Looks like the Rockies have changed out one former Royals closer for another.
Well, there’s a domino falling!
My brother – who is an editor in the Chronicle sports department – just messaged me “I think we just locked up the 2013 pennant.”
Snark aside, I love Cutch, and Giants fans are going to adore him.
I’m not under any illusions about the realistic contention status of this team. This offseason feels like a “let’s take one more shot at a wild card with this aging core of guys” moves. A season or two from now will be the real teardown.
LOL
Yea, the Giants acquired two players past their prime and have done nothing to bolster a pitching staff that really wasn’t very good last year.
Are they moving in the fences or something? :)
Pretty good Passan #longread about the coming MLB labor issues.
https://sports.yahoo.com/heres-baseballs-economic-system-might-broken-224638354.html
Lorenzo Cain is worth $24m for 1 year?
And 1/3 of the teams won’t participate in free agency. Well, fact is baseball is a team sport and 1-2 players are not going to help most of those teams. So why should they spend big money on them.
And screw Boras.
Hell yeah.
Ok I get that he is very good at what he does, namely getting big paydays for mercenaries, but as a fan I hate him with a burning passion.
I have heard on sports radio “experts” say that there are teams that will no longer deal with Boras. I can just imagine how much he will want some team to over pay for Harper.
Yep. This offseason and the absolute total non-anything that is free agency bodes very poorly for the next CBA. There could be a very, very long work stoppage coming.
Seems like shortening the arbitration years might go a long to solving some of the problems. That way at least they’re paying the biggest money for player’s prime years, and the journeymen-type players are able to cash in earlier.
And then maybe eliminating some of the incentives for small-market teams to just exist and rake in that sweet “competitive balance” cash without actually competing…
I mean, KC didn’t hesitate to offer him a 1 year QO at 17.4m and they are going to be a low payroll trash team this year. So 24 and only one year commitment isn’t as far off as you might think.
I don’t understand the Boras hate. You know that if he gets his clients less money that extra money literally just goes in the owners’ pockets right? They aren’t lowering ticket prices. The owners have proven that they will collude and have been penalized multiple times. When he was Commissioner Vincent called them on it directly.
The idea that any of these teams are cash strapped is a giant lie by the teams.
That Passan piece is really well done. Anyone interested in the business side of the sport should read it.
That article feels like they spent months searching for evidence of collusion and couldn’t come up with anything, so just ended up trying to salvage the effort by doing a longread on the free-agent market. Still interesting, but kind of no there there.
Obviously we’re not privy to the actual deals being offered, but this could be it:
Agents are logging discussions with teams and the union hunting for patterns to explain why clubs, whose franchise values have exploded from $18.1 billion to $46.1 billion over the last five years, will propose top players contracts with average annual values in excess of $20 million or deals for more than three years but are loath to offer both. “It’s way too uniform,” one agent said. “The book has been printed. It’s out there.”
It is very similar to the Collusion III ruling against the MLB that the various teams were sharing contract information to suppress offers:
Not saying there isn’t collusion, just that the article keeps saying “ooh, isn’t this deal suggestive of collusion”, when it’s not, really, it’s just an anecdote. If they’d provided detail on these patterns, that might be something, but they don’t.
Boras just epitomizes the slimey agent who demands too much for his guy. I hate him just because. And while I would be happier not knowing what anybody made I think it is crazy outlier contracts that just raise the cost of everything. It sets the bar for the next guy.
And owners (many anyway) are only going to make the big killing when they sell.
I mean, that’s their job (well, gettting “too much”, not demanding it). An actually slimy agent is one who gives or takes bribes or similar.
Alternatively the team has a target payroll they’re shooting for, and can instead spend that money on other players. I don’t like Boras because I know a player represented by him isn’t going to be playing on my team and is on the first bus out of town as soon as he hits free agency.
Does it have to be collusion if teams are deciding that no, giving a guy $20+/m a year in his late 30s isn’t a good business decision?