He has an agreement with the Cubs that should be binding, as he didn't sign the term sheet with the Giants ... and I know there's a disagreement over whether the Giants' term sheet reflected their initial financial offer to the player.

Idiots are idiots regardless of nationality, unfortunately.

He's absolutely not worth hiring. It would be a dumb PR-oriented move that would be more likely to set the franchise back rather than forward, and with the Mets ascendant and only likely to improve from here - it's pretty easy to forecast them as a 95-win team in 2016 with only marginal changes - the Nats would be shooting themselves in the face by hiring someone so regressive.

Nice guy, extremely well-regarded by his colleagues and the scouts who worked for him in Tampa, but the last part of your question does address one of my questions too - are they too similar in background and philosophy?

Seager has not graduated; I use rookie eligibility on my lists, so players like Seager and I believe Steven Matz remain eligible despite having some major-league service.

Have you seen Hunter Pence hit?

Highly touted is a subjective term; he's certainly receiving tremendous praise and publicity for a 17-year-old, but neither of those guys is the top pitching prospect in the minors right now.

Favorite is short ribs with red wine and dried figs, but that's a once or twice a winter thing because they are so unhealthful (and I need to at least pay attention to that stuff).

True.

I appreciate your honesty ... I've had folks come to me at games and openly mock Insider, saying they could pay for it but refuse to on philosophical grounds, which strikes me as a rather bizarre place to make an ethical stand. Anyway, I don't have any idea of his plate discipline, but I love his swing, body, and athleticism, and would probably start him in low-A with an eye toward a quick promotion if he shows his approach is advanced.

Beltran can barely move in RF; you could argue they have Judge almost ready for that spot, but of course you'd rather have Heyward out there. I think it depends more on what they intend to do with Ellsbury; if he's really this bad a player now, does he become a contract to dump, in which case they could put Gardner in CF and Judge in LF?

This has been such a huge debate - whether there's such a thing as a LHP with a reverse split - but from a scouting POV it's pretty evident that a lefty who has a good changeup/split and almost never throws breaking balls is going to have a reverse or neutral split. Matheny treating him like a lefty specialist is the mistake, because all available evidence, statistical and scouting, says that Siegrest is NOT that.

I wouldn't expect anyone to "always agree" with me, but if readers think I make good arguments then I'm happy.

Democrats say ... nope, wait, not going there.

The slippery slope fallacy is a fun one. Anyway, your bigger error is assuming that your interpretation of that right mirrors mine or everyone else's. Haven't we all spent 200 years arguing over what exactly that right entails - whether the "well-regulated militia" part matters, and whether it proscribes any restrictions on the types of guns citizens may own?

Yes, I think they do. I think they'll go after a top starting pitcher FA this winter, and there are still a few prospects on the farm who haven't reached the point where they're widely known yet.

To be honest, and I know this won't be a terribly popular opinion, I thought the Jays/Rangers' game sucked. The Rangers took the lead on a freak play - correctly adjudicated by the umps, by the way - that led to idiot fans throwing garbage. Then the Jays tie the game on three errors before Bautista does that thing he does so well. The whole inning took something like 40 minutes and it wasn't 40 minutes of baseball, but like 15 minutes of talking and arguing and cleaning up. It's just an aesthetic opinion, but that's not the kind of game I'm hoping to see in the playoffs.

Bautista. There was some serious fuck-you in that flip.

Very low.

Both AAA. No reason for either team to promote those players too soon.

It's a skill, IMO.

No - they paid for two of those key guys, Neshek and Gregerson. The problem was that they didn't get guys who miss bats, not in the free agents nor from their own system. They need to figure out which of the hard-throwing prospects is better suited to the bullpen - Feliz, Velazquez, McCullers, etc.

OH MY GOD I CHANGED MY MIND ON SOMETHING HOW DARE I DO THAT

Strong choice. Surprised he hasn't made more changes below him, though.

One, no, and two, I hate using that word for the way it implies some kind of character failure. It's baseball. One team will lose and there will probably be a mistake or two along the way.

I'm not exactly sure which bunt you mean. Didn't Goins bunt vs a LHP at some point? He's an automatic out vs lefties anyway.

Good grief that's a stupid trade for Cleveland.

The Wacha situation was worse because of that AB and because that game was still very much in reach. Had Hinch pulled McHugh after 4 for Walter Johnson they would still have lost that game.

