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MLB 2019 - SPRING TRAINING~!


Dolfan in NYC

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And we're here at the start of Spring Training!   

Here are the people who are still free agents:  Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Dallas Keuchel, Adam Jones, Marwin Gonzalez, and Craig Kimbrel

The following people have been signed:  Matt Harvey, Nathan Eovaldi, and Jeurys Familia.  

...

Boy oh boy. 

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Nathan Eovaldi was projected to sign for 4 years, $60 million. He signed 4 years, $67.5 million

Matt Harvey had a passable half year in the last 3 years. A one year prove it deal (which was exactly in line with his projected contract) made sense

And again Familia signed a MINOR LEAGUE DEAL. All the unsigned guys could easily do that right now. That is like complaining the Cavs signed a guy to a 10 day contract instead of re-signing Lebron

We can all wanna be all "Pay everyone a trillion dollars" but it is folly to cherry pick guys who have signed deals against folks who haven't signed.

Craig Kimbrel wants SIX YEARS, $200 MILLION DOLLARS!

If any team gives him that they should be immediately contracted

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The reality is to me the MLB PA has screwed themselves over with short sided "We want our money now" deals

They don't give a shit about minor league players, so MLB got away with paying minor leaguers table scraps.

The vets want there big cut, so didn't fight to shorten service time, and made sure guys just getting called up would have to play a while before they got the big money. 

Now we have hit a point when, if you want to maximize your chances of winning, building from within and not signing big free agents because so many of them go bust is so obviously the right call EVERY TEAM IS MAKING. Even the Yankees and Dodgers!

What fucking world do we live in where the league that has the most stable setup and least likely to lock out at the next labor negotiations is the fucking NHL?

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9 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Like I said, it learned the worst lessons it can from work stoppages, not necessarily just their own.  Over-learned them, if anything.

 

I honestly don’t think that’s it, it’s just that there is no big problem in the system right now.

In the MLB the pay scale is broken.

In the NBA the power is so much on the players side that mid market teams have very little hope of winning a title. Competitive balance just seems broken.

The NFL... I will fess to not having a great idea what there problems are but they sure seem to have one.

The NHL seems to have hit the right balance. Players seem happy, owners seem happy. The biggest dispute I see coming down the road is the Olympics, and that’s small potatoes.

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21 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

 

The NFL... I will fess to not having a great idea what there problems are but they sure seem to have one.

The NFL's biggest problem would be the contract rules are broken- everyone: Players, teams, and fans inherently know big contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on and the big FA signing this year will inevitably be cut next year.

Seriously, things like that and The MLB problem leads to the question if the next lockout should look to the Charlie Finley model for free agency instead (in short, would have been: Everyone's a free agent, every year. You work on a one year deal, and next year you're back on the market looking for a team to sign you.)

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26 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

The biggest  NHL is probably contract length (max) and/or teams using signing bonuses to work around the Cap. 

That still feels like an easily workable problem list. Compare that to MLB were the players are gonna want at least one less year of team control for upcoming players, and that’s just a start.

18 minutes ago, SorceressKnight said:

The NFL's biggest problem would be the contract rules are broken- everyone: Players, teams, and fans inherently know big contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on and the big FA signing this year will inevitably be cut next year.

Seriously, things like that and The MLB problem leads to the question if the next lockout should look to the Charlie Finley model for free agency instead (in short, would have been: Everyone's a free agent, every year. You work on a one year deal, and next year you're back on the market looking for a team to sign you.)

Any league that did that would die within 5-10 years. Player Development would stop being a thing, cause who needs it when a player can just sign with your rival after you groom him? Fans wouldn’t really care about there teams cause the players are just a bunch mercs with no connection to the city. Also, breaking news, the Yankees and Dodgers win every single year.

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The NFL's biggest issue is the QB position to me. They wanted higher scoring and they wanted a safer game and to protect QB's but even with the rule changes there are still too few who are actual great QBs so now you have a 2-3 year window where if you have a great QB but he's on a rookie deal you can surround him with talent and spread the wealth around the defense. Once it's time to pay the QB everyone is fucked.  Except the Patriots because their coach is a genius,  their QB is still good at 41-years old and their division is weak every year. 

Getting this back to the MLB..   it's pretty damn crazy that it's Valentine's Day and none of these stars are off the market.  The Red Sox struck gold with JD Martinez,  I don't think a big contract for the right guy is a bad thing..  

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3 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

The NFL's biggest issue is the QB position to me. They wanted higher scoring and they wanted a safer game and to protect QB's but even with the rule changes there are still too few who are actual great QBs so now you have a 2-3 year window where if you have a great QB but he's on a rookie deal you can surround him with talent and spread the wealth around the defense. Once it's time to pay the QB everyone is fucked.  Except the Patriots because their coach is a genius,  their QB is still good at 41-years old and their division is weak every year. 

If you're using those, you forget the other part of the Patriots' success: As QB's go, Tom Brady is woefully underpaid for the position, and he's always been perfectly fine with that. A big part of that success was that Brady has always been fine with saying "Instead of being insanely rich and having no one around me, I'd rather be very, very rich, have a bunch of other players who can be very, very rich surrounding me, and we'll also get to contend for Super Bowls." 

Which does tie into the problem for MLB as well: For years, "salary cap" was the fighting word to the MLBPA that would guarantee strikes or lockouts- but we've seen from literally every other sport that "maybe a salary cap would be a GOOD THING".

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21 hours ago, El Dragon said:

Also, the Cubs are setting up a TV statio with fucking Sinclair Broadcasting. In related news, I don't think I'm going to watch baseball this year.

