Here are some notes from the GM Meetings as team owners and presidents check in to Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel in anticipation of the quarterly Owners Meetings:
- Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos is strongly considering re-signing free agent second baseman Kelly Johnson. “There’s a lot of scenarios and ways that we could go and bringing Kelly back is certainly one of them,” Anthopoulos said. He declined to comment on possible changes to the Elias rankings system, but it’s something the Blue Jays will monitor closely given the many ranked free agents they have this offseason. Johnson is a Type A free agent, but he may become a Type B under the upcoming CBA.
- The Blue Jays would like to add starting pitching, but they don’t intend to force an acquisition, since they consider it more of a want than a need. “If we can get a front-to-mid-rotation starter, we’d love to do that,” Anthopoulos told MLBTR. “At the same time I think every team would tell you the same thing. Everyone’s going to look for that.”
- Carlos Zambrano met with Cubs president Theo Epstein this week to discuss his future with the team. GM Jed Hoyer says the Cubs are still in the process of determining how the right-hander fits in to the 2012 plan. “He’s in very good shape,” Hoyer said. “He had a very good lunch with Theo the other day. He’s had some incidents here — we can’t ignore the past, but at the same time we talked about a lot of things we can do. It’s too early to make a decision, but so far it’s been positive.”
Dear Kelly Johnson,
The St. Louis Cardinals would like to offer you a 2 year 10MM contract with a club option and a 300,000 incentive if you hit over .300 or 20+ homeruns.
-MO
Dear Cardinals,
Meh. I am sure if I wait, I can find something better than that.
-KJ
Dear Cardinals,
You aren’t satisfied with the awesome Ryan Theriot? Please lock him up to a reasonable 20MM/5 year deal.
-Cubs FO
Ryan Theriot is awesome as a platoon 2nd baseman. Not an everyday SS.
Sign him anyways! The Cubs need any help they can get!!! lol
Be patient. Cubs could be extremely competitive sometime this century.
Unfortunately, people around the internet want the Cubs to be competitive every year. I want them to actually step back, try to field a COMPETENT team for a change and hope for almost .500 while trying to build up the farm and then in 2015 Marlins and Rays contract to one team, stay in the AL, and change their name to Miami Gators. This is what I’m being patient for.
FINALLY!!! A smart Cubs fan. You guys have great young talent. Just give them a couple years to develop and maybe make a couple big signings down the road.
Dear ubercubsfan,
6 years with the cubs 1 division title… 1 year with the Cardinals 1 Wild Card, 1 NLCS championship, and 1 WORLD SERIES.
-R. Theriot
Thank god he’s on the right side of the rivalry! They do things right in St. Louis. Now lock up Pujols to a 10 year deal and don’t forget Theriot!
Dear St. Louis Cardinas,
Thank you for your first round pick in this years draft.
-AA
AA is probably very disappointed in the way major league baseball is quickly closing all his venues to make the team better, which also hurts other teams that were following the same plan. He tries to obtain many draft picks, simple, eliminate type B compensation, making acquiring players useless. He turns his attention to international free agency, simple, just put a hard cap and floor on international free agency. Instead of signing many top-ranked international free agents, there could now be as many as ten teams offer the same player the same contract. The player then has his choice which team he plays for, since he gets the same contract from all of them. The rich teams just offer the highest contract possible, knowing it will eliminate many other teams from the list. The players get maximum money, which makes the union happy, but it also means the same eight teams compete in October every year, since they are usually the highest payroll teams.
Just an example: If teams like Philly, Boston, the Angels, and Yankees offer Cespedes the max contract, with Toronto, Kansas City, Arizona, etc also offering the same contract, the player chooses one of Boston, Philly, or the Yankees 100% of the time, making them stronger every year, weakening everyone else. Ratings are always high, because you have the same four teams playing the world series every year and money buys championships, which has been the outrage of fans for years. The only way parity is obtained is to set the luxury tax on everything over 120M a season and raise the percentage to 50 %, so everyone can compete. New York would then face a 40M tax on its payroll every year. Boston, 35M, the Phillies, 25M, etc.
2011: Cardinals/Rangers
2010: Giants/Rangers
2009: Phillies/Yankees
2008: Phillies/Rays
2007: Rockies/Red Sox
2006: Cardinals/Tigers
2005: Astros/White Sox
2004: Cardinals/Red Sox
2003: Marlins/Yankees
2002: Giants/Angels
2001: Diamondbacks/Yankees
________________________
There’s only 2 instances a team repeated in a trip to the World Series (Phillies, Texas), so hardly the same four make the World Series. The best payroll, best team, whatever, have hardly won besides a few instances. The # of different teams that make the playoffs every year is also high.
The main jist I got out of your post though was that you want to remove the player’s free will by having equal contracts to choose from?
Does it suck that AA is losing ways to make his team better? yes, but there’s other ways to do it. He’s a smart enough guy to find a new road to travel in attempting to better the franchise.
It’s not fair that guys like Josh Willingham have their market cut in half because they’re not worth a first round pick.
The point I am making is it doesn’t mean anything right now, where different teams can make the world series. I am talking about the future, where teams become powerhouses that easily beat the competition, because the rules are now geared in their favour to field nothing but superstars at every position. It may not appear for 2 – 3 – perhaps 5 years from now, but it will appear, where you have no one except the top four teams competing every year in October. How does that benefit the league? To penalize GM’s for being inventive to improve their teams, because the big kids just sign everyone they want is a blatant attempt to handicap small-market teams from ever competing, unless they raise payrolls into the 200M stratosphere too, which many markets can’t justify. It is just greed, where the union wants everyone making 20M a year for 10 years, and who cares about the fans that are left holding the bag.
If teams are good at drafting and making good, cheap trades they can be competitive with only a few decent sized contracts. Like the Cardinals. Albert, Holliday, Berkman, Wainwright, and Carpenter all are paid well, but the rest of team is cheap and productive. So, instead of blaming the big market teams for stealing everyone, blame the small market fans for not supporting their teams.
You know what’s funny? that people take offense to the “big market teams” who choose to pump money in their teams and be competitive, but don’t realize that the “small market teams” are just teams with owners who choose not to spend and pocket the revenue.
Castro to the Braves???
Do you think Zambrano felt obligated to order the Grilled Chicken?
Theres gotta be a way to compensate teams losing a Type A without diminishing the players value.
just give 2 supplementary picks. you still need a way to limit the # of type A signings for a single team, though
Hard Salary Cap!
Hi Frank,
I like your suggestion with two supplementary picks.
My suggestion for Type A free agency compensation, to forfeit the 2nd round pick + supplementary pick. That way teams can stop b*tching about about loosing their 1st round draft pick.
And if a single team signs two Type A free agents, then that team looses it’s 2nd round & 3rd round draft pick, while also allowing the former teams to take their supplementary picks.
“He had a very good lunch with Theo the other day”, oo! He ordered London Broil, Theo must really want to keep him!