Click here to read a transcript of this week’s live chat, hosted by MLBTR’s Steve Adams.
Headlines
- Dodgers Sign Daniel Hudson To One-Year Extension
- Yankees Designate Miguel Andujar For Assignment
- Stephen Vogt To Retire After 2022 Season
- Rockies Promote Ezequiel Tovar, Place Brendan Rodgers on Injured List
- Royals Fire President Of Baseball Operations Dayton Moore
- Buster Posey Joins San Francisco Giants’ Ownership Group
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MLB maybe “swimming in revenue”, but the long-term obscene contracts leave the mid and small market teams on the outside looking in.
Today’s chat spoke about Cespedes and Arrieta getting 7 years for $150M-plus. Since most teams contention windows are 3-6 years due to free agency – with those on the 5-6 year window having tanked 4 and usually 5 years – this means that a team with a low contention window stands a very good chance of being stuck with a contract (or contracts) that pretty much torpedoes their franchise for years threafter.
If MLB has so much money, fine, pay the players. But I agree with the person posing the question, the payers should be allowed to be paid on performance – with team success being a big part of the equation. I like Cespedes and Arrieta, but come on – they had 2 good years and now they’re worth a 7-year, top-of-the-line guaranteed contact? What did you say about Votto? – his contract was bad the day it was signed. Shouldn’t fans in mid and small markets be able to sign name free agents without imperiling the franchise? What kind of system is this? This reality/disparity needs to be addressed in the next CBA.
If these big contracts torpedo franchises, maybe small/mid-market teams are being protected from themselves by not being able to afford handing out these big contracts too often. Also, if player salaries should be based on performance, you have to get rid of rookie minimums and the arbitration process and make every player a free agent as soon as they reach MLB. It’s only fair for them to have the opportunity to earn real money as soon as they are contributing then.
Player salaries now have performance in them – although that is limited to things like games played. That has been done without making every player a free agent.
And if you feel that protecting mid/small markets from themselves by continuing the practice of not giving them the opportunity to be able to absorb the large contracts a large market team such as the Red Sox can when they make the mistake of paying a Craig, Rameriz, and Sandoval – that’s nice. That practice allows the large market teams to benefit from the players that pan out, while eating the contracts of those that don’t. The mid and small market teams don’t have that option. If they miss, it sucks up a good portion of their future payroll. In it’s way, it continues to make the mid and small market teams feeders of quality ballplayers to the large market teams, as many quality free agents come from mid and small market teams that can’t afford the player anymore. All that’s fine, as long as you don’t subscribe to a level playing field.
ha, gotta love the one Pujols hater. I can’t decide which of his takes is worse, that Pujols isn’t a Hall of Famer, that his Angels years (which are still very good) have somehow overshadowed his Cardinals production, or that Vladimir Guerrero’s stats ‘average better’ than Pujols’. Which: to use just one stat, Pujols’ career OPS+ is 160. Guerrero’s highest single-season OPS+ is 162.