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Dock_Elvis
Red Sox need better analyses? What? THE team for this in our post Billy Beane infatuated media age? Bill James retire? Analysis still not 100% of the game yet?
governator
Not to mention David Price is obviously a FA at the end of the year as well.
Dock_Elvis
Jays have all the makings of this offseasons “patsy” in free agency. The one agents use to drive up prices for their free agents. It’s not that Toronto isn’t a viable option…but the exchange rates and taxes play into things.
pon21
Don’t let facts get in the way. What do exchange rates have to do with anything? They are paid in US dollars. So there money is worth MORE in Canada. LA/Anaheim/NY all have higher tax rates.
ttp://www.tsn.ca/taxman-wins-when-contracts-are-signed-1.322654
Also not to mention ways around taxes depending where you have residence.
Dock_Elvis
$1 American is worth $.76 Canadian currently. Players also pay tax on their income when they visit other states….California has a staggering entertainer tax. Not that Price will simply go for top dollar….but Texas has zero state income tax. Simple things like fuel at the pump is also more expensive in Canada…perhaps 50 cents per gallon or more. So your American dollar gets you 76 cents to purchase fuel that’s the equivalent of 50 cents higher…that amount always moves…but Canada is typically more expensive. Thank goodness they get paid American right now or Toronto wouldn’t be able to draw players in…a $200m American contract would have $150m value in Canadian without the same purchasing power. It’d be a wash if living in Canada was on average 3/4 as expensive as America, but its not… And in MANY American locations its not by a long shot. Granted… These guys make so much money that they price at the pump isn’t such a big deal to them….but get away from the NE corridor and California and your money plays much better. Maybe New York or San Francisco comp to Toronto…but not most places…not even Florida. Texas is solid… But even places like Kansas City sneak in as valuable…that’s a place where same sqft real estate goes for half of SoCal
backinblue
I think you need to learn how to interpret exchange rates. $1 CANADIAN is worth 76 Cents USD. You have it backwards.
$1 US will buy you $1.31 Canadian. Jesus. Is it that hard?
So at the pump your American Dollar gets you $1.31, not 76 cents. A 200mil USD contract would get you 262mil Canadian.
You do have a point about gas and general cost of living being more expensive in Toronto than in many US States (especially those low/no state income tax states like Florida, Texas, Ohio, etc.), but that is OFFSET, not made worse, by the fact the players are paid in USD.
jnorthey
Of course in Canada you are far less likely to be shot, lower crime rate, free health care (not an issue for ML players) and if you pitch for Toronto you get an offense that is killer to help your HOF chances (since voters are addicted to wins)
Dock_Elvis
Free health care my rear…someone pays for it and its what makes the cost of living so high.
jnorthey
You Americans are funny. Your system costs as much as 50% more with fear of losing your health care if you lose your job…people go to work sick. Up here it is part of our taxes, yes, but unless you think being poor = deserve to die or live with fixable injuries then you should prefer a system like ours.
Dock_Elvis
No…I like Canada and your system. I think what it comes down to is people in America choosing personal freedom over govt control. There’s not much the govt controls that doesn’t turn into a bureaucratic nightmare here. Hospitals cannot refuse service here…so we essentially do have socialized medicine. How bureaucratic is your health care system…I’m curious.
America just has some historic flaws.
tony86
For services covered by provincial healthcare insurance the bureaucracy for the patient is much less than with a private insurer. You just present your health care card, there is no approval process or anything like that, doctor takes care of you and you leave when you are better.
Not everything is covered by our medicare programs, medicine you get while you are under care in a hospital is covered, but prescriptions you have to pay for at the pharmacy, dental is not usually covered, so generally many Canadians have private insurance as well to cover these. That is when the real stress comes in, the forms, and having claims rejected, paying up front and having to wait for your money.
So I would say, while there are good and bad parts of our system (cause it is a hard expensive problem and perfect solutions don’t exist). The best part we love as Canadians most is that when you are sick you can go to the hospital and not have to worry justifying treatment, having some suit second guess your doctor, whether we can afford to get better.
Dock_Elvis
Let me say that you guys have the best radio team in the entire game… I listen to Howarth all the time…I might have liked Ashby better with him..but its alright
Dock_Elvis
We’ll see how sustainable the free health care is as the population expands.
