Archive for Musings
Building a better posting system
Posted by: | CommentsAs the afternoon hours tick away in Japan, Major League Baseball and its fans are eagerly awaiting word of the Yu Darvish sweepstakes. The bidding ended at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, and we know the Yankees posted a bid. Some reports say the Yanks’ bid isn’t very substantial, and Jon Heyman called it a “modest bid.”
Right now, all we know is basically nothing. No one has yet leaked the winning figure or the winning team. We don’t know what the Yanks submitted. Maybe they went low in the hopes of preempting a skittish field. Maybe, after four years of scouting Darvish, they weren’t willing to bid high and then follow up that bid with an equally lucrative deal for an unproven commodity. Of course, the recent failures of Daisuke Matsuzaka and Kei Igawa could be fresh in their minds, but those are inexact comparisons at best.
As we wait out the results, though, I pondered the posting system earlier today. Spurred on by an article in The Times, I realized just how ludicrous a system this is. A team in Japan posts a player, and then Major League Baseball clubs submit a blind bid for the exclusive right to negotiate a deal. If the negotiations fail, that player simply returns to Japan, and the team gets its money back. There’s no incentive to give the player a fair market deal, and the team winds up spending its assets on the posting fee rather than the player.
The agents certainly don’t like the system as they suffer tremendously. “The system has already failed,” Scott Boras said to The Times, “and that type of thing is only going to increase. I lived through it with Matsuzaka. As it stands, this system doesn’t benefit anyone.”
So what might happen? In the piece, David Waldstein noted that changes may be coming to the posting system. He writes:
The posting system was introduced after the experiences of Hideo Nomo and Alfonso Soriano, who escaped their Japanese teams via loopholes. Then in 1997, the Chiba Lotte Marines, who had a working agreement with the San Diego Padres, agreed to let them sign Hideki Irabu, who refused to play for San Diego and forced a trade to the Yankees. “It wasn’t fun,” recalled Arizona Diamondbacks General Manager Kevin Towers, who was the Padres’ general manager at the time. “I think that episode annoyed a lot of people, and that’s why we have the system we have now, as flawed as it might be.”
But it might change within a couple of years. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, a committee will be established to discuss a worldwide draft, including changes to the current system along with Nippon Professional Baseball.
Boras suggested a sliding scale whereby Japanese players can negotiate with any team and their Japanese teams would receive a percentage of the contract. For instance, if a player leaves after one year, the Japanese team would get 80 percent of the contract, 50 percent after five years and 20 percent with just one year remaining before free agency. “A lot of Japanese players aren’t successful here because they aren’t comfortable in their situation,” Boras said. “If they could choose where they want to play, their success rate would definitely increase.”
Who knows if Boras, as he often does, is just selling a load of hooey. Maybe Japanese players aren’t successful because they are siphoned off to one team and have to negotiate with little leverage. Maybe they’re not successful because they just can’t beat Major League competition. Either way, the posting system is a bit of a strange beast, more akin to the amateur draft than anything else. Veteran players aren’t given the option to pick their next team. How peculiar.
For now, though, we’ll wait it out for a little while longer. At some point soon, Yu Darvish’s potential future employer will be announced. I’m not too optimistic it will be the Yankees, but as a famed broadcaster likes to say, sometimes, you just can’t predict baseball.
Five stages of grief over a $189 million payroll
Posted by: | CommentsNote: In case there was any confusion, I recognize that this is firmly in Spoiled Yankees Fan territory.
Reactions to news that the Yankees desire to trim payroll by 2014 have resembled the Kübler-Ross model. First came denial: no way the Yankees would actually do this. They’re just setting a smokescreen. Then came anger: how can the Yankees trim their payroll while they raise ticket prices? That leaves three stages remaining: bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Let’s see if we can run though these in short order, so that we can prepare ourselves in case the Yankees actually do intend to duck the luxury tax cap in order to lower their payments once they re-cross the threshold.
Bargaining
The biggest issue with trimming payroll is that the Yankees need players to fill key spots. While they have all of their position players under contract for 2012, they could still use another starting pitcher. Nick Swisher then becomes a free agent after the 2012 season, leaving a spot in right field that the Yankees would be hard pressed to fill internally. These things cost money to fill.
Yet we still want the shiny toys. We want Yu Darvish this year, and we want Cole Hamels next year. We want a big bat to take over for Swisher in right — it was Matt Kemp previously, but surely fan desire will turn to another worthy candidate in time. Again, these players come with big price tags. It’s hard enough to fit them into a $210 million payroll, let alone a $188 million one. But we can make this work, right?
