Some links for your Friday…
- Tom Verducci of SI.com said on WEEI's Dennis & Callahan show that he expects Carl Crawford to sign with the Yankees after the season, because "nobody is going to outbid them." The Yankees and Red Sox both love Crawford, according to Verducci.
- Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports says the Dodgers should spend more aggressively, especially considering they led the league in attendance last year.
- Alex Speier of WEEI.com points out that Mike Lowell, Jason Varitek, Bill Hall and Jeremy Hermida will combine to make only $10MM or so less than the entire Pirates team this year. Why is that noteworthy? All four Red Sox are expected to be bench players.
- Cubs GM Jim Hendry is under contract through 2012, but he tells ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick that he knows "these jobs aren't forever."
- The Pirates say Pedro Alvarez needs seasoning above AA, according to Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Sending the third baseman to the minors limits his MLB service time, so it's a sound financial decision by the Pirates.
- The A's haven't called Joe Beimel, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle.
- The A's worked out Wagner Mateo on Tuesday, according to Slusser.
- ESPN.com’s Buster Olney thinks that the Joe Mauer contract negotiations, which remain cordial, could continue in a few months if the sides don’t reach a deal in Spring Training.
- The Dominican prospect already worked out for the D'Backs and will likely work out for the Indians.
- Twins minor league director Jim Rantz told Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that another Dominican prospect, Miguel Sano, has "tremendous upside." Kovacevic says it's still too early to know how much the Pirates missed out on when Sano signed with the Twins instead of the Pirates.
- Phillies prospect Phillippe Aumont tells Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun that he thought he was heading to the Blue Jays at one point this offseason.
- Carl Crawford tells Tyler Kepner of the New York Times that he's comfortable with the speculation about his future since it "comes with the territory." Crawford is a free agent after the season.
I was a little disappointed when the Cardinals voided Mateo’s contract because of all the hype surrounding his skills. Now that he has remained a FA since then and worked out for several teams maybe they were right about him, I just hope it doesn’t come back to haunt them.
Breaking News: team who paid Sano a pile of money think he has big upside.
I’m shocked.
And it isn’t like the PIT beat writer needs to hear this either: they were on him for ages before MIN swept him away. This is not news.
You could point out that the Sox aren’t paying most of Hall’s salary, the Brewer’s are paying it through the M’s. That’s $7.15M right there.
That’s true- but you can also add Lugo’s salary who they gave away for nothing yet they are still paying him; but I think it’s pointed out to show that the Red Sox’s owners and fans shouldnt cry poor, they’re only the 16th largest market, the Yankees buy everyone, etc.
I hear ya. I’m a Red Sox fan and it annoys me when other Red Sox fans cry poor. That being said, the Pirates could spend more if they wanted too. Regardless, there needs to be a salary cap and a floor if we want to see parity begin to return to baseball.
They could probably spend more, but they need to develop talent first. They’ve ‘missed’ on alot of their high picks spent on pitchers, so they need to develop talent and then sign guys to fill in the holes.
I dont see there being a cap or a floor, as much as owners want to contro spending, there are alot of teams who would not go along with being forced to spend 60-80m per year; and when you’re rebuilding I dont think you should be required to- you should be giving playing time to prospects instead of paying an old veteran 7m just to get your payroll up.
The salary floor should be mandatory. When teams are paying into a revenue sharing pool there should be some guarantee that the revenue is going towards salary and not owners profits.
If an owner can’t afford to spend 60 million on a payroll, they shouldn’t own the team. If the city won’t support the team it shouldn’t have the team.
With a salary floor, parity will return to baseball as teams like the Marlins will have to lock up their young stars in order to reach the salary goal. With a salary floor, the Marlins would still have Miguel Cabrera which would make them a very different team. So called small market teams will be more competitive and win which should increase their revenues and bring the fans back. Then teams like the Red Sox and Yankees won’t be cherrypicking the best free agents from the small market teams.
