively, kept him from making big strides offensively on the year.

Alford did show out with more of his power than had been seen in 2015 in the FSL, hitting 9 home runs and 17 doubles in his 92 games. He has the ability to hit for solid power with a quick bat and athletic frame that could generate 15-20 home runs as he matures.

Alford’s biggest carrying tool will be his plus-plus speed, which he uses to completely alter the game when he’s on the base paths and track down everything in center field.

Hopefully healthy in 2017, Alford will work his way to AA, and the Blue Jays will be excited to see how he handles the upper minors.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Does the Pirate announcement that Mc Cutcheon will be moved to right and that they feel they have two other players who can play center indicate anything about their talks with the Sox? It seems like the Pirates have redundancy in center and with the centerpiece of the discussions being a CF, they would recognize that they are not losing anything at the MLB level for a few years.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

more likely they were hoping to move cutch but couldn't and know he's not good in CF

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I can't imagine Sox get much of anything for Robertson at all, unless they eat some of his salary in the deal, which Jerry is unlikely to do.

_________________
1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

I don't see it that way at all. There are teams that are desperate for a closer and there isn't much currently available.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

You're misreading the post. Most front offices are pretty smart these days, and aren't falling for the "proven closer" label. Robertson has to get his mojo back a bit and prove that his falling k/9 and HR rates (which have been going the wrong direction) are just a "fluke" and would potentially have higher value (given performance) at the deadline. If I was a shrewd GM and wanted to trade for one WS reliever; I'd target Jones.

_________________
1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

I'm sure you would, but if I were the Sox, I'd want more for Jones. Whether we want to call Robertson a "proven closer" a "reliever in decline", whatever, he's still a reliable bullpen option. I don't know how much the Sox can get in return for him, but I don't think they will have to eat salary. But you're right in that they may have to send him out there to get the kind of interest they want. The problem with that is, I'm sure they wouldn't mind flipping Jones too, and that will be easier if he actually has the closer role.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

You trade closers at the deadline. You get more value. Hahn's no dummy. Look what the Yankees gave up for Chapman. Then look what the Cubs did. Not even close.

Wacha is going to the bullpen at 25. He's clearly shown he can be an effective starter, and is young enough to have upside left and doesn't cost much. If I'm Mozeliak, and I call you, Hahn, and offer Wacha and a top #100 prospect for Jones, do you bite?

_________________
1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

I'd do that in a second.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Probably, but I don't know why the Cardinals would do that.

Robertson is not very good, he's performed fairly poorly on the Sox and he's paid to perform like a top 5 closer. Chapman is a top 3 closer, while Robertson is more like 14th-15 best( average) closer.

_________________

Fact still remains. No matter how good/bad he is, he will be more valuable in a trade at the deadline than in the offseason.

I'm not sure they would either, but the Cardinals are in an odd place on the win curve, with a juggernaut in their division, and they need to overpay for guys like Brett Cecil to keep up the habit of 88-92ish wins to get into the postseason. They missed the playoffs by 1 game last year, iirc. They have 4 or 5 #100-ish prospects according to the consensus of the reports, and if you think the hit rate on any of those turning into MLB regulars that help a perennial contender is maybe 10%-15%. The only one I'm sure of is Reyes (the reason that Wacha is going to the pen to begin with) it's a question of turning an asset they don't need right now (Wacha) into something they definitely need for a playoff run.

I guess the only hypothetical point to my post was, these are the types of trades that Hahn needs to be making.

_________________
1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

Don't forget Chapman had a possible 6 month suspension hanging over his head which ended up being 30 days. The Reds wanted out from under that and took what they could get at the time.

The Nationals are flat out of options. They whiffed on Melancon, Jansen, Holland and now Sergio Romo is gone to the Dodgers. They basically have to acquiesce to whatever Hahn is demanding for Robertson or they go into their penultimate season of Bryce Harper with *nothing* at closer.

Robertson may not be good (he's certainly better than Romo though), but he is capable of closing games. And they can certainly get Robertson without giving up Robles, whereas if they wait until the deadline to find one it will likely involve giving up their best prospect.

Romo took less money to go to LA...poor Rizzo

Robertson had a bad knee and had surgery after the season. best bet may be to go into spring training and see how he looks.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

get that shit out of here

Do you realize the incredible convergence of lucky occurrence within a month that resulted in a World Series for the Cubs? That juggernot was a bumslayer during the regular season and then took advantage of opponent injury to eke out a championship.

While I say all this with malice in my heart, it is truth. I wouldn't look at the Cubs as unassailable. They were on the ropes throughout the postseason and in my opinion are not better today than they were on the day Dexter came to training camp

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Sure, ok. You do realize you don't exactly have an unbiased view of that club over there, and maybe I don't either (fandom does some weird shit, let's be real) but to not acknowledge the powerhouse they are building with their resources and marketing power is foolish. You can have various opinions of the rosters, and that's why they play the games on the field. Nobody is saying they are unassailable. The nature of baseball is that weird shit happens. But to act like they aren't a contender is absurd.

_________________
1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

You wrote juggernaut

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Are you really the poster to counsel others on making potentially hyperbolic statements?

Moving on..

_________________
1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

Your original point was that the Cardinals cant compete with the Cubs (juggernaut) and that affects how they should be approaching their roster. Dont even try to walk it back now bruv.

You can misunderstand me any way you want.

If you don't like the word "juggernaut" just insert a different word of your choosing.

_________________
1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

and out

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.