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We all read about the Andrew Bailey signing and see $1,000,000 guaranteed for a 1-year deal, with incentives, and see no down side. That is all correct.
What we need to also see is that, just days after the WS and so early into the FA season, Eppler got Bailey to sign this kind of deal before anybody else meandered by and offered Bailey $1,000,001 dollars.
Being fast and aggressive to snatch up a high-upside talent for an amazingly team-friendly deal is a good sign of an active and adroit mind that has management support for quick action.
Eppler has Bailey in the fold. Only $1 million committed and only 1 year of being on the hook should all go belly up. Andrew Bailey is not an Aroldis Chapman, but that is not his role, either. And somebody is going to be distracted for a long time trying to earn the right to sign up Chapman for $100 million and own that contract for 5 years.
Enjoy some Winter-at-the-Speed-of-Eppler-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Mike Trout is not beloved by his fellow players. They chose Joe Altuve as tehir American League Most Valuable Player...........
Among the mad science experiments to be tested before April will be moving J.C. Ramirez back into a starter role. I write "back" because Ramirez has minor league roots as a starter. By the way, Ramirez is out of options. There is no plan "B" here...........
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Everywhere In Baseball
I have advocated this myself numerous times. I think that the World Series Champs should carry something special about their uniforms the following season. Here is one person advocating for the Cubs in 2017. For the record, I also advocate for special sleeve markings to be work by the annual All-Stars and MVP/CYA/RoY winners...........
Dish Network might be one of the first field casualties of cord cutting. You can read in the article that htey just posted their 10th straight quarter. That's 30 months. More to the point, you can also read that they have lost 8.1% of their subscriber base over the past year. Sure, they caught a bit of those in their Sling TV net, but they can only afford so many years of that loss level before they fall off the cliff.............
These are pretty interesting predictions. Bold, to be sure, but fun inasmuch as they make for good dialog. The opening volley is an excellent start. "The upcoming CBA slows the hot stove down". I agree that teams will want to make sure some new rule in the CBA doesn't bite them in the butt for being early to get a roster in place. But it would surprise me to learn that teams don't already know an awful lot about where the new CBA will end up. Is it possible that these two sides have not been well engaged in serious discussions with the contract expiration now just 3 weeks away from today?...........
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Trade Winds
Ok, just spitballin' here. How would you like to have to deal with a Rangers pitching rotation that includes Chris Sale? Hints are coming out of White Sox GM Rick Hahn that the ChiSox might be in the market for a larger rebuild. Sale is a prize that would fetch a major return and does not appear to be ruled out. And we have already read out of Texas that the Rangers are desperate enough to add quality arms to their rotation that they might even trade away a Jurickson Profar. After all, they do still have some of that talent depth they have had for years now. My guess is that these two teams will be talking pretty hard............
Sam Miller (now at ESPN so do be warned) considers the possibility that Arte might be tempted to Big Splash his way into 2016 Diamondbacks failure territory. I quibble with his example list of the Top 10 FA's from last winter (Alex Gordon, really?), but my REAL beef is that this ignores the fact that Billy Eppler is most definitely NOT Dave Stewart/Tony La Russa............
The Duffle Bag
Arlington fans voted to fleece themselves and anybody visiting from out of town so they can gift two fancy-dancy commercial facilities to some local billionaires. Hey, as long as I stay out of Texas it ain't my money...........MLB doesn't want images of Chief Wahoo showing up on third-world children, will destroy now-worthless Cleveland WS Champ merch. Before you get all up in arms, a little research on this will reveal that donating the excess cloths that fall out of our domestic excessive consumption model is probably harmful to the strategic global economic development in the textiles sector...........In Chicago this week? Ride the W...........Ha! Joel Peralta, who's MLB career started in Anaheim back in 2005, is going to get a Cubs World Series ring for 89 pitches against 19 batters over 4.0 formal innings...........Rememebr when the rain came in Game 7, and how the Cubs held an impromptu players-only meeting? Ever wonder what happened in there? Here you go...........
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