Mex17

Benjamin Grimm wrote: If teams are forced to spend, then some of that money will go to 30-year-old free agents. It's one thing to get paid for a season, quite another to get paid at market value over several seasons while you are in your prime. Under the current conditions, guys can now get cheapskated when they are younger and producing on the field and are powerless off of it, and then get thrown away once they attain more power but are now in the latter half or past their primes. The aggregate result is lower overall career earnings, even if you got paid top dollar for maybe a season or two in between Scylla and Charybdis. The only way to address that is to grant arbitration eligibility and free agency earlier in their careers. AAV is not the problem here, length of term is.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: It's much better than forcing them to accept a minor league contract. Who's doing that? If you are so stubborn so that you cannot accept how you are valued after a 2 1/2 month long process, you deserve to get screwed.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think the more likely solution is a minimum payroll. That does not help the guys who are hitting the free market for the first time on the north end of 30.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Mex17 wrote: -Free Agency after four years (down from six). That will never happen. Mex17 wrote: -A hard January 15th deadline for Major League free agents to sign Major League deals, after which you cannot sign a Major League deal until June 1st (if you want to sign a minor league deal, that's your prerogative). That will never never never never happen. Let me say it this way then. If I was a member of the MLBPA right now, I would be getting ready to go completely nuclear and scorch the earth if the owners do not grant free agency after four years once this CBA expires in 2021. And, since I know that in collective barbaning one side does not unilaterally give unless they get something back, the signing deadline was something I thought of. I'm sure that the GMs and managers are not happy right now not knowing the full compliment of their teams two weeks from camps opening.

Regardless, here is my idea for a compromise when the next CBA negotiation comes around. . . Players get: -Free Agency after four years (down from six). -Arbitration after two years (down from three). Owners get: -Pace of play concessions. -A hard January 15th deadline for Major League free agents to sign Major League deals, after which you cannot sign a Major League deal until June 1st (if you want to sign a minor league deal, that's your prerogative). Both get: -Performance based metrics (the same ones that the new breed of GMs are using to evaluate free agents now) to be used in arbitration hearings, shifting away from mere service time being a primary factor. This could benefit either side on a case by case basis. . .the player gets closer to market value if he performs well or a pay cut if he regresses.

Edgy MD wrote: And I'm not seeing an end game for him in that scenario. The end game would be the persistently escalating aggregate AAV for the players that Van Wagenen mentioned in his Twitter post. A more lucrative Hosmer contract might better serve that as opposed to a more moderate Duda contract. Hence the incentive for agents to "collude" with one another.

Edgy MD wrote: Duda's agent (The Beverly Hills Sports Council, glad to meet you) is obliged to be working for Duda. There's the rub. If you were Duda and you don't know where you are headed or if you are headed anywhere at all, would you not be a little miffed that your family's future is being held up over Hosmer being a whiny bitch over not getting a guaranteed eighth year? And what if you actually did find out that your agent has a back room handshake deal with Boras saying that he is not going to shop you to KC or SD out of a concern that Hosmer won't be best served by that? All of that is speculative, of course.

Edgy MD wrote: if Boras posts that screed, it's transparently self-serving and nothing more. So Brodie is carrying water for somebody else's client. Nice work, gents. Nymr83 wrote: If I were them, I'd say the offer is on the table until Monday and then we're calling Duda/Morrison's agents about 1-2 year deals. Can collusion run both ways? What if the agents are in agreement with one another that the smaller guys are not going to sign until the bigger guys get theirs? Said differently, could Morrison and Duda's agents theoretically be in agreement with Boras that they are not going to undercut the market for Hosmer?

