This would be the worst

@jonmorosi: #STLCards, Scott Boras have numerous reasons to be in touch: Boras clients Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Greg Holland all possible fits for St. Louis roster. And we know from Stanton pursuit that Cardinals have capacity to add payroll where warranted. @MLB
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Completely agree. That would totally suck.
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So Hosmer has a 7 year offer from the Pads according to

@BNightengale: MLB's cold-hearted economics chill the hot stove, puts the freeze on elite players https://usat.ly/2Cupj8x via @USATODAY
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It's Nightengale, so he doesn't.
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Worst possible landing spot
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Exactly.

Nightengale is the CoMo of sportswriters. If he says something, just presume the opposite.
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Horrid news.
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Don't want any of them. Maybe Moustakas because he's a lefty with some sock and a solid K rate, but he's a 1b as soon as 2019 so I'm pretty lukewarm on him as well. I think you can get similar offensive production (with a different profile) from Logan Morrison.

Holland will be throwing 91 mph in a year while winging that crossfire slider 66% of the time in a desperate attempt to stave off age while fully and finally grinding his arm into hamburger. Hosmer...well I've said my piece on Hosmer - guy just isn't that good. If I wanted a RH hitting groundball machine, I'd just give Jose Martinez more at-bats. Honestly, I think Martinez will be a better hitter than Hosmer going forward. I just don't see how a guy can succeed while that many batted balls into the ground.

Boras can keep on looking for his mystery team, as far as I'm concerned. I have no inclination to pay any of those guys for what they did in someone else's uniform. There's very little to suggest that they're going to be cornerstone players going forward.
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Hosmer bats left handed.
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I'll take a bet on Martinez vs Hosmer. It's weird to me that you're so high on Jose Martinez. 275 ABs is a small sample size, and his HR/SLG spike is likely driven by the ball.

Also don't see Moustakas regressing that quickly on defense. He was an above-average defender prior to 2017, and fielding metrics are incredibly unreliable on one-year samples, especially range factor.

Unless his knee is permanently trashed, I think he has several quality years left at 3B because his arm and hands and instincts are all excellent.
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Moustakas just looked really big to me every time I saw him. I guess the story is that the knee kept him from working out so he put weight on, but I'd just be surprised if the guy hit 38 homers and then felt compelled to slim back down.

I could be wrong and I may be pulling the chute too early on him. Prior to '17 I thought he was an above average defender over there. But if that was the beginning of a trend, he's gonna just be a fat guy in a year or two.

As for Martinez - the guy just barreled a TON of balls. His exit velocity was in the top 5-10 or so in the NL, IIRC. He stayed on balls well and simply had a good line-drive stroke. What I found interesting about him was that he finally tapped into the power that his size said he should have without sacrificing the high contact and solid plate skills he had throughout his minor league career.

You take his swing profile from the minors and add 120 points of ISO to it and you pretty much have exactly what Martinez gave you last year. Prior to last season he was all about those damn grounders but last year he worked with Martin Prado in FL and changed his stroke a bit to pretty outstanding results.

Yeah, I expect regression, but I think he'll continue to take quality ABs. And he'll continue to absolutely murder left-handed pitchers, IMO. In a perfect world, he's in a platoon with Logan Morrison and you end up getting 40+ HRs and a .900+ OPS out of your 1b for less than $13 million/season.

But that would require a front-office with some foresight and a manager who isn't a moron. As it stands, he'll just be a part-time player and pinch hitter. I think he's being wasted.
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Man, I don't follow any of that, esp the Moose stuff. He's not moving to 1B after this year, jeez.
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Actually I think the opposite is widely considered the case - despite a year where his only job was to work out and get into shape, he didn't do so. Might have had something to do with why his knee seemed to regress as the year went on.
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Moustakas has never been a guy who was going to model jeans. I didn't see a noticeable difference from his pre-injury 2016 size to last year. Maybe 5-10 pounds, but it isn't like he's Pablo Sandoval.

Was it you or Hamas that was beating me up on Scott Alexander in the other thread?
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