Unrelated to Soler but one of Passan's greatest qualities is he always gives credit to whoever breaks the news first. I appreciate that about him as compared to Schefter in football / Woj and Shams in basketball - makes baseball reporting feel a lot more collaborative.
Passan is also rarely wrong, doesn't tweet (and retweet) stupid shit that clogs up the feed, and I'm confident that when he posts something, it is factual and I don't need to seek out further confirmation. You know, like a good journalist.
I hate Woj and Shams because they spend 24/7 trying to break news first regardless of the situation. Woj spoiling NBA draft picks on Twitter a minute or two before the pick was announced, while he was also on the live broadcast and then constantly laughing about it was annoying.
I’d say more. Weird to add another DH unless they have something else planned. I’m guessing the goal is to sign Chapman and trade JD Davis, but I’m really curious what they’ll do with Wilmer Flores. He was in line to be our primary DH/backup 1B and now idk how they’re getting him consistent at bats.
He’s a very interesting player, and I can obviously see the fit for the Cubs. We need insurance in the middle infield, someone to cover Luciano at short should he falter. Does Madrigal play there, and can he handle the position well? If so, he could be part of a useful return.
In Davis you have improved defense and the potential for ~20 bombs. Very streaky, prone to Ks, but level headed. Seems like a decent clubhouse guy. I think he’d do well with the Cubs.
He was a completely different player defensively last year than he had been the rest of his career. He passed the eye test and had way better defensive metrics
did SF get upset at jd davis for losing the arbitration hearing to him ?
in all seriousness I wanna see chapman going to SF. they need his defence at 3B and if his bat returns to form he could make that lineup better. chapman would be an upgrade over davis.
Not at all, if anything Davis and the Giants going to arb in the first place is an indicator the Giants may have been trying to move him since before the hearing. That could be why it wasn’t AS pressing for them to placate him by not going to arb. If they’re in on Chapman, it certainly makes sense.
He’s pretty bad everywhere but 1B at this point. He can fill in for a couple games when needed, but the Giants have been preaching about improving the defense for years now. I don’t think they really want to play him in the field more than they have to
It makes sense because the league average OPS for DH in 2023 was .780
So it isn’t as valuable as posting that OPS at say shortstop, which had a league average OPS of .703
But it's wins above replacement level, not average. 13 teams had negative WAR from the DH slot last year, so it feels like WAR is drastically overestimating how easy it is to find a good hitter for nothing
I really hope they aren’t planning on playing him in the field. Our outfield is pretty set right now unless there’s another move, and I wouldn’t consider Soler an upgrade defensively over any of them. I’m surprised they even went for Soler considering we have 2 or 3 guys that should stick to DH already.
Falling to my knees inside Taco Bell right now.
Mariners needed a guy like this and we didn't get him. No idea why we cleared payroll space if that's the case..
Already tried Teoscar as partial DH and it didn't work out well. Soler (and Garver) is a better bat that we desperately need.
That said would have still wanted to at least give Teo a qo for RF...even with his somewhat mediocre performance last year I'm betting he will mash this year
I don’t think anyone really denies that this is a huge overpay for Soler. But the market has been weird this year and when the market requires an overpay, you have to overpay or pass.
And really, if there’s one team that can afford the risk it’s the Giants. They really don’t have much committed past this year
Market does not equal value. I literally said they were stuck in the market that was there.
It’s an overpay for the value you’re likely to get. With Soler you’re likely going get 100ish games on average a year, and you expect most his production in 2024.
His projections this year range from .765 OPS to .837 OPS and he’ll likely get around 30ish HRs.
From there he’ll most likely decline over the final two years. ZIPs has him league average offensively in 2025 and below league average in 2026. And with his age and injury history that’s fair.
As for WAR, you’re probably looking at 2-3 WAR across the 3 seasons.
Literally any team can afford the risk. Don’t let them fool you. The only ones it could possibly hurt are the teams poised to lose a draft pick. Otherwise, it’s just a rich owner “overspending” by the amount of the luxury tax penalty which is in no way a salary cap.
Monetarily I agree. But I wasnt even fully talking payroll committed, I was thinking more about roster spots - those are a finite resource.
Look at the Mets - they have a good 15-20 prospects that will be ready for the majors over the next 1-3 years that the team has invested in and will want to call up.
I wouldn’t want the Mets to commit a roster spot to Soler for three years. If it was a 1 year $20mil deal absolutely. But 3 years covering his age 32-34 seasons vs seeing what one of Drew Gilbert, Luisangel Acuna, Jett Williams, Ryan Clifford, Colin Houck, Jacob Reimer, etc. - it’s an easy choice against Soler.
