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[Brinbe]

Who cares? Again, you're looking at it from the on-the-field perspective when that's maybe half of the consideration of this deal.
He's a property/entertainer, not just a player. And losing that for nothing when you have revenue out the ass and he's your main attraction is stupid.

What is 40 million when your franchise is worth 7 billion and you make 700 mill in revenue?

He ceases to be a property/entertainer if he doesn't perform, though. Yankees fans and the NY media aren't exactly known for their patience with underperforming players, and at an AAV of $40m, the definition of 'underperforming' is going to be extremely broad. He'll get booed the first time he has an 0 for 10 streak, and if he spends the back half of that contract playing poorly (a distinct possibility/likelihood), they will be merciless.

lol no sht, they already did that in the playoffs, they're an incredibly fickle/spoiled fanbase. 27 rings has made them a bit crazy, yes. And yet Judge still took less compared to what the Pads/Giants offered to go back because he'll be a legend if he brings them another WS in the next decade. And the overall reaction to not keeping him would've been even worse. He's their successor to Jeter, why wouldn't they pay to keep him when they could afford him? And every team accepts that the last few years will be rough, that's just the cost of doing business. I don't doubt that the same will happen with Vladdy if he were to stay here for the entirety of his career.

And they can't really afford to mess around when Cohen has the Mets spending right at their level too.

[polo007]

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[Schad]

lol no sht, they already did that in the playoffs, they're an incredibly fickle/spoiled fanbase. 27 rings has made them a bit crazy, yes. And yet Judge still took less compared to what the Pads/Giants offered to go back because he'll be a legend if he brings them another WS in the next decade. And the overall reaction to not keeping him would've been even worse. He's their successor to Jeter, why wouldn't they pay to keep him when they could afford him? And every team accepts that the last few years will be rough, that's just the cost of doing business. I don't doubt that the same will happen with Vladdy if he were to stay here for the entirety of his career.

And they can't really afford to mess around when Cohen has the Mets spending right at their level too.

Jeter wasn't spectacularly overpaid, but even his final half-decade wasn't exactly vintage material, and the fact that they continued to play him at shortstop well beyond the point where he was a tolerable shortstop really didn't help the 2010 - 2014 Yankees.

Even obscenely wealthy teams have budgets, and in the case of the Yankees, that budget already includes owing $160m to one massive slugger in his early 30s who is no longer good. It's not the extremely high likelihood that Judge's contract will be bad in 2030 that the Yankees need to worry about here, it's the distinct possibility that it will be an albatross from about 2025 on.

And no, they don't really need to spend to keep up with the Mets. Even if those two teams were the best in baseball owing to that spending (highly debatable!), that would make the odds of a Yankees - Mets meeting fairly slim, just owing to the lottery of the playoffs. Teams should make baseball decisions for baseball reasons, because when they make them in order to 'make a statement', that statement generally ends up being 'I have made a terrible mistake and it's crippling my franchise'.

[SharoneWright]

I don't trust Judge for more than 2 more years. Maybe 3.

Obviously he was a monster last year. But he's so big and tall. The mechanics to keep that swing together will be hard to maintain as he inevitably starts to slow down. Just a little slower and he's liable to develop some major holes in his swing. Paul Molitor was a steady hitting machine until he was 40 because of his compactness. Judge is not that.

[polo007]

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[vaff87]

lol no sht, they already did that in the playoffs, they're an incredibly fickle/spoiled fanbase. 27 rings has made them a bit crazy, yes. And yet Judge still took less compared to what the Pads/Giants offered to go back because he'll be a legend if he brings them another WS in the next decade. And the overall reaction to not keeping him would've been even worse. He's their successor to Jeter, why wouldn't they pay to keep him when they could afford him? And every team accepts that the last few years will be rough, that's just the cost of doing business. I don't doubt that the same will happen with Vladdy if he were to stay here for the entirety of his career.

And they can't really afford to mess around when Cohen has the Mets spending right at their level too.

