Click here to view the transcript of today’s chat with MLBTR’s Anthony Franco.
Headlines
- Boras: Michael Conforto Not Ruling Out Late-Season Return
- Mariners Option Jarred Kelenic, Claim Adrian Sampson
- Kumar Rocker Signs With Frontier League’s Tri-City ValleyCats
- Dodgers Place Clayton Kershaw On Injured List
- Bryce Harper Has Tear In UCL, Won’t Throw For Four Weeks
- Padres Sign Robinson Cano
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Lol I saw in baseball America’s farm rankings the marlins have the 20th best farm now… lol this is great..
It’s because their former prospects are starters now.
Ok so they have a worst team and worst farm. That doesn’t bold well
Everything you say and do is annoying.
20 isn’t the worst…
Congratulations. The highest payroll in baseball is enough to maybe beat the Marlins
They have the pitching staff to blow your Metsicles away, just need some hitters. Oh, and some fans would be nice…..
To be fair, Anthony Franco didn’t just pick Freddie Freeman to “leave Atlanta.” He specifically picked him to sign with the Boston Red Sox. If Freeman leaves Atlanta but doesn’t sign with Boston he was just as wrong as anyone else. I know he said he was “symbolically picking the field” but that wasn’t an option. I would guess if the choices were actually Atlanta vs. the field, a lot more people would have picked the field. The whole point is you have to pick the specific team otherwise people would pretty much always take the field. Don’t be cheap, Anthony. It’s Red Sox or bust for you just like it’s Atlanta or bust for everyone else. I will however heavily congratulate you if Freeman calls Fenway Park home next season. That would be almost as incredible as Trevor Plouffe going on Twitter and picking Braves over Astros in 6 before the season even started.
Look Hammer, Atlanta is at record payroll WITHOUT FF signed. Liberty Media is a corporation focused on the bottom line. Has the real estate development brought in enough? Has recovery from COVID caught up to revenue?
They don’t care if FF is Babe Ruth (he’s not). I bet their accountants are looking at what aging ballplayers do in the second half of onerous contracts. You think the Atlanta GM doesn’t remember the bad contracts in Toronto? And yes, those Liberty accountants are breathing right down his neck.
These aren’t Turners Braves anymore…..
FWIW, Babe Ruth’s OPS+ from ages 33-39 were: 206, 193, 211, 218, 201, 176 — yeah, he’s no Babe. Maybe he needs Babe’s secret sauce.
Same ole song…Liberty doesn’t determine Braves budget. Nevermind that both the Braves CEO and GM have said they’ll spend money in the offseason, and it should be expected that they’ll have a record-high with additional profits from WS-run in addition to it being Freeman. That being said, I think they still have a point they’re not comfortable going with with Freeman — and
if FF’s camp is negotiating past that point, they HAVE the money, they just don’t want to spend the money and take on the risk that so many aging players represent, with or without the DH — or any other way you could justify the spend.
I liked CW’s question about revenue based alignment. Let teams spend whatever they want but make the top 5 payroll teams always compete in the same division. If it’s fair to outspend everyone else they should have no qualms with competing directly with all the teams that spend as much as they do. Spending $260 million a year probably won’t help so much when you don’t have a team like the Orioles or Diamondbacks to bully around all season.
The flip side to that is having teams like the Orioles, Diamondbacks, Pirates, and Marlins in a division beating up on eachother. The same argument for extended playoffs applies here; do we really want to see teams barely treading water fighting for playoff spots because someone from that “division” has to make the playoffs? Those teams don’t magically become better because they don’t have to play the Dodgers, Yankees, etc…
And then we’ll have 4 out of 5 teams from the same division in the postseason,
CW on acid…..
“ 3:20 Do players want spring training shortened anyway?
3:20 Probably a bit, since they’re not paid
I figure that making millions of dollars a year you are well compensated for Spring Training games…give me a break, they’re not paid
And the minor leaguers, non-roster invitees etc. Those who are are “making millions” are not the only participants in ST.
If your not making millions and attending Spring Training for a MLB club you probably want ST to last as long as possible in order for you to show your stuff…sorry I’m not feeling sorry for them…and to Please, Hammer…I get that but it still is a dumb statement to say they don’t get paid for those games when clearly they are making millions
most minor leaguers get to eat much better during the spring training compared to the minor leagues. sad!
That’s why a
ST invite means
so much. Better
food…..
@Cat Mando
That’s a double edged sword because you want (or should want) as much time to impress Management/Coaches as possible
He just meant that if the Spring training games don’t happen they still make just as much money. Every regular season game they play they get a paycheck after. If they miss Spring training games, they don’t lose any paychecks. If the regular season is shortened they do lose paychecks so they probably care a lot less about missing Spring games than they do regular season games.
I am curious as to how that works, though. I went to a Grapefruit league game years ago. Tickets were $30 a pop and it was sold out for a game that doesn’t even count. That’s kind of a lot of money for games that the players aren’t even paid.