Although conversely, focusing on just the one example you made, with a salary floor, the Marlins might have never traded Beckett and Lowell, and therefore would never have Hanley Ramirez, who is now basically the face of their team. There are good and bad things to any new proposal, and the one concern I can see with a salary floor would be that teams might start getting stuck with older, overpaid players that they paid to simply hit the floor. Don’t get me wrong; if I picked a side in this debate it would be firmly planted on the side in favor of the salary floor. Just pointing out the possibl weaknesses.
I wonder if they could guarantee that the money they receive through the revenue sharing was used towards salary though. That would be a good way to make sure they are using at least that money to benefit the team.
“I wonder if they could guarantee that the money they receive through the revenue sharing was used towards salary though. That would be a good way to make sure they are using at least that money to benefit the team.”
Well a team could argue that the money they received went to a new ballpark and that benefited the team; or they spent it in the draft and were able to sign better talent so that benefited the team. I just think there needs to be more transparency with the $, so they know where the team is spending it.
I don’t see overpaying for vets as that big of an issue with a salary floor though. I mean, if you look at baseball in a vacuum, then I can see how that could be seen as a potential issue. I’m looking for something similar to the NFL, which has enjoyed amazing parity until the past couple years. There is a hard cap and a floor and yet vets aren’t overpaid just to reach the floor.
Yeah but top picks in MLB get paid 500k for their first few years, in the NFL you have first round picks making 4-10m, depending on where they are drafted, so you can have a rebuilding team in NFL while still paying guys high salaries, if you rebuild in MLB then you can have a team of 500k players regardless of their draft position.
Plus the NFL floor was ~80m I believe, and they had a 52 man roster, if that’s the floor for MLB then a team only has 25 spots to meet that point.
Obviously I’m not talking about using the saem numbers that the NFL uses, the floor / cap numbers would have to be adjusted for things such as smaller roster sizes and longer seasons.
As for the fact that players with 0-3 years of service time only get paid $400K-$500K, this could easily be one of the things owners would have to give up in order to get a cap/floor. Even if what they had to give up was just 1 year of renewal, so it was 0-2 year players who got their contracts renewed and super 2’s being replaced by super 1’s, this would significantly boost payroll.
$60M seems a fair starting point for a salary floor. Based on team payrolls in 2009, only 3 teams came in below this mark (the Pirates, Padres, and Marlins). As for a salary cap, why not just change the luxury tax threshold into a hard cap?
baseball.about.com/od/newsrumors/a/09teamsalaries.…
“As for a salary cap, why not just change the luxury tax threshold into a hard cap?”
Well isnt that around 170, if you have the floor at 60 and cap at 170 then that doesnt really help parity IMO. The NFL floor was 80 and cap around 120m I believe; because if the gap is too big it just doesnt work.
If the floor is at 60m then like you said that forces only 3 teams to add payroll- does that really help parity? Again, does forcing a rebuilding team to add payroll really help their rebuilding plan? Instead of giving prospects playing time, you give it to old veterans- and when you finally have the guts to bench the veterans in favor of prospects then there will be issues in the clubhouse.
Oh and I cant see teams ever giving up a year of renewal power.
Even with the $110M gap, it absolutely helps parity. Also, please keep in mind that I’m proposing initial guidelines, any hard cap would need to be eased into unless baseball wanted to do it like the NHL did. The cap could slide down and the floor could slide up over time to give about a $60M range instead of the $110.
The way that the floor (even at $60M) helps parity is buy causing the Marlins, Padres and Pirates to spend more , which would most likely amount to the teams keeping their homegrown talent through their arb years, not by overpaying for aging vets.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the owners give up a year of renewal if it means fixing the MLB draft. I’m thinking a hard slotting system similar to the NBA. This way, the players who deserve the money, still get it when they reach the majors and the clubs drafting at the top of the draft can better rebuild by taking the best talent available instead of passing on players because of sign ability issues.
Oh I understand it’s just initial talk; but I just dont see the owners agreeing to a system that forces them to pay more and more.
“The cap could slide down”- How does that work when salaries continue to go up? Players arent going to agree to something that limits their salary; and suggesting that the cap would decrease from say 170 to 160 to 150- players are NOT going to sign up for that.
