Only if they trade Soler. Jackson's a more plausible target for another outfielder there, but even that's a stretch. Boras isn't going to have him land somewhere that he can't even get regular at-bats. If a Soler trade happens, I can see it... but Rays are more interested in Baez than Soler, which doesn't do tons of favors for Fowler's chances of returning to CHicago

There's literally no way of knowing right now, and anyone who says otherwise is probably lying. Lincecum hasn't even thrown for teams yet, and until he does, it's impossible to know who's going to the most aggressive in terms of signing him. Lincecum doesn't know where he's going to sign right now, nor do his agents. I doubt the team that eventually signs him is even sure it's going to sign him right now.

No but I unscramble a mean jumble. (Didn't mean to click this question at first, but oh well!)

I like Fowler as a fit there. I honestly don't think the Rox are going to move Gonzalez right now. Maybe in July. Blackmon seems likeliest to me, though Ken Rosenthal said earlier today it might be Dickerson.

At any rate, the Sox have done a lot to upgrade, but adding Fowler as a defensive upgrade over Garcia/Melky and to add some OBP to the lineup would go a long ways towards deepening their lineup on both sides of the game. Giving up the pick hurts, I suppose, but they got one for Samardzija and the first-rounder is protected. I'm on board with the idea.

Rockies are on Wilson's no-trade list.

All Angels trades for young outfielders of any sort of quality begin with Skaggs or Heaney for me. They don't have much else in terms of prospect value. Tropeano is nice enough, but I don't think he's going to land them a marquee guy.

I was excited to watch the Spurs/Warriors last night in hopes that it'd be more competitive than the 30-point blowout I ended up seeing. They're outrageously good.

I don't think anyone's going to wait until after the draft to sign. That was kind of a Scott Boras extreme tactic with Kendrys and Drew... can't envision another club going that route, especially since it didn't work out whatsoever in 2014 for either player who tried it.

Jackson or Fowler both make sense for the Giants. I'd sign either one and be fine starting either over Pagan at this point. Between him and Span, there are going to be some missed games, I'd wager, and adding another CF-capable player to the mix makes sense.

I don't see any reason for it to be appreciably more or less than he's hit the past two seasons. U.S. Cellular Field and Great American Ball Park are both exceptionally hitter-friendly environments. 30ish seems reasonable.

I don't love the idea of giving up a pick and paying a huge premium to sign a guy that'll turn 33 this summer, saw his power dip recently and also has declining defensive metrics. Kendrick's always derived a decent chunk of value from his glove, and if it's begun to deteriorate, the contract might be regrettable. That goes double for the Angels, due to luxury tax ramifications. In general, I'm just not that high on Kendrick this winter, though he'd be an improvement over Giavotella (and possibly over Owings in AZ, depending on Owings' shoulder).

I hate all 30 teams. Or so I'm told on a weekly basis in these chats.

If I'm guessing -- and that's all it can be at this point -- Milwaukee. A big first half would boost his trade value significantly, and there will be more teams looking for catching upgrades in July than there are at this stage of the offseason.

I love Martin, but I also have a soft spot for defensively gifted, fleet-footed center fielders. He doesn't have to hit much to provide value to the Mariners... +42 DRS and +10.5 UZR/150 in his career. He can flat out go get it, and his bat should recover somewhat from last year's slump. He's too fast to be a .270 BABIP guy, I think.

That's my expectation, yeah.

Disappearing, no. But it could very well be tweaked in the upcoming CBA negotiations, so it could look different after the 2017 season. It'll be the same for at least one more winter though.

Thursday's right around the corner m'friend.

At some point, sure, but I don't see why it'd be for anything more than like $5MM or so. (Well, aside from the Boras factor)

He can't play defense, doesn't hit lefties, doesn't provide any value on the bases. He's a platoon DH, and while that's valuable, he's not markedly different from, say, a younger version of Ryan Howard at this point. I get the allure of home runs, and he was a high draft pick, but he's not the upside play some people want to make him out to be.

Opt-outs are basically just multi-year player options, so yeah, I agree with that. We've said as much around here in the past. Still surprised his best options were 5/110 with deferrals and that deal with the Mets, which is just a modernized version of a one-year pillow contract.

Some of these guys left on the RP market are going to have to settle for minor league deals, and I can definitely see the Jays adding someone like that, or maybe going with a low $2MMish base on one more reliever.

Sure they help with the pain. Cortisone is just a legal steroid. But, it's a short-term solution for the most part. A player can receive three cortisone injections over the course of one season, and the relief isn't necessarily long lasting. Brett Gardner cratered in 2015 when he hit his three-cortisone-shot maximum for a wrist injury he sustained in April.

Cortisone does work though, and not just for athletes. I know multiple people who have cortisone injections for back issues and experienced great relief as a result. Again, temporarily.

Have a hard time not saying Yankees thanks to the Chapman-Betances-Miller trio. That's just obscene. No disrespect to the Royals or anything... Davis is a monster, but Soria/Herrera don't round out that group as much. And I don't think Boston's late trio is as good either. (All three, of course, have very strong back ends)

Could go with Parra temporarily. Bridich said at the time of the signing that he thinks Parra can handle center, and Parra said he's happy to play there. Could move Blackmon now, go Parra in CF for three months, then trade CarGo and bring up Dahl, if he's healthy and producing in the minors (which isn't a given after the scary year he had, injury-wise).

