Kyle joins the Beatles’ Club: Money (That’s What I Want)

Here is a quick message from 1963.

The best things in life are free

But you can’t keep ’em for the birds and bees

Now give me money (that’s what I want)

That’s what I want (that’s what I want)

That’s what I want (that’s what I want) yeah

That’s what I want

Your loving give me a thrill

But your loving don’t pay my bills

Now give me money (that’s what I want)

That’s what I want (that’s what I want)

That’s what I want (that’s what I want) yeah

That’s what I want

Money don’t get everything it’s true

What it don’t get I can’t use

Now give me money (that’s what I want)

That’s what I want (that’s what I want)

That’s what I want (that’s what I want) yeah

That’s what I want

Okay, it goes on a bit repeating some of the lyrics above. To be honest, I did not realize this was one of the Beatles’ many early covers, co-written by Motown founder Berry Gordy back in 1959.

But the theme is still alive and well here in 2026.

Do I blame Kyle Tucker for signing a contract for 4 years / $240 million with the Dodgers? No, I would gladly have done the same in his shoes.

Do I blame baseball for what feels like an out-of-control, bound-to-burst bubble, a lack of understanding of the basics of finances? Perhaps.

Let’s talk about a few facts here to try and understand where we have ended up.

  • While not as large as some of the other longer contracts handed out, including the Shohei Ohtani 10-year/ $700 million agreement with those same Dodgers, it is considered the largest based on annual worth due to having a smaller portion deferred.
  • Kyle’s contract, after considering $30 million in deferred payments, is worth a record $57.1 million in AAV (average annual value) – $6 million more than the previous largest $51.1 million AAV for Juan Soto. (Ohtani has so much deferred money that it is “only” worth $46 million AAV.
  • That $57.1 million is worth $156K per day every day of the year or more than a $1 million lottery win per week. It is worth more than $352K per game in a season. If Tucker plays the 107 games he averaged the last two season, he would be making $533K per game.
  • Now, while being a 4 time All-Star with one Gold Glove and two Silver Slugger awards, Tucker has never hit .300 BA. He’s never hit more than 30 HRs, nor knocked in more than 112 runs (and had 122 RBIs total the last two seasons). And he has that mediocre .233 BA/ .317 OBP/ .692 OPS line in 72 playoff games.
  • As Chip Bailey pointed out recently, Nolan Ryan was the first player to get a $1 million/year contract in 1980. With inflation that would be worth $3.9 million today; not $57.1 million.
  • While it is possible that the highest paid player in 1980 should have gotten more than $1 million, it cannot be denied that the money today is coming from someplace other than the owner’s deep pockets.
  • One place is the average fan’s pocket. Looking at a variety of sources, it is estimated that the average cost to take a family of four to Daikin Park runs somewhere between $300 and $400 for tickets, parking and concessions. (Your mileage may vary).
  • Another place is your cable bill. Space City Network started off after the 2023 season at $109 per year. Today it is at $199 per year.
  • And of course this is reflected in every other media source, and concession involved in the business.

Over the years, I’ve turned more and more into that old “Get off my shed” guy in the neighborhood about money in baseball. Not because I think that the salary insanity is stopping anytime soon. Or because I think baseball will collapse from the weight of this anytime soon (but eventually). But I can’t stomach paying this much to go to games anymore. And because I am afraid the Dodgers are becoming what the Yankees became back in the 1950’s. The Yankees turned the KC Athletics into almost a minor league feeder to them (though they were reportedly a major league team). The Dodgers today have just spat at the luxury tax and its penalties and soared into the stratosphere. They are expected to be at least $160 million over the luxury tax number again in 2026….and that is with Ohtani at a minimal salary until the deferrals eventually kick in.

The fascinating thing that is coming to baseball and its fans will be when the CBA (collective bargaining agreement) with the player’s union expires after the 2026 season. Baseball will push for a hard salary cap. Players will not agree to this. Perhaps they would agree to it with a salary floor (a minimum every team must spend) put in place. Perhaps not.

But it does not take being as smart as an old baseball blogger to know that there will likely be no MLB baseball at the beginning of the 2027 season and perhaps for most or all of the season.

The owners will ask the players to save them from themselves. The players will ask, why should they? And the fans will suffer the most.

