Non-Pirates Baseball Thread

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

Red Sox 'all in' on trying to sign the Sandoval


*fist pump*

Would absolutely love him

[Rocco]

http://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/11/7200 ... -good-luck" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In a related story, I'm trying to woo Kate Upton.

[MWB]

Red Sox 'all in' on trying to sign the Sandoval


*fist pump*

Would absolutely love him

Big guy who is over-valued right now and probably won't age well. Don't think I'd be too upset if they spent big money on him.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

Because if Yankees fans know one thing, its old overpaid players who don't age well :slug:

[MWB]

Exactly my point.

[Ad@m]

Oscar Taveras killed in a car accident. So sad

Crazy sad, only 22

His BAC was 5 times over the legal limit.

[Letang Is The Truth]

oops

[Rocco]

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/101373412 ... lo-stanton" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I love Giancarlo but damn.

[MWB]

So will Trout get $400 million in five years?

[Troy Loney]

He is probably the best power hitter in the game, but he struggles to stay healthy and plays right field. He'd have to do what he does at Shortstop, 3B, 2B or CF to deserve that money.

But, if the Marlins see what the Reds have with Joey Votto, and want that...more power to them.

[MWB]

Yeah, that's the thing. He probably is the best power hitter, but can't say that definitively. That's a lot of money to sink in to a player that has a bit of risk.

[Troy Loney]

Yeah, that's the thing. He probably is the best power hitter, but can't say that definitively. That's a lot of money to sink in to a player that has a bit of risk.

There's just no one worth that contract in the post steroid era. You get into your thirties and you can't physically do what you were doing. We're seeing with Pujols and now Cabrera who's OPS dropped over 100 points last season. Stanton will be productive, but ridiculously overpaid.

[MWB]

You could probably make an argument for Trout, at his current age, getting a deal like that. It would end with him in his early 30s. However, with arbitration being a factor, he didn't get that deal. I agree, no team should commit to a player for that long if the deal ends when the player is mid 30s.

[Troy Loney]

You could probably make an argument for Trout, at his current age, getting a deal like that. It would end with him in his early 30s. However, with arbitration being a factor, he didn't get that deal. I agree, no team should commit to a player for that long if the deal ends when the player is mid 30s.

Yeah, sorry, I was taking the current salary structure into consideration. You have to be Trout and walk in at the age of 20 and be an MVP candidate. But even with that, the first 6-6.5 years are severely discounted, so the only time that contract would be worth it, it's not applicable because the first half of it would be cost controlled.

[Rocco]

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... mi03.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Stanton was worth 6.5 WAR last year. If you figure each win is worth around $6M he would have to produce 50 WAR over the life of the contract. He turns 25 in November so you're getting his peak years, and given the general lack of power hitters in MLB these days a guy who can hit the ball to the moon like Stanton is a little more valuable than he would have been in the late 90s. He could hit that number if he stays reasonably healthy. The problem of course is that he's likely to not be worth $25-30M a season for the back end of the contract. I suppose the Marlins plan on signing him and hoping to make noise with him and Fernandez for 3-4 years then pawning his contract off on the Dodgers.

[Rocco]

He is probably the best power hitter in the game, but he struggles to stay healthy and plays right field. He'd have to do what he does at Shortstop, 3B, 2B or CF to deserve that money.

But, if the Marlins see what the Reds have with Joey Votto, and want that...more power to them.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/ ... m%2F%22%7D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For non-insiders, here's the chart of big contract extensions he references:

[Rocco]

The Cards have traded Shelby Miller for Jason Heyward. People need to stop trading with the Cards.

[MWB]

13/$325 million for Stanton.

[skullman80]

13/$325 million for Stanton.

25 mil a year....wowzers.

[Rocco]

The Dodgers will love inheriting the back end of that contract.

[Rocco]

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/11/21/ ... rs-rebuild" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe I'm an eternal optimist, which isn't the type of person who should run a baseball team, but I would like to offer my suggestion on which of those two routes to travel down. That suggestion is all in, you jackweeds. There are several baseball reasons that we'll get to, but an emotional one is what I keep coming back to: Teams never know when they're going to be the 1993 Pirates or 1995 Royals, teams that walked around with toilet paper stuck to their shoe for two decades while we all laughed.

That cuts a little deep there.

I'm of the belief that it's time for the Reds to blow it up and start over, but I hate the Reds and consider them to be just a shade less noxious than Westboro Baptist Church. I may be biased. The Votto contract for them is a real problem. His slugging numbers have been trending downward and he's 31 years old. There's a decent chance he's fallen and not getting back up. He's still valuable because of his OBP skills but they're paying him way too much to be Sean Casey until 2023. (Just a reminder that while it sucks that Cutch will probably leave after this contract, he'll be 32 when his contract ends.) Jay Bruce probably isn't as bad as he was last year but there's at least a non-zero chance his days of being a monster are over. (Just a reminder that Bruce was taken one pick after Cutch in the draft and actually made the majors first.) Right now they've got 10 players under contract for $80.2M, and Baseball Reference estimates their payroll will be around $130M. That's a lot for the Reds, and that's a lot for a team that looks painfully mediocre. While Brisbee's right that the Reds could wait until July, Cueto's value goes down as the season goes along. (Any team that trades for Cueto now would get a comp pick if he left in FA; they wouldn't get that if he's a midseason trade pickup.) Same with Latos, Leake and Simon. They should probably wait to see about moving Bruce or even Votto, who may be interesting to a big-market team if he rebounds some. But they would be best served to make a decision on their pitchers now.

There's a very real chance that this Reds core saw his title chances die at the hands of Marlon Byrd, Russell Martin and the PNC crowd in October 2013. The Reds should probably admit that and break this team up so we can give them the proper respects. By that I mean jeer them and throw beer bottles at them.

[Troy Loney]

That's just a bogus point about the Pirates and Royals. There is a world of difference between conscious incompetence and structural incompetence. The conscious incompetence of the pirates and royals were based on economic realities, the revenue situations created the incentive to tank local operating income and collect league welfare in revenue sharing. This lead to garbage personnel decisions in all facets of the organization.

The growth of centralized revenue by MLB helped even the economic playing field and reduce the incentive to operate based on revenue sharing, and also I think changes in the luxury tax setup got rid of that incentive.

Basically no team is ever going to enter a dark age like that again.

[Rocco]

That's just a bogus point about the Pirates and Royals. There is a world of difference between conscious incompetence and structural incompetence. The conscious incompetence of the pirates and royals were based on economic realities, the revenue situations created the incentive to tank local operating income and collect league welfare in revenue sharing. This lead to garbage personnel decisions in all facets of the organization.

Didn't the Marlins just finish doing just that? Aren't they going to do that again in 4 years?

Basically no team is ever going to enter a dark age like that again.

Maybe not a 15-20 year dark age, but Houston may be in a prolonged depression. Same with SD, Colorado and Arizona. Philly's staring down the barrel of one. As long as there are poorly run teams, there's going to be dead periods for teams. Football has much stronger cost controls and fewer incentives to tank and you still have the Raiders being incompetent.

I think you missed his larger point- it may not be a short trip back to prominence for the Reds. They may think that, but there's no guarantee they'll be right back in the playoffs after a year.

[Troy Loney]

That's why i distinguished between structural and deliberate incompetence. There will always be structural incompetence, the marlins are peculiar and maybe an off combination of injecting deliberate incompetence.

I'm just saying that a team can't be mired in a two decade long steak like that without trying to do that.

[canaan]

LaRoche got a 2yr/25mil deal with the White Sox