According to Joel Sherman’s original article on the payroll issue, the Yankees already have about $85 million committed to the 2014 payroll, at least as it concerns luxury tax. That covers Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, plus “about a $10 million charge for benefits, such as pensions.” Then there’s another possible $6 million if A-Rod hits his 714th homer in 2014; if he’s anywhere near that mark at the end of 2013 they have to assume that $6 million charge. That could conceivably put them at $91 million for three players.
Want to sign Robinson Cano to a long-term deal? That’ll likely mean a contract with an average annual value between $22 and $24 million. Even then, they’re covered at 3B (optimistically), 1B, 2B, and one starting pitcher. Derek Jeter could exercise his player option for $8 million. Brett Gardner will still be around, but won’t be cheap in his third year of arbitration. Ditto David Robertson. Jesus Montero, thankfully, will still make about a half million, which will soothe the payroll a bit. Ivan Nova will just hit his first year of arbitration, giving them another relatively cheap producer. That still leaves them with voids to fill in center field, right field, the bullpen and rotation, catcher or DH, and maybe shortstop. It’s a long list.
So where does that leave us? At a conservative $15 million estimate for Gardner, Robertson, and Nova, $23 million for Cano, and $8 million for Jeter, that brings us to $137 million. OK. That doesn’t look too bad. Counting Montero, that’s nine players. Surely they can sign the remaining 14 players for $50 million, right? Well, that depends on how you want to fill the spots. Want Darvish? That’s probably a $10 million AAV. Want Cole Hamels next off-season? That could be another $22 million. See how quickly that money gets spent? Even if they go with just Darvish, that still leaves them just $40 million for 13 spots, including two in the outfield.
That leads us to…
Depression
It does appear that the Yankees will have to scale back on spending at some point if they do intend to get to $189 million. The biggest obstacle is the money already on the books. That $91 million for three players puts the Yankees at a great handicap, since it represents essentially half of their available payroll. That leaves them with the same amount of money to sign the entire rest of the roster. Needless to say, that’s not an easy proposition.
Again, looking at the above back of the napkin calculation, the Yanks have 14 spots to fill for $50 million — and that assumes that Montero is the real deal and can either catch, or can hit well enough to remain at DH. But there are still those holes in the outfield, in the starting rotation, and in the bullpen. Sure, on the bench and in the bullpen they can probably get away with five or six guys making the league minimum, so that gives us eight spots to fill for $47 million. But even one high-priced pitcher changes that equation drastically.
That’s still do-able, in a way. If the Yankees can make use of six or seven guys making the minimum — and that can be guys such as Mason Williams and Manny Banuelos as starters, or guys such as Adam Warren, Brandon Laird, and Dellin Betances as reserves and bullpen arms — they’ll have a bit more flexibility. In fact, if they score a few key hits from the minors they very well could fall into this payroll range. No, that’s not the depressing part. The depression comes from the players already under contract.
In 2014 A-Rod will be 38, and turn 39 in July. Jeter will be 40 that June. Less troublesome are Teixeira at 34 and Sabathia at 33. No, the depression comes from the spots and money essentially guaranteed Rodriguez and Jeter. Maybe Jeter retires, though that opens up yet another spot without a viable replacement in the system. A-Rod, though, will make $26 million in 2014. What’s worse, Yanks fans had better hope he makes $32 million. He has 85 homers to go until he triggers his second home run milestone bonus, at 714. If he’s not poised to hit that milestone in 2014 it’ll mean he’s averaging fewer than 30 homers per year. For the money they’re paying him, the Yanks need that kind of production from Rodriguez. Yet given his injuries lately, it seems a longshot to think he’ll live up to that standard.
Acceptance
Is it going to suck watching the Yankees scale back their spending in the name of circumventing luxury tax payments? Absolutely. Will it mean they miss the playoffs a year or two? With the added Wild Card they’ll have a better chance of making it, but the competition in the AL has increased. The only fun that will come of this will be the chances they give prospects. If they’re not committing big money to additional positions, then they pretty much have to give the kids a shot.
The only thing to do at this point is accept it. The Yankees have these three huge contracts on the books, and nothing they can do will reduce their current 2014 luxury tax level. If the Steinbrenners really do want to save the luxury tax money, there’s nothing we can do to stop them. They know the repercussions of putting a subpar product on the field, and they know the consequences of missing the playoffs. We can only trust that they’ll make decisions with that knowledge in mind.
Bonus: Denial Again!
But seriously. With the three-team scrum in the AL East, combined with the enormous incentive to win the division, the Yanks can’t be serious about trimming payroll, right?
The second worst contract in baseball history
Posted by: | CommentsAlbert Pujols signed the second worst contract in baseball history last week, and he did it all without meeting with a team he thought was based in Los Angeles.