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30 responses to “Kyle joins the Beatles’ Club: Money (That’s What I Want)”

  1. I remember the days when I first started going to Rocket games at Hofheinz. With a Rainbow bread wrapper tickets were 50 cents for some games. I watched Havlicek and the Celtics play on a Sunday afternoon and they couldn’t fill the place. When I first got my season tickets in the Dome for the Astros, I think in 1974, they were 3.50. Today Dave’s monied family members pay over 100.00 for those tickets. It’s their money! My Oiler tickets in 1975 were about 10.00. That was a reach!

    I had disposable income at young age. I worked hard. But reality today is that only people in the higher income brackets can justify the expense of going to professional sports events. After a while, one just gets numb to the economics of sports.

    And it’s not going to change. Cap or no cap, salaries will go up, tickets will go up. The hot dog and the beer is 20.00 bucks now. Most people have to pay to watch post season games on television.

    I’m glad I grew up in the good old days. Too many things in today’s world just don’t seem to add up. Gosh I sound like an old coot.

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    • You talk about “back then” and I remember when (yes I’ve told this story before) when I helped my parents at a concession stadium at Rice Stadium. All we had was coffee (.10) and hotdogs (.25). In the mid 80’s there was a promotion put on by the Coca Cola bottlers. You could trade in Coke cans for recycling and get a ticket to an Astro Games. I know I went to at least a half a dozen games that year. Pretty good price to see Nolan Ryan pitch. In our town here we have a “A” team and I go to an occasional game which is still reasonable. You can find “free parking” if you know where to look and concessions are still pretty reasonable.

      There’s a possibility of getting an MLB franchise in Charlotte which is only 90 miles away and I would more than likely go to a game if the Astros were in town . I hope so but I’ll eat before I get there and drink water even though a bottle might be $5. Call me cheap but I look at it as being frugal.

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      • Z, when I’m in town for an Astro series, we always eat before getting to the park. I’m not paying for the tickets either. But I will buy my younger benefactors a beer.

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  2. Every year some free agent signs a ridiculous contract and one of says something to the effect that you can’t blame him for taking the money. I disagree. I think you can and should blame him. You blame him for escalating ticket prices. You blame him for souvenir and concession prices being through the roof. You blame him for advertisements being worn on jerseys. None of this should be necessary if not to sate the greed. Now, I don’t mean to offend any of the regulars here, but I’m going to say we’re all old enough to have learned enough basic arithmetic and economics during school to weigh in here. You can only put so many butts in the seats and sell so many beers and hotdogs. At some point the vast delta between operating expenses + salaries and the income from charging people actually attending games is just too great. The media deals are crumbling for most teams. Going back to the players, I teed up but didn’t submit a post the other day about NFL quarterbacks and the new baseline always getting reset plus the impending deals coming for Caleb Williams, CJ Stroud, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, and perhaps Bryce Young. Look at the top 10 salaries in AAV:

    Prescott – $60M
    Josh Allen – $55M
    Joe Burrow – $55M
    Lawrence – $55M
    Jordan Love – $55M
    Tua – $53M
    Goff – $53M
    Purdy – $53M
    Herbert – $52M
    Lamar Jackson – $52M

    The combined playoff record for dak prescott tua tagovailoa, trevor lawrence, jordan love, and Justin Herbert is 5-12. Purdy, Goff, and Burrow have combined for 0-3 in Super Bowls, but at least they made it there. The difference is the NFL media contracts are a bit less opaque than the fictional ones in MLB. I think the owners made a mistake in 1994 by not opening the books, but it probably means they were making money hand over fist. I would bet this coming offseason when the MLBPA votes to strike because not enough players are making eight figures the owners will be more open to sharing the information…or at least some of them will.

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  3. I’m not going to blame the players. So many played years of minor league games making little money and never getting to the show. Those that made it and made it big got a payday. The owners underpaid the farm and skimped on living conditions. Those same owners are not going bust today. Crane paid less than 500 million for the club 15 years ago. Today, in spite of long battles with television providers, the Astros are valued at 3 billion plus.

    The owners control their own destinies. Maybe there will be a fracture at some point from within the ranks. That’s the only thing that might change compensation in MLB. But while those owners might disagree, they know what’s good for them. They’ll yell and scream behind closed doors, but show a common front publicly. Stewart Sternberg paid 200 plus million for the lowly Rays in 2005. He sold them last year for 1.7 billion. Anyone fortunate enough to be granted ownership of an MLB franchise ends up with a valuable investment.

