A strong pitching staff on today's Birthday Team, but not much offense once you get past Utley. For whatever it's worth, Ted Trent was born on the day the Wright Brothers made their first flight.

C: Charlie Sands (0.5 WAR)
1B: Chase Utley (64.4 WAR)
2B: Josh Barfield (2.6 WAR)
3B: Leo Cardenas (27.2 WAR)
SS: Jerry Adair (8.4 WAR)
LF: Ray Jablonski (3.0 WAR)
CF/Manager: Rebel Oakes (4.9 WAR)
RF: Curtis Pride (1.2 WAR)

SP: Bill Hutchinson (38.9 WAR)
SP: Ted Trent (NeL All-Star)
SP: Bob Ojeda (24.0 WAR)
SP: Cy Falkenberg (20.3 WAR)
SP: Roy Patterson (14.7 WAR)
RP: Taylor Rogers (5.8 WAR)

Owner: Yoriyasu Arima
Fun name: Bryan Clutterbuck
German for "Eric Corners Steeler": Eric Eckenstahler
The soccer guy's dad: Marvell Wynne

I think a better defensive alignment might be to switch Adair and Cardenas. With Cardenas at shortstop, you'd only have one of them playing out of his regular position, and Cardenas won a Gold Glove at shortstop, something Adair never did. Adair played 46 games at third.

I probably say this every year but, for some reason, back in 83-84 I was sure Wynne was gonna be a stud. Maybe he looked the part, maybe it was the great name.

Ted Trent was born on the day the Wright Brothers made their first flight.

If you want to read a great book about the Wright Brothers, look up David McCullough's. The story itself is fantastic, McCullough is one of our great historical storytellers and the Wrights' story is definitely an "only in America" story.

Utley at first seems really odd.

You could put Dan Vogelbach at first and Utley at second.

Ironically, tomorrow is Ty Cobb's birthday. The December 18th team is short on pitching, but the outfield is as easy as ABC:

LF - Ronald Acuna
CF - Byron Buxton
RF - Ty Cobb

That would be a lot of fun to watch.

There are still rumors about an Arenado trade though I don't know if these are real or more reporter speculation. Given the contract he signed, and how teams are acting in regards to finances, would anyone take that contract for no return? Say if the Rockies put him on waivers the way the Red Sox years ago put Manny Ramirez on the form of waiver where a team could claim him and just assume his current contract?

Arenado has 6 years, $209 million left on his deal, with the opt out after 2021.

Plus I don't get why Trevor Story would sign an extension if Arenado were traded. I'd suggest a total tear down in trades for prospects except I don't think these guys could a team that way either.

#7 ... essentially all form of waivers are one where a team can claim him and take on the contract. It's more that there are (or used to be, I forget how the deadline works these days), revocable waivers where the team that puts him on waivers can pull him back if claimed or gets to keep him if unclaimed. In every other form of waivers, the player is either flat-out released or is removed from the 40-man and put on assignment. So the Red Sox put Manny on revocable waivers.

Certainly the understanding at the time is that the Red Sox would not have revoked the waiver if somebody had claimed Manny but we'll never know for sure. And it is (was?) very common for stars to be placed on revocable waivers and not get claimed. The Red Sox of course didn't put Manny on "real" waivers because then they would have had to pay him to play for somebody else (after the waiver period expired and he became FA).

But yeah, I expect the Rox will have to eat some money if they want to move Arenado. (and that's on pre-covid terms) He's still owed 6/$200 and it's slightly front-loaded so that's pretty much "full market price" (think Rendon who gets $20 M more over the same years, slightly back-loaded). Even if you bought that $60,000 Mercedes just yesterday, you can't expect somebody to agree to take on your paymeents and give you their 10-year-old Hyundai too. If the Dodgers decide they really need a star replacement for Turner (and aren't willing to trade for Lindor, Seager to 3B) or the Yanks panic, the Rox might find the right fit. Pretty much any team would love to have him in a baseball sense but nobody wants to pay that kind of money.

Just 200 PAs but Arenado's bat was absent in 2020 -- off the charts defense though (and I think statcast agreed).

Aren't there August waivers where you can put someone through a second time and have to give them up if they get claimed?