Official MLB Offseason Thread.

Just read that yesterday. What a joke. This is why I haven't watched the Mariners in years, not going to give the franchise my support when all this shit is going down.

I've read that from fans on Twitter. They said it makes sense now why there have been so many bad deals in the past like they mentioned..singing Figgins, trading Morrow, Delabar, Lee and Fister. What a mess.

Pineda looks like his best move, even if Montero hasn't been great. And getting Ryan.

Fawk ! I wanted the Rangers to waste money on Cano.

I was really pissed when they traded Fister for scraps. Guy is a good pitcher. Borderline number two guy.

Roy Halladay is going to sign a one-day contract with the Blue Jays to retire. I personally hope he can overcome playing on shitty Toronto teams and somewhat weak counting stats to get into the hall of fame someday.

I hope so. Not winning a ring may hurt, but the general thought from writers is he'll get in there. From 2002-2011, there weren't many pitchers better.

Now there's this:

http://deadspin.com/the-mariners-may-have-bid-against-themselves-for-robins-1479755692

By mid-day Friday, Seattle had heard that some team bid nine years and $225 million for Robinson Cano, so the Mariners upped their bid to $240 million and 10 years before apparently realizing the initial bid had come from themselves, too.

I defended Jack Z for a while, but it's time for him to go. Even with this big signing, his plan is failing so far. The young talent hasn't come through, and his trades have mostly been head scratchers.

Wow. I don't know if I've seen that before.

lolphillies https://twitter.com/DSzymborski/status/409075828216299520

https://twitter.com/CespedesBBQ/status/409083056298143745

This guy has the "inside" scoop https://twitter.com/ctrent/status/410799042021445632

Shin Soo Choo to the Rangers for 7 years $130M. Not a bad a signing if you ask me, they'll be overpaying 4-5 years from now and all (though his skill set does age better than Cano or Ellsbury), but with the way the Rangers are built Choo will fit in nicely right in front of Fielder and Beltre.

The Rangers are a top 3 offense in MLB with Choo and Fielder in the top 4 of their lineup. Good signing.

I love it.

I'm super excited about what the Dodgers did this year. I thought Wilson and Howell were gone for sure. Can't wait for pitchers and catchers to report.

@manbearpuig: Are you on MSTI? It'll be insane if they add Tanaka as well

Tanaka come to the Yanks baby!

Are the Dbacks like the Cowboys or what?

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/01/01/an-anonymous-diamondbacks-player-slammed-adam-eaton-as-selfish/

http://deadspin.com/greg-maddux-will-not-be-a-unanimous-hall-of-famer-1496300490

The baseball HOF selection process is fucked beyond repair if people like this can vote

Welp, that settles that then. Nothing to see here folks. But honestly, I don't know what's worse. That logic or "if Babe Ruth doesn't get 100%, nobody does" logic. The fact that he did vote for Morris makes it worse too, in addition to that whole 3.90 ERA thing, their careers overlapped by 8 years. During which time Maddux won 3 Cy Young awards and Morris had no top-3 finishes.

There's a guy out there who is paid to write about baseball for a living and he voted for Jacque Jones for the Hall of Fame.

what the ****

Wow, Biggio misses by 2 votes. Thats a load of horse shit.

Congrats to the trio and their fans, specially Maddux who is a legend. Biggio gets in next year.

Seems like a lot of voters limited themselves to voting for 3 candidates, which is a allegedly an unwritten rule some of the older and more traditional voters follow. All 3 that got in deserved with out doubt, as did Biggio but he's hardly going to be the best player who didn't make it in on his first couple ballots either. Out of the players who fell short I'd like to see Biggio, Bagwell, Schilling, along with maybe Raines and/or Mussina all make it at some time or another from players who fell short this

@Boston_Boyy:

Didn't Biggio and Bagwell always choked in the playoffs?

I mean I guess you could say that, they did each lose about .200 points off their career regular seasons, but the postseason still made up like 2% of their career at-bats. It's not as if it's completely unimportant, but they've got strong enough resumes in other areas to overcome it.

Great to see Maddux an Glavine get in together. That rotation with them an Smoltz was one of the greatest ever.

Props to Dan LeBatard for selling his vote to the fans.

I think it's hilarious that so many writers are bitching about it. The Deadspin readers ended up filling out a better ballot than most of the other voters did.

Anyone whining about what LeBatard did is pretty much proving the point that he was trying to make

Is he even a baseball guy?

No, that was one of his points for doing this.

I find it hilarious that people are more angry at LeBatard doing this than some of the awful ballots and inconsistent moral stands against PEDs from some of the writers (thinking of Gurnick). At the end of the day, LeBatard's ballot (therefore, deadspin's readers) ballot was far more educated than some of the voters, like Lawrence Rocca who voted for Hideo Nomo but not Greg Maddux.

http://bbwaa.com/14-hof-ballots/

LeBatard wanted to make a point, he made his point. Good for him. And now he is out and I agree with that. And that is that.

As for the A-Rod saga: I'm glad the suspension was upheld, even if reduced, so the Yanks can save a boat load of money. A-Rod's contract is an albatross hanging on the Yanks neck and we needed this relief. No more A-Bomb's from A-Rod next season.

A-Rod is a terrible person.

Kershaw is offically the first $30M in any US professional sport: http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/story/_/id/10298436/clayton-kershaw-los-angeles-dodgers-agree-seven-year-deal-worth-215-million

Not sure how i'd feel about this if I were Dodgers. I love Kershaw and if there were ever a pitcher who deserved this deal it'd be him. However, because he is a pitcher, a deal like has to be taken with caution. Hopefully Kershaw will stay on top of his game into his 30s, but you'd be fooling yourself if you think Kershaw is somehow inherently different than all of the pitchers in recent baseball history that feel apart before their 30th birthday.

Well, they got him on the right side of 30. He is the best (plus Verlander/Hernandez) and he is being paid like that.

@

The Dodgers will regret this.

Thing sounded shady as heck, they met a "Doctor" in a parking lot and gave him a briefcase full of money to get stolen documents? And if they test them after the game how the heck do they stay undetected? Sounds crazy.

Deal sounds great after we were hearing 10 years 300 Mill, tons of them are given out, if you want to win you gotta do it, getting just 5 solid years make it worth it. In most of these contracts you hope to just get half of it, then if they drop off in the second whatever, i'm sure the Yanks are happy with their spending spree that ended with a 2009 World Series. This team can also better afford it than most

Good Lord that's a lot of money. /Cheap Pete

Kershaw is good, but he isn't worth 30 million a year.

Agreed. Dodgers are so thirsty for that WS title lol.

A-Roid is such a bitch, man.

Locked Kershaw up, now go get Tanaka.

Oh my, oh my. Yanks sure went for it. If we get Darvish 2.0 it is ok, if not...oh my.

Aaaaaaand the 189M cap target is gone. So you might as well go all the way and fortify the bullpen and bench.

50% chance the Yanks will regret this.

Michael Young, a Ranger great, man.

Heyward extended for 2 years/13M.

Freeman extended 8 years/125M

Doubt a last second extension will stop Kimbrel's arbitration case. I doubt he will be a Brave for longer than 2 more seasons.

Glad to see the Freeman extension, at least.

Russell Wilson needs to come play for my Rangers man.

And T-Mac trying baseball ? LMAO that should be entertaining.