MLB Trade Rumors reports that the Orioles are negotiating a move to Montreal to become the Expos.

O's can have Saunders.... when he's hot, he's super hot but when he's not he's more than useless, seems like the perfect guy for a platoon in the field to keep him away from lefties

whereever his double play partner Mickey "The Stick" Morandini does.

MLB breaking tradition this year about sending the losing team's World Series merchandise overseas to less fortunate people.

Surprisingly its not due to the Indians name or logo but instead MLB reworked the contract they had with suppliers and also wanted to stop the leaks of losing team merch being sold in stores and people selling it online without MLB's approval.

Would pay $75.00 for a Cleveland Indians World Series Champ t shirt.

Mets and Red Sox are currently rumored to be interesting in signing Jose Bautista.

Mets mainly as a backup plan if they can't sign Yoenis Cespedes to a new deal and Sox mainly to see if they can snag him for cheap and/or a 1-2 year type deal.

Red Sox and signing somebody cheap seems like an oxymoron.

Well, I guess you can say we got our first "big" signing of the offseason.

R.A. Dickey signs with the Braves. 1-year, $8 mil. with an option for next season.

Smart signing for them. Great leadership guy to help mentor their younger players. Best years as a starter are gone, but he is still able to eat up innings, perhaps best used as a long man to help transition to the better bullpen guys should the young starters tank their start.....

And now they've doubled down on ancient pitchers......Bartolo Colon has signed with the Braves.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Young team who can use the veteran leadership.

Colon did get $12.5 million though. Hell of a lot for a guy who turns 44 next May. Can't blame Sandy for letting him pass given that he's hoping to write a huge check for Cespedes and might end up having to pay Walker $17 million.

Bart's HR will forever be a highlight for me.

Now watch him top it by stealing a bag off of Travis d'Arnaud.

Lol I died laughing when Bart went yard. One of the greatest moments I've ever witnessed.

MLB revealed the winners for the Silver Sluggers awards this year.

Bogaerts, Betts, and Ortiz took the awards for the Red Sox.

Blue Jays strike first in the international market.

Sign Cuban infielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to a 7-year, $22 mil. deal.

Howie Kendrick reportedly wanted out of L.A. He got his wish.

Phillies acquire him from the Dodgers in exchange for Darin Ruf and Darnell Sweeney.

Blue Jays spending continues. Sign Kendrys Morales. 3-years, $33 mil.

That should end Encarnacion's run with the Jays

Edwin is obviously better but Morales is a solid replacement for Toronto.

Not necessarily if they plan on shopping Smoak and flip-flopping EE/Morales at 1B and DH.... Looks less likely Bautista stays as they want to upgrade RF and Bautista would primarily be used as DH if he signed....

That being said, if they both walk, a decent power replacement if he could stay healthy....

Thing is, after last year, I don't see their front office blowing their load on one big signing and will again spread the wealth.

I think E2 is going to command and get a much larger salary than Toronto is going to even consider offering.

It'd be sad to see Eddie go but spreading the wealth may be the right move. They need more speed and contact.

Morales does give you more contact and I would imagine his power would go up not having to play at Kauffman stadium.

Does Morales still play 1B or is he full-time DH now?

I like Darnell Sweeney (dude can play almost every position), but this is a good deal. Ruf needed a change of scenery two years ago, so I hope he does well. Kendrick is solid and will help the young guys for sure. I'm on board with this.

This trade analysis was brought to you by French Toast Crunch.

Arizona fall league is kinda fun to watch

I'm not so sure about that first part....

AFL is great in person, especially when Frank Drebin throws down some Bossman-esque Sidewalk Slams and Kris Fucking Bryant hits 3 HRs in a game.

Last year he hit .290 with a .365 obp. Better BA than every Jay not named Devon Travis.

Sorry that was 2015 MY BAD even still he hit 30 home runs in 2016 and that's playing in Kauffman. Pretty damned good. He did hit .263 though but that's better that Bautista.

That was so damn fun. We want to go again some time. Not gonna see "the future" like we did the first time though. Hard to believe that year we saw Bryant, Soler, Almora (would have seen Baez had they not decided at the last minute he needed time off), a 19 year old A's prospect named Addison and, of course, Dallas Beeler.

Today's news.

