Carlos Santana in a Marlins uniform? Surprising at it may seem, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required) reports that Miami was in talks with the Mariners about the veteran first baseman before Seattle flipped Santana to the Indians as part of a three-team deal with the Rays. It’s been a quiet offseason for the Marlins as they continue their rebuild and weigh J.T. Realmuto trade offers, though since their past fire-sale moves have cleared a lot of future payroll space, there have been indications that the Fish could use this room to potentially to add future trade chips. The Marlins had interest in free agent D.J. LeMahieu, and Santana is owed $35MM over the next two seasons.
Between the Marlins’ flexibility and Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto’s creativity in swinging deals, any number of scenarios could have been floated. The most obvious offer could have been a “buying a prospect” type of trade, where the Marlins absorb a big chunk of Santana’s salary if the Mariners added some minor leaguers along in the deal. If not a prospect, perhaps the M’s could have included a Major League player along with Santana in a package to Miami, potentially a needed reliever or a left-handed bat. Whatever was discussed, Seattle ended up preferring the return from the three-team deal (a Competitive Balance Round draft pick and $10MM in salary relief), though the Marlins are certainly emerging as a possible trade partner for teams trying to unload an ill-fitting contract.
Here’s more from Rosenthal’s latest set of notes from around baseball…
- The Reds were willing to offer J.A. Happ a three-year contract and give him more in guaranteed money than the $34MM he received from the Yankees in a two-year deal (with a $17MM vesting option for 2021). New York’s offer, however, included a higher average annual value than Cincinnati’s offer. Rosenthal speculates that Happ could have based on his decision on a desire to return to a contender, or perhaps the fact that pitchers are generally wary of the hitter-friendly Great American Ballpark.
- The Happ situation could be a reason the Reds are looking to work out an extension with Sonny Gray before acquiring him from the Yankees, a tactic that Rosenthal says has surprised some rival agents and executives. While Gray’s success outside of Yankee Stadium has made him a popular bounce-back candidate on another team, Rosenthal wonders if the right-hander might want to lock in a multi-year payday now in the wake of his 2018 struggles. Gray might welcome a chance to avoid a free agent market that has become less friendly to veterans, and Cincinnati offers him a familiar face in pitching coach Derek Johnson (Gray’s former coach at Vanderbilt).
- Rosenthal’s piece also offers a broader overview of the Reds’ offseason, which has seen the club try to make significant upgrades even while still looking like postseason longshots in the competitive NL Central. Cincinnati has been willing to trade some second-tier prospects to add established Major League players, while resisting moving any of its top minor league talents (such as Nick Senzel or Taylor Trammell).
- The Astros and Mariners both had interest in left-hander Martin Perez before Perez agreed to join the Twins yesterday. Perez picked Minnesota since he wanted to be a starting pitcher next season, which likely gave the Twins the edge over the Mets, though the other suitors might have had more room in their rotation. The Astros are thin on pitching, though since Houston plans to contend next season, it might have been a taller order to assign a starting spot to a pitcher who struggled as Perez did in 2018. The Mariners have a full rotation plus Justus Sheffield waiting in the wings at Triple-A, though more room could have made for Perez — Felix Hernandez’s health and future as a starting pitcher is questionable, and Mike Leake has been the subject of trade rumors this winter.
- Scott Boras has been vocal about what he sees as a lack of competitiveness around baseball, and has made several suggestions (though not yet officially to the league or players’ union) about ways to better motivate teams to win games — and, of course, have more incentive to spend money on Boras clients in free agency. The list includes such concepts as extra playoff teams, cash bonuses to teams that reach the postseason, and draft pick compensation for teams that sign a veteran free agent or win a draft lottery for passing various wins thresholds. Boras also proposes an anti-tanking rule that would prevent teams from receiving a top-five draft pick if they win 68 or fewer games. “Our system is like a restaurant saying, ’If I can’t be an elite, fine-dining restaurant, I am no longer going to make a good hamburger. I’m just going to give poor meat to my clientele,’ ” Boras said. “Which results in fewer patrons, a downturn in (overall major-league) attendance three years running.”
The day the league starts taking advice from Boras is the day i stop watching baseball. He doesnt do anything without his bank account in mind.
His bank account is entirely dependent on the bank accounts of the players he represents with the commissions he receives, so I’m all for him securing his clients more money rather than keeping it in the pockets of team owners.
Thank you! If you knew how much money the owners made……
What does it matter how much the owners make? Wanna change things for the teams implement a salary cap high/low
Agree how much the owners make is irrelevant. They carry 100% of the risk and therefor should make more money. Football doesn’t penalize tanking and they are relatively competitive. If boras wants competitive balance have hard salary cap, and make not all contracts 100% guaranteed
100% of the risk except for the taxpayer-funded stadiums they reap all the rewards from. And football is relatively competitive? Seriously? Didn’t the patriots just make the super bowl for Like the 6 th time in 10 years? And didn’t another NFL team lose all 16 games it played last year?