    But the thing that troubles me today is that most Americans don’t have the luxury of going to MLB games regularly. Most kids don’t have parents with the kind of money it takes to go to a ball game once a month. Although attendance has again gotten up over 71 million for the past couple of years, I wonder if MLB can keep putting people in seats. But then again, attendance revenue is a smaller and smaller piece of the revenue pie for today’s owner.

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  4. Accounting is a funny thing. It really doesn’t matter who the 40k that keep showing up to Astros games are, only that 40k keep showing up. If that number goes down you will see the corresponding ticket price drop. Market prices are driven by analytics the same way baseball teams should be in player evaluation.

    This is 100% on the owners. Back when that big Nolan Ryan contract was doled out if a team made 100M in profits only 20% went to players across all levels. Tucker’s contract is a reminder that even markets like Houston can’t compete with these giant markets. The other sports have learned that parity is actually good for the sport as a whole, but LA teams, NY teams, teams in bigger markets will never sign off on revenue sharing because they will lose money as a competitive advantage. The NBA and NFL got to their model before they passed a break point, now the owners in these big markets so dwarf the small markets that they will never give up that advantage. I am sure if the LA Rams or NY Giants had a chance to adopt the MLB model they would be all in.

    I live in the middle of nowhere. I have to drive 4+ hours to get to the nearest major league stadium in Atlanta. I don’t know how I would adjust to every day baseball but I am sure my father, who worked the oil refineries in Beaumont where I grew up, would not be taking me to 3-4 Astros games a month on the salary he had in 1984. I doubt live baseball games would be a part of my life though anyway. The last time I was in Daikan it was a full house, I had tickets down the first base line maybe 4 rows up halfway out to RF, but the darn seats faced the field so I sat in that airplane seat that people my size hate, next to a rather large woman that ended up not being a stranger by the end of the night, because, heck, when your bodies are in forced contact for 3 hours I was ready to propose. I don’t think she spoke English, but we would have figured it out. And by the end of the night I had a terrible crick in my neck from trying to look at home plate. And I am sure that I spent well over $400 for the three of us, for an experience that I was so happy was over when it ended.

    To be honest if they didn’t have the 1 team deal on MLBtv with a veteran discount, I would probably not watch baseball anymore. Since I can get it for somewhere around 70 a year I’ll still sit and watch 70-80 games a year. That’s enough for me. Keeps me away from people anyway.

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  5. I have the MLB package for watching the Astro games. over the last four years it’s gone up at least 25%. I suspect it’ll go up another 10 to 15% this year. What I dislike is that I cannot get games where the Astros play Washington, Baltimore,or Atlanta even though those places are five hours from me. It also will not let me see games in Houston where the team plays the same teams. Not sure how long I’ll keep this up, but we’ll see.

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  6. The latest Texans disappointment this weekend ties into the money discussion especially what Devin wrote above. In the two biggest games of the season, CJ Stroud was awful – especially in his decision making.

    There were a lot of reasons that CJ played poorly on Sunday – he went into the game without his right tackle Trent Brown and then lost his best lineman Tytus Howard early in the game. He never had RB Joe Mixon or WR Tank Dell the whole season. He entered the game without his best WR Nico Collins and then lost his second best target TE Daton Schulz. His top running back Woody Marks got injured during the game – came back in and did not look right (but also did not have any holes to run through.

    Oh and it was freezing, with sleet and snow and the other QB, who was the “hero” fumbled 4 times – recovering twice.

    But with all that, the problem with the game is that Stroud did not protect the pigskin. He did not take off and run or take a sack or whatever and plain old panicked on a number of throws ending up with 4 interceptions in the first half.

    And now the Texans have to decide whether to extend him this off-season. They don’t have to extend him, but he is eligible for it and the theory is often that you will get them cheaper extending them early than waiting.

    But cheaper as you see in Devin’s list is a relative term. Can anyone with good conscience give CJ $50+ million per season (after his original contract runs out) after watching his last two games.

    But that is what football has become. And baseball is worse because the contracts are fully guaranteed.

    I know this is not how the money comes in to cover salaries, but if you look at Kyle Tucker making $352 K for each of 162 games and you figure 40,000 folks at a game – that is almost $10 per ticket just for one guy. And the Dodgers are out there at like $400 million in salaries.

    If the media bubble bursts – if the money that has been “contracted” for dries up – the teams will be hurting, though as Daveb says – none of these owners will be on the corner with a cup full of pencils.

