Procedo

ALROTY: Myers NLROTY: Fernandez ALMOTY: Francona NLMOTY: Hurdle ALCY: Scherzer NLCY: Kershaw ALMVP: Trout NLMVP: McCutchen

Thought Darwin Barney should have won another Gold Glove, but overall a pretty solid list. Better than years past.

Nice throw by Beltran. The Jon Jay gaffe doesn't come back to haunt them.

Yea Dee goofed. Now lets make things interesting and have Wilson-Marmol pitch back-to-back

Randy pitched a helluva game.

Dodgers strike first. Joe Kelly's had some trouble with his command so far.

Verlander is perfect through 5.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Cards-Dodgers series. I think it'll be a good one.

There's been a few nice defensive plays so far in this game, especially the diving catch by Starling Marte.

Peavy pitched great up til now. And he hasn't thrown many pitches either.

Salty strikes out looking. GAME CHANGER! Show him the money first.

Hellickson pulled after 1+ inning. They were better off with starting Chris Archer.

Just Rodney being Rodney.

What is the big deal about Jarrod Saltalamacchia? Based on the contract you'd be willing to give him, they might as well just go after Brian McCann. Saltalamacchia is not worth nearly as much as you seem to think. I hope you're right, that means we should be able to acquire him for less than my educated guess... and that would make me ecstatic. Would I rather have McCann? YES. Do I think that's likely? Not even by a small margin. At least Salty is a hometown kid with ties to the area, that could help bring him in. And he hasn't been with the same organization his entire career like McCann, so he's probably not as attached. You wrote that you'd be willing to give Salty 4/50 (although you also said that was a joke). But then you wrote 3/30 and seemed pretty serious about it. 3/30 for Saltalamacchia would be a terrible contract. For that, just give McCann something like 3/40 and get an elite catcher. For comparison's sake, Russell Martin got 2/17 last offseason. I cannot see Saltalamacchia getting much more than that. He really should get less than that. If you take away his career year this year (which has some red flags in it), Saltalamacchia has had quite an abysmal career. You don't overpay for a career year. Especially for someone like Saltalamacchia who has a potentially terrible floor (like, for example, the fact that he still strikes out 30% of the time). And despite the fact he's a switch-hitter, he's basically Jeff Mathis against left-handed pitching. Actually, the joke was 5/70. My guess for what it would take for us to land him was 4/45 or 5/50. And it was a career year for a switch-hitting catcher that OPSd .804, at 28 years old, entering his prime. Russell Martin is a bad comparison, not only was he older when he signed that deal, he just came off a season in which he hit .211 (Salty hit .274), posted just a 1.5 WAR (Salty is 2.9), and had an inflated .704 OPS from 21 HR's at Yankee Stadium (Salty was .804 and Fenway is rather neutral for a switch hitter). I may be off, which is why I asked you to take a stab at his value, but I do think he will realistically get 3-4 years from someone like us that's in desperate need of a catcher and some pop and will probably get $8+ Mill per year at least coming off this season. If the Marlins could sign him for less than I anticipate, like 3/24 or 4/32, I would be very excited about that. Saltalamacchia has had a career year, but a career year doesn't automatically mean he will sustaiin his success going into the future. You'd definitely be taking a huge risk giving him that big of a contract. Russell Martin just turned 30 when he signed with the Pirates last offseason. Salty will turn 29 a month into the season next year so their age difference ends up being pretty small. That and Martin is considered a pretty good defensive catcher while Salty is pretty much the opposite. The Pirates knew what they were getting when they signed Martin. An average hitter with good defensive. Saltalamacchia still has a lot of question marks surrounding him, and if he reverts back to his previous hitting ways, you're stuck with a guy who is a below average hitter and a below average defender.