Meanwhile, Ricketts is still like, "WE HAVE NO MONEY! SORRY!"

I don't know when the last time any of you have been to Wrigley Field, but it's fucking crazy for how different the entire Wrigleyville area looks now. 3 years ago it was the same old brick buildings that contained shops and bars leading the way to the ballpark and now it's completely transformed. So much money has been spent to develop the ballpark and the area immediately around it that Tom is making money hand over fist as a result.

But yeah, WE HAVE NO MONEY! You can go back and look at comments from Theo during the last season and it certainly sounded like the team would venture into the territory of taking a luxury tax hit. Hell, even when the season ended Theo sounded like they were going to have to spend to make changes. Weeks later they can barely sign middling relievers.

And all the while they haven't immediately cut bait with Addison Russell, even though he's about as much of a monster as Buffalo Bill, Tom's dad's emails show he's a real huge racist piece of shit (but at least it looks like Tom and the rest of the kids are embarrassed by him), who the fuck knows when Darvish will be healthy (LOL never), and the PECOTA projection is 81-81. 

That sound you hear is the window closing.

Finally, lurking in all of this is Kris Bryant. If you're KB, what are you even thinking about when you look at how no one is signing Harper or Machado? Oh, and he hits free agency right when we're expecting a lockout.

But hey, at least there's the 2016 World Series. I can always be happy about that.

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7 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Getting this back to the MLB..   it's pretty damn crazy that it's Valentine's Day and none of these stars are off the market.  The Red Sox struck gold with JD Martinez,  I don't think a big contract for the right guy is a bad thing..  

That is year one. Most big money deals are fine the first year or two. It's the back end that screws most teams. (Or the whole thing like the Os comical Chris Davis deal)

Martinez's contract is also the exception not the rule as it actually was front loaded. And the reason why it is front loaded - it has TWO Opt outs

One after this season and one after next.

So it should only really be looked at as a 2 or 3 year deal

And even if he doesn't opt out - the Red Sox did work in some injury protection in the deal as if he becomes injured (specifically around his foot again) the remaining years convert to mutual options. I mean if he tears a quad or something - well then they are boned and I will not weep.

So I would say Martinez's deal should more be an example of how deals should probably be structured now and not just the straight "Give me $300 million over 10 years"

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To the shock of absolutely no one - CC Sabathia is pitching his last season

He will announce his retirement at season's end at a press conference on Saturday

Pitcher wins are bullshit but we all remember how CC was supposed to the last chance for someone to hit 300 and it appears he will hit 260 max. (and that's if he has a good year)

And don't even look at where King Felix is gonna end up at unless you really wanna be depressed

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6 hours ago, RIPPA said:

That is year one. Most big money deals are fine the first year or two. It's the back end that screws most teams. (Or the whole thing like the Os comical Chris Davis deal)

Martinez's contract is also the exception not the rule as it actually was front loaded. And the reason why it is front loaded - it has TWO Opt outs

One after this season and one after next.

So it should only really be looked at as a 2 or 3 year deal

And even if he doesn't opt out - the Red Sox did work in some injury protection in the deal as if he becomes injured (specifically around his foot again) the remaining years convert to mutual options. I mean if he tears a quad or something - well then they are boned and I will not weep.

So I would say Martinez's deal should more be an example of how deals should probably be structured now and not just the straight "Give me $300 million over 10 years"

I'm a huge fan of the way the Kenta Maeda deal is structured, it seems super fair to give a guy a low base rate and load the ever-loving shit out of it with milestone type incentives to allow them the opportunity to maximize the dollars they end up with. And if you have a deal of that type and the ability to get up to a $30+MM year, and the player hits those benchmarks, it's a total win-win. Unfortunately, the way that the league and MLBPA allows incentives to be written makes it very hard to come up with ways to get to a solution that works. Because it was bargained that statistical achievement / career milestones cannot be used as incentive clauses, there is too much power in the hands of the team to limit guys playing time to make sure they don't hit those numbers.

You see it in what happened to Coco Crisp at the end of his time in OAK in 2016 where it was pretty evident that he was being held out of the lineups to ensure his option didn't vest. Then when he was dealt to CLE, it was clear in his role there that he wasn't going to be an everyday guy, so he wasn't going to get to the PA number required. Or what has happened to Maeda in the last 2 seasons where he has become a bullpen piece late in the year which hinders his ability to hit the innings pitched and games started milestones.

Granted, if we are talking about legitimate superstar type guys putting up numbers comparable to what is expected of them, there is no way that a team could possibly hold them out and not rightfully be called upon for their fuckery.

Edited by grilledcheese
SPELLING
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Yanks and Luis Severino agree to an extension (joining the list of other folks who worked out deals this week)

4 years, $40 million with a 5 year option

Quote

Severino’s fifth-year option is worth $15MM and comes with a $2.75MM buyout, tweets ESPN’s Jeff Passan. He’ll earn a $2MM signing bonus, a $4MM salary in 2019, $10MM in 2020, $10.25MM in 2021 and $11MM in 2022. In all, Severino can earn up to $52.25MM if the option is exercised.

As has been the case with numerous recent extensions — Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, Whit Merrifield — Severino’s deal is more front-loaded than conventional extensions. That’s been agreed upon in some cases as a means of protection against a potential work stoppage upon completion of the current CBA in 2021.

EDIT

Basically that buys out all his remaining arb years and the first year he would have been eligible for FA. (Severino is a Super Two)

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