Actually it’s not irrelevant. A lot of the owners could spend more on talent, and thus field better teams that would make baseball more enjoyable for you the fan, and still make plenty of money themselves.
Hard capping how much a team can spend just gives the owners an excuse to pocket more money, and be less concerned with winning.
Boras is completely right about the current ‘playoffs or tank’ mindset being bad for baseball. The more bad teams, the more fanbases completely uninterested, and that hurts the sports growth potential.
The problem is that the owners are making money hand-over-fist even without winning. Attendance has nothing to do with profit anymore; it’s a tiny revenue stream. SO of course owners, who are for the most part just generic businessmen and not sports fans, aren’t going to pay any more money to win when they can still rake in huge money while losing. It’s the McDonald’s analogy: McDonalds can make massive profits without paying their workers a decent wage and serving its customers grade Z meat. They could make slightly less profit by using better products and paying their workers better, but why would they? It’s all just hyper-capitalism.
Patriots have all time best QB leading their team and one of the best 3 head coaches of all time. Has nothing to do with nothing else.
I’ll agree on the stadiums part, but overall making it/folding and losing a product that is probably worth 500m+ in value lies with the said owner(s) of a particular team.
Now.. As for forcing local municipalities to build stadiums? Another matter entirely. You will not find anyone as against that as am I. It is wrong and foolish. Cities will line up all these bogus proposals showing how they will pay for themselves over “X” number of years and they are as full of it as Boras is jacking up one of his clients when they are a FA.
Notice sometimes State dollars even get snuck in? Take Florida for example.. How does northern florida get any use out of a stadium in Miami? St petersburg? Just throwing this out there. State dollars are worse. Owners and private dollars only. They don’t mind selling naming rights (and pocketing the cash) use that and take out a loan.. Like we do..
Large amounts of money hardly goes into the pockets of most owners.
Profits are often rolled into out years. While all teams get graduated increased income for shared funds such as national TV/Internet and merchandise each year, to separate from the norm teams making a push to contend one year have to pony up additional monies. This is a high-wire balancing act for the 20 or so non-large market teams. We’ve seen this in the past 4 years from Kansas City, Cleveland, and Milwaukee; whose owners reached into a reservoir of funds they had accumulated over 3-4 years as developing players were getting low salaries (and attendance was low) while those teams were rebuilding. It could be argued that the Astros took the same approach, perhaps the Cubs as well.
If teams were forced to spend all their “profits” each year – as if they were in some sort if fantasy baseball league – then mid and small market teams would need a miracle to get into the playoffs, let alone go deep in them. They would always be at a financial disadvantage.
I think other teams have great coaches and quarterbacks too. The argument is that the salary cap encourages competitive balance, and it obviously doesn’t in the NFL, and it REALLY doesn’t in the NBA, where the same two teams have made it to the finals for four straight freaking years.
Yes, as has been shown in study after study, stadium deals never bring back the promised benefits. They are sweetheart deals for billionaires. Owning a sports team requires a huge investment but no real risk, because the major sports basically print money.
Oakland has the lowest payroll in baseball. Tampa Bay isn’t far behind; both have been competitive generally. Oakland won 97 games last year. I don’t begrudge the owners making profits, but making huge profits while losing, like the Padres do, rubs me the wrong way. I don’t think there should be a salary cap or floor, but I do think baseball could work towards something like a 50/50 split of revenues (it was 54/46 in favor of owners in 2018). That could be done very easily by either increasing the minimum salary or expanding rosters.
Example…….
When Cub fans were up in arms during their rebuild demanding they sign free agents, Epstein replied – “the money will be there when we need it”.
This is basic business. You spend the big money as you rollout the product.
Boras’ thinking is what killed the US auto industry. Union workers demanded ever more salary and benefits, saying they built the product. Then they RESISTed any changes that would threaten workers such as robotic equipment. So auto manufactures cut back on R-and-D because they needed those funds to pay assembly line workers more then they paid Engineers with graduate degrees; and decides, any improvements to the process that would result in a higher quality car would be scuttled by said workers. The product could not compete in either quality or cost with foreign manufactures, and there you go.
Expanding rosters is another example of something the MLBPA could bargain for in any CBA agreement, yet i doubt they ever will.. Why should they bargain over a league mininum roster slot when they could try for a master chef in the clubhouse (last time), Larger rooms while on the road for themselves. More chartered flights.. You get the idea David. it’s all about themselves and those that have “made it” and far less about some iffy guy who may take up a 26th roster spot and make minimum.
Why those same people refuse to bargain over miLB players, or refuse to allow them to join the union.. It’s alllll about them.
test
The Patriots do it in spite of the competitive balance. They are simply the best coached team. This is coming from a Steelers fan.