Jeter wasn't spectacularly overpaid, but even his final half-decade wasn't exactly vintage material, and the fact that they continued to play him at shortstop well beyond the point where he was a tolerable shortstop really didn't help the 2010 - 2014 Yankees.

Even obscenely wealthy teams have budgets, and in the case of the Yankees, that budget already includes owing $160m to one massive slugger in his early 30s who is no longer good. It's not the extremely high likelihood that Judge's contract will be bad in 2030 that the Yankees need to worry about here, it's the distinct possibility that it will be an albatross from about 2025 on.

And no, they don't really need to spend to keep up with the Mets. Even if those two teams were the best in baseball owing to that spending (highly debatable!), that would make the odds of a Yankees - Mets meeting fairly slim, just owing to the lottery of the playoffs. Teams should make baseball decisions for baseball reasons, because when they make them in order to 'make a statement', that statement generally ends up being 'I have made a terrible mistake and it's crippling my franchise'.

I kinda feel like the Yankees were between a rock and a hard place with this one. Judge has been carrying them for years. It frequently seems like their offense is utter crap beyond him. If they let him go they would have been in a dicey situation. A pissed off fanbase and a team that probably wouldn’t be all that good.

Then again, Brian Cashman does seem to have a lifetime contract, so why would he care about outside pressure?

[Schad]

I kinda feel like the Yankees were between a rock and a hard place with this one. Judge has been carrying them for years. It frequently seems like their offense is utter crap beyond him. If they let him go they would have been in a dicey situation. A pissed off fanbase and a team that probably wouldn’t be all that good.

Then again, Brian Cashman does seem to have a lifetime contract, so why would he care about outside pressure?

Definitely, it wasn't an easy choice, but it punts a bit of an immediate problem down the road into a much larger problem for future Brian Cashman.

Ironically, this is the greatest market inefficiency that the Rays exploit: they don't have a market. They routinely make good baseball decisions (that are also cheaper, because good baseball decisions often are in this era, because younger = cheaper and also younger generally = better) that would get their front office torn limb from limb by the fans, if there were any fans to do so. Similarly, despite their spending, the Dodgers have been extremely choosy about who they retain; they've allowed a lot of high-end talent to walk in recent years (Turner, Seager, Jansen, Scherzer, Ryu, Grandal) when the money wasn't right.

[vaff87]

Bogaerts to the Padres. 11 years, $280M.

Where in god’s name are they getting all this money?

[s e n s i]

oh my word, an albatrossian 11 years/$280m for bogaerts.

[Schad]

Bogaerts to the Padres. 11 years, $280M.

Where in god’s name are they getting all this money?

So, interesting note about the Padres. Their owner is Peter Seidler, the grandson of Walter O'Malley, and nephew of Peter O'Malley. Walter was the longtime owner of the Dodgers; his son Peter took the club over, and ultimately sold it to Frank McCourt after 54 years of control by the family, who then ran the club into the ground and bankruptcy. The O'Malleys launched an unsuccessful bid to buy the club back, after which it ended up with the Dodgers' current ownership, and then they moved on to buy the Padres.

Very few baseball teams lose money. The Padres are a rare exception, even with their big new TV deal. And it's hard not to think that the reason they're willing to lose money is a family grudge.

Which is fun! Seriously questionable from a management standpoint, because they're entering the ninth circle of payroll hell, but fun nonetheless.

[Fairview4Life]

Isn’t Fernando Tatis a SS? Who’s moving to 2nd or the outfield?

[vaff87]

Isn’t Fernando Tatis a SS? Who’s moving to 2nd or the outfield?

Plan seems to be to move Tatis to the corner outfield.

[polo007]

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[GameChannel]

Judge is a playoff choker. I'm happy that the Yankees will be overpaying for him for the next 9 years.

[polo007]

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[ItsDanger]

Nimmo got $162M? LOL. Guy will be 30 at start of next season.

[polo007]

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[Cyrus]

Woo mets are on a spending mission.