January 30, 2025

105 thoughts on “MLB.com: Gleyber, Tigers agree to deal (source)”

  2. I was just thinking about how I hope the Yankees sign Ha-Seong Kim, but the Tigers seemed like they were going to. Now it seems more likely the Yankees get him. Who is left to fill either 2B or 3B if they are really out on Arenado and Bregman?

  3. Gleyber is a career 112 OPS hitter. If Cash is not willing to go after Bregman, his replacement will be much worse. Volpe has never shown he’s an MLB hitter. Stanton will be hurt or suck fo most of the year. Wells is a question mark.Goldschmidt is trending way down. The Martian is an unknown and has yet to show he can hit right handed. Gleyber will be missed.

    1. he had 1.8 war and a 101 ops+ last year. he led the league in errors and sank the must-win game 1 of the ws. he should have been gone years ago when his value was high but cash waited too long.

      i’ll miss what he could have been if he hit the gas from 2019 but I don’t think they’ll miss him in uniform next year. oswaldo gave 1.3 war in half of the at bats and costs 14M less.

      “we’re gonna be ok” – giancarlo stanton

    2. Cash TRIED to trade Gleyber in 2022 when he was having a 4 WAR season, but no one valued him like a 4 WAR player because of his awful 2021, and the lack of the juiced bat (the juiced bat was what made Gleyber look like a superstar in 2019).

    1. I loved the book as everyone did, am suspicious that an adaptation would just be a soap

    2. I didn’t expect to like it, I don’t usually like those highbrow literary adaptations, but I thought they did an outstanding job. I just finished the next to last episode. And now I want to read the book.

    1. Glad he got paid. Good for him. Based on nothing other than vibes, I’m glad the Yankees didn’t sign him. I feel like he won’t age amazingly over the next 7-8 years. I hope I’m wrong.

    2. Agree with Plank.
      Also based largely on POOMA.
      I think they Yankees chose the right guy.
      But either way, he’s not on Baltimore, and didn’t go to Boston or even LA.

    3. Yeah, I’m pleased he’s out of the AL East. It’s impressive to see the Diamondbacks spend money again after making a big deal out of how Jordan Montgomery’s deal was some huge albatross to them.

    4. I never got the feeling they were complaining about how much money the spent on Monty, just that they spent a lot of money and then he wasn’t very good.

    5. They were one of the teams caught up in the Diamond Sports thing, so they were definitely complaining about payroll recently. But hey, good for them, truly! I like when other teams spend money.

    1. Help is not on the way. Lombard and Arias are still in A ball. Hess and Cunningham have yet to get a minor league start.

  13. Apparently Gleyber had a lot of suitors. The Jays were in bigly. Gleyber specifically wanted a one year contract in hopes of getting nine figures in the following year.

    1. Gleyber apparently didn’t even want a two-year deal with an opt out after year one. Gleyber gets how contracts work, no? Why would you NOT prefer a two-year deal with an opt out to a one year deal?

    4. “Tim Smith turns down minor league deal with Jays, prefers to retire at age 24”

  14. A few thoughts on this news item:

    1. I feel like Gleyber is being described at times exclusively as the player he was in 2023 opposed to the whole inconsistent, occasionally infuriating picture from 2020-2024. If it was a guarantee Gleyber would find his game then the Yankees would be making a big mistake here. But you never know what you are getting with Gleyber. It seemed like he was back in 2022, and then he looked like a one-eyed (one-armed?) man at the plate in August. He’s the definition of volatile, setting a largely strong ‘23 aside.

    2. I’ve always been a bit of a Ha-Seong Kim skeptic, but there actually is a lot to like in his performance. He’ll work the count. He’ll steal a bag. He can play really good defense at multiple positions. But it comes back to his raw batting line — when you do so much well as a hitter, well… why don’t you hit better? Incidentally Kim is one of two marquee free agents, along with Anthony Santander, who had a pretty low batting average despite a very solid SO:BB ratio, relative to other guys in the league. So, a few questions. Was the batting average spike which was supposed to coincide with the banned shift more public relations than fact? Are guys like Kim and Santander (even Gleyber!) being under-valued because it’s too damn hard to hit a single? Do I need to just trust OPS+ like a biblical text in these uncertain times?

    3. Do any of you want Bregman at seven years? Are any of you enamored with a decidedly un-sexy option like Ryan McMahon? Do the Yanks have the nerve to let Oswald and Oswaldo duel to the death in Spring Training, figuring one of those guys approximates the WAR of whatever’s left in the market anyway?

    4. Why is the reliever market completely dead?

    1. I like Kim a lot, but he is coming off major shoulder surgery, it’s tough to figure out his market as a defense first infielder.