Who is better than Belichick? Vince Lombardi is not. The NFL is more competitive than ever and Belichick has been dominant for almost 20 years.
Agree
Patriots have the best QB and the best offensive coordinator of his era.
Ummm, you’ve heard of NAFTA, right? And right-to-work laws? That’s what killed the auto industry,(for the workers), not the Unions. I think it’s this strange narrative that the players should just be happy making less money; they still make a lot of money. So why shouldn’t the players make concessions, right? But the opposite never seems to happen: why aren’t we criticizing the owners about the money they’re making? If we think the players can survive on a few less million, can’t we equally think the same about the owners, who are already extraordinarily wealthy? I mean, using the auto workers analogy, you’re saying, “well, the workers should have just taken a bunch of pay cuts” but the CEOs of the auto companies were certainly not taking pay cuts. It’s almost cruel to blame the people doing the work in these sorts of cases, while ignoring the profiteering of the owners.
Laws that say people can’t be forced to join a union killed the car industry? Seriously? That’s the dumbest argument yet. And if you want to blame NAFTA, then explain why we had to bailout the car companies a decade before NAFTA was passed. Typical NPC talking points. Try doing your own thinking sometime, you might like it.
Even if his advice is sensible? Poppycock!
The fans are the ones that should be demanding money from the owners in lower ticket prices and concessions as well as lower prices for parking. The idea that fans think of players and owners that earn millions while they gouge Joe Punchclock at the gate is crazy. We’re the ones getting hosed, not Jose Middlerelief who earns more in a season than most fans will earn in a lifetime.
Good luck with that windmill, Don, you’re gonna need it…
I just find the entire narrative repeated by fans and agents repugnant. Somehow they got so brainwashed that they root for millionaires who earn their living by taking THEIR money. I love the game, but I gave up my season tickets in ’94 and started supporting amateur and indie teams instead. I refuse to contribute to Manny Machado’s retirement fund….at least to the degree I can control that.
Exactly! If the fans would stop going to stadiums, movies, flying, going to Disneyland, etc. for just a couple of weeks, prices would tumble. Guaranteed!
No they wouldnt…in fact many places might relish a boycott. Free publicity…which will draw more fans….and they know good and well a boycott doesnt last….and they’ll get the rebound fans and be even better off.
If baseball can work so hard to kill itself in 150 years….and survive….we shouldnt be so ignorant.
MLB WANTS you home watching on TV…theyll leave the tickets priced for their better walleted fans…attendance isnt hurting. They want to justify these major contracts on TV. They want you watching Chevy commercials between innings. It’s the NFL model.
When I think of “extended and traded” Starting Pitchers.
I think of the late great Roy Halladay, or Johan Santana…
Heck, I’ll even give you Gio Gonzalez traded to the Nats. (Extended couple of weeks after he got traded to Nats)
Sonny Gray is not what comes to mind as a starter you’re trading for, whom is dependent on an extension window.
RA Dickey
I hate Boras but I also hate tanking. It’s just so lazy.
The win minimum makes sense. There needs to be some incentive for bad teams to try.
While we’re on the subject of loser franchises, how about a rule that a franchise must play .500 ball two times every ten years. If the owner is accepting losing and their ownership is a financial exercise, they would be warned after 8 years and if they did not achieve the two .500 seasons they would have to put the franchise up for sale!
Tanking is how the cubs found success if that’s what you call it. They started it all. Then Epstein was labeled a genius.
Hard no on extending the playoffs to more teams. It’s nice that the regular season means something. Let’s not turn this into the NBA where everyone makes it into October for putting on a uniform just to earn a few extra postseason dollars.
I do like his idea to prevent tanking by incentivizing teams to hit a certain win threshold. I don’t know if I completely agree with the punishment if a team fails, but I think he’s on the right track needing something in place. Specific details just need tweaking
Maybe something along the lines of consecutive seasons below 70 wins and they lose a draft pick or 15 draft spots or something, goin into a season and being able to name teams who won’t make the playoffs and then making their fans sit through 162 games is hurting the game, I see another strike on the way
If they do that then they have to release Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, Kyle Schwarber and Alex Bregman to free agency
I like league minimum team payroll rule to come. Fine teams that dont meet minimum payroll, instead of reward with the competitive balance subsidies. Owners sacrifice this chip in bargaining.
I also like super max individual contract caps. Something like, 10/300 is biggest super max available, and AAV increases at same rate as inflation. Players sacrifice this chip in bargaining.
No limit on opt outs. So player is 29, still mashing and bashing, can opt out of previously signed super max and seek new super max, resets 10 year and gets inflation increase, if worth the money. Player take risk in this scenario and like or not, player of Bonds caliber born again, he gets super max after super max after opt out even when 34!
Super max ?
Sounds like a prison, doesn’t it?
Why would the MLB offer a 1st class meal when the patrons will pay the same price for some greasy dive’s gut bombs? Second class baseball sells tickets.