Accept or reject your qualifying offer day. Most notables rejected except for 2. Neil Walker returns to the Mets, and Jeremy Hellickson stays in Philly.

Corey Seager & Michael Fulmer are your Rookies of the Year.

Dodgers Corey Seager took the NL Rookie of the Year award. Took all of the first place votes and won by 108 points.

Mookie got every award he has been up for so far. Looking good for MVP.

waiting for Drofords opinion first

How Mike Trout doesn't win would be beyond me.

Gary Sanchez probably could have run away with Rookie of the Year.

But Fulmer started and finished this entire season. Gotta give him props for that.

He won't. Too many voters are still of the mindset that you have to be on a playoff team to be MVP.

Glad Walker is staying with the Mets. There's definitely some risk since his back injury is a question mark, BUT as long as they budgeted accordingly and don't just go "welp, $17 million for one guy...there goes the rest of our offseason plans" it's fine.

Oh yeah. I agree. Wasn't saying I thought Trout would win just that he should.

Trout has been mvp every year since his rookie year. It's as if they try to find ways to not vote for him.

Francona is AL Manager of the Year. Dave Roberts snuck in and stole NL Manager of the Year from Joe Maddon. Grabbed 16 first place votes, Maddon got 8.

Sounds right. Maddon probably would have been a lock this year had he not won it last year.

People expected the Cubs to be really good based on last year while Roberts managed to do really well considering the amount of injuries he had to deal with.

Pretty much a similar situation with the AL.

This was Robert's first year managing. First F'n year managing at any level.

Voting took place at the end of the regular season, right? Lets look at things at that point. Look at the injuries Roberts had to deal with. Half the team is on the DL. Hell, just look at the starting rotation. He lost Kershaw -the best pitcher in baseball for 2 months. He had to deal with Puig and all his BS. What did Maddon have to deal with? Zero injuries aside from Schwarber who has no position to play in the NL anyway. Zero issues in the clubhouse. Only thing that comes close was that odd Tommy La Stella thing, but thats not a team thing just a Tommy thing. What hard things did he have to do? Make sure his position players got some rest through rotations and what funny outfits to tell the guys to dress up in on road trips. Not a hard call, but 8 people apparently thought so.

My Facebook blew up worse with Maddon not winning the award than when Donald was elected into office. Hilarious.

Dave Roberts is great lol

Pretty fitting the man with The Steal stole Manager of the Year.

Rick Porcello won the AL Cy Young while Max Scherzer took the NL Cy Young award.

Porcello beat runner-up Verlander by 5 points. Verlander had more 1st place votes but only got two 2nd place votes while Kluber and Britton took a decent chunk of 1st place votes away and had more 2nd place votes than he had.

Verlander's fiancee had a huge meltdown on Twitter when the results came in.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Greatest. Baseball. Tweet. Of. All. Time. <a href="https://t.co/syDCdpNFz8">pic.twitter.com/syDCdpNFz8</a></p>&mdash; SB Nation (@SBNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/SBNation/status/799042509158699008">November 17, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Lol Verlander lost the Cy Young to Porcello despite more 1st place votes (14-8) Zach Britton almost had as many 1st place votes (5) as Porcello as well.

Verlander wasn't even on 2 of the writers ballots at all..

Fuck off

That tweet is glorious

The Orioles are installing LED lights for next season which probably wouldn't be news except that the Orioles had a combined record of 0-7 in Seattle and Houston where they have the same LED lights and they famously set the series k record in Houston with 52 ks. Houston was also one of the worst home hitting teams in the AL as well..

The electoral college strikes back against Michigan.

16 game winner. Got those 1st place votes by name alone and not performance. If anything Porcello and Kluber got fucked by them.

No reason for him to be on the ballot. They are heroes.

This is simply not true. Verlander bested Porcello in strikeouts, strikeouts per 9, innings pitched, ERA and WAR. Porcello had an edge in ERA+, and it's not like he's not worthy. But to say Verlander didn't belong is false.

His lead era isn't big enough to justify it from the 10 game swing they have. It's only four runs. The K's are impressive though. Also his performance didn't lead to playoffs.

Neither did Porcello's, since going to the playoffs is a team effort. It's not the fault of Verlander that his team didn't get to the postseason.

And the win loss record is moot.

Their fielding independent pitching was only 0.11 difference in Porcello's favor, yet Verlander pitched more innings and punched out more batters.