OK. OK. Perhaps I’m being a bit hyperbolic, but bear with me. Right now, Alex Rodriguez‘s 10-year, $275-million contract, signed when he was heading into his age 32 season, is generally considered to be one of the worst in baseball history. Four years into the deal, A-Rod has struggled to stay healthy, averaging just 124 games per season, while hitting .284/.375/.521. It’s an impressive slash line, but that is a far cry from the .306/.389/.578 line he put up beforehand.
To make matters worse, as we know, A-Rod’s world was rocked by scandal a few months after signing the deal when revelation of past steroid use became public. All of a sudden, the historic milestone clauses that could push A-Rod’s contract value over the $300 million mark became onerous. A-Rod gets paid no matter what, but a tainted home run race won’t draw as much money to the Yanks’ coffers as it otherwise would have.
A-Rod, who turned 36 this past July, is under contract for six more years and will earn another $143 million from the Yanks. It’s highly doubtful he’ll be worth it even if he can stay healthy enough to regain some semblance of his All Star production levels. Now, the Yanks could do worse than have A-Rod under contract for a while, but they were bidding against themselves in the winter of 2007 when A-Rod opted out. He walked away richer, and even before the ink dried on that contract, we knew a contract covering A-Rod’s age 32-41 seasons would not look pretty.
Enter the Angels. Or the Marlins. Or even the Cardinals. Albert Pujols is a great baseball player. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer with a career 1.037 OPS, 445 home runs, three MVP awards and two World Series rings. He’s also going to be 32 when the 2012 season opens and just signed a contract for $254 million covering his age 32-41 seasons. With an injury-plagued past, he’s coming off a year in which he hit only .299/.366/.541. For him, that’s a down year, and at his age, it’s not unreasonable to expect a slow and steady decline.
Of course, just like A-Rod in decline is still a very good player, so too is Albert Pujols. He makes the offensively-challenged Angels instantly better in the short term. In the long term, I’m glad the Yanks haven’t just forked over $254 million in guaranteed dollars to a first baseman. At least A-Rod played a premium position.
So all of these dollars got me thinking: If A-Rod’s deal is generally considered one of the worst in baseball, can’t we call Pujols’ contract the second worst? He’s a bit better offensively than A-Rod was at the same point in his career, but he plays an easier position. He’s signed for the same time period and is likely getting paid by the Angels for what he’s already done in his career — for another team, to boot — than what he will do going forward.
But who cares? I’m looking forward to seeing the Angels sink $25 million in 37-year-old Albert Pujols in a few years. There’s a larger concern though. Baseball’s system is now set up to reward the past. With new CBA, draft pick compensation is going to be tightly controlled, and the international free agency system will be limited as well. Free agency, then, will reign supreme, and teams will have to overpay for top talent. The Yanks are seeing that now as pitchers who aren’t rotation aces are getting paid as such, and teams are demanding the stars and the moon in trades for younger arms.
So the Yanks will spend cautiously and, some might say, wisely as free agent dollars explode. That’s the system the owners and players association have crafted to protect, on the one hand, current MLBPA members and, on the other, smaller market teams. At least the Yanks aren’t alone in signing a great player to an absurd contract though. For the next ten years, they have company.
Repeating History With Yu Darvish
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(Photo Credit: Darvish via Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images, Johan via AP)
After much speculation and anticipation, the Nippon Ham Fighters officially posted Yu Darvish late last week. MLB clubs have until 5pm ET this Wednesday to submit their bid for the 25-year-old right-hander, and so far the Yankees have been playing coy. Team officials “sounded pessimistic about making a significant posting bid, if they submit one at all” according to Joel Sherman, but this is exactly how Brian Cashman has operated the last few years. It’s hard to take these claims seriously.
Four offseasons ago, the Yankees were in a similar position to the one they are in right now: in need of pitching with an ace-caliber starter in the prime of his career to be had. The Twins were openly shopping Johan Santana — just 28 years old and coming off one of the most dominant four-year stretches in recent baseball history — because he was under contract for just one more season and they couldn’t afford to sign him long-term. Only a few clubs had the prospects to put together a trade package and the financial wherewithal to sign him to a huge contract extension, and the Yankees were one of those teams.
Cashman did the song and dance as trade rumors swirled for a while, but ultimately he and the Yankees passed on Santana. They rolled the dice with Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy in 2008, an experiment that was a disaster and ultimately contributed to the team missing the playoffs for the first time in a decade and a half. Passing on Johan was just one piece of Cashman’s grand rotation plan though, a plan that included pursuing CC Sabathia as a free agent during the 2008-2009 offseason. The consequences were pretty severe in 2008, at least around these parts, but the plan worked masterfully. The Yankees signed Sabathia — another left-handed ace in his prime, but one without as many question marks as Santana — for nothing but money and watched him lead them to the 2009 World Championship. This offseason, Cashman and the Yankees could be pulling the same trick again.