I argue that some teams keeping homegrown talent hurts parity. If a team like the Padres develop an elite player like Adrian Gonzalez, but have no other talent around him- their franchise is better off getting 4 top prospects in return for him- look how the Bedard trade helped the O’s. Trading Doc and getting guys in return is better than giving him 60m extension; same with Florida trading Beckett, etc.
Well I guess you would have to do the math out of the average first year of arbitration players get and relate that to the draft.
The reason for the cap sliding down was to allow some of the contracts to expire. Teams such as the Yankees, Cubs, Mets and Red Sox (who are all at or near the current threshold) need a chance to get below it.
Also, I don’t know where you’re coming from saying that player salaries are growing. They are actually shrinking the past couple seasons for everyone except for the best of the best.
I understand that trading elite players is part of the rebuilding process, but lets look at another example. Trading MCab has in no way helped the Marlins and they lost an elite slugger.
The reason for the cap sliding down was to allow some of the contracts to expire. Teams such as the Yankees, Cubs, Mets and Red Sox (who are all at or near the current threshold) need a chance to get below it.
Also, I don’t know where you’re coming from saying that player salaries are growing. They are actually shrinking the past couple seasons for everyone except for the best of the best.
I understand that trading elite players is part of the rebuilding process, but lets look at another example. Trading MCab has in no way helped the Marlins and they lost an elite slugger.
I agree owners shouldnt pocket the revenue sharing, but I dont agree they should be forced to spend.
Sure Miggy on the Marlins would change their team; but if Andrew Miller turns into a top of the rotation pitcher, Maybin turns into an All-Star CF, and they got another kid to be productive then the those pieces would be more beneficial than Miguel- and maybe they had concerns about his weight/partying/ability to stay at 3B.
Like BoSoxSam said- Marlins are better off with Hanley than investing big money into an injury prone SP and keeping Lowell; and if say Anibal Sanchez didnt blow out his shoulder then they’d have another good piece in their rotation.
There’s a difference between not being able to spend 60m, and not seeing the benefit of spending 60m. Blocking prospects because you’re forced to sign guys isnt good for a baseball team.
Rather than have a hard floor, what if a “percentage of revenue” floor was instituted with a hard ceiling. You could do something like 55% of revenue for the floor with say a $140mil ceiling, indexed to inflation.
You could even go farther with this and make it a 100% luxury tax over a “cap” threshold which is then only distributed to teams under that threshold, but over 55% of revenue invested on payroll. This would avoid having a true capped system while encouraging competitive behavior and not really penalizing those teams that are in rebuilding mode since they don’t need the money at this point anyway.
Frank McCourt is cheap…Sell the team
“# Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports says the Dodgers should spend more aggressively, especially considering they led the league in attendance last year.”
I swear, some national writers should just not write about the Dodgers..
“Instead, they’re fretting over their starting rotation, which lacks an ace at the top and depth at the bottom.”
Depth at the bottom? Here, lets list the 5th starter candidates.. Jmac, Elbert, Haeger, Stults, Monsterios, Lindblom. Given that most teams don’t have a set 1-5 going into ST, are we really lacking depth? Aces? Oh man, I have come to hate the phrase”you need an ace to win”. By that logic, shouldn’t the Phillies have won last year, not in 08 because they had an established ace going into the playoffs in 09? And no, Hamels was not an ace. He is Philly’s Chad Billingsley. Some call him an ‘ace’ because of 4-5 good playoff starts. They call Billingsley a failure because he didn’t dominate in 5 starts. I’m sorry, I thought this was baseball. Where the first thing we do with data is look at sample sizes.. I guess not. But, when the trade talks for Halladay came up, no one thought of including Hamels, but every single fan who didn’t follow the Dodgers felt that Billz was a must. Or, even worse, Billz+ Martin + top prospects, or Kershaw + top prospects. When teams ask for that for a mid-30 year old man who wants 60M to stay, you better believe we wont trade for Halladay… Wait, Rosenthal praises Colletti for keeping Kemp and Kershaw and the kids, but rips them for not trading for Halladay? UGH
Yes, it would be really nice to spend lavishly on FAs, but think about it for a second. When we have spent highly, we signed Andruw Jones for 2/36, Jason Schmidt for 3/47 and Juan Pierre for 5/44… And each of those deals blocked a kid from getting to play.