I don't think they got it wrong with Porcello, but his win loss record is outside of his control. Inning per inning Verlander was just as good, or better if you use WAR. He belonged in the convo and you could strongly argue he should've won.

You getting too hung up on Sabermetrics if you think wins and losses don't matter.

TEAM wins matter. Pitcher wins are an archaic stat that no longer hold any value. If you have two guys who have the a near identical earned run average, why is it that one got more wins than the other? They're giving up the same amount of runs.

Its because a pitcher cannot control how many runs his team scores, or if a bullpen blows a lead, etc. Wins are silly. There are so many other stats, advanced and basic, that are more indicative of performance than wins.

Plus both Kluber's and Verlander's teams had 18 games against the Minnesota Twins. Sort of makes me wish teams can get Regulated.

David Price gave up an average of 4.15 runs per 9 innings. He won 17 games.

Verlander gave up an average of 3.20 (!) per 9 innings. He won 16 games.

How would wins and losses in a pitcher's record matter when they can't even tell you who of these two are better just by themselves.

If told I told you pitcher A gives up nearly 1 full run more than pitcher B per 9 innings and asked who's better, you would almost guaranteed answer pitcher B.

And you'd be right. The guy giving up less runs is better.

If you looked solely at just his wins tally, you'd be wrong. Which is why pitcher wins are dumb. They in no way consistently indicate the better pitcher.

It would be like saying John Lackey's first year in Boston wasn't that bad since he "won" 14 games despite giving 4.77 runs per 9 innings. It makes that win loss record look stupid. Which it is.

How many of those did they actually pitch? Porcello's team got to trounce the Rays.

The divisions are similar. You had one really bad team, 2 good teams close to the playoffs, and mediocre team near or around 500.

But that just ruins your win narrative. Why is Verlander's fault his team couldn't tally him wins against Minnesota despite his excellent run prevention and strikeouts? How's that his fault?

It's 22 we're talking about not 17. 20 is an achievement unlocked bonus.

ALE was 4/5 above 500.

Central has 2 teams above and one exactly at .500.

What really hurt Verlander in terms of voting was him not being able to get more than half of the 1st place votes.

Only nabbed 14 out of 30 which seems to show voters either thought he was or wasn't the best. No in between because his big lack of 2nd place votes. If he had one more first place vote or two more 2nd place votes, he would have won the award.

Porcello had fewer 1st place votes but the voters considered him as a very strong Top 2 Cy Young candidate because of his huge 2nd place votes.

Meanwhile on the NL side, Scherzer nabbed all except five 1st place votes which made it moot what the rest of the results were since the voters were decisive in saying he was the best in the NL.

No it's not. It's a misleading number that doesn't tell you anything. Verlander gave up LESS earned runs and overall runs per 9 innings. How is it that winning 22 games despite giving MORE runs in LESS innings make Porcello better?

That makes no sense. Porcello won more games despite giving up more earned and total runs on average, in less innings, with fewer strikeouts. How is it that wins matter when he couldn't do a pitcher's primary job BETTER than the guy you're saying shouldn't have been in the running? Where's the logic in all of this?

hahahahaha

Verlander gets to fuck Kate Upton every night. He is the true winner here, Cy Young or not... (IMO, Porcello prolly should have won, but Verlander not getting on the ballot is definitely a head scratcher)

Damn Kate, atta girl.

Arguing pitching wins and losses in this day and age makes you look baseball dumb. It just does. Sorry, STD. Too many examples of guys with large win totals who weren't that good or guys with small win totals who pitched their asses off.

Wins and losses for a pitcher go in the same box as RBI. It's a factor of the team, not the player the stats are ultimately attributed to.

Anybody who thinks pitcher wins and losses matters know absolutely nothing about baseball.

Bet STD would be screaming bloody murder if it were Verlander winning the award over Porcello without a single first place vote.

And yet Porcello won the cy Young so I guess the award is irrelevant too

It's already well known that a lot of BBWAA are out of touch and some refuse to accept that there are better stats to use that actually evaluate player performance than the archaic ones from baseball's roots.

Porcello climbed the ladder to win the Cy Young.

Verlander climbed the ladder to get Kate Upton's underwear off of his chandelier this morning.

Verlander wins.

Droford misses the point yet again. Nobody said Porcello didn't deserve to win.