And I find it funny the same fans who buy the gut bomb baseball, will trash players while giving their tax money to Billionaire owners because they promise to put the best baseball teams money can buy on the field. Of course that is if and only if they can get tax breaks and publicly funded stadiums. Of course they don’t live up to that promise to the fans. They put the cheapest product on the field fans will buy and claim poverty while the MLB values expand to where every team is worth over a billion dollars.
You just described the Marlins.
BUt OWneRs taKe ALl ThE rIsk
If the league really cares what Boras wants to see happen, then it’s got more issues than I originally thought.
As for all this tanking talk, I think it’s disrespectful to the players on these supposedly tanking teams. I’m sure they’re giving their all.
Boras is an Ass … Commissioner works for the owners – Not Him: He’s just annoyed that the idiots that used to own teams and overpay his players aren’t doing so anymore.
Spot on!
The day of reconnecting is coming soon for the owners. They were arrogant and stupid before and they’ll be it again. Work stoppage and oppressive changes are coming in a few years.
Yep!
Come on Boras!
Really!?
Do some teams tank? At times, yes. However, sometimes it is smart for an organization to stop being mediocre and rebuild. It worked for the Astros. They stripped it completely own and then came back with great young players to be a World Series Champion. It makes sense for a team like the Blue Jays to turn the reigns over to their younger players instead of keeping older, under-producing players. A team like the Phillies waited too long to rebuild. I understand why Boras wants teams to spend money. It means more money for him. However, I don’t agree with penalizing teams for losing for a year or two. Sometimes it happens. Teams who spend money often have bad seasons. If you want teams to spend a certain amount of money, put in a salary floor that makes teams have a minimum payroll. That way no team has a payroll that is $15 million, but the team doesn’t have to spend $100 million.
Mostly tanking doesn’t work: ask any twins Fan: year 8 and Tank #2 in progress after paying for 1st class baseball with a new publicly funded stadium; which we never received. Its a great rip-off, they promise winning and you get second class teams while they pile in the dough in their bank accounts and triple team value: the Twins were worth 354 Million before Target field in 2009: Now valued at 1.15 BILLION DOLLARS..
Fivethirtyeight . com: ” But the Cubs and Astros might be special cases. Historically speaking, losing a ton of games doesn’t automatically lead to future success: Since 1969, the average team that lost between 90 and 100 games in a season ended up winning an average of 80 games five years later, with only 23 percent having at least 90 wins. By comparison, the group of teams that lost between 75 and 85 games — so, teams that started from the middle — ended up in basically the same place. They won an average of 81 games five years later, with 21 percent cracking 90 wins. In other words, clubs that bottomed out and clubs that built from a place of respectability don’t usually look that different a few years down the line… Why? Probably the same reason that possessing a highly ranked farm system has surprisingly little effect on a team’s major-league fortunes down the road. Chicago and Houston were fortunate that so many of their top farmhands turned into stars, and each has supplemented its young talent with cash spent elsewhere.”
There it is in STATISTICAL reality: Tanking isn’t the answer: The Cubs spent a ton of money and used few prospect contributions to its World series. And Building good Farm teams doesn’t mean you are building a winner: Its a scam. A lot of baseball fans have been fooled into believing. You are buying rancid hamburgers for the price of the best Lobster dinner.
Losing is very profitable if you slap a rebuilding label on it and fool the fans with second rate baseball.
Statistical reality?
You didn’t prove what you think you did.
Im not sure what your points are so this is simply a dispute of the supposed statistical reality you mention.
It doesn’t make sense to just spend money for the sake of spending money. I’m a Blue Jays fan & I’m totally onboard with the rebuild. It makes zero sense for them to hand out more bad contracts on mediocre players to finish nowhere near the playoffs. Let the kids play and gain experience. It also doesn’t make sense for a team like the Orioles to spend a ton of money when they have no chance of winning. Does it work all the time? No. Nothing does. However, it worked for the Astros. It worked for the Cubs. It has been working for the Braves. The Nationals developed a ton of talent. After the talent develops, then you spend. No need to spend every year just because an agent is mad
^Yep. All about the youth movement with many teams which squeezes some vets from getting paid. That said, I’d like Tellez to start at 1B this season and see if he can hack it. Jays need to do something about Smoak or Morales, or both.
It doesnt seem like baseball fans know what tanking is and agents are pretending tanking and rebuilding are the same thing in an attempt to get teams to spend more money every year.
Tanking is losing games to get a higher draft choice
Rebuilding is paying off your old overpays to Boras clients and the loans you took out to extend your last window while you rebuild your farm.
When your debts are paid, your farm is rebuilt and you have some money saved up you go for it again until the team isn’t good enough to compete and then rebuild again.
The option is to have a consistent team that plays about 500 every year but is never much more than average.