The simple fact was this offseason, who did you want them to sign? Was Lackey worth 82 million? Where would Holliday play? Those were the ‘big guys’ this year. Or did you want to spend 30 million on Wolf, or 16 on Pinerio? Think of Ollie Perez before answering.. (Before someone says it, it is really easy to say you would have taken 16M instead of 30 to stay after you have signed the deal. But when you are in your 30s and have your best year, you don’t turn down 3 years of security at 10M/per for 2 years of security at 8M/per…)
“Wait, Rosenthal praises Colletti for keeping Kemp and Kershaw and the kids, but rips them for not trading for Halladay? UGH”
You like that, right?
It is truly amazing guys like Rosenthal, Olney and Gammons are praised throughout the league, when their ideas are contradicted within a couple lines…. Their logic is SO flawed and I’m truly suprised more haven’t realized this by now
your halfway right about fans thinking hamels was a handsoff when the halladay trades were buzzing of talks and billz being a must.
billz is making league minimium(or was), while hamels is raking in 4mil+ which makes him much less attractive in trade talks.
I know salary was part of it, but if a Dodger fan said that Hamels(talent level wise) should be included if Billingsley needed to, he’d get his head ripped off by everyone calling Hamels an ace or whatever. They are basically the same pitcher(talent wise) but it was outlandish for someone to think that Hamels should be in the conversations if Billz was…
________________________________
Roy Halladay is still in his mid-30’s and is definitely one of the top pitchers in the game. However, I understand what you’re saying, the Blue Jays wanted way too much from most teams for him and after that he had to be extended. From Detroit they wanted Porcello and Perry.
I wasnt saying that Halladay isnt one of the top pitchers, Im just saying that there is no way you trade Billingsley and Martin plus guys like Withrow and Gordon for a 30 year old who would demand 60M.. The trade they wanted would hurt the team more in the short term and long term. It is one trade I am HAPPY that Colletti didnt make.
Boy I sure hope things work out for the Red Sox this season. They have a lot of costly risks on that team the next year or two and a $20mm + bench for the 2010 season is insanity. That’s not even including the other costly mistakes they are paying for (Lugo)Not even the Yanks, Mets, Dodgers. Tigers (the other big spenders) have that bad of a scenario. At least in comparison Igewa is good batting practice in the minors. Not to say these “bench” players for the sox won’t pan out, but man I’m still scrating my head over the Red Sox moves in the last 6 – 9 months. I can’t entirely blame them for doing what they did. They had no choice whatsoever, but to go out like they did this offseason and hand out the contracts they did. If there was ever a time when I felt a team had a gun to their head, the Red Sox epitomize that winter 09/10.
They really have a $170mm + payroll of non all stars and not a single player is HOF bound, for the moment. Just saying…
If the Yankees end up getting Crawford because they needlessly beat up yet another small-mid market team I might vomit. Props to Joe Mauer for not holding out for this type of Yankee b/s. He wants to stay home where he is appreciated for who he is. The Yankees don’t do that, they just want to bully smaller market teams into giving up on good free agents so they can bring them in and continue to buy successful seasons.
“If the Yankees end up getting Crawford because they needlessly beat up yet another small-mid market team I might vomit.”
Verducci states that both Sox and Yanks will be on Crawford (kind of obvious).You gotta feel bad for a small market team like Red Sox right?
How exactly do the Yankees bully small market teams into giving up their stars? You seem to be under some impression that Cashman locked the owners of the Rays and Marlins in a room at the winter meetings and smacked them around until they promised to take the tens of millions of dollars that each team gets in revenue sharing/luxury tax money and line their pockets with it instead of spending on their ballclubs.If your point made any sense whatsoever Johan Santana would have been traded to the Yanks for the equivalent of the pathetic bag of clownshoe prospects that the Mets robbed the Twins with. But no that didnt happen, the Twins wanted Hughes, or Joba or Wang or Cano or Montero. That kinda shoots the air out of your point huh?