Astros are the only team that's been consistently connected to him and hasn't had a GM come out and completely downplay it (Duquette said he doesn't plan to surrender their #1 pick, and Bridich scoffed at the notion that they had serious interest and basically said that connection was nothing more than Octagon feeding crap to the media). So, my guess is Houston, though I'd imagine if he dropped his asking price to 1-2 years, a lot of new suitors would suddenly emerge.

He does seem like a nice fit there. I know there are some character/clubhouse questions that have scared some clubs off, but he'll land on a one-year big league deal somewhere. Pittsburgh's a fine landing spot, but the price would probably have to be fairly low in terms of a guarantee.

Well over a thousand in a given chat -- sometimes significantly more (2-3 thousand) if it's a busier time of the year

If he has a big season there's no way that Boras doesn't look at Martin and McCann as a floor and shoot for $100MM.

Gordon is a wildly better defender with considerably more power.

They're already planning on playing Moss at first base early on. I don't see a fit there. Cleveland, maybe Houston, Angels, Brewers all make some sense for Freese. Padres, too. I can see him having to take a one-year deal though, which I wouldn't have thought whatsoever earlier this offseason.

Further context on cortisone following up on that past question.

Yeah in that theoretical scenario I'd put Freese at first before Carpenter, but again, I don't see a fit there with Adams and Moss both on the roster.

I'd be stunned. I don't like putting percentages on anything, but that's like a 99% not happening type of situation, especially at this point in the offseason when both clubs have acted predominantly as buyers.

Think it depends on the immediate needs of the club you're pitching them to, which I suppose is another way of saying they're pretty equal. Soler has done more in the Majors but plays a less premium position and will get expensive sooner. Baez has a lot of upside but a huge amount of bust potential as well. Playing the more premium position, though, his offense doesn't need to be anywhere near that of Soler in order to yield positive value.

Yankees didn't give up much to get Chapman. White Sox didn't give up an exorbitant amount to get Frazier (though the Dodgers' end of that deal was perhaps the best). And I still can't believe what Arizona gave up for Shelby Miller. Might be forgetting some, but each of those comes to mind for me.

I don't think he's a very valuable player -- at least not the kind I like. No on-base value, no baserunning value, no defensive value. His one trick is power, and that seems to be fine for the Astros, but I wouldn't value him too highly. As for projecting RBIs: There's no real point in projecting them because they're not a predictive stat. RBIs are a product of a certain situation, not a demonstrable skill from an athlete. I don't think he'll get there because he's not a good enough hitter, but if he happens into an abnormal amount of RBI opportunities, it's certainly possible.

Was surprised they traded for him considering last year's throwing issues. I saw Topkin mention him as a candidate to lose his roster spot once Pearce is official -- that makes some sense.

I think so. I'm not a huge Eduardo Escobar guy -- I like him as a utility option but he doesn't have enough glove and hasn't hit consistently enough for me to be sold on him as a starter (though he's not a disastrous option... we're not talking Barmes/Amarista platoon here... sorry, Padres fans).

Anyhow, Twins make a lot of sense to me as a Desmond dark horse, but I can't imagine that playing out unless he gets down to something like a one-year deal. And they haven't really been connected in any meaningful way to this point.

I was advocating for a Giles trade back in June on the MLBTR Podcast. There's no real sense for a team that's clearly rebuilding to hang onto such a volatile asset as a reliever when the risk of injury or decline is so high, and the present-day asking price can be set at such an exorbitant level. Giles' most valuable years will be his pre-arb seasons, before he racks up a bunch of saves. He could make $6MM as a first-year arbitration case, and the Phillies still may not be good by then. Philadelphia did well in that trade.

Easier fit to imagine, yeah.

Whenever you're asking "who's going to spend the most money to get this high upside Cuban player?" the best guess is always the Dodgers. There's no way of knowing if Lazarito can play in the Majors at 16, but most scouts think there's a real good chance he can, and that'll come with a huge signing bonus (that'll cost double the amount actually going to the player due to luxury taxation). Dodgers are the easy guess.

Phillies have no real reason to part with a draft pick to sign a guy for 3-4 years when they won't even be competitive for at least two of those seasons.

It's not quite as high for a number of reasons -- one less year of team control, already earning moderately notable salary in arbitration, teams still value the "save" stat to some extent (for some reason), and he's also just not as good as Giles.

All that said, if you wanted to say that Smith's value was 75% that of Giles or something, I wouldn't argue much. He should still fetch a big haul. I'd prefer to trade the two separately -- Brewers need some quantity in their farm.

I think you'll get in.

If he ultimately goes pillow-contract route, I can the Rays being a landing spot. Their infield is uncertain, they could shed some money by dealing Loney and eating a bit of the contract to make him go away, and Desmond's from that area, so maybe he'd have some extra interest in playing there.

The 15 defensively limited sluggers that just had new job openings created for them. And their agents.

Mentioned him earlier -- it's a great outcome for the Mets and a pretty poor one for Cespedes. I'm surprised there wasn't more out there for him, and I have to wonder if this is a case where teams did offer more secure long-term deals earlier in the winter but were turned away. If you'd told me in November that the best options for Cespedes would be a three-year deal with a one-year opt-out (even at a high AAV) or a five-year deal worth $110MM with deferrals and a two-year opt-out, I'd have dismissed the notion entirely.

I can realistically see any of the five teams being in the Wild Card hunt at season's end.

Ripken's consecutive games streak. Probably Cy Young's 511 wins, too.