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When I asked, I was strongly admonished with Taibbi and Weiss as examples. Although I don't think either were banned. So I don't know what that answer was meant to accomplish.

I will take him at his word as well, because we have to give the new guy coming in the benefit of belief, although TBF, he would never have publicly said anything to the contrary, either.

If Colt Keith can rake like crazy, I think we could justify him at 2B even if he has one of the worst gloves in the league there. Having a terrible glove didn't stop Derek Jeter from having a Hall of Fame career as a shortstop.

Agreed as posted, although the question at hand was, more narrowly, whether Harris's charge is to spend right up to the owner's budget, or whether it is to save the owner money and come in under budget. None of us know the answer to this, so declaring as much, either way, is presumptuous.

I will agree that letting Jeimer go was the right move if we get third baseman(s) who provide better prodcution at third base than Jeimer does for Washington this year.

I doubt Harris is making any personnel decisions based on the economy and challenges that others are going through, either. Personally, I think it's a bad look that the new administration is apparently planning to give something like a 4x to 5x raise to a relief pitcher who went 2-11 last season with a 5 BB/9 rate and a steadily declining strikeout rate.

How do you know that Harris is there to spend to the budget and not try to save money for the owner where he can? I don't think any of us knows that. Well, maybe Edman does. But I sure don't, and my guess is you don't, either. Hypothetical: Do you think it weakens the team to pay Jeimer $7 million within a payroll of $143 million dollars, but it doesn't to pay Jeimer $5 million within a payroll of $141 million?

You might think you're setting me straight, but you've actually agreeing with part of what you quoted.

I’m talking about fans, not Harris. If you’re a fan, and you think Jeimer is worthless at third base, then shouldn’t you want someone else there no matter what, instead of accepting his worthlessness there for another year simply because it saved the owner the extra 40%?

Lot of assumptions for a simple question asking who. I didn’t remember, it’s why I asked.

I don’t know how that makes paying $5 million for presumably zero production OK, but OK.

How does it work to be tendered an actual contract, the signing of which I assume binds him, without being offered a specific salary? I’m interested in the technical aspect of that, because I would have assumed the contract comes after the terms have all been agreed to. Is it more a letter of intent that prevents him from seeking employment elsewhere before the arbitration process has been completed?

As 337 implied, it’s false to assume anything that is being done with the money that is saved, whether it would be used to pay another player or simply pocketed by the owner. In the end, if Jeimer were to fulfill the expectations of his detractors by coming back and putting up, say, 0 WAR in 2023, is it really better for the fan—is the team really better—if he gives us 0 WAR for $5 million than if he gives us 0 WAR for $7 million? If 0 WAR is his top end at age 29, what difference does it make? And even if we think 1 WAR is his top end, why would we want him here for any price?

If they haven’t exchanged arb figures yet, how is DFAing Soto beforehand roster management amateur hour?

The point I was making was that it would make no sense for a fan to want Jeimer if he'll take 3 million, but not if it were to take 7 million to bring him back. A fan either wants Jeimer on the field for the Tigers, or they don't, because production, not salary. Tenacious D got where I was coming from. In any event, I'm pretty sure the Tigers knew Jeimer wasn't going to take the deal, at least before going onto the market. Maybe they made a standing offer to him that he could take at any time if the market wasn't shaping up for him, as long as we don't backfill your position in the meantime. Or maybe they said here it is, you have x number of hours to take this deal or buh-bye. Who knows. But he did end up with a number from the Nationals that was close to what he was projected to get in arb anyway, provided he hits all his targets. That actually brings up something that occurs to me for the first time: given the free agent deals that are blowing original projections out of the water, are arbitration targets going to be similarly exceeded? How much will the FA dollars influence exchanged numbers, as well as arbitrator's decisions? I gotta believe it will have some impact.

Have the Tigers and Soto exchanged numbers yet? I missed that. What are they offering Soto?

Schoop has played something like 12 total innings at third base nine years ago, so I personally don't like the solution. But writers are buzzing about it, and it seems like whenever that happens, it happens. So it's probably gonna happen, and I'll root for him to succeed there when it does.

And that's fine, I respect that. I don't agree with the position, but if you think Jeimer's bad and should leave in any case, great.

Again I ask, why is keeping Jeimer a non-starter at $7 million, but perfect at half that? Either way we get the same production from him. If someone thinks Jeimer sucks, then fine, cut him. But he delivers the same number of wins for a team at $7 million, $5 million, $3 million, or the minimum. The currency of the fan is not the salary. It’s the production.

I don’t do this for a living, but everything I see from the guy suggests that if he ever has a good year again, it’ll be because he gets lucky. In fact, he was lucky he didn’t give up his career average of home runs per fly balls this year, because had he done so, his topline numbers would have been worse enough that I think he might well have been DFA’ed.

I think the only thing holding back Alex Lange is his walkiness. Everything else he has is great. If he could get enough of a handle on it to bring it down to league average, I think he could be a closer on a playoff team.

FWIW, hardly anyone at the time was saying the return for Verlander was bag of magic beans. Even Fangraphs thought all three of Perez, Daz, and Jake would eventually be productive major leaguers. The J.D. trade, though … woof. Only one guy was fooled by that one.

I’m old enough to remember (what, is it 2019 already?) when Soto collapsed and blew games on the last two days of the season. For those of us not still protesting the WAR, Soto was sub-replacement level this year. He was so erratic I thought we were going to just DFA him, especially since he’s going to get good and paid in arbitration. I would almost accept an Al Avila flyer trade for him.

Why, yes. Yes they are.

Avila Stockholm Syndrome?