More likely is that the Rays would love to keep Crawford but dont want to sign him to a lengthy contract as he exits his prime years while simultaneously blocking the ridiculously good young outfield prospect Desmond Jennings they have.
I can give you a slew of stupid contracts that have been given out by clubs that the Yankees had nothing to do with. Just as easily as I can give you a bunch of Free Agents that signed for big dollars that were never attached to the Yankees. You want the Yankees to not use the fact they are the best team at bringing in revenue and not improve their team when they see fit?
Of course noone can blame the Yankees for wanting to improve their team and of course I’m not expecting the Yankees to lay off a guy because it’s unethical. That’s just flat out ridiculous. It just makes them look like idiots when they shell out insane money for exactly what they want and not knowing how to take “no” for an answer and moving on to the next best thing. The Yankees are now paying AJ Burnett money that he doesn’t deserve. AJ is a good pitcher don’t get me wrong but the money they are paying him isn’t appropriate for a pitcher his caliber. He’s good but not amazing. But he was the best available option at the time and the Yankees are now blowing wasted money on him instead of letting the Braves overpay for him and possibly going after Derek Lowe for a lot less money. See what I’m saying?
yeah they always had some sort of fettish with crawford but i wouldn’t look much into it TBH. it will be a bidding war with the winner being the loser. Crawford IMO is vastly overrated. Chances are, he is going to get a 5+ year deal essentially neutralizing his defense at year 4-6+ and his speed will go down for sure. And its not like he is a good leadoff hitter the yankees be lookin for….350ish lifetime OBP..whoopee.
Nobody ever said Mauer won’t do that…it’s just presumed.
is everyone forgetting that frank McCourt basically lost half of his earnings from the divorce?
correct me if im wrong but im not sure if they got a pre-nup or not. If they did, then yeah Frank McCourt is a cheap-o who needs to sell the team.
Thats the whole thing of the divorce. Did Frank buy the team alone, or was it 50-50. If it was 50-50, or the judge cant determine it either way, they will need to sell the team to cover the divorce costs(rumored to be at least 20M in lawyer fees, and that doesnt include whatever the judgement is..). I think 99.9999% of Dodger fans hope they have to sell the team.
And the reason McCourt is cheap is not because he isnt making money. It is because he bought the team almost completley with loans and instead of paying off the loans, bought 4(yes, FOUR!) 20M dollar homes, that he couldnt afford. He also hasnt paid taxes for the last 4 years. So he took the Dodger’s money and instead of paying for the team, lived the high life. However, he didnt think that A. this would come out, or B. that is would come out before he paid off the loans.
Let’s put it this way, if a Dodger fan sees McCourt walking on the street, we are aiming the car at him and putting the pedal to the metal..
I dont think that if i saw him on the street i would try to kill him but i would definitely shout at him and tell him to get his head out of his behind! I mean cmon….quit denying that the team isnt being hurt by the divorce. We are fielding a darn good team this year even despite the lack of spending but i mean it is just pathetic how a team like the dodgers who is always in the top 3 for attendance cant even buy a major pitcher or 2nd baseman. i will admit that there wasnt to much out on the market this year but maybe next year he will open up his wallet. AND PLEASE if you do spend than monitor Colletti. Jason Schmidt was the worst signing of all time. They were aware that he had an arm injury at the time they signed him. Thats ridiculous!!! Hey well at least all those people attending the games get the warm fuzzy feeling knowing they are paying for some darn good lawyers! lol Just sell the team Frank…and if u dont than hopefully Selig will MAKE you!!!
I think most would at least give him a piece of their mind..
And I didnt mean for it to sound like I thought this wasnt hurting the team… it no doubt is, it is just not the ways that Rosenthal is making it sound..
Trust me, Jason Schmidt was not the worst signing of all time. It was just 3 years. Now, if they did know about the injury, they are morons for signing the deal, but it doesnt make it the worst. Pick one of the contracts that are 6, 7, 8 years, and one of them will be the worst signing of all time in a short while…