    2. 1) he may very well turn back into an all star but it wasn’t going happen here for whatever reason so bye bye and no looking back.
      2) OPS is a majorly flawed stat since it equates OBP and SLG and they aren’t equal. A stat that multiplies OBP by 1.5-2 and then adds SLG is a better barometer.
      3) no i don’t want Breg for 7 years at $30m+ a year. I don’t want Ryan Mc who has seen his WAR decline from 3.9 to 3.1 to 2.9 to 2.5 the last 4 seasons. That’s a bad trend.
      4) no idea.

    3. Bregman is such a tricky guy, because if he can maintain roughly 4 WAR for the next four seasons, he’s definitely worth seven years, but how can we possibly know whether he CAN do that? Since he’s gone from 4.6 to 4.9 to 4.1 in his last three seasons, how can you know WHAT he’s going to do for the next four seasons? He’s not THAT old, but since we JUST saw Arenado fall off a cliff at 34, a Bregman deal starting at age 31 is worrisome. But 31/32 SHOULD be fine, so what if his trendline is:

      4.1
      3.9
      3.2
      2.5
      2.5
      1.9
      1.5

      What is that worth? Would 6/$160 million be too much? He gets to say he beat what Houston offered.

      It’s pretty clear that he fits exactly what they need, an impact player who plays a Gold Glove-level third base.

      Jazz 2B (L)
      Judge RF (R)
      Bregman 3B (R)
      Bellinger CF (L)
      Stanton DH (R)
      Wells C (L)
      Goldschmidt 1B (R)
      Dominguez LF (S)
      Volpe SS (R)

      That’s a World Series-worthy lineup right there. Excellent infield defense, pretty good outfield defense, good defensive catcher. And there would be room for improvement if Dominguez is the real deal (Dominguez third, Bregman cleanup, for instance. Or Wells third, Bregman cleanup, if Wells hits like he did in July rather than September).

  15. According to The Athletic The Yankees front office is not in the top 20 of all FOs across the 4 major sports. Shocking that Hal, Levine and Cash don’t lead the pack. They had Oklahoma City Thunder #1, the Dodger 2, the Baltimore Ravens 3 and the Devil Rays 4.

    1. I don’t know, or care for that matter, what went into the rankings, but that top-4 includes a weird mix of small market teams and … the Dodgers.

      I get it, I think the Dodgers are innovative financially and from a team building perspective. They seem to be on the cutting edge with some things. The Yankees and Cashman seem to think that it doesn’t matter how they spend $250m a year as long as they spend it. That said, they did make it to the world series. So yay.

  17. Brian and Big Fan — great stuff. Thanks. Nice to “see” everyone again.

    Brian, to play devil’s advocate for Bregman (I’m not all in by any means), the Astros are absolutely obsessed with pulling the ball in the air. I think Bregman could have the skills to age a bit better offensively than expected if the Yankees communicate, “look, you are never hitting 30 HRs in this stadium barring a miracle. Just focus on having a .370 .OBP and playing great defense.” I think if Bregman embraced being a line drive hitter instead of maximizing merely OK power, then he could change his profile just a bit and become a reliable veteran bat, albeit without a ton of power.

    But again, that could be nonsense. That could be ‘Jacoby Ellsbury is going to drop 25 dongs per season with the short porch’ revisited.

    All that said I’d be tempted to live for today and go for it while Judge is still Judge. The last three years of Bregman would probably be awful, but maybe not so bad if he can play 2B competently the last 2-3 years of the contract. I know it would be rare for a guy to move to 2B toward the end of his career, but Bregman could probably do it. There a .350 slugging percentage from a guy in his late thirties won’t kill you.

    1. I’d be tempted to live for today and go for it while Judge is still Judge.

      This is really important – Cole too. The Yankees have a window while both of these guys are elite. They can’t pretend that late career Cole and Judge are going to the be the same as they are now. The pitching does look really good, but just a year ago it kinda fell apart and so did they. They need an offense capable of carrying them as well.

  18. Where Sasaki will need to change his ways a bit is his tempo and ability to hold runners on. He exclusively works out of the stretch, with a big and slow leg kick with nobody on that morphs into a shorter slide step when runners are aboard.

    The problem is, even the slide step is slow, mixing in far too many 1.6s to home, which has resulted in base stealers going 25-for-28 on Sasaki since the start of the 2023 season.

    https://www.justbaseball.com/mlb/who-is-roki-sasaki-and-what-will-his-challenges-be-in-mlb/

  20. This DJ stuff has to be a negotiating ploy, right? I’m fine with the guy being on the team. But the dude arguably couldn’t physically withstand two months of regular playing time at this point, let alone playing well. It would be pretty hilarious that while we’re debating Bregman Cashman is playing hardball with Kim’s agent over 3/21 and floating “DJ is gonna bounce-back” whispers to beat reporters.