I agree completely. MLB has to adjust to the increasing number of households who are ditching cable/satellite. I may be joining that number this winter.

I think you shop all of those guys who have value - that's Marrero, Cecchini, Johnson (if healthy), Holt, JBJ - particularly targeting high-end arms.

Probably Dodgers. BTW, I didn't clarify my answer above - when I actually sat down to write my real predictions (which aren't worth much anyway), I thought the matchup favored the Mets much more than it did at first glance, which is why I picked them to win the series in four. Those odds change a bit now with Greinke pitching again and the game in LA, but I'd still give a very slight edge to NY.

I think we'd need to see it happening a lot, or batters trying to sneak the bat out there a little bit to make something like this happen, before we change the rules. It was weird, but it is extremely rare, and the umps got the call right. I do wish Dale Scott hadn't confused the issue by calling time, but oh well.

I don't have a great sense for the market for Castro, but I think I'd rather move him and roll the dice on Baez pulling a Chris Davis. I doubt Castro becomes a star, but he's very valuable because of his contract. Baez has a higher bust probability but he could become a star much more easily.

What kind of trade value would he have? There wasn't much of a market last winter, and now it's even more evident how limited a player he is. I think I said this elsewhere, but he would have been valued more highly and more valuable in fact twenty years ago, when teams had larger benches (and didn't care about OBP).

No question. How many guys drafted and developed as relievers turn out to be great relievers in the majors, at least as a percentage of the guys who were drafted and developed as relievers? The failure rate there is incredibly high, I think in large part because those guys were already relievers (in college, usually) for a really good (that is, bad) reason.

More that they have so many other options.

Span, if our medicals said he was OK, then yes. Wieters, probably yes because I doubt Boras would want him to take it, but also a healthy 2016 from him is probably worth something close to that $15.8 million anyway.

Way too early to even suggest that.

Well it just hasn't worked. They took Nick Burdi, who legitimately throws 100 mph, last June, and he stunk this year. They took another guy who threw 100 with awful mechanics (Cederoth) and are trying to make him a starter. Then a round or two later they took a more unheralded college reliever in Jake Reed and he's the best of the lot.

Oh I'm all in on that. Yes, I understand it will cost you one start from Thor in the NLCS, but 1) you have to get there first and 2) it's not like Matz is Derek Holland. He's a hell of a fourth option.

I love that game but I don't know that I have a clear strategy for that. I try to focus more on the three higher-value goods, both acquiring them and preventing my opponent from doing so.

Peraza is the best SS of the group, but doing that would probably require Turner to go back to 2b, where he wasn't very good in limited MLB time. I'd like to at least see what that looks like before committing to Seager at SS, as I don't think he's an average defender there in the long run.

One of the only classics that holds up well. It's been on my annual game rankings every year.

Two thoughts. One, if MLB tries to combine these two, or even create an international draft, they're going to have a hellish PR issue on the gap between the values of drafted kids (US/Canada/PR) and Latin American kids from everywhere but PR. Two, it depends on two factors that prevent a generalization here - where that lost pick is (pick 11 is worth a lot more than pick 25 in expected return) and where that team is in the success cycle (win now vs still building). In conclusion, don't give up a pick for Michael Cuddyer.

Nope, going Monday the 19th through Friday the 23rd.

I don't know. He's super young and has the most ability of any of their prospects, but they've promoted him too quickly, and having him work so much on bunting has retarded his growth as a hitter. It's probably still him but this isn't the future I envisioned for him two years ago.

The winner's curse applies in free agency, and I think between 2/3 and 3/4 of FA contracts don't work out over the length of their deals. You're typically signing players who are past their peak years, and you rarely if ever have perfect information on their medicals, makeup, and so on.

Doesn't look gassed. I couldn't tell you if he was tipping unless I was watching him from behind the plate (and even then I might not catch it). If he were gassed, using him in relief in game 4 would have been an even worse idea.

Two different scouting staffs, operating on two very different calendars, evaluating 18- to 22-year-old players for the draft and 15- and 16-year-old players for July 2nd. I saw some 14-year-olds take BP in Santo Domingo last week. They were impressive, but I kept thinking, "what the hell am I even looking at?" I've seen exactly one U.S.-born prospect that young before - Bryce Harper at 15, who was already Superman - and this is a totally different world of evaluation.

Greinke and Price. I'm still a big fan of Price's and I think his skill set will age pretty well.