How much better is Bryce Harper then a replacement level player? For every big contract that was mutually beneficial (Jeter, Kershaw, Bonds) there are many more that in hindsight did not pay off for the team (Kevin Brown, Carl Crawford, Prince Fielder).
Harper is 26. Personally I think he has the potential to become even better. I would not mind my team signing him to a 10 year deal, considering that 6 of those years he’ll still be in his “prime”.
Harper had one monumental season in 2105. He hasn’t been half as good in the three years prior to that and since that (based on WAR).. He was fast, athletic and had a great arm. At 26, he’s an old man and defensive liability. Whoever signs Harper is screwed.
Brown is a pitcher, and pitchers are risky investments because they get hurt. Crawford didn’t walk and relied almost entirely on athleticism – that ages out quickly and players of his type never age well. Fielder suffered a career-ending injury that couldn’t have been predicted; I know a lot of people think it’s because he was a big fat guy but that doesn’t actually seem to be the case. Teams are smarter now; Harper’s skillset – power and walks – tends to age well, and he’s still incredibly young. The injury history is the only real concern. The defense in 2018 was weird – he’s never been a bad defender before – and might just be an outlier.
MLB and MLBPA needs to swing pendulum back to vitality of current MLB rosters and not to what the future may hold…I understand the value of looking ahead, but by doing so teams leave whats currently here by the wayside
Generally speaking I don’t agree with anything Boras says… but I have to admit, I like the anti-tanking rule. I would actually make it 70 rather than 68. If you can’t win 70 in a year, no first round draft pick.
I also believe the luxury tax should go away, and be replaced with a hard cap… so obviously I don’t agree with just about anything else Boras stands for.
Me too, but if you have the injury bug hit, should you be punished for it? Or if just enough people get hurt, and just enough healthy guys struggle, should that mean you get punished?
You could be good one year, make some “solid” moves, but hey you overachieved and the the guys you got suck.
In 1980 there were 8 teams with a record of 70 wins or fewer-and with not as many teams as in 2018, when there were 5 such teams.
The Pirates and Rays were terrible for a long time, got high draft picks, but were badly run. That changed for the Rays in the mid 2000’s when Gerry Hunsicker went there. They took the bad record but drafted well, and developed well, along with makimg shrewed trades.
Not all the teams that lose will win out in the end. You have to draft well, develop them, and hope they don’t get hurt.
so if a team loses they get less players and somehow get better? lol wtf. what they need is a hard cap and a minimum. regardless of some fans delusions and agents owners dont spend what they dont make regardless how rich they are. u could require younger players and minor league players to make more money. that’s what the agents and unions want is $$ they dont care about the players or the game just the cut.
Statistical reality?
You didn’t prove what you think you did.
Im not sure what your points are so this is simply a dispute of the supposed statistical reality you mention.
No idea why they went there.
Posting on a phone isn’t worth it.
Didn’t boras say the Braves weren’t trying to win last year? To me, if a team clogs it’s roster with 5-6 free agents that can’t play anymore, they’re the ones that are non-competitive.
League wide DH
Lose a few games in the regular season, just a few, and expand that fruity one game playoff to 3 games, making the playoff set 3/5/7/7 games.
Balanced schedule, 15 teams per league, no divisions. Best teams make the playoffs.
Market the sport to women, and mandate seating having more affordable options.
Make the strike zone larger.
Force pitchers to work quickly.
Make celebrations explicitly allowed with reasonable guidelines and limitations.
Meh, whatever.
Or just leave the game alone and realize that it has thrived for decades without those rules.
hiflew I am flagging your comment for making too much common sense. , especially for all the Boras and player’s crack smackers on here
Prior to two decades ago hitters weren’t wearing body armor. Take the elbow and forearm guards off, It’s a performance enhancer and it hurts pitchers.
But since everyone’s allowed it, the game hasn’t been left alone along with the catcher collision rule, intentional walks and breaking up DPs on the bases. Reverse all this and the game will thrive as you said.
So surprising that King Scott would want to penalize teams that cannot afford to overpay for his overrated clientele!! It’s not hard to figure out who the fans of the large market teams are and who the fans of the small market teams are on the comments. Baseball is being ruined by greed, the owners appear to be finally taking a stand against the insane overpaying for average players.
There doesn’t need to be penalties for teams that don’t win 68 games a year, there doesn’t need to be incentives to win, there needs to be a salary cap to keep the playing field more even. It’s just common sense that the A’s, Reds, Twins, Pirates, Royals, Indians, Rays, etc are not going to be able to compete in the free agent market with the NYY, LAD, LAA, Giants, Cubs, Red Sox, etc. That disparity doesn’t exist in the other major sports, only in the greedy world of MLB. They’re pricing the average, everyday working class fan out of the game. It’s hard to watch your favorite team be forced to tear down a playoff contender and suffer through 4-8 years of rebuilding all because they “missed their window of opportunity” because their top players were in their last year of team control and the big market teams are going to swoop in and pay twice what they can. Pure greed!!
