It's been a long couple of weeks... may as well rack up 2 more PP
Ok folks. We are going to get right into this. I had a few Jack and Cokes, I just rambled with Ron on discord. Time to break the 4th wall, so here we go.....
Opt Outs
First off we have Niaz Minhas, who I tend to call Nikki Minaj for some reason. He is due $12.5 million next season and posted a .208/.268/.329 line in between trips to the DL. He would be an absolute idiot to opt out. That's ok though. Our pitching staff is chock full of extreme groundball pitchers. So at least he will help build up their trade value for when we are 20 games out in June.
Next up is Jerry Stone. We extended him late in the season after much going back and forth. It all seems to be for naught as it didn't erase his opt out. He'd be stupid to opt in. I was hell bent on resigning him, mostly to keep his dirt cheap $6 million 2062 salary in play. With out that, I might just tell the guy to F' off. Is he really worth $13 million when his success has been mostly because of our defense? Maybe I'll take the draft pick and laugh when some other sucker blows up their budget for him to have a 5.00 ERA.
Team Options
Yoshi Takuda is is up for a $6.5 mil contract with a $1.3 mil buyout. Even though his arm is about to fall off, I doubt we find a better pitcher for the $5.2 difference. If he can somehow stay healthy we can get a draft pick for him. Low risk, high reward. He'll stay.
Tokugawa Yamashita has always been one of my favorites. He is a solid groundball % pitcher and a great swingman to have. His $1.4 million salary might be a tad high, but he is a nostalgia guy for me.
Nontenders
The following players have been outrighted off the roster....
RP Kujapa Padmanabhan
RP Bob Loblaw
RP Francisco Rosales
RP Harry Spurlock
2B Emilio Tejada
CF Edgar Barron
Tejada and Barron have agreed to go to the minors. Padmanabhan, Rosales, and Loblaw are out of options. So it's unlikely they will be back. Spurlock still has an option. So I'm kinda on the fence on whether I add him back to the 40 man. He was once a 7/9/6 first round draft pick. He's now a 5/6/4 flop. I love to try to fix guys like this. Maybe he can be an ok bullpen arm. And at 23 still, he can at least help my single A team whoop Toledos ass in the Pegler again. So there is that. I predict that I will probably add him back but may DFA him gain before all is said and done.
Our biggest decision is whether or not to push for the playoffs or stay in neutral. I can say that we will stay competitive but after perusing the potential free agent pool, I don't see us getting the 2-3 top tier bats we need.