(Jeff Bottari/Getty Images)
In Darvish, teams have a chance to acquire someone purported to be an ace but with very real questions about his game. Santana’s problem was his sudden spike in homerun rate and reports an elbow issue that caused him to lose some velocity and reduce the usage of his slider. He was proven in MLB and the AL though, which is the question with Darvish. We don’t know how he’ll transition to the States, and the track record of Japanese starters over here isn’t very good beyond Hiroki Kuroda. The Yankees would have had to pay twice for Johan (once in prospects then once in a huge contract extension), but Darvish is available for only money (including a huge up front posting free payment).
Playing the role of Sabathia this time around is next offseason’s crop of free agent pitchers, which includes Cole Hamels, Zack Greinke, John Danks, Matt Cain, Jeremy Guthrie, Francisco Liriano, Brandon McCarthy, Anibal Sanchez, and Shaun Marcum. Some are bonafide stars, some are mid-rotation workhorses, some are risky high-upside plays. Some of those guys will surely sign extensions over the next ten months, but the sheer volume of quality pitchers leads me to believe that at least some of them will be available next offseason. By not paying big bucks for Darvish and his uncertainty now, the Yankees could be gearing up for a run at one of those arms next winter, guys with track records in MLB and generally safer bets.
What Cashman did four winters ago — putting all his eggs in the Sabathia basket — was incredibly risky in many ways, but there isn’t that much risk this time around. For one, he already has CC anchoring his rotation, so there isn’t that need for someone to place atop the rotation. They’re just looking for someone to put between Sabathia and ahead of everyone else. Secondly, Sabathia was The Guy after the 2008 season, the best pitchers on the market after him were A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe, nice pitchers (at the time) but hardly whom you’d consider rotation stalwarts. This time around the options are plentiful, even if a few of those guys sign extensions like I said.
No one asked me, but I would like to see the Yankees sign Darvish because it’s not often a 25-year-old with his pedigree comes along for nothing more than money. Then again, I could also see them stand pat or acquire someone like Kuroda or John Danks for 2012 with an eye towards going nuts on pitching next winter. Not saying I necessarily agree with it, but I could see them going that route. There wouldn’t be as much risk as there was four years ago, but the thought process is basically the same. It’s already worked once, but the question is can it work again?
Brian Cashman, Prevaricator Extraordinaire?
Posted by: | CommentsIn recent days, while teams like the Marlins and Angels snapped up every big name free agent on the market, Brian Cashman preached patience and fiscal responsibility. When Yu Darvish was posted at the end of last week, Cashman said the following (courtesy of Chad Jennings):
“Sometimes, if you like somebody a great deal, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be in a position to participate,” Cashman said. “I think, obviously he’s extremely talented. If he’s going to get posted, it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out and how everybody on this side of the fence – meaning all Major League clubs – how they decide to or not to participate, and at what level. But that’s all for another day.”
“We’ve got a lot of depth (in the rotation),” Cashman said. “Can we add to it? We’d like to. But is it realistic? It’s not necessarily that realistic because for me to be able to push through something, I’m probably going to have to overpay to do that. And that’s a tough thing to do, especially when you’re sitting with a lot of talent, a lot of people you could slot in and (have them) do this job. It’s just, do you want to bet on somebody doing it significantly better at the expense of payroll flexibility going forward or (the loss of a prospect in a trade)? I’m OK with the balancing act. I’m OK with the decision making. I didn’t expect much, and it’s hard to improve on what we already have.”
Couple these quotes with the recent reports that the Yankees are trying to cut their payroll in anticipation of being below the luxury tax threshold in 2014, and you have the makings of another quiet offseason for a team that seems to need some established starting pitching. However, despite the fairly pervasive reports that the Yankees are unlikely to bid on Darvish, sign a free agent to a large deal, or give up major prospects to acquire a top starter, there is precedent to suggest that Cashman is simply working to muddy the informational waters.
The most famous example comes from late-2005, when Brian claimed that the Yankees were going to enter the 2006 season with Bubba Crosby as the center fielder. No one quite believed it at the time, but most fans were still stunned when Cashman stole Johnny Damon from the Red Sox a few weeks later. Prior to the 2009 season, the Yankees’ GM suggested that the rumors of the Yankees adding Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, and either Derek Lowe or A.J. Burnett were “crazy talk” from a “fantasy land.” He suggested that even acquiring just Sabathia and Teixeira was a ridiculous idea that had no merit. A scant few weeks later, Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett were all in pinstripes.
On two other occasions, Cashman made forceful public statements only to later be overruled by management. He stated quite clearly that if A-Rod used the opt-out in his contract following the 2007 season, the Yankees would not participate in his free agency. And just last offseason, he declared that he would not surrender his first round pick, only to be effectively overruled by management a few days later when they signed Rafael Soriano.