Well, that is what happened in the past. Look at the new reality, however. Teams can re-sign their players, if they still want them. Most teams are building waves of players in the minors, so that when their current 3rd baseman or left fielder is going into free agency, there’s someone ready to take their place. Look at the nationals. They could sign harper, but with Soto and Robles in place, they don’t really have to.
More teams look at their farm system and project when guys will arrive in the bigs. So if they think prospect A will be ready in 2 years, and Free Agent A playing the same position wants a 4 or 5 year deal, front office might say 2 years max or else. Agent of Free Agent A says no thanks and looks for another team. Teams are trying to develop their own players through their system.
Boras makes me laugh. He would like to see the game change to accommodate his greed. While the off seasons can be pretty boring compared to years ago, you can’t blame teams for reigning it in. The list of players who were handed a ton of money and years only to under perform or become quickly injured is long and not sustainable. Too many teams have gotten burned for it not to have some effect. I don’t blame teams for being more cautious and patient. The ridiculous direction that salaries have gone in has made it tougher and tougher for most teams to compete. That’s why decent prospects have become the new thing. It’s refreshing when teams without huge payrolls are in the mix. Boras is interested in one thing:$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$l
Players and agents want the economics of MLB to be ‘ what the market will be bear’ vs ‘ pay for performance’. Paying mediocre players 8-10 million dollars a season is not only bad economics it’s demoralizing. That’s still a lot of money and mediocre doesn’t deserve it. Baseball will be ruined before too long if this trend continues. For generations in baseball, average players were payed in an average way. When that artificially and arbitrarily changes the entire business model is in danger
What were Boras’ earnings last year? They know the players , and pretend they know the owners….What’s his income?? Soon as I hear his name I stop listening.
Before we mock Boras too much, if you took some of his ideas on competitiveness and tanking and erased “Boras” from them, some of us might find a lot to agree with. As fans we want a competitive team–and we want our team to play competitive teams. MLB has always had a few losing teams–poorly constructed, unlucky with injuries or age. But none of them were trying to be bad.
That’s right. Rosenthal started out his piece by redacting Boras’s name from the suggestions, because he knew the mention of Boras would create noise which would drown out discussion of the merits of the ideas.
The season itself needs to be a week shorter, but the extra Wild Card games idea has merit. More fans would be invested in the final weeks of the season, and the drama of successive do-or-die playoff games would likewise hold fan interest.
I’ve long thought that the NLCS and ALCS should revert to best-of-5 (as it was pre-1985), to shorten the playoffs by 3-4 days. Those days saved would balance out the extra Wild Card dates. The season needs to wrap up earlier in October, before the night weather in many of the MLB cities just gets horrible.
1 tanking teams do not receive revenue sharing.
2 get rid of luxury tax altogether. That’s the reason big market teams are not spending
3 players do need to live up to their contracts. In the real world if you are not performing at your job you are fired. Simple as that. Yes Owners are rich billionaires but if players are offered $200mm but want $300mm? Greed. I big huge baseball fan and agreed that players should be paid for their talents, but cmon!!
4. None of this were going to strike in 3 years. You sit down and you work it out now’! !!!
Why wait??? Tell me why??? You strike or threaten to you are going to lose a lot of fans.
You have 3 YEARS!!! Get it done now!!!
You say players need to live up to there contracts and thats fine but how about young players recieving next to nothing and far over performing there contracts. Shouldn’t they get paid for what they’re doing.Both Torres and Andujar on the Yankees and Soto on the Nationals are going to be getting some of the lowest contracts n baseball. While Degrom ia getting a nice contract of 17 mill the truth is he’s the best pitcher in baseball and should be paid as such. If players have to live up to the contract how about new contracts for players who out perform there contracts.You talk about the real world.In the real world a top performer either gets paid more by his boss or gets a higher paying job elsewhere. You can’t say on one side under performing players get hurt but over performing players don’t get increases.It has to go both ways
Correct. The 6 years of team control (3 years of unilateral renewals, followed by 3 of arbitration) often skims the prime years of that player’s career. Remember, Harper and Machado are unique because both are in mid-20s, but most FA are late 20s to early-30s by the time the get their chance. Most are statistically in the downward arc of their careers by then.
There are a slew of problems in baseball that need to be dealt with. Here are the ones i deem important.
Flip the script on the draft. Quit incentivizing losing by giving the worst teams the highest picks. Have the draft order where the team with the best record receive the top pick on down to the team with the worst record getting the 30th pick. Incentivize winning.
Change team control from 6 years to 4. After the second year, the player goes to arb and after 4 years, the player gains free agency.
Have an international draft. It’s well past time and base it on the same order as listed above for the domestic draft.
Employ a cap floor and graduate it in the same manner as the luxury tax is now graduated.
