What do you mean his bat isn't comparable? To longoria's, last season, absolutely comparable and to be honest beltre isn't in this unassailable class of batting either. Everyone knows about beltre's work at third...and I do t know if my time in the beltway was a privilege or caused bias, but I got to see a lot of slick work at 3rd from Zimmerman. I'm not going to argue that Zimmerman is better than beltre, I'm just trying to present some diversity in the line-ups and I think Zimmerman is a perfect guy for that.

Probably not groundbreaking sentiment from a lot of gm's, but this is why I enjoy having JoMo in the front office

"As a group, we talk about remaining disciplined and staying true to our process. In this environment, some irrational thinking happens. That's the problem of these Meetings -- sometimes it's because you get the ping-pong effect. There are 30 teams under one roof, and things escalate rather quickly."

Looks like the Dodgers are backing away from Greinke and the Angels have basically given us as well. Looks like he apparently prefers going to Texas. And the Rangers may finally move out the albatros that Young has become as a player (I'll miss his leadership but not much else) I'm still interested with the Hamilton situation. Daniels has played a smart hand so far and if he gets young out of town it clears up the infield for Profar to play without necessarily forcing Kinsler to the outfield (although it now opens up a spot for Cruz to play DH a bunch more than he does which would be good).

Dodgers signing Greinke would have been both scary and hilarious. The fact that they already have 6 SPs and it's a big waste of money only factors in if you think there's a limit to how much they'd spend. Hope they really are backing out.

Kinsler would DH? How is that a smarter play than trading one of him, Andrus or Profar for Justin Upton?

Cruz would DH (as his fielding has slipped and Kinsler would move to the outfield). As for why that's not a smarter play than keeping Young and trading one of those players, both Profar and Andrus (Profar prospectivly) are exceptionally productive players and Michael Young as an extremely not productive player. He put up one of the worst WAR numbers in the league and is probably even worse given that it's hard to describe how bad his defense is. If he's in town Washington will play him basically every day. Adding one productive player (and subtracting another) is not as valuable as keeping both productive players and shipping out an unproductive one. Even if they don't resign Hamilton and don't get Upton they've got Gentry who is an exceptional defensive center fielder with a bat that is sometimes effective and definitely platoon worthy. Don't get me wrong I'd be happy to get Upton but I certainly wouldn't trade Profar for him and I'm leery about doing it with Andrus where moving Young eliminates most of the log jam problem (although you get some people out of position).

If we could trade Kinsler for Upton I'd be fine with that one but the D-Backs don't strike me as likely to agree to that.

Edit: btw my ideal if the Rangers keep Hamilton is moving Young, plunking Kinsler at first, playing Gentry regularly in Center shifting Hamilton to Left and letting Murphy play right (or moving Josh to Righ) and then mainly DH'ing Cruz with sensible shift around for platooning when necessary.

to be clear I wasn't advocating counting on Michael Young for anything

What is Ned colletti doing? There's no clear direction or reasoning to these signings aside from paying guys way more than what they're worth. Greinke gets cc money? How?

the opposite of moneyball

Who's going to be the dodgers for the dodgers if this shit doesn't pan out in two/three years?

so that Royals trade... abysmal. Good on them improving their rotation but Shields is 31 and Davis isn't the top of the rotation starter they seem to think he is. Definitely not worth what the gave up considering they could of traded Myers for Dickey straight up.

Yep dumb trade.

BCTGWTWS

Yeah, with a much different approach. Aside from lincecum, how many bad contracts on the books?

because to go win the world series?

Because the giants won the ws