    Also, anyone remember Hye-seong Kim? Great glove? Possibly passable lefty bat? That would be playing hardball at 1/5.

    Listening to Joel Sherman right now on his Pinstripe Post show. Dude is crazy knowledgeable and connected but also crazily hyping Trey Sweeney. Trey Sweeney is getting a shot because Javy Baez is a GM’s bad dream. He does look more promising than Vivas — I was surprised Vivas was so ass at Scranton last year. But even the most ardent homegrown Yankees fan would be hard-pressed being hyped for Trey Sweeney’s .220/.320/.370 2025 line at third or second.

    1. Yeah, agreed, Trey Sweeney is getting way too much hype based on a brief BABIP hot streak to start his MLB career. I read a Detroit article where they were talking about flipping Sweeney while his value was high. On the one hand, that makes sense, but on the other hand, is his value even HIGH right now for serious? It’s not like he’s some defensive stud.

  21. Given how much most MLB teams adore dumping money, the Tigers could probably get a mid-rotation, pricey starter for Sweeney, which yeah, might be the height of his value. Can he genuinely play SS? Will he be unplayable against lefties? We just don’t know. Though I’ll be happy to eat my hat if he becomes a steady 2-3 WAR player. A Yankee farm system success!

  22. Gleyber is a career .774/112 player with average defense and averages about 3 WAR per season. Also he generally took good ABs (did you know he led the team (maybe league?) in pitches/PA?). I’ll bet you all $50 we get worse than that out of 2B next year. I, for one, will miss him, frustrations and all.

    Bregman I want no part of. Yes, they should go all in, but he’s already declining, was never really an elite 3B and is apparently seeking $200 mil. No thanks. given how the market is shaping up, Gleyber is a good deal on that contract.

    1. I think Gleyber is the poster child of why WAR isn’t that reliable a stat. He’s an awful base runner, and a lazy one as well. The package isn’t worth losing sleep over.

    2. he did lead the team (4.2 to 4.1 w/Judge) but a number of the replacements are all over 4 including Jazz.

      i won’t miss him and even if the results might seem suboptimal depending on what he does this year i strongly felt it was time to move on. feel free to remind me if i was wrong.

    1. Why does this bother people so much?

      A bigger issue, to me, is that they play at home or other cold weather cities until the 17th of April. A few cancellations and the schedule gets wrecked. Why can’t they prioritize April games in the south or west coast, especially when it’s teams like Arizona and SF that are coming here.

    2. Sure, he’s fine for a team like the Dodgers, who have enough offense to carry dudes just for defense, but he can’t hit. The GOOD Kim can barely hit, and this guy is a lot worse than him.

    4. How little he signed for I think shows how little he was regarded by MLB teams. Of course, knowing the Dodgers, he might have just given them a huge discount for no reason.

    5. Okay, as it turns out, he did, in fact, take a somewhat notable discount to sign with the Dodgers. How annoying (five years/$25 million guaranteed from the Angels, instead a three-year/$12.5 million deal with a two-year club option that could bring it to five years/$22 million).

    1. At this point, I’m not sure why they haven’t fired their GM. The ownership gave him money to spend and he has basically refused to – not even to extend their homegrown guys.

      They seem like the perfect squad for Dombrowski to take over

  38. Wondering if the Yankees are waiting out the market on Bregman, who is a loathsome cretin who in part cost the Yankees a Series. Signing him would be like hiring the guy who burned down your house as a gardener.

    3. Hard to imagine he wasn’t.
      When a team hits the ball well, players say “it’s like they knew what was coming.”
      I mean, you could say he was young and pressured into it, and one can understand that, but in the end he was clearly a part of it.

    1. As an erstwhile amateur wind-band performer and arranger, I’ll venture that Bernie has also made a more positive contribution to music than anyone named Sax.

    4. Okay everybody let’s not be greedy, we get one dimension from a player and one dimension only

  41. Bowden predicts Sasaki to Yanks or Padres. And is anyone better at this than Jim Bowden?

    “ His favorite player growing up was Masahiro Tanaka, which would lead me to guess he was at least somewhat of a Yankees fan. He considers Yu Darvish a godfather-type influence, and the Padres veteran mentored Sasaki during Japan’s championship run in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. Therefore, for no other reason, I’ll predict he signs with either the Yankees or San Diego.”

    1. “Sasaki eats food, and the food in San Francisco and Portland is terriffic. Therefore I predict he signs with either the Giants or, in a surprise move, the Portland Thorns of the NWSL.”

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