    I wish we could get back to what Z talks about above – heck I used to kill myself to get straight A’s because I could get a couple tickets to 2 or 3 games for free to see games in the Astrodome as a kid.

    I am glad that Steven can get a veteran’s discount (thank you for your service) to watch the Astros.

    But I am sad that it feels like the next generation is not getting to have that ballpark experience near as often. It is tough to sustain that interest if the youngsters are not getting reeled in….

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    • The Texans did not help Stroud. Not running the ball – defense was never in conflict and they were getting pressure with 4 guys. If you can pressure with 4, speed up the clock, you can bait the QB into turnovers. To be fair to CJ, the first one he got hit while throwing, the second one was tipped coming out of his hand, and the third INT hit the receiver right in the hands. The fourth though, he tried to force it in, threw it a little behind a moving Kirk, and the corner was blanketing him so it was basically right to him. In the end, I would blame the entire offense for not being able to run in an environment where you knew you needed to be able to run. The weather report was not a secret.

      I also wouldn’t blame the Texans from moving on from Stroud after next season, he really doesn’t seem to have “that dog” in him you hear analysts talk about. We all want a QB that you can hitch your wagon too. CJ may still turn into that but a little more emotion towards your teammates when things aren’t going well and less deer in the headlights shots from the sidelines – but maybe thats just the part we are meant to see. Who knows what happened in the locker room at halftime.

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  7. One of the things I heard discussed about Stroud – did he have lasting effects from his concussion “vacation” this season. This was his second serious concussion in his three seasons and he missed 3 games with it, which seemed longer than usual.

    Was he having some PTSD there? Did he come back too soon?

    One of the things that was very bothersome in his post game comments was repeating something that he had mentioned before, that there were delays in getting the plays in (blame on OC?), delays on getting it to the players and getting out of the huddle (blame on CJ?) and not enough time then to absorb what is happening and change it at the line of scrimmage. At times this looked like confusion or even panic.

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    • The defense did all it could to keep the game within reach. But for whatever reasons, Stroud is not the same quarterback he was as a 22 year old rookie. He’s become tentative, loses his composure. At this point in time, he does not look like a franchise quarterback. As you noted Dan, do the Texans further invest in Stroud, or do they go in a different direction?

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  8. here in Carolina. The Panthers have extended Bryce Young for a fifth year at about 27.3 million. not bad for a guy who has a quarterback rating of 80 and is only 5’10”. I don’t know if too many quarterbacks that were that small and successful save. Maybe for Doug Flutie. The sad part of this is that they traded a ninth draft choice, a wide receiver, and several other players to move up to draft him. it’s rare when one guy can really make that big of a difference for a team IMHO.

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    • I hated that trade because I wanted the Panthers to hold out for the next year and a shot at Drake Maye. A lot of people complain about how much they gave up to get that pick, but remember it was a pick swap in 2023 (9th overall to 1st overall), an unprotected 1st in 2024 (ended up 1st overall), a couple second round picks, and DJ Moore to the Bears. The thing about DJ Moore is that he was never really great in Carolina but ended up with a top 5 receiver contract. My recollection is the Bears asked for either Moore or Brian Burns. Recall the Panthers had an offer of two firsts from the Rams for Burns which they had previously turned down, so they kept him with perhaps hopes of resigning him and sent Moore to Chicago. Why does this matter on this blog? Moore was too expensive. You can’t pay a guy who had 800 receiving yards and lost a game against the Falcons the prior season (that essentially kept them out of the playoffs) big time money. Hindsight being 20/20, they also couldn’t pay Burns and should have traded him sooner. He got a deal that made him one of the top paid edges in the NFL from NY. That all happened in a league with a salary cap. So, yes, based on performance $27M is probably an overpay for Bryce Young, but it gives them another year to make a decision. The Texans are expected to do the same for CJ Stroud. Now, back to DJ Moore…he mailed it in on the interception in overtime in Chicago on Sunday. He is under contract there through 2029 and there are some people who aren’t happy about that. It reminds me of some of our Astros payroll blunders. Sorry, I’ll try to stick to baseball now.

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      • Thanks for the info Devin. I admit I didn’t know the whole story. Considering that, I should have a great future in politics or Journalism since they never have the whole story or the facts. In fact since I’m not yet approaching 80 the future is so bright I’ll have to put on my shades.