Do away with the QO. Allow teams to exclusively negotiate with their free agents for 10 days after the WS is completed instead of the 5 now that is the rule.
Add 1 new team per league. Do away with interleague play.
Go back to 2 divisions per league with 8 teams in each. Drop the number of games from 162 to 144 for the regular season. Each team plays 16 games against their division foes and 4 versus the other league’s division teams. This will end the regular season earlier and allow the playoffs to begin sooner with less chance of bad weather and the cold affecting games/series.
Top 4 teams in each division make the playoffs. First round pits division teams 1 v 4 and 2 v 3 in a 3 game series with the first 2 games played at the higher seed’s park. Second round pits the high seed versus lower seed in a 7 game series with the same format as is now set for the LDS. LCS is played in the same 7 game series that is now set between the 2 division winners. Having the playoffs and WS earlier will allow things to finish earlier and not as deep into the NFL season so ratings should be better.
Compensate minor leaguers better. Give them a livable salary for what is now a year round job. This can be graduated as prospects climb the minor league ladder.
Cap what a community/city/state can pay for a team’s new ballpark at 10% of the original estimated cost and the team/owner(s) must repay the total, with interest, within 10 years from date of the first game/event played in said ballpark.
I agree with ending inter league games but let’s have 2 expansion teams and have 8 divisions of 4. 16 in al and nl. Eliminate wild card 1 seed plays 4 seed 2 vs 3. Each series best of seven
Stick w 162 game season. Intradivision play each team 14 times. Other teams play 10 times. 14*3=42; 12*10=120; 42+120=162
This would be a more balanced schedule
Balance is overrated. What most teams want is to play their rivals more than some team 2000 miles away.
8 divisions? Completely unnecessary.
Giving the best new talent to the teams that are already good would destroy the league. The good teams would stay good at the bad teams stuck in a downward spiral that would drive their fans away and doom them.
Giving the no.1 pick to the team closest to say .500 and then work backwards from there (then the teams above .500 as normally) would make more sense, since it’s still improving the bad teams but rewarding those who are trying.
No it wouldn’t. What it would do is make teams that want to tank think twice. Why shouldn’t teams who put the best team they can out there not be rewarded?
And leave the bad teams who didn’t try to get there doomed…
If you want baseball to wind up an 8 team league, this is a good idea
If you’re sane, not so much…
Teams that tank should be given a penalty. There are decent players available in free agency right now that are better than many players on bad teams.
Marwin Gonzalez could start on every single team that was under .500 last year and he could fit every payroll.
Gio Gonzalez would not be much of a financial commitment and he’s still available.
Moustakas is a solid 3B. There are many teams he could play for.
Moldonado, a gold glove catcher still has no home.
It’s because the bad teams are competing for top draft picks and not to put the best product on the field.
I do t agree with giving the top pick to the best team. Like Petrie said, you will be making the rich richer and the poor poorer with that method.
“Flip the script on the draft. Quit incentivizing losing by giving the worst teams the highest picks. Have the draft order where the team with the best record receive the top pick on down to the team with the worst record getting the 30th pick. Incentivize winning.”
So, using the same logic, we could have the rich pay no taxes while heavily taxing the poor since this will incentivize the poor to become rich. That should even things out very quickly, right?
The answer is a draft lottery. If you want to tank and end up picking #8, have fun with that. Limit teams to no more than two consecutive top 5 picks, also.
The draft being reversed and the best team getting top pick would be unfair in the beginning, but once the team’s 40 man roster is full of great players, the other players are subject to getting picked off. The team that is very successful is then developing these good players, which saves the bad teams money. The bad teams get players that have 4 years under their belts and they are easier to project.
Love or hate Boras, can we all agree he is terrible with analogies?
Did someone say bad analogies? Scott Boras is to baseball is like duct tape is to my broken mirror in my Buick. It serves a purpose but it sure does look bad.
Wonder if the Reds could move prospects for a pitcher like Stripling? Why stop now at adding arms, if your going in might as well go all in while keeping Trammell and Senzel.
Boras is right for once. The lack of competitive balance is the number one problem in baseball today. Half the league’s teams effectively see their seasons end after Opening Day.
The solution to this is the same as it is in every other league: a cap/floor system.
The knee jerk reaction to this idea seems to be that is anti-player and pro-owner. This reaction ignores both math and reality. The players currently take home about 39% of MLB revenue’s and that share is declining. In the cap leagues, that number is about 50%. MLB players would take home an extra $1 billion a year under such a system.
Does anyone think the owners are going to voluntarily pay out an extra $1 billion in salaries any time soon? Any faith that Tony Clark is going to go from getting rolled in each new CBA to suddenly crushing the owners?
Anyone grounded in reality knows that both of these answers are “no”.
The parity (of opportunity, not necessarily outcomes) would be far superior to the handful of “born on third” teams and the remaining wanna-be Horatio Alger teams the league has today.