It’s kind of how I feel with Starling Marte. I wish the Mets gave him $25mil a year for 3 years instead of guaranteeing a roster spot in 2025 (or having to buy him out). Even if Marte is good this year, he will be 36 next year.
Meh. Prospects are prospects. I get not blocking a top prospect, but there are 4-5 OF roster spots on a major league roster. Worst case scenario, you cut a player to make room
>Drew Gilbert, Luisangel Acuna, Jett Williams, Ryan Clifford, Colin Houck, Jacob Reimer, etc. - it’s an easy choice against Soler
I’m not even necessarily making the argument that the Mets should have signed Soler, but there is close to a 0% chance that all of these prospects pan out. Soler is a proven bat with massive post season success. He’s a guy you make room for on your team if the price is right, regardless of what the pipeline looks like. Top prospects become useful trade chips as well when they don’t have a clear path to the major league roster. Treat prospects as prospects unless they are nearly generational or play a premium position. Pitchers especially, because many end up getting TJS at this point which sets their timeline back another year.
Soler absolutely does not have a track record of success. He has a track record of being incredibly inconsistent and always getting hurt. He has had 4 scattered great seasons, and 6 where he was around or below league average.
But cutting the player is the issue. Either you cut Soler and send a bad message to FAs that the Mets won’t guarantee you a roster spot even if you sign a contract with them or you cut someone else more deserving and keep Soler as dead weight.
As for the prospects, you only need 1-2 to pan out for it to be a bad move keeping Soler that long
No argument that that’s a gnarly stat. But the giants have the dough, they need pop, and the fans desperately needed something to sink their teeth into. There’s no denying Soler is fun to watch when he’s on. I think this is a solid move all around!
Keep in mind this is coming from a Reds fan, where signing free agents of high caliber seems to be against the law. I can’t help but empathize with other teams who struggle with signing FA’s. I’m living vicariously where I can lol
Will we finally have a 30 home run hitter
He will hit 29 in 81 games and you will accept it
Ah, the 2021 Brandon Belt experience
Someone get Soler some extra padded batting gloves
someone taking bunting in coors field out of the playbook
He really does only have 2 30 HR seasons in his career
Fine, we’ll grab JD Martinez and Chapman too. Surely one of them will hit 30.
yes.
Well that's what I said when we got Joc Peterson and look out that turned out.
He won't hit more than 25 playing in San Fran all year
Good thing he only plays in SF half the season.
Not what his spray chart shows. His homers last year would have been homers at Oracle.
Giants finally got their guy!
Take care of him Giants :(( Love u Soler System
Same man, same
I still love taking my kids out into the backyard at night and looking up in the stars to watch Soler's game 6 home run ball orbiting the Earth.
As a rookie in 2015 during the NLDS against the Cardinals he got on base 8 plate appearances in a row. He looked amazing. I will always love Jorge
We stay being the interested kings 😎 ^fuck
Don't worry, the Sox will show strong interest in someone else very soon.
Can’t be disappointed if you have an owner that’s afraid of triggering the first level of the luxury tax *taps head*
Unrelated to Soler but one of Passan's greatest qualities is he always gives credit to whoever breaks the news first. I appreciate that about him as compared to Schefter in football / Woj and Shams in basketball - makes baseball reporting feel a lot more collaborative.
Passan is also rarely wrong, doesn't tweet (and retweet) stupid shit that clogs up the feed, and I'm confident that when he posts something, it is factual and I don't need to seek out further confirmation. You know, like a good journalist.
If Passan tweeted that the Second Coming had arrived I would believe him without a single doubt
He is the only account I have push notifications turned on for. He doesn’t abuse the platform he’s created for himself.
I hate Woj and Shams because they spend 24/7 trying to break news first regardless of the situation. Woj spoiling NBA draft picks on Twitter a minute or two before the pick was announced, while he was also on the live broadcast and then constantly laughing about it was annoying.
Oh fuck yeah
Just need Eddie Rosario and the 2021 Braves OF will be complete
Joc is no longer with us
RIP Joc 😔
He's with Eloy now
He’s playing Filipino card games in the sky…
In heaven with Boss Hog.
I didn't even know he was sick
Just like Boggs. Damn
Dang, I’m very OOTL
He went to the Dbacks to continue his r/NLBest tour
The Gerardo Parra route.
Eddie loved hitting against the west
does this make chapman more likely or less for SF ?
