I'm guessing Kershaw has the most starts of any pitcher with less than 100 losses.

214-94 in 435 career starts.

Trout is making 37 mill per year thru 2030. That might end up worse than the Pujols contract. I think he'll bounce back and have some more pretty good years though. Maybe one great one.

The way Pujols bounced back at 42 and then retired was bizarre. The way he hit that year he seemed like he should keep playing and maybe have a shot at 762. Would've been an ugly way to get there, after having an almost 10 year run of being a pretty useless accumulator.

Kershaw and Pedro have very similar career numbers.

Kershaw, 214-94 in 435 starts, 155 ERA+, career really fading in mid thirties with lots of stunted seasons now and very likely his last year at 37. 229 home runs allowed, 2988 strikeouts, 9.7 k/9 in 2770 IP. 4.34 k/bb.

Pedro 219-100 in 409 starts, 154 ERA+, career followed a similar mid thirties trajectory and done at 37. 239 homers allowed, 3154 k's, 10 k/9 in 2827 IP. 4.19 k/bb.

Both have 3 cy young awards. Both pitched in the playoffs for one WS winner. Both started career as a Dodger. Both had lesser numbers in the Playoffs, although Kershaw's playoff mediocrity in high volume is legendary.

Most glaring difference I noticed, Pedro hit 141 batters vs Kershaw only 44. And they threw with opposite arms and had different skin colour. Kershaw stayed with the Dodgers but Pedro pitched for 5 teams.

Manfred probably told Pujols he took take super steroids for a few months without any repercussions.

Devers to Giants, wat? Are the Red Sox just being cheap again?

Wow

Sox brass probably still pissed Devers wouldn’t play 1b and they found a team willing to take on the whole $250 million owed to him

Enjoy SRM.

Is there a reverse rant coming?

As a Red Sox fan, I'm fine with trading him. And, I'm not even taking into consideration the players we got back.

Devers was being an ass and nobody wanted him around until 2033 (age 36). In retrospect, it was a bad contact for a player who was always a negative defensive player and now has a bad attitude about it.

The Sox have just called up all their top young prospects, have won 5 in a row (and 5 in a row vs. the Yankees), and are only half a game out of the wild card. After a very disappointing start, Sox fans are happy to be winning, happy to have young kids to cheer for, and won't miss Devers.

If the Sox spend the $27/$28 million/year in next year's free agency (or take on some salary in a trade this year), it will easily be a net positive.

Didn't he suck for 4 months then have a good 2 months at the end?

Also Lord Ohtani to throw a few innings tomorrow

He came in with low expectations, as a platoon. Then he was hitting so well he became an every day player and finished the year with an OPS+ over 150. A pretty huge year for a 42 year old. It was his highest SLG since he was 30. A .550 SLG was a pretty huge year.

I see that the contract is probably under water and this being a pure salary dump (getting one decent prospect out of it) seems to confirm that. I just have zero faith in the Red Sox spending that money sensibly. The prospects are gonna have to become legit stars.

For this season it just kills the excitement gained from this recent resurgence. Overpaid defensive liability or not, Raffy was still OBPing 400 with a 149 wrc+, that's gonna leave a big hole in the lineup.

I'm quite excited to see how he'll get on with the Giants though.

It is hilarious that the Red Sox chose to send him to a team that also wont play him at 3b and will want him at 1b if he’s on the field at all

Giants don’t get major free agents to come here and Devers is already (and comically) probably the best hitter the giants have had since Bonds and he’s entering the prime of his career who has randomly learned how to be incredibly patient at the plate

For the next 5-6 years I love this contract. Beyond that will probably be annoying

Lol yeah that's a funny outcome for Devers. He'll probably be just fine DHing though and maybe even playing first.

Just too bad we've seen the last of his 30 homer seasons. I wonder what going from Fenway to SF will do to his doubles.

I dunno about that. By distance it doesn’t appear many of his fenway homers wouldn’t be homers at oracle. Closest I could find to an article that supports the spray chart in 2 minutes of research

Shrug

As far as who the Red Sox got, I like Harrison a lot. He won’t be an ace but he’ll be a solid 2/3 for a number of years

No read at all on Tibbs but he’s probably the cornerstone piece of this deal if anyone is for Boston

Just seems like Posey is doing all he can to purge the team of the Zaidi era and get assets for it

I think we will see him practicing for 1B very soon. My guess is that his agent is advising him on three things.
One, you want to endear yourself to the fans of your new team?
Two, do you want to reset how you are perceived and come across as a team player?
Three, do you want to piss off Boston?

Yes, Yes, Yes.

Then agree or offer to try 1B and you will get all three of the above. It will all look Boston handled you wrong (and whether they did or not won't matter).

Lol harrison got optioned?

Great rundown and comparison. Beautiful. Kind of two GOAT candidates, or nearly, isn't it? Gonna post something about Pujols.

I was sitting at the poker table one night right after that last season of his, commenting that his second half was absolutely Ruthian (.323/.715/1.102), and how impossible that seemed based on the previous 10 seasons. Another player said matter of factly that he got back on the juice knowing there were no more tests for him, and then it worked so well he still couldn't chase the records because he couldn't take the test. (He needed 60 homers and only 80 Rbis to become #1 in both categories).

Hmm, I said, about the steroid charge. Who retires when they are hitting like Ruth when they are that close to that kind of immortality? There must be a very good reason. That slugging was almost Bonds like. He started 41 games in the second half and hit 18 dingers. He hit better than Ruth versus lefties for the entire season. It was freaky. Freaky too much pop in his bat. Not saying it's a thing, but it registered high on the no bullshyt detector with me.

If you think someone is juicing, they probably are.

Not to derail too much I hope, but am I the only one who thinks MLB umpires calling balls and strikes are getting worse all the time?.

I watch a lot of games on tube and stream and it seems almost every game features highly erratic strike zones.

Could it be some sort of reaction to the likely move to an ABS with challenge model? Seems like the logical reaction would be to try harder to get it right but that does not seem to be happening.

People have complained about officiating for as long as sports have been played. I'd argue umps are better now than they've ever been, we just have more technology available to us now which let's us see every mistake, big or small. Though yes, that also means we have the technology to get the calls right, but that's a different discussion imo. People, especially on the internet, LOVE to complain, and that's not going to stop with the ABS system. They'll complain about it being wrong, too. Sure, there are still some umps that are straight ass, but most do a pretty damn good job overall. Most of the balls and strike calls they get wrong, we wouldn't even know they were wrong without the little box on the screen telling us so. When a ball misses the corner by 1/16" but gets called a strike anyway, all we see is they got the call wrong.

You definitely weren’t wrong

What I'm more concerned with are the calls on balls that are several inches off the plate -where it makes you wonder if the ump had something in his eye (or has a bet on the game . Way more of those in the games I watch compared to past seasons (and I've watched a lot of games since I retired from full time work a few years ago).