Dock_Elvis
I just went and looked into Toronto’s murder rate.. Astonishing.. 2/100,000 ratio. I live in a city of about 200,000 and my murder rate is 6/100,000. Wow…maybe Toronto will sign me. I don’t care about taxes or anything… My wife is a CPA… Sign me up
Dock_Elvis
I did get the exchange backwards when I typed it…but that still makes the purchasing power less in Canada given the higher taxes and goods pricing. What I’m really saying is that Toronto does not have an economic advantage, nor does it have much else to sell it in the way that a California team might. The Jays will have a tough go attracting free agents… The deck is against them. Its more than just economics, its the turf right now and many other things.
Dock_Elvis
Top US tax bracket is 35%, while top Canadian is 29%….but free agents are hurt in Canada due to fewer deductible amounts. It appears that lower income people might benefit more in Canada. I’m not going to get off on any us/Canada sociology discussions…I really love Canada and its hard to compare two different environments and political systems
peyton
I was in Vancouver last summer and did the conversions at this one gas station (although to be fair Vancouver is extremely expensive even for Canada and I think this gas station was particularly high as well) and gas was $6.80 CAD a gallon. Six dollars and eighty cents.
Steve Adams
Ha, I had Price in there, re-ordered the names and somehow left him off. Brain malfunction. Adding him back to the post now. Thanks.
brando 2
Oh, and the lesser know David Price will also be a free agent.
Steve Adams
Sounds vaguely familiar, but doesn’t he play for the Rays? (Jokes aside, thanks — somehow left his name off but have added to the post.)
mookiessnarl
Well since the Red Sox obviously need to overhaul the bullpen in the off season perhaps Dombrowski isn’t the best choice.
Dock_Elvis
I hope the Red Sox also feel that way, because it denies a mans solid +30 years of solid baseball expertise and allows another team to get him
mookiessnarl
30+ years of baseball experience. 1 World Series title. And the bullpen comment was a joke.
Dock_Elvis
Yeah, I figured it was a joke….30 years of putting teams in position to compete. I suppose Billy Beane fails as well. DD has been successful everywhere and in a major capacity under some kind of economic strain. That 94 Expos team was built on his organization… They were solid. I’m not sure calling out a guy for lack of rings is a great idea…what did Scheirholtz win? 2? Every team without a rock solid front office is picking the phone up to DD
mookiessnarl
His last few years haven’t shown much. They’ve shown he can put together 99% of a winning team but can’t seem to shore up the same problem for multiple seasons in a row. He’s a solid executive, but he’s had all the money he could want and nothing but almost there to show for it. Beane’s failure to win it all more or less proves moneyball is nice to talk about but doesn’t really work when it comes to championships. And his team building for this season was questionable at best. I’m sure there will be lost of interest in Dombrowski. But had he managed to get the Tigers over the hump in the past 4 years, he wouldn’t be unemployed.
Dock_Elvis
Well, DD was forced into making moves for an elderly owner…ultimately the teams were there and it’s the team failure on the field. He built winners on a 162 game model. Would he have been fired if they’d have won? Only if Illitch didn’t have his ring fix satiated. I think this was more about Illitch than about Dombrowski. DD has admitted in interviews that he didn’t think the team could win this season… But it seems Illitch wants to press on. Illitch also wants to write checks to do that. I don’t get the impression Illitch is enamored with holding a top draft pick as an 86 year old.
I just zone out at the term Moneyball. I won’t even get started on that. Way too much polarization on that that doesn’t present the mixed reality of baseball operations
At this point DD was likely telling Illitch…we need to do some kind of rebuild, and Illitch is saying he’s 86
Dock_Elvis
As far as the pen….yeah..that’s been bad. But its tricky predicting that. It’s actually the one thing that Dayton Moore did well from the start…figured out how to not pay for so much uncertainty.
mike156
Ah, Ortiz, a man so picked upon by the press….
dmm1047
The Sox have found themselves in a huge hole and unless Henry steps back and let’s a real “hands on” baseball guy run the show, the Sox are doomed for years to come. From top to bottom, the Sox ops staff positions need wholesale changes.
bruinsfan94 2
They have a great farm team and a nice young core and tons of money. They are looking to compete in 2017.
Justin 21
What happened to Kelly, Porcello, and Masterson? Career ERA in the mid 4’s (Kelly at 3.98), but this year they all jump to 6. Defense? I guess Masterson was the same pitcher last year though. Thought John Farrell was a decent pitching coach before.