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  9. Good morning everyone. This sure has seemed like a tedious off season for the Astros. Yeah, we’re gotten a truckload of new arms which will make for an interesting spring as we watch guys fail and succeed on our way to a 13 man pitching staff.

    But I’m almost thinking we might end up going into the season with the same bullets we presently have in stock on the offensive side of the roster. If we approach Opening Day without help for the outfield, then Dana will take some early heat. And I’d hate to see Joe having to negotiate his way around a five man infield. And we still need a catcher. Seems Cristian Vasquez could be rotated back around into the roster. That would be thrilling. I keep looking forward to something, anything happening. But then another week seems to go by. Pitchers report on the 11th. Our new and improved outfield reports on the 16!

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    • I think the presence of Vasquez could help Diaz. What a bad trade that was. I heard Rome talking about it yesterday – if Baker hadn’t nixed the trade the Astros had worked out for Contreras that year Wilyer Abreu would be our LFer right now (assuming he wouldn’t have bumped Tucker, and probably be comfortably planted in that spot).

      He (Chandler) seems to think dealing Paredes is eventually going to happen but right now there is nothing imminent – apparently its not past the “yea we can talk about this” mode.

      I guess it would open – SS Pena, 3B – Correa, 2B – Altuve, DH – Alvarez, 1B – Walker, C- Diaz, LF – Sanchez, RF – Smith, CF – Meyer. How can you have Isaac Paredes and not play him on opening day? The only real way to fix this is let Yordan play LF.

      Speaking of Yordan, he played 540 games from 2021-2024. In that same period Altuve played 530. Walker played 562, and he is known as an “everydayer.” Bregman played 552. Springer gave the Jays only 510. 2025 was bad for Yordan. My fear has always been not his history, but his body. He is a large man. Large people have more mass. More mass to move can be more injury prone. But history has shown Yordan pretty durable prior to 2025. All those guys I listed dealt with some season impeding injury somewhere in that path, and all of them rebounded to play a lot of games after. I hope that pattern stays true.

      Man this lineup is so different if Yordan can play LF and Paredes/Walker/Correa can use the DH/1B/3B rotation to stay fresher. It would help even more if the Astros were willing to bite the bullet and give Isaac 250 innings at 2B to rest Altuve instead of putting Nick Allen in the lineup on those days. But I don’t see any of that. I see Joe pretty rigid, and I expect a Paredes trade for either Duran or Abreu. I might prefer Abreu in that deal because he is younger and gives justification to expand the trade to maybe include Early or Tolle with maybe Matthews going the other direction. With Duran it might be straight up.

      The Astros seem pretty set against Paredes playing anywhere but the corner. If they are concerned about Paredes defense at 2B how could they justify Altuve playing 2B? He is easily the worst defensive position in the league. When you google who the worst fielders were at each position – Brandon Lowe was listed at 2B with a -10 DRS, but Altuve had a -8 in half the innings. Its the same in LF with Heliot Ramos (now thats a guy that looks like he was born to DH) coming in at -6 DRS, but that is over 1300+ innings, while Altuve clocks in at -10 in just 371! It cannot be understated how Altuve should never see LF again, but really, he should never see the field again.

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      • Yeah, Dusty talked Crane out of Contreras and Click. And then, as you mention, Wilyer ended up down the road for a back up catcher. Looking back, beyond the trades, Clicks departure after the 2022 WS win might just have had a larger impact on the future of the Astros than when Luhnow was terminated in 2020. Of course looking back is a waste of time too. Suffice it say though that we had very two talented GM’s during our heyday and sent them both packing. I should add though that Luhnow probably had to go. But I’ll always believe Dusty Baker was a devious sort. And I really believe that the organization sabotaged itself from further greatness during those fateful years of 2020-2022, even as we won the World Series again.

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  10. So, Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones made the Hall of Fame. Hopefully that means that Jose Altuve will make the Hall – even if he does not make it on a first ballot.

    Beltran gave the Astros one of the best playoff runs ever, the first time around. Then he left us which was a great disappointment (though it is likely we were only in the mix to force the Mets to pay more). When he came back reportedly he worked a lot with the players to pick up “tells” from the pitchers. Unfortunately, he also spearheaded the electronic cheating with Alex Cora.

    They were asking on the radio how many people were happy he made the Hall. I can’t be happy. He helped poison the Astros first championship run for all time. I will never forgive him for that.