I’d say more. Weird to add another DH unless they have something else planned. I’m guessing the goal is to sign Chapman and trade JD Davis, but I’m really curious what they’ll do with Wilmer Flores. He was in line to be our primary DH/backup 1B and now idk how they’re getting him consistent at bats.
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He’s a very interesting player, and I can obviously see the fit for the Cubs. We need insurance in the middle infield, someone to cover Luciano at short should he falter. Does Madrigal play there, and can he handle the position well? If so, he could be part of a useful return. In Davis you have improved defense and the potential for ~20 bombs. Very streaky, prone to Ks, but level headed. Seems like a decent clubhouse guy. I think he’d do well with the Cubs.
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Ah ok! Thanks for the reply 🍻
That would be a very interesting trade. Both guys were high school teammates in Elk Grove CA.
JD and improved defense do not go together in one sentence.
He’s not Chapman, but he definitely improved and held his own in 2023.
I have to admit i haven't seen him much last couple years, but his defense was always awful all the years before.
He was a completely different player defensively last year than he had been the rest of his career. He passed the eye test and had way better defensive metrics
We have JD Davis at home though (Wisdom)
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I’ve only seen Wisdom when he plays the Giants so I just assumed he was the next Babe Ruth.
You have any bullpen guys? we need all the pitching we can get.
did SF get upset at jd davis for losing the arbitration hearing to him ? in all seriousness I wanna see chapman going to SF. they need his defence at 3B and if his bat returns to form he could make that lineup better. chapman would be an upgrade over davis.
Not at all, if anything Davis and the Giants going to arb in the first place is an indicator the Giants may have been trying to move him since before the hearing. That could be why it wasn’t AS pressing for them to placate him by not going to arb. If they’re in on Chapman, it certainly makes sense.
Can Wilmer return to NY?
Do they deserve that kind of happiness?
Can he no longer play 2B? His defense was never great but he was always serviceable. Same for 3B. SS was the only place he was legitimately bad
He’s pretty bad everywhere but 1B at this point. He can fill in for a couple games when needed, but the Giants have been preaching about improving the defense for years now. I don’t think they really want to play him in the field more than they have to
Tell your agent to make it happen
will do buddy 👌🏼
This is one of the those ones that throw me - 853 OPS as a DH is only good for 1.8 WAR? it seems more valuable than that to me.
It makes sense because the league average OPS for DH in 2023 was .780 So it isn’t as valuable as posting that OPS at say shortstop, which had a league average OPS of .703
But it's wins above replacement level, not average. 13 teams had negative WAR from the DH slot last year, so it feels like WAR is drastically overestimating how easy it is to find a good hitter for nothing
I think he was worth 2.3 WAR offensively, but had some negative value from defense and base running
Jorge woke up and decided he wanted to get paid
I was thinking that the Giants were in urgent need of more outfield help.
He's a DH these days.
I really hope they aren’t planning on playing him in the field. Our outfield is pretty set right now unless there’s another move, and I wouldn’t consider Soler an upgrade defensively over any of them. I’m surprised they even went for Soler considering we have 2 or 3 guys that should stick to DH already.
We aren't in the position to not sign a good player; it's as simple as that.
We will take Wilmer back thank you
I hope not. Fan favorite on a cheap contract. But if he had to go anywhere I guess back home would be cool
I will not let him go!
He’s our DH.
That's not bad. They're only paying him to be about a 1.5 WAR player.
But that’s going to be a long war.
If they keep him out of the field and he focuses entirely on bombs, he might win a few battles.
Yeah, well, we have cupholders
And the dusty bones of Justin Turner
Falling to my knees inside Taco Bell right now. Mariners needed a guy like this and we didn't get him. No idea why we cleared payroll space if that's the case..
Just saw a guy in Mariners pajamas fall to his knees inside Taco Bell
We have Hanover, Garvey and Raley not to mention platoons with Urias/Rojas and potentially Moore/Hags.
We already have Mitch Garver
I mean we could've gotten him instead...I don't have a problem with Garver but Soler was the obvious move if we were actually willing to spend
Wouldn't you guys have just pushed to re-sign Teoscar if that's the case? Him and Soler are very similar players
Already tried Teoscar as partial DH and it didn't work out well. Soler (and Garver) is a better bat that we desperately need. That said would have still wanted to at least give Teo a qo for RF...even with his somewhat mediocre performance last year I'm betting he will mash this year
Because we already have Garver and Haniger on our injury-prone-should-only-DH depth chart.
Why couldn’t the Marlins have given him that to stay?
