2018-19 Offseason Thread

[polo007]

We are less then a month from the start of spring and once again some of our games biggest starts remain unsigned. Such a shame. It’s seems every day now someone is making up a new analytical tool to devalue players, especially free agents. As fans, why should “value” for your team even be a consideration? It’s not your money, it’s money that players have worked their whole lives to get to that level and be deserving of. Bottom line, fans should want the best players and product on the field for their team. And as players we need to stand strong for what we believe we are worth and continue to fight for the rights we have fought for time and time again.

[Natural11]

We are less then a month from the start of spring and once again some of our games biggest starts remain unsigned. Such a shame. It’s seems every day now someone is making up a new analytical tool to devalue players, especially free agents. As fans, why should “value” for your team even be a consideration? It’s not your money, it’s money that players have worked their whole lives to get to that level and be deserving of. Bottom line, fans should want the best players and product on the field for their team. And as players we need to stand strong for what we believe we are worth and continue to fight for the rights we have fought for time and time again.

That's a silly sentiment when I'm sure both players have multiple offers on the table. Teams spend a lot of time and money on scouting and analytics to place a value on players which they factor into their team goals and budget. If no team will meet their expectations after a reasonable period of negotiation, then their expectations are too high.

The issue is teams are starting to wise up to the 6+ year mega deals in the post-steroid era, where guys aren't playing like 26 year olds at 36. If you look at the biggest active contracts, the majority range from bad to outright disastrous. The Tigers will be paying Miguel Cabrera $32m in 2023. We're paying Tulowitzki $38m to play for the Yankees. Chris Davis... enough said.

MLB should consider a 5 year cap on contracts, like the NBA. It might help to keep things moving with free agency.

[BramptonYute]

Harper turned down 300 million lol.

[SharoneWright]

Jeff Borris claims collusion, without any real evidence:
https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/prime-time-sports/jeff-borris-baffling-machado-harper-arent-signed-yet/

[Schad]

The issue is teams are starting to wise up to the 6+ year mega deals in the post-steroid era, where guys aren't playing like 26 year olds at 36. If you look at the biggest active contracts, the majority range from bad to outright disastrous. The Tigers will be paying Miguel Cabrera $32m in 2023. We're paying Tulowitzki $38m to play for the Yankees. Chris Davis... enough said.

MLB should consider a 5 year cap on contracts, like the NBA. It might help to keep things moving with free agency.

Disagree with capping contracts. You're absolutely right about the root cause, however; the fact that big free agent deals (particularly mega-deals for stars entering their 30s, which doesn't apply to Harper/Machado) are bad value is something that was known to the stat geeks for years, but it has taken time for teams to catch up. They are arguably over-correcting now...while I wouldn't sign the 13 year, $390m contract Machado was projected to receive (or anything close to that length), $240m over 8 is probably good value, given that you're only paying through his age 33 season.

Mostly, what needs to happen is a revamping of baseball's financial incentives. If the free agent monster deal is done, then more money needs to be directed to players in their early years. Raise the rookie salary to $1m; raise the pre-arb years beyond one year of service to $1.5m and $2m, or something like that. Base arb raises off a scale starting there. Or a $1m pre-arb with all players hitting arbitration after their second year of service. Has the benefit of ensuring that anyone who has a 2-3 year MLB career (and there are a tonne of players who will only get that) will walk away with actual cash money, and shifts the financial rewards toward the time period when players are at peak production.

Unfortunately, that'll likely take a strike after 2020.

[BigLeagueChew]

Longoria coming off a sub .700 OPS season as a 32 year old.

[polo007]

Read on Twitter

[SharoneWright]

Longoria, Bryant, etc... the union really seems to be getting tonnes of talking points from guys like Borris right now.

[SharoneWright]

Even in a contending year, this photo would be awesome.... this may be the icing on the cake this year. Amazing.

[Lateral Quicks]

Does Tony Fernandez not age?

Anyway, I agree that players should be paid more in the early stages of their career. The union membership's incentives don't align with this goal, though. They'll want to get as much money as possible for current big leaguers. Perhaps it will come down to the owners pushing for this in order to avoid labour strife. If they are going to keep the player's revenue percentage where it has been, but hand out these mega contracts, then something has to give. Either similar or richer AAV deals of shorter duration, more for the league minimum and arb years, or a combination thereof.

And Longoria is out to lunch if he thinks it isn't fans' money that pays these salaries. Owners aren't running charities, here.

[Schad]

Does Tony Fernandez not age?

Anyway, I agree that players should be paid more in the early stages of their career. The union membership's incentives don't align with this goal, though. They'll want to get as much money as possible for current big leaguers. Perhaps it will come down to the owners pushing for this in order to avoid labour strife. If they are going to keep the player's revenue percentage where it has been, but hand out these mega contracts, then something has to give. Either similar or richer AAV deals of shorter duration, more for the league minimum and arb years, or a combination thereof.

And Longoria is out to lunch if he thinks it isn't fans' money that pays these salaries. Owners aren't running charities, here.

Yeah, their incentives may have to change, though. League-wide salaries actually fell last season, per Baseball Prospectus, in a season where revenues grew and teams each received a $50m windfall from the sale of BAMTech. Player compensation was about 40% of league revenues in 2018; in 2001, it was closer to 47%. If the goal is to maximize earnings of players over the course of their careers, it's failing, as no league pays its players less overall, which is largely a product of the extremely atypical period of team control prior to free agency and the declining length of a player's prime.

[Al_Oliver]

Jeff Borris claims collusion, without any real evidence:
https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/prime-time-sports/jeff-borris-baffling-machado-harper-arent-signed-yet/

Scott Boras burner account?