Owners make a good amount of money from spring training games. Maybe they should pay the players for those games – especially the minor leaguers. Everyone else working at the ballpark is getting paid.
Do you have any numbers to show how much they make vs the cost of putting the games on? I’d be curious to see that break down.
No idea on the money, but ST ticket prices have soared the last 15-20 years and towns have built modern ballparks for teams. So if revenues has skyrocketed and costs haven’t, that’s money in the bank.
At the very least there has to be 3 weeks of ST before regular season games are played. Which means if they settle any time after St Paddy’s Day, they will likely lose regular season games and therefore lose a paycheck (they are paid semi-monthly).
You think $30 is a lot for ST? Hahaha …. many Red Sox ST tickets at home and on the road are between $50-$70 each directly from the teams. And $12 parking is common.
Murphy money is it…..
Why do people keep referring to Kimbrel’s as a bad contract or thinking they’ll be able to get him for their team’s bad contracts?
If. The. White. Sox. Regarded. Kimbrel. As. A. Bad. Contract. They. Would. Have. Simply. Declined. His. Option!
Well clearly those who feel it’s a bad contract feel the white Sox made the wrong call and misread the market.
It would be hard to see Kimbrel getting that aav in the open market. Prob would have got a second year though
Regardless of what those people think, the White Sox obviously see value in him at 1/$15m. They aren’t trading him for Cano, Myers or Ozuna. At least not straight up.
It only being for 1 year is a perfect example of why that option got exercised. He would not have gotten that AAV on a multi year deal but most teams would rather give in on AAV than years.
Kimbrel played in 24 games for the WSox, and had an ERA+ of 86. Sure, small sample, but he’ll be 34 and he’ll make $16M. It wouldn’t be the first time a team saw value in a player that turned into a bad contract. If teams were so good about correctly seeing value, there wouldn’t be any bad contracts.
If he were a FA he still wouldn’t get $16M even if it were just a one year deal.
IMO opinion the Kimbrel deal isn’t as bad as Cano’s, so it’s not a realistic swap. But I also don’t think the Kimbrel deal is a particularly good one, and think it could be that the best thing about it is it’s only one more year..
@tad2b13…
“It wouldn’t be the first time a team saw value in a player that turned into a bad contract.”
I’m not saying the White Sox are right or wrong. I am saying that they clearly see his value at > $15m right now.
“If he were a FA he still wouldn’t get $16M even if it were just a one year deal.”
Maybe not. But we know for a fact that the White Sox would have offered him at least 1/$15m. If that wasn’t true they would have declined his option (which was a $15m decision due to his buyout).
It’d be interesting to see if that’s the case. I wonder if there was some sunk cost fallacy at play with picking up that option
Picking up the option only to eat more than $1m or attach prospects or take a bad contract just to get rid of Kimbrel would be WORSE, not better.
@flaming & legendary: I think people feel that way for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is that I believe the White Sox front office actually said they were planning to pick up his option for the specific purpose of trying to trade him. That at least implies they aren’t quite as high on Kimbrel as some would think. If they really liked him that much why not keep him and save the money they spent on Graveman. If they really valued Kimbrel that much, you would think he and Hendricks combined would be enough late inning relief that Chicago wouldn’t feel the need to go out and spend money on Graveman.
I think @ flaming hit the nail in the head for the second reason. It’s obviously not a good reason but it does really seem like the White Sox are chasing some kind of sunken cost fallacy. If the White Sox let Kimbrel walk they would be openly admitting they made a mistake by trading Nick Madrigal and Cody Heur for 2 months of poor pitching from a reliever. My guess is the White Sox initially only agreed to that trade because there was a second option year. They figured Kimbrel would continue to dominate making the choice to pick up the option easy and trading Madrigal for 1 and a half years of Kimbrel doesn’t sound nearly as bad as trading him for just 2 months of him. If they didn’t pick up that option the Chicago media would be blasting them even harder for making that trade. Especially since they really need a 2nd baseman and Madrigal is under cheap team control for the next half decade.
I do agree the White Sox aren’t just going to trade Kimbrel straight up for a bad contract. I could seem them doing it for a bad contract plus money to make the deal cash neutral. Maybe Kimbrel for Cano +$24 million. That way they are trading 1 year of Kimbrel for 2 years of Cano and it won’t cost them any additional money.
They really do need a 2nd baseman and I think Cano (if he hits at least close to how he did the last time he played) could potentially help the White Sox a lot more than Kimbrel can. Kimbrel could also probably help the Mets a lot more than Cano can so it makes sense for both teams. Really the only problem is Cano is under contract for twice as long so the Mets would have to agree to pay a large portion of Cano’s salary even when neither he nor Kimbrel are playing for the Mets.
My guess is there is definitely some sunk cost fallacy in this. I think the White Sox would take back that trade if they could. I think if the White Sox didn’t trade Madrigal to get Kimbrel they wouldn’t have signed Kimbrel. Even if Kimbrel became a free agent and went to the White Sox this offseason and said “I want to sign with you on a 1-year $15 million deal” the White Sox would likely turn him down IMO.