Kate Upton is just mad because Verlander winning meant he got an extra half a mil. Got to love rich spoiled brats who feel entitled to everything. He made 28 mil in base salary. I'm sure the two of them will be able to make ends meet.

I think their ends are probably meeting as we speak.

Is today the day we find out Trout got shafted out of the mvp again?

Yah

Who gives a flying fuck. Ain't like it gets Verlander a ring.

If Angels end up trading Mike Trout within the next 2 years, its already being rumored the Yankees are going to be the heavy favorites to get him.

A couple of reports teased a growing belief in the league the Yankees only rebuilt their farm system to pull off a mega trade and not because they wanted to go in a younger or cheaper direction for the future. Also the belief the Angels farm system being soo bad they probably won't succeed rebuilding within the window needed.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/11/...-sweeny-murti/

Yankees JUST traded Brian McCann to the Astros. Prospects Albert Abreu and Jorge Guzman are coming back.

Jayzus. Who the fuck would want that fat sac of crap. Apparently Houston I guess.

Jason Castro became a free agent, that why Astros made the trade.

Astros followed that up with the signing of Josh Reddick.

Mike Trout won AL MVP and Kris Bryant won the NL MVP award.

In terms of 1st place votes, Trout took 19 votes and Bryant took 29.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2016 AL MVP: Mike Trout, Angels. More voting details to come. <a href="https://t.co/VJ0uB15UFm">pic.twitter.com/VJ0uB15UFm</a></p>&mdash; BBWAA (@officialBBWAA) <a href="https://twitter.com/officialBBWAA/status/799391334519816192">November 17, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2016 NL MVP Kris Bryant, Cubs. More details on voting to come <a href="https://t.co/vbHztcjCUG">pic.twitter.com/vbHztcjCUG</a></p>&mdash; BBWAA (@officialBBWAA) <a href="https://twitter.com/officialBBWAA/status/799398709775605760">November 17, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Sanity reigns supreme - Trout was clearly the right call.

Whoever gave him a 7th place vote needs to be kicked out of the BBWAA.

Bah gawd they went with the right guy!

Reminds me of when Cal Ripken win mvp on a shitty 67-95 Orioles team in 1991

Of course it reminds you of the Orioles.

Considering trout was mvp for a losing team and its only happened two other times in AL History and one of them was Cal Ripken of course it would. The other was A rod in 03 with the Rangers.

Ripken was on the worst team to ever have an MVP. I seriously doubt a team with 96+ losses will ever have an MVP. So..2 unbreakable records for Cal..

Ill tie Kris Bryant winning to Cal too. Cal won rookie of the year in 82 and MVP in 83. Bryant won ROY and MVP in consecutive years too.

As did Ryan Howard and Dustin Pedroia.

I'm glad Trout won. They actually got it right. Guys been the best player in the league since day one and his team stinking didn't rob of him being recognised as such.

Please trade Mike Trout. Anywhere.....but he would look great playing in front of the ivy at Wrigley.

I ultimately think the Yankees are gonna land him. With the longest of long shots being this offseason, or a year or 2 down the road when the Angels hit rock bottom since they have nobody on their farm and can't compete. I ain't saying this as a Yankee homer, but pretty much what the general vibe is going around the league.

Everybody knew that either Trout or Harper would be a Yankee before their career was over. It was inevitable.

The Angels can't trade Trout. There's no package a team could come up with that would be fair return.

Gary Sanchez
Aaron Judge
Jorge Mateo
Clint Frazier
+ at least one of their top pitching prospects

And that's just the starting point.

Happy "Last chance to protect eligible prospects from the Rule 5 Draft" day!

Mets will be adding Amed Rosario to the 40 man roster today. Not sure who else they'll be adding...probably a dude like Paul Sewald who is a 26 year old reliever whose had great numbers his whole minor league career. He might not be much of a traditional "prospect" but he's exactly the kind of guy who a team could potential draft and have a reasonable chance of staying on a roster for a full year.

Rumor has it rosters could be expanding to 26 so that would make it easier to stash Rule 5 guys for a whole year. Teams need to be careful with who they choose not to protect.

Yankees have been stockpiling everybody's best prospects for a reason.

The tricky part IF a trade does happen is the money. Trout's deal is heavily backloaded and stands to earn About $100 mil. in his last 3 years.