[I_Like_Dirt]

Mostly, what needs to happen is a revamping of baseball's financial incentives. If the free agent monster deal is done, then more money needs to be directed to players in their early years. Raise the rookie salary to $1m; raise the pre-arb years beyond one year of service to $1.5m and $2m, or something like that. Base arb raises off a scale starting there. Or a $1m pre-arb with all players hitting arbitration after their second year of service. Has the benefit of ensuring that anyone who has a 2-3 year MLB career (and there are a tonne of players who will only get that) will walk away with actual cash money, and shifts the financial rewards toward the time period when players are at peak production.

Unfortunately, that'll likely take a strike after 2020.

Yeah, and the bigger issue is that there is a significant number of teams that basically rely on those arb and pre-arb players in order to stay afloat. It will be a big issue and pro sports history has clearly demonstrated that when owners have one owner making a truckload and another owner making substantially less, they will explain to the players that they need to take substantially less in order for the owner who isn't making as much money to make more money. Yes, I'm aware that baseball has revenue sharing but it doesn't matter if those small market teams don't have to spend the money on players.

It isn't an immediate solution but what the players really need to be doing is fighting for a payroll floor. Forget how the teams spend it but focus on what teams actually spend on players whether it's on younger players or older players. It isn't actually a fix to free agency but it opens the door to actually start fixing things. Without a salary floor, and a significant one rather than the kind of lux tax line drawn where only a couple teams might possibly pay it. Force Tampa Bay, Kansas City, etc. to actually pay their players more and let them figure out how they're going to do it. Suddenly those teams might actually be more interested in figuring out ways to pay players their metrics are telling them are actually worth it.

I suppose the counter argument is that those small market teams are taking the money and investing in analytics to find out how to game the system, and that's smart of them. They can still do that while paying the players, though. While I can appreciate statistical analysis, I'm not to the point where I want to call that the primary talent of any given sport, even though that's where baseball is headed.

[Schad]

Yeah, and the bigger issue is that there is a significant number of teams that basically rely on those arb and pre-arb players in order to stay afloat. It will be a big issue and pro sports history has clearly demonstrated that when owners have one owner making a truckload and another owner making substantially less, they will explain to the players that they need to take substantially less in order for the owner who isn't making as much money to make more money. Yes, I'm aware that baseball has revenue sharing but it doesn't matter if those small market teams don't have to spend the money on players.

It isn't an immediate solution but what the players really need to be doing is fighting for a payroll floor. Forget how the teams spend it but focus on what teams actually spend on players whether it's on younger players or older players. It isn't actually a fix to free agency but it opens the door to actually start fixing things. Without a salary floor, and a significant one rather than the kind of lux tax line drawn where only a couple teams might possibly pay it. Force Tampa Bay, Kansas City, etc. to actually pay their players more and let them figure out how they're going to do it. Suddenly those teams might actually be more interested in figuring out ways to pay players their metrics are telling them are actually worth it.

I suppose the counter argument is that those small market teams are taking the money and investing in analytics to find out how to game the system, and that's smart of them. They can still do that while paying the players, though. While I can appreciate statistical analysis, I'm not to the point where I want to call that the primary talent of any given sport, even though that's where baseball is headed.

One of the notable aspects is that spending at the lower tier has increased at a faster pace than spending in the upper portion, as generous TV deals have kicked in for smaller-market clubs, while rich teams have realized that there's more to gain from acting like a poor team. Overall payroll growth from 2011 to 2018 was 37.5%, but the bottom seven payrolls jumped 64.1% in that span, while the top seven only grew by 22.1%. Because the top teams were making the market for the longest time, their reticence to spend freely is really pushing down overall spending on free agents. Hard to say whether the luxury tax is a large factor, or just the belief that there's no value in those deals anymore.

[I_Like_Dirt]

I think it's both though the principle issue is the lack of value. There's no value in those deals and the lux tax just makes those deals even worse. I don't think those teams are against spending at this point but I do think they're only going to do it when there it at least a certain degree of value for them. It kills the narrative of spending imbalance and such and basically creates incentives for teams to spend on analytics and the farm system rather than players. Having a salary floor at a high enough number would change that because teams wouldn't be so easily able to redirect their funds away from the players since they'd have to pay the players to a certain degree anyway. They need to find a way to make small markets actually spend their money on players because they absolutely haven't been and when large market teams start acting like small market teams it's going to suddenly put them in a squeeze since they won't have a competitive advantage there anymore.

[Schad]

Have mentioned it again, but (beyond the impossibility of creating an accurate ranking of 16 year old children) if anyone's still curious why the bonus figures for international free agents don't match the Baseball America list or whatever, and why so many guys who sign for $75k make it/so many that sign for $1m+ don't, it'd be this:

12:34
GPT: Have you heard any of the top 2019 J2 players linked to the Giants? I think at this point last year, Marco Luciano was already linked.

12:35
Kiley McDaniel: So basically all of the good 2019s have been done for awhile, the top tier 2020s are all done and teams are already locking up 2021s. One director said to me that he knows some teams are scouting 2022s to try to get a leg up. We’ll have more comprehensive J2 coverage when that signing day is closer

So we're clear: all of the top-tier FIFTEEN YEAR OLDS have deals in place (which is technically illegal, but every team does handshake deals well before the permitted time). Teams are already getting multi-million dollar agreements in place with FOURTEEN YEAR OLDS. Some teams are already figuring out which THIRTEEN YEAR OLDS they want to sign. That is, teams are starting to talk dollar figures with kids who are three years away from being signed, then a further two years (in most instances) from moving Stateside, at which time they'll be 4-5 years away from reaching the majors. If their progress is quick.

[metafisical]

The Jay's need to get ahead of the game and start scouting them 12 and 11 year olds.

[polo007]

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[polo007]

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[dagger]

Marco Estrada signs with the A's, for 1 yr/4m - Oakland is a good park for him.