The fact of the matter is that it is usually in Cashman’s best interests to be less than forthcoming with the entire and absolute truth. It does him nothing but harm to effusively express interest in a free agent or to suggest that the club has major holes that desperately need to be remedied. Furthermore, when it comes to this particular offseason, with Darvish finally on the market, it actually behooves him to actively spread misinformation:
The process of acquiring players from Japanese baseball includes a blind posting system. Interested teams get to make a single bid for the exclusive rights to negotiate with the player, without knowledge of the bids being made by other clubs. Essentially, clubs need to guess at the market and then make their bid accordingly. This can prove to be extremely difficult, as evidenced by the Red Sox’s $51 million bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka, which reportedly exceeded the next highest bid by at least $15 million.
The guesswork nature of this process lends itself towards misinformation. Teams that are interested in Darvish have an incentive to downplay their level of involvement, which could help suppress the market and lower the range of bids. Conversely, teams that have little interest might feign heavy internal consideration of a large bid, so as to drive up the price for rivals and generally push the market upwards. Taken together, this means that almost all of the information you might hear on Darvish, regarding any team, is likely to be filtered through the lens of self-interest and may be being released to influence the bidding environment. As we saw with the Daisuke situation, until the Nippon Ham Fighters announce the winner, everyone will be in the dark on the posting process.
I entered this offseason expecting the Yankees to add some pitching, and I still believe that all the talk of an austerity budget is a ruse designed to keep the bidding on Darvish reasonably low. That said, the events of last offseason, in which Cashman claimed not to feel a desperate need for pitching and then followed through by not adding a major starter all year, give me pause. The Yankees and Brian Cashman may actually feel that Ivan Nova, Freddy Garcia, Phil Hughes, A.J. Burnett, and Hector Noesi provide them with enough options to construct a quality rotation behind CC Sabathia. It’s also possible that they are running a misinformation campaign, but one targeted at next offseason and players like Cole Hamels. Whatever the truth is, Brian Cashman’s history suggests that we should not be too quick to believe what we read.
No use for an off-season plan
Posted by: | CommentsWhy make plans if they’re almost guaranteed to not work? That’s the off-season approach we’ve taken at RAB. We’ve tried it in the past, and it’s just a big waste of time. There are so many variables in the off-season that it’s impossible to nail down one scenario and hope the Yankees can do just that. Even the Yankees don’t operate in that manner. They make plans, sure, but it’s all fluid. Things change every day, and the plan can change with it.
The off-season is a time of perpetual uncertainty. Despite the constant flow of whispers on MLB Trade Rumors, we can’t be sure of their nature. Did an exec actually say that, or is it the reporter’s interpretation? Was the exec in question actually a part of the discussion, or is he himself getting the information second-hand? Who, exactly, is the anonymous source? Is it sincere, or blatant misinformation? The list of questions go on. It essentially leaves us right where we started.
I hope you guys are enjoying our almost-daily scouting the market series. It’s a way to present players who might be available and who might help the Yankees. It is, essentially, an attempt to look at the market as a whole, rather than pigeonholing a few players as the only ones who can fit the Yankees needs. What fun would it be if we created an off-season plan and then just followed, say, C.J. Wilson news all winter? That would have ended in utter disappointment when he took the Angels’ offer — more disappointing still, because the Yankees didn’t even submit a serious offer.
Part of this sentiment comes out of frustration. We spent a lot of time thinking of ideas and putting together posts. To see comments that outright dismiss the ideas presented, and then repeat some preconceived off-season doctrine, makes it all seem like a waste. Yes, those comments from from probably a quarter percent of our overall readership. Maybe less. But it still hurts a bit. There’s a big world of possibilities in any given off-season. Isn’t it more fun to consider all of those options, independent of the others, than constantly going back to the same talking point?
To be sure, playing GM is fun. You can kill a few good hours doing it with a friend. We’re guilty of that sometimes on RAB. I’m also not asking anyone to stop; it’s not my business how you want to spend your time. I just hope that you read RAB with an open enough mind to understand the logic behind some of the options we discuss. They might not be the best options; they might not be second, third, or fourth. But as the off-season changes, so do plans. It might turn out that the third best option at the outset is the best option by mid-December. That’s just the way baseball works sometimes.
Things could get a little slow from here on out. Clearly the Yankees don’t plan to make a big move. Maybe they’ll win the posting on Yu Darvish. But regardless, it doesn’t seem as though anything else big is on the horizon. Even in the general scene, the biggest signings are behind us. Prince Fielder remains, and Edwin Jackson’s destination could be of interest. Other than that, there’s a lot of mid-grade talent. It’s not exciting, but it’s what we have. I just hope we can have some fun with it.