Maybe the players are simply holding out for too much based on recents trends that they thought were sure to continue? Joe Posnanski on mlb.com points out the most recent $150 mil or higher signings: Dec 2011, Albert Pujols -- 10 years/$240 -- that one hasn't turned out well now has it? Jan 2012, Prince Fielder -- 9/214 -- I assume Detroit/Texas got some financial relief when the injury ended his career, but the Tigers still paid chunk of the freight to make him go away only partway through the deal Dec 2013, Robinson Cano -- 10/240 -- didn't start well. Is going better now but the now 35 y/o still has six seasons to go on his deal and his team hasn't sniffed the playoffs since he got there Dec 2013, Jacoby Ellsbury -- 7/153 -- Yanx are wishing he'd just disappear Dec 2015, Jason Heyward -- 8/184 -- not off to a good start, eh? At least (Moody Blues) Justin Heyward is going into the (R&R) HoF this year. Jan 2016, Chris Davis -- 7/161 Not that this year's crop is necessarily expecting 150 million dollar deals (although who knows what Boras is whispering in their ears) but y'all know about the whole definition of insanity thing. This.

Edgy MD wrote: I'm not really arguing collusion, but I don't think the majority of guys left unsigned is necessarily a real and spontaneous market correction. Seems to me that it would have to be one or the other. Either executives specifically agreed amongst themselves not to sign each others players or they did not.

Nymr83 wrote: Do you work for the union? Why do you care how latw they sign or what they get?Of 166 free agents, 38 have been signed. @Nymr83: You don't think that this is worthy of a general discussion on a baseball board?

FWIW, Neil Walker came in at #9 for MLB Network's "Top 10 Second Basemen Right Now" program.

I just checked ESPN just to see if anybody signed anybody today. Nothing but crickets. Can you imagine J.D. Martinez having to go to work and have to say "Do you want fries with that?" following a 45 HR, 1.107 OPS season at age 29?

Edgy MD wrote: It's a good year to try some good old collusion. Correct the market this winter because all the big prizes are hitting free agency next winter. But if the MLBPA attempts and/or succeeds in having this labeled as collusion, I will not be a very happy camper.

It's January 20th for Pete's sake, and so many guys are still out there, including most of the top ones. I understand that this new generation of executives think differently and are effectively (without colluding with one another) causing a market correction, but at some point you have to sign people and get ready for Spring Training and the season. Either there is going to be an explosion of news really soon or a lot of major league caliber players who have baseball left in them are going to be applying to their local Wal-Marts for jobs. And, on a side note, I can easily see this market correction leading to big-time labor strife down the road. If sabermetric inclined GMs are now not willing to pay for the decline years of players, then the players should then demand that they get arbitration and free agency earlier in their careers. Are the owners going to be willing to move on that, and what will the players have to give up on order to get it? Pace of play concessions maybe?

Shaw could be on the move if the Brew Crew sign Moustakas. . . https://www.sny.tv/mets/news/brewers-could-trade-3b-travis-shaw-to-mets-if-they-land-moustakas/264710172 Can Wheeler and Lagares get this done? There is really not much of a need for Lagares and (as evidenced below) I think that they can get away with moving Wheeler. 2018 rotation without Wheeler: Syndergaard deGrom Harvey Matz Lugo/Gsellman/Montero

My guess now is that the next move is Reyes or Kendrick on a cheap deal for infield depth.

Edgy MD wrote: It's not beyond their control. How? How can MLB tell a teenager (or his parents) not to forego other sports and not to play in summer leagues, go to youth camps in the winter, or hire private coaches who work them even more, all of which result in more torque and strain and repetitiveness of motion (which is an unnatural motion to begin with) on the arm at earlier ages before they are even drafted?

Edgy MD wrote: I agree that growing the roster just plays into more specialization. I think that you might be viewing this solely upon what you believe MLB can or cannot control within it's own self, but what if it is really beyond their control? In decades past, a guy like Tom Seaver would be playing football or running track in the fall and then playing basketball or wrestling in the winter, not picking up a baseball until probably late March. Now, kids specialize in a sport year round, so younger arms are throwing more and have more tread by the time an MLB team is even in the position to draft or sign them. So it isn't really all the "fault" of MLB that the game has gone in the direction that it has. But you need to adjust to the circumstances around you. This might stand to be broken off into it's own discussion apart from the Adrian Gonzalez thread.