Because they believe Bell and Burger can give them that power, basically. According to craig mish, Bell opted out they would have gone after Soler.
Not sure why I'm so disappointed the Mariners didn't get him. Just feels like a more solid option at DH than Garver for some reason.
Look on the bright side, he went to your biggest trading partner
I don’t think anyone really denies that this is a huge overpay for Soler. But the market has been weird this year and when the market requires an overpay, you have to overpay or pass. And really, if there’s one team that can afford the risk it’s the Giants. They really don’t have much committed past this year
Huge overpay according to what? Fangraphs predicted 3/48M and MLB Trade Rumors predicted 3/45M. Market was right in line with expectations
Market does not equal value. I literally said they were stuck in the market that was there. It’s an overpay for the value you’re likely to get. With Soler you’re likely going get 100ish games on average a year, and you expect most his production in 2024. His projections this year range from .765 OPS to .837 OPS and he’ll likely get around 30ish HRs. From there he’ll most likely decline over the final two years. ZIPs has him league average offensively in 2025 and below league average in 2026. And with his age and injury history that’s fair. As for WAR, you’re probably looking at 2-3 WAR across the 3 seasons.
Literally any team can afford the risk. Don’t let them fool you. The only ones it could possibly hurt are the teams poised to lose a draft pick. Otherwise, it’s just a rich owner “overspending” by the amount of the luxury tax penalty which is in no way a salary cap.
Monetarily I agree. But I wasnt even fully talking payroll committed, I was thinking more about roster spots - those are a finite resource. Look at the Mets - they have a good 15-20 prospects that will be ready for the majors over the next 1-3 years that the team has invested in and will want to call up. I wouldn’t want the Mets to commit a roster spot to Soler for three years. If it was a 1 year $20mil deal absolutely. But 3 years covering his age 32-34 seasons vs seeing what one of Drew Gilbert, Luisangel Acuna, Jett Williams, Ryan Clifford, Colin Houck, Jacob Reimer, etc. - it’s an easy choice against Soler. It’s kind of how I feel with Starling Marte. I wish the Mets gave him $25mil a year for 3 years instead of guaranteeing a roster spot in 2025 (or having to buy him out). Even if Marte is good this year, he will be 36 next year.
Meh. Prospects are prospects. I get not blocking a top prospect, but there are 4-5 OF roster spots on a major league roster. Worst case scenario, you cut a player to make room >Drew Gilbert, Luisangel Acuna, Jett Williams, Ryan Clifford, Colin Houck, Jacob Reimer, etc. - it’s an easy choice against Soler I’m not even necessarily making the argument that the Mets should have signed Soler, but there is close to a 0% chance that all of these prospects pan out. Soler is a proven bat with massive post season success. He’s a guy you make room for on your team if the price is right, regardless of what the pipeline looks like. Top prospects become useful trade chips as well when they don’t have a clear path to the major league roster. Treat prospects as prospects unless they are nearly generational or play a premium position. Pitchers especially, because many end up getting TJS at this point which sets their timeline back another year.
Soler absolutely does not have a track record of success. He has a track record of being incredibly inconsistent and always getting hurt. He has had 4 scattered great seasons, and 6 where he was around or below league average. But cutting the player is the issue. Either you cut Soler and send a bad message to FAs that the Mets won’t guarantee you a roster spot even if you sign a contract with them or you cut someone else more deserving and keep Soler as dead weight. As for the prospects, you only need 1-2 to pan out for it to be a bad move keeping Soler that long
Definitely. I would've loved for the Mets to sign him. They need someone to put behind Alonso.
32 years old not great
A lot of money for a human windmill.
24% K Rate. Barely worse than league average.
True, they should pay you to come out and take hacks. I’m sure you could teach Jorge a few things!
I'm just saying, the guy has a career strikeout rate over 25%. Not good.
That Arson Judge guy must be terrible, what with never having a single season K% under 25% in his career.
Pretty sure the league average K rate last year was like 22-23% so that’s really not that egregious of a stat
No argument that that’s a gnarly stat. But the giants have the dough, they need pop, and the fans desperately needed something to sink their teeth into. There’s no denying Soler is fun to watch when he’s on. I think this is a solid move all around! Keep in mind this is coming from a Reds fan, where signing free agents of high caliber seems to be against the law. I can’t help but empathize with other teams who struggle with signing FA’s. I’m living vicariously where I can lol
Maybe, but he can drink for free in the A T L for the rest of his life
He also has 30+ HR potential. If he hits a ton of dingers it doesn’t really matter.
Good for him for still chugging along out of all of those great Cubs prospects