A Role Reversal
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(Matthew Emmons/US Presswire)
It’s been a slow offseason for the Yankees, but the same can’t be said for the Marlins. Not only did they change their name from the Florida Marlins to the Miami Marlins, but they also redesigned their uniforms* and have a brand new ballpark set to open next season. That park is going to be filled with new players too; the Marlins have already signed Heath Bell and agreed to terms with Jose Reyes, and recent reports indicate that they’ve offered Albert Pujols a ten-year (!) contract. Obviously, these aren’t your grandfather’s older brother’s Marlins anymore.
* Are they ugly? Yes. Is everyone talking about them? Also yes. No such thing as bad publicity.
Usually it’s the Yankees falling all over themselves to acquire big name players in the offseason while the Marlins sit on the sidelines, but the exact opposite is happening this winter. It’s kinda neat, actually. It’s fun watching big name players change teams, especially when the Yankees aren’t the ones taking the risk. Bell is a reliever, Reyes has had hamstring problems, and a ten-year contract is scary no matter who gets it. These are some bold but risky moves, if nothing else.
Of course the Marlins have a history of doing this sort of thing. They acquired Bobby Bonilla, Moises Alou, Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, and Cliff Floyd (among others) leading up to the 1997 season, then won the World Series. Mission accomplished. A massive fire-sale followed, but they won their championship, so the plan worked. You can quibble with how they did it if you want, but a ring is a ring.
We’ve been spoiled by sustained success here in New York, but pretty much every other club operates in cycles. Three or four good years followed by three or four bad years, something like that. Retool, rebuild, then make another run and hope you get lucky. It’s easy for me to say from where I sit, but I do think a lot of clubs get a little too caught up in building for the future and not living in the moment, so to speak. The Rays are a pretty good example, they’ve got a great team right now and have gone to the playoffs in each of the last two years, but they didn’t make any moves at the trade deadline. Last year they needed an extra starter (Jamie Shields was awful and both Wade Davis and Jeff Niemann were banged up in the second half), and this past year they needed an extra bat. Instead of making a move that might have put them over the top, they stood pat. Is it better to shoot for success two or three or four years down the road, or to go for it all right now? I can see the argument for both sides.
Anyway, the Marlins are clearly going for it all right now. Bell, Reyes, and potentially Pujols are joining a club with a solid foundation in place, led by Hanley Ramirez, Josh Johnson, Mike Stanton, Ricky Nolasco, Anibal Sanchez, and Logan Morrison. The Yankees seem content with what they have, or at least they’re not rushing out to make any major upgrades just yet. It’s certain different than what they’ve done in years past and what the Marlins are doing right now.
Sick of this.
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday Larry chronicled how past offseason activity compares to the current state of “no news yesterday, today or tomorrow”. Given the healthy condition of the Yankees roster and the dearth of good options on the free agency or trade market (for now), Larry concludes that this peaceful offseason is a actually a blessing, even if it is a bit boring:
However, in the aftermath of the Cliff Lee non-signing, standing relatively pat for the remainder of last offseason…and continuing to stand his ground at the trade deadline back at the end of July, Brian Cashman’s strategy of waiting things out — and perhaps not even making a significant move at all — may not be such a bad thing. Especially if Kenny Williams finally comes calling bearing gifts of John Danks and/or Gavin Floyd.
This is true, of course. There has hardly been a good opportunity squandered by the Yankees since the Dan Haren deal, and their inactivity is really more of a function of the market than reticence or over-caution. In fact, the front office’s ability to keep calm and carry on and not sell the farm on risky ventures is a testament to their intelligence, and patience.
Yet, I can’t help myself in feeling just a little bit antsy, and quite a bit bored, with how the Hot Stove season has gone so far. It’s been weeks and weeks since the Yankees were eliminated and the most interesting news to come out of Yankeeland and MLB writ large has been the re-signing of CC Sabathia, something of a fait accompli in my mind, and the changes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. That’s it. No rumors of a blockbuster trade, no mystery team, no secret meetings. Just nothing but boring. Like the kid in Sandlot, I don’t think I can take much more. As Patrick Henry famously said, “Give me [rumors] or [take away my Internet access].”
This problem is compounded by thorough and analytical coverage here at River Ave Blues. Whenever a rumor surfaces, readers can count on Joe or Mike to quickly put together a Scouting the Market piece and examine the pros and cons of the target. Yet they always provide three or four good reasons why a trade won’t happen. I know everyone’s trade proposal sucks, but yeesh fellas, let a guy dream on Cole Hamels or Andrew McCutchen for a day before you kill the idea. It’s gotten so bad (and they’ve gotten so good) that they often will quash a trade target before I even know the player is available. They’re murdering my Hot Stove Dreams faster than I can dream them up.