This looks like the White Sox are really trying to get as much as possible out of trading Madrigal more than anything else. It’s not a smart way to do business but I think the White Sox are grasping at straws just to be able to say they got more than 2 bad months of Kimbrel in exchange for Nick Madrigal’s entire career. At least this way the White Sox won’t look even worse if Kimbrel does return to form next season. And if he doesn’t return to form they can always say “He was dominant when we traded for him. Sometimes you just don’t know when a player is going to fall apart.” They are hoping they can either get something of value for him or that he was only bad for that small sample size.
I agree with @Legendary though on the fact the White Sox will probably end up keeping Kimbrel at least after the season starts. I don’t think any other team is going to value him enough to make the trade worth it for them. Unless of course it’s in exchange for something like Cano and enough money to make the deal close to cash neutral. My guess is if Cano were a free agent right now and he offered to sign with the White Sox to play starting 2nd base on a 2 year $16 million deal, the White Sox would strongly consider it considering how he was the last time he played and their obvious need for a starting 2nd baseman. Maybe if the Mets pay Kimbrel’s salary and about half of Cano’s remaining salary on top of that it would get done. The White Sox would be much better off keeping Kimbrel if the Mets will only do a straight up deal with no cash though. You don’t want to get stuck paying Cano in 2023 when Kimbrel would have been off the payroll. Make the Mets do that because without the trade they have to pay Cano in 2023 anyway.
Replacement Players???
It’s a lockout, not a strike.
Replacements didn’t work out so well in 1995.
Is Pedro Borbon Sr. or Oil Can Boyd still around?…
Kevin Millar and Brian Daubach and Shane Spencer and Loomer are still around.
Only one guy isn’t, because he flew a plane into a building. .
Though it was fun from a human interest angle.
Former stock clerk rekindled his dream (repeat)…..
@gbs: Tell Kerry Lightenberg, Brendan Donnelly, Kevin Millar, Rick Reed and even Oil Can Boyd that replacement players didn’t work out to well. All of those guys were replacement players. Lightenberg, Donnelly and Millar would hav never even made it to the Majors if replacement players weren’t brought in. I actually like replacement players. I would still watch them.
If the league only recognized individuals and didn’t negotiate with the MLBPA a lot of the players would end up coming back to join the replacement players. Some might not. I could see the older players like Scherzer refusing to play because he already has so much money. That would also save the Mets over $43 million a year though so that’s fine. After a certain amount of time I highly doubt the young future stars like Tatis, Franco, Acuna, Albies, Seager, Correa, Soto, etc. would decide to give up the hundreds of millions of dollars offered to them just because the MLBPA wants them to. Why even do a CBA? Just negotiate with the players individually and if they don’t want the terms they don’t have to sign. The players who are actually the future of this sport will stay. Does anyone really think a player like Acuna or Franco would be willing to give up hundreds of millions and retire from MLB with less than $10 million in their bank account just to make a stand for MLBPA? When I get jobs I don’t have a union negotiate for me. I don’t want them to. I look at the terms of what they offer and if it’s worth it to me I sign. I would totally ignore someone who tries to tell me it’s in my best interest to refuse to work for a $300 million contract. They would be lying.
I actually root for the replacement players harder. I find them to be a lot less whiny. They know they can show up to work for a contract they negotiated directly and alone with their employer and what they decide is no one else’s business.
Ok the lockout will last into March. Season starts no sooner than May 2nd
Wrong.
Unless they get serious soon, July 1st would be optimistic. Players have millions in the bank now, this isn’t 1981…..
ESPN doesn’t have comments anymore, but on a list of 100 greatest players of all time, Clayton Kershaw is somehow 52. I think that’s ridiculously low, am I wrong?
I think it’s too high! Above both Scherzer and JV. It’s hard to justify that ranking
Actually, I think 52nd is just about right. Among HoF pitchers, Kershaw’s WAR puts him about 27th. The position players have a much higher WAR in general, almost 60 batters have a higher WAR, but they’re not really comparable.
Yes, you are wrong .
I should have specified. Higher on the list would be closer to 1, lower would be closer to 100.
@Joe says – OK, it’s a lockout and instead of “Replacement Players” we have “At Will Employment”.
Either way your going to see a second rate product on the field or maybe we see nothing at all as the Millionaires and Billionaires divide up the fans money.
Regardless of how it gets settled it needs to be settled soon.
This franchises operating system sucks because the city doesn’t support the team.To dump an elite pitcher for 5 million is bad for business when teams pays guys 10 million to rehab their arms so the can get a taste in yr2 at the same money.Honestly I can’t see any problem with him coming back because he throws fastballs & misses bats.He doesn’t possess an arsenal of pitches so I expect him back this yr and not spring training 23.Get him Angels or Dodgers
Rodon won’t be signing with the Tigers. Avila has spent enough money on injured list pitchers already. The only FA signed by him to a ML contract to not go on the IL long term was Urena, and we wished he had. Rodon is too risky even for Al.