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  11. Not really relevant to the Astros but long time rumored target Luis Robert Jr is now a Met. How the mighty have fallen. The wrong Acuna brother and Pauley Truman, er Truman Pauley, why people have 2 last names I don’t know. That’s the best Chicago could do. They held out as long as they could for the guy to rebound, but let’s face it, Luis Robert can’t tell a ball from a strike, or, really, anything from a strike. And that part is never changing, now matter how athletic he is in CF or bases he can steal when he manages to get to first. There is no reason for having a guy with that BA, OBP, K/BB ratio in your lineup, no matter how good he might be at stealing second or hitting the occasional homerun.

    Why would the Astros have ever even had a conversation with Chicago about this guy. Probably the same reason they had conversations about Arenado. The back of the baseball card.

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    • I presume they were pursuing him after that .338 BA/ .378 OBP/ .946 OPS line in his second season in 68 games (61 Ks) or perhaps that 2023 season – .264 BA/.315 OBP/ .857 OPS in 145 games (but 172 Ks). But the White Sox held on to him and he rewarded them with two awful seasons.

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  13. I’m just catching up. Peralta goes to the Mets. The Brewers have gotten pretty good at remaining relevant by moving soon to depart free agents for quality, proven, controllable talent in return. Not to beat a dead horse, but that mentality could have helped make us a much more athletic club today.

    I’m also wondering what’s going on with Framber. There does not seem to be anything close to a feeding frenzy for his services. Maybe he’ll be the next 3 year deal with opt outs.

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    • I know at the beginning of the winter the Astros kicked the tires on Peralta. Apparently the prospect haul was something we couldn’t offer. Jett Williams is probably better than anything we had to offer, or at least more ready as he is probably in AAA this year. And we probably weren’t willing to sale the farm as to match Williams it might have taken some package that included 3 of our top 5, and I wouldn’t do that for a 1 year rental either, though the Mets have the financial ability to sign him to an extension now.

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    • I couldn’t quickly pull up highlights on the guys the Brewers got. Is this going to help them in 2026? The big difference here is (I think) that Crane believed we had a chance at the WS in 2024 and 2025. In hindsight, getting anything for Bregman or Framber would have been worth it for sure.

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  14. BA’s Astros deep dive is out on the tube if you are bored. They had Neyens at 1. I know he has tools. But he hasn’t seen one 95 MPH pitch yet, used a wooden bat yet, or really had to worry about people dotting the corner of the zone with a splitter or throw a slider that makes you swing out of your shoes yet. Calling him number 1 is a little ahead of the skis.

    They spoke well of the system overall compared to 2 years ago, though noted the loss of Melton and Brito hurts the rankings a little. I’m like them though, give me more of Ethan Frey and Kevin Alvarez. Give me guys that can keep close BB/K ratios, especially if they can do it as they climb and not see those ratios get out of whack at AA or AAA. It means they are likely the dictators of the at bat, forcing pitchers to come to them, and not getting the at bat dictated to them. This is why I am no more higher on Walker Janek than I was Korey Lee.

    The aforementioned Luis Robert is the exact guy that has all these tools, used them to blow through the minors, look pretty good at the beginning, but as soon as the book got out on him that he will swing at everything he can’t adjust because he just doesn’t have the eye talent to lay off those pitches. It’s something we are starting to see in our own Yainer Diaz as he isn’t adjusting to pitchers adjusting to him and his stats are progressively worsening year to year. This is why I want him out from behind the plate, I think he needs to focus more of his pre-game on hitting and not preparing to catch a pitcher and how they are going to approach at bats. But that ship has sailed for certain for 2026. He will be expected to catch 120-125 games, so hopefully the Astros can lengthen the lineup with one more move and push him into the bottom of the order.

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  15. Rangers got better today. Gore slots into that 3 spot. Their rotation will still depend on DeGrom and Eovaldi but they just acquired someone that is familiar with the role of leading a staff if necessary. Nothing about Gore’s overall will scare you, though he does miss a lot of bats – but he is just now hitting that age where you often see the BB/9 decrease as they learn to pitch – and that’s the main step to stardom. I personally think he is the breakout pitcher candidate we don’t really have, though if I was baseball I would not sleep on Mike Burrows.

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  17. And Jose Urquidy has now gone 33 innings in the Mexican winter league. 1.09 ERA, 0.848 WHIP, BB/K of 1.9/9.5. I’m not sure who he’s pitching to, but he would seem to be a low cost, low risk acquisition. Some club will make a move at some point.

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