Baseball is definitely an unforgiving game. In a league with no salary cap and no salary structure, teams can do what they want. I guess one thing about Baseball is its consistent. The Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies and Cubs spend tons of money and the Pirates, Rays, Marlins, Padres and Royals trade off expensive talent. And then in the middle of those teams is the rest of the league. Seems unfair doesn’t it. It makes you wonder how the league can have so many have’s and have not’s. Baseball is not the NFL where in 16 games you can surprise people and make the playoffs when the talent is not quite there. With 162 games in Baseball only the strong and usually rich survive!
Where did all this start, how does Baseball fix this? Do they want to fix this? Its hard to watch Baseball and see teams like the Marlins and Rays go out and make the World Series on young talent and only to see that talent go to their competitors. The Rays this offseason have lost Carl Crawford, Rafeal Soriano, Carlos Pena and most of their bullpen. That’s hard to recover from, especially playing in the AL East with the Yankees and Red Sox.
You would think the players would want some kind of salary structure because more teams could bid on their services and up the price. Having only 4 or 5 big market clubs doesn’t give the super stars a lot of choices and it doesn’t give the small and mid market teams a chance at retaining their players. It forces the small and mid markets to sign their guys to long term deals when they are making no money. Look at Evan Longoria and Ryan Brauns contracts. A lot of other players are jumping at the chance to sign long term when they are young. It’s a win-win for the player and the team. The player gets security at a young age and the team gets to buy out a few of the free agent years. Most of the time this works and works well for teams……unless the players agent is Scott Boras.
Scott Boras doesn’t like to give the team any kind of security with his players. He gets his players believing that they’ll “cash in” in free agency. No delaying free agency with Boras. He also gets the players believing they should be the top paid in the game. He sets an unbelievable price tag for his players and doesn’t budge. What crazy is the owners actually meet his demands. It makes no sense, why do the owners cave in with Scott? Look at some of the deals he was able to pull