It's a shame. A year or two as somebody's lefty bat off the bench used to be a dignified closing act for these guys, but now teams can't afford a non-versatile reserve. Certainly NL teams can't. The game has changed (fewer if no complete games anymore, more reliance on the bullpen, pitch counts, more mindfulness of "times around the order" with regard to pitchers being exposed to a lineup in a single game). . .I think that the roster rules need to change with it. My proposal: -Increase the number of players that you can dress for a game to 26. -Increase the number of players that you can carry/travel with to 28. -On a weekly basis, each team needs to submit five names (the customary amount for a starting rotation) that cannot be taken off of the active roster for that week (barring a DL assignment). That would generally prevent teams from just making a mockery of the new rules by simply taking whoever just started the most recently completed game off the roster (so, in most cases, you have to keep your entire rotation active). The idea would be to make these adjustments so that teams can keep a fresh bullpen without sacrificing a bench spot.

Dodgers and Braves made a mutual salary dump trade today. Gonzalez, Kazmir, Brandon McCarthy, and Charlie Culberson go to Atlanta. Kemp goes back to LA. Then the Braves DFA Gonzalez immediately. So any team in the league can now get a guy for the league minimum who as recently as 2016 produced 31 doubles, 18 HRs, 90 RBI, and a .784 OPS. But he is a 36 year old with a bad back. Does he find a home or does he stay home and get paid off?

My thoughts have changed on this one based off of the Winter Meetings. All offseason, I have been thinking that the Mets need to handle this winter with an eye on a year from now, when they should go hard after Machado and/or Donaldson. That meant that I was not very interested in Frazier and was on board with them going for a second baseman such as Kipnis now. However, now that Machado has stated that he prefers to play shortstop going forward, and considering that there is going to be a lot of second base choices next winter (Dozier, Murphy, LeMahieu, Harrison) I am thinking that they should leave that open and lock up Frazier instead (Cabrera then plays second during his final season with the Mets). What say you?

Nymr83 wrote: The idea of Judge for Stanton is a joke, no team in the league trades away a guy like Judge under team control cheaply for 5 or 6 years. So if not Judge than at least Clint Frazier. A backend bullpen guy and defense-first infielder, both of whom are years away, is simply not enough from the prospect end in exchange for Giancarlo Stanton, even if you are taking on all of the money for Stanton.

It's fine to make up scenarios where they take Ellsbury and therefore get Judge in the process but you're acting as if that was offered and they turned it down. I'm saying that this is the type of thing that a responsible and competant GM would have insisted on upon threat of walking away from the negoations if he did not get it. I'm no master negotiator, but I do know that you have to be willing to walk. It's not just "player" plus "prospects", it also the quality of the prospects. I don't know what SF and StL were offering, but from what I can tell what they are getting from the Yankees are middling at best. So, even if the packages from the other two teams were comperable, that may not speak to collusion but it does say quite a bit about Jeter's aptitude as a GM. And, if that is true, that means that now that we have finally found something that the guy is terrible at, it somehow still benefits the Yankees!!! How does that even happen? On edit: And Manfred can still get involved on the basis that a pampered entitled primma donna ex-player (who comes from a franchise that, along with their fan base, seems to actually believe that they are bigger than the game itself) being in over his head should not impinge the overall credibility of the sport.

Frayed Knot wrote: Ellsbury -- Why in holy hell would the Marlins want Ellsbury?!?!?! That's the kind of WATP Yanqui fans come up with. The whole purpose of dealing Stanton is to get rid of payroll not take bad ones in return. Ellsbury's $68-ish million comes off the books in 2021 compared to the $295 million that Stanton is owed through 2028. $68 million is less than $295 million and 2021 is earlier than 2028, so there are your answers. Plus, in my deals, Judge and more were headed back to Miami in addition to Ellsbury. That is how fire sale trades usually work. . .sometimes you take back a bad, albiet shorter term, contact in order to offset some of the cost to the acquiring tean and you almost always get back actual talent which is younger, less expensive, and team controllable that you use to build your own team back up again. Hardly any of that is supposedly happening here, and when you factor in the rather cozy relationship that Miami's pseudo-GM has with the team that is reaping this enormous benefit, and it should not be too hard to understand why this stinks to high heaven.