Sick of this.
Part of the consolation of a baseball-less half-year is the fact that the offseason unfolds in a manner unlike any other sport. Much like the game itself, baseball’s free agency is a languid and leisurely process, dawdling and lingering before wrapping up in January; trade rumors kick up in the first set of winter meetings and refuse to die for weeks; and avid fans are treated to a solid eight or more weeks of news and gossip before February settles in and the countdown to Spring Training begins in earnest. Aside from the absence of actual games, at times it feels like baseball never leaves.
So while I’m generally comfortable with the team’s roster, I’m with Larry and others in hoping the club can add one or more starter pitchers this winter. And before they ink these pitchers to shiny new deals or ship out prospects to get them, I’d very much like to have a lovely drawn-out period in which the team is linked, truthfully or not, to all the names out there. All of them. Tell me Prince Fielder wants to live in Alpine with CC and let me try to figure out how in the world they could pay $180 million for just a DH, and with Montero on board to boot. Tell me Cash had dinner with Big Papi at Tap. Tell me Jack Z. and Felix just aren’t getting along. Tell me Tim Lincecum cut his hair and has been spending time in the Village. Tell me all of it.
It’s been a long time since Ben, Mike, Joe and I gnawed our way through our hats and watched in agony as the team failed in Game 5 of the ALDS. It’s been a long time since Joe and I stood at the mezzanine level in the bottom of the 4th with the bases jacked and one out and ate our hot dogs and banged on the metal tables and hollered until security told us to stop, and then acted like we forgot and did it again, only to see Martin and Gardner pop out and the rally die. But it hasn’t been long enough. A new year is almost here, and that means a new team. And until I get that new team, I’d like very much to dream on what could be. Help a brother out; it’s starting to get cold.
Changes To The Game Suggest Darvish Is The Right Move
Posted by: | CommentsOne thing Yankees fans are great at is fitting an attractive player for pinstripes before he is a free agent. We see a Joe Mauer or Cole Hamels or Felix Hernandez on the horizon, and we start dreaming up the various ways in which the player will become a Yankee. We often take it as a given that the Yankee will acquire the players they need, whether via trade or free agency. In recent seasons we have added prospect hype to the equation, assuming that the farm system will eventually produce a big bat or a top of the rotation starter who will allow the Yankees to eschew free agency. Somehow, the Yankees will end up with the great talent necessary to continue contending on a regular basis.
However, recent events have seemingly conspired to make the acquisition of top young talent more complicated for the Yankees. The new CBA will make it more difficult for the Yankees to pursue elite talents in the later rounds of the draft, as well as entirely destroy their ability to target top international free agents. They can no longer buy Austin Jackson types out of scholarships in the later rounds by going well over the recommended slot money, nor can they throw big contracts at the next Jesus Montero or Gary Sanchez. Furthermore, while the new luxury tax might actually help the Yankees in the short-term, its lack of adjusment for inflation makes it likely that it will curtail the Yankees ability to expand their budget in the middle of the decade. With a number of aging players slated to earn large paydays during that period, the Yankees might find their ability to compete on the free agent market hindered to some extent.
Finally, from a purely anecdotal perspective, it seems like more and more teams are locking up their young stars before they ever hit free agency. Contracts that buy out a few years of free agency and give the player some financial security are all the rage, and the ramifications of that trend are obvious. Most of the players who make it to free agency are of the CJ Wilson, Zack Greinke, or Francisco Liriano ilk, players with elite talent who have some questions surrounding them that make teams fearful of handing them huge contract extensions. There are fewer elite talents hitting the free agent market, and when they do make it to free agency, the competition for them is likely to be significantly stiffer.
However, with all of these factors suggesting that the Yankees will have a difficult time acquiring exciting young talent, there is one loophole that could allow the Yankees to make a splash. As Mike said in the CBA post linked to above:
Players under 23 years old and with less than years of professional baseball experience will be considered amateurs and count against the spending cap. That means guys like Yoenis Cespedes and Japanese veterans will be treated as a true free agents. Japanese players run through the posting system will not count against the cap.
Cespedes is something of a wild card whose price seems to be rocketing out of control, and I simply do not know enough about him to advocate that the Yankees throw a ton of cash at him. Yu Darvish, however, is an exciting 25 year old Japanese pitching prospect who is likely to be posted this offseason. Unlike Cespedes, Darvish fits an obvious need for the Yankees, as they have a hole near the front of their rotation that Darvish should be able to fill even if he is only 75% as good as he was in Japan. Furthermore, while his total cost will be prohibitive (likely in excess of 100 million dollars), a large chunk of that money (the posting fee) will not be counted against the luxury tax. That makes Darvish a cheaper long-term option than a guy like CJ Wilson.
There are obvious risks associated with a large outlay for Darvish. Japanese pitchers have not exhibited sustained success in the majors, and some have suggested that the routine for pitchers differs enough between NPB and MLB to make the transition a difficult one. Furthermore, any large amount of money spent on a pitcher who has never thrown a major league pitch represents a major gamble, particularly when reliable veterans such as Mark Buehrle and Roy Oswalt can be had at a significantly cheaper rate.
Despite the risks, the changing nature of the game makes taking a chance on Darvish the right play for the Yankees. They will have a more difficult time acquiring top draft and IFA prospects, making the development of elite talent significantly more complicated. Throw in the fact that the alternative is the shrinking free agent pool, and taking a risk on a 25-year old with Darvish’s stuff is something the financially powerful Yankees should strongly consider. This is one area where the club can still throw around their dollars to grab a young player, and it would behoove them to jump at the opportunity.
The changing face of Major League Baseball
Posted by: | CommentsBaseball’s GM meetings wrapped up today, and at the end MLB announced a few things that we knew were coming down the pike. First, they approved the Astros’ sale to Jim Crane. That comes with a game-altering change: the Astros will move to the American League West division in 2013, thereby creating two 15-team leagues. Second, MLB announced the addition of one Wild Card team from each league, expanding the total playoff pool to 10 of 30 teams. Both of these announcements will have far-reaching effects on the future of the sport.
Balanced Leagues
Given baseball’s current arrangement, having unbalanced leagues makes sense. It might create an odd-looking arrangement, with the AL West housing four teams while the NL Central has six, but it makes life much easier. With 14 teams in the AL and 16 teams in the NL, baseball was able to continue its tradition of keeping the leagues separate, or at least mostly separate, until they finally meet in the World Series. But with 15 teams in each league, having an interleague game every day becomes necessary.
More frequent interleague creates a greater urgency for a uniform set of rules. It’s unfair to ask AL teams to regularly play without their DH, just as it’s unfair to ask an NL team to find a DH among its string of bench players. But at the same time, changing the DH rule in either league would come under much heavier fire than any of the recently announced changes. The DH rule, as Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra has said, is akin to religion. We all have our beliefs, and no amount of argument, no matter how vehement and logical, will sway the other side.
Thankfully, it appears that the rules need not change. The Daily News’ Mark Feinsand notes that the number of interleague games will not change. That means they will essentially take those two weeks of interleague in June, plus the stale rivalry weekend, and spread them throughout the season. That does appear to be the best compromise for the time being. It means both leagues can retain their DH identities, and it keeps minimal contact between the leagues during the season. If MLB did feel the need to balance the leagues, they at least got this part right.
Added Wild Card
While moving the Astros to the AL creates little controversy, minus the DH discussion, adding a Wild Card team to each league inspires heavy opinions from all angles. From the few details we know, each league will now have two Wild Card teams, and they will meet each other for a one-game playoff. That will determine who plays the No. 1 seed in the LDS (or the No. 2 seed, depending on the standard divisional issues). As with most changes, this has both upsides and downsides.
On the upside is an incentive to win the division. In years past we’ve heard loud criticism that some teams have been able to go into cruise control in September, because they had such a big lead on a playoff spot. The Yankees were in such a situation the last three seasons. They could afford to ease up in September, because even if they lost the division they still had a comfortable cushion in the Wild Card race. The new system forces them to keep a foot on the accelerator, lest they get forced into that all-or-nothing playoff game. The other, obvious, upside is that more teams get a chance to make the big dance.
Still, this seems like an odd way to approach adding a second Wild Card team. One-game playoffs in baseball exist out of necessity, for the rare instance where two teams finish with the same record and there is a playoff spot on the line. That is, Game 163 just creates a situation where one team must have a better regular season record than the other. The new system turns that into an actual playoff game. The participants needn’t have equal records; in fact, in most years they will not. Instead they’ll face each other for a single game, with the entire season on the line, no matter how much better one team played than the other during a whole 162-game season.
That, to me, marginalizes the marathon that is the April through September baseball season. It penalizes a team that played better in 162 games, just to squeeze in another playoff team. And it all occurs in a single game, where all sorts of randomness can damn an otherwise deserving team. You can say that the Wild Card in general creates the same effect, and I’d agree. But this new system makes the situation that much worse.
When the time comes, there will be few complaints about the system. There might be a cry of foul here and there, especially when a team with a superior record loses the Wild Card game. But it almost certainly won’t turn interest away from baseball. In fact, keeping the added team in the playoff hunt, and putting a greater emphasis on the division (to the chagrin of the 4th-best team) could create a higher level of interest. It doesn’t have a universal seal of approval from fans, but these are the new realities of Major League Baseball.
Just 5 days 'til pitchers and catchers report.