Hey Boras…instead of being a leach & making money off of others, why don’t you buy a team? Or, is it easier to just be a leach off of someone else’s revenue?
That’s a really poor take.
His job is to represent the player’s best interest. The players he represents don’t argue about the three years of unilateral contract renewals, and don’t go into arbitration—they take whatever the team offers. He knows FA is their opportunity to make maybe their only shot at a big contract.
If you were gifted with the ability to hit a curveball—or the ability to throw an unhittable curveball—you would hire Boras in a heartbeat. He gets the highest possible returns for his clients. That is the reason a player hires an agent, and demonizing him simply ignores the job of the agent. Agents like Boras, Lozano, Landis and others are as much a part of the business of the game as waivers and the draft.
I don’t like rewarding losing. All the picks are randomly chosen. ( maybe non-playoff teams first, then the playoff team’s follow) Reverse order second time through.
No draft picks for teams that lose a free agent.
No Qualifying Offer.
Last place team three years in a row and you are subject to league management. League appoints a GM to clean house and rebuild. Last place in attendance, subject to relocation.
This “tanking” needs to end.
Increase rosters to 27 active and have a 45 man roster including injuries. Anyone with more than 6 years with a team and not on the 45, they can be rule 5’d.
I agree with anti tanking rule but all the other comments with signing veterans is complete nonsense..
The Reds losing out on Happ, as the article also points out, cripples Boras’ “tanking” argument. Teams that aren’t projected to do as well in the standings can offer all they want to free agents. But teams like the Yankees, Braves and Dodgers to name a few, will be more appealing.
The salaries in baseball are flat out insane. And this is simply a market correction. Sane minded owners no longer want these insane 10-13 year deals. There is simply way too much risk. Why pay for 4-5 good years at the expense of hamstringing your payroll for an equal timeframe. The delta in performance is simply not worth it. How did the Orioles and Nats do with Manny and Bryce last year?
If you want the best players to get paid, then change the system to pay the best players at a younger age. Without PEDs teams aren’t paying big to players on the wrong side of 30. Make free agency begin 6 years after being drafted, ..no matter what. Vlad Jr, Bichette, Acuna, Trout, Bryant, shouldn’t have been made to stay in the minors longer than necessary just so teams could hang on to them longer. There’s NO WAY Vlad Jr shouldn’t have started last year. Pay the players up front when their producing. Also, make only 3 or 4 years of a contract guaranteed. Who the hell wants to be on the hook for 10 years
Minor correction. Trout was not held in the minor leagues to avoid paying him.
He was brought up late 2011, he was horrible. He was ill during spring training of 2012 and unable to play much. He got back in shape at AAA, and the Angels brought him up in late April. Had they waited three more weeks, they would have gotten another year out of him.
That’s also the year they missed the Wild Card by one game.
Boras with his food references again. This “burger” one might be up there with the main course analysis he gave a while ago. Something along the lines of “it doesn’t matter when you arrive for dinner when you’re the main course” (or something like that). Somebody feed that guy!
I’m not sure why everyone knows that every owner of a major league team reviews millions of dollars in cash every year.
McCourt had to borrow 30 million dollars to meet payroll. OK, maybe he was skimming money. Maybe he was using the day to day profits to pay other debt. Maybe.. But….
Gene Autry owned the Angels, he was losing money every year, he couldn’t keep up. We know Disney lost money, then they sold the team for less money than they put in. Moreno says he’s losing a little money every year.
Sure, they can sell the team for big profits, but how does everyone know every year more money is coming in than is going out? Are people seeing documents I’m not seeing? Or they just assume all owners are making a ton of money.
They don’t. That is why I ask anyone talking about “record revenue” if they know the team’s total expenses. I never get an answer. They don’t know and don’t have a clue. They are the type that would win $50-million in a lottery and be $10-mil debt within 5 years.
They also do not know what it’s like to be a business owner nor do they understand the day-to-day crap they have to deal with. It’s very easy to have a say over money that isn’t yours.
“Maybe” McCourt was skimming money from the Dodgers?
Through the team, Frank and Jamie McCourt bought side-by-side mansions in Beverly Hills, and side-by-side homes in Malibu. He was highly leveraged and had little liquid cash of his own, but Fox was so anxious to get out of the ownership it floated him terms to close the deal.
As an aside, Jamie McCourt is currently US Ambassador to Monaco, and Frank still owns the land surrounding Dodger Stadium. Both odious people, failing upward.
McCourt lost his shirt in a divorce and Autry’s been dead 20 years, so I’m not sure you picked too great examples there…
If teams were losing money they’d be for sale. When you have a billion dollar asset that’s costing you, smart businessmen dump that cost on someone else.
The majority on here don’t understand that there is a difference between revenues and profits. They also don’t understand that if a team is unprofitable , that It doesn’t immediately go up for sale , much like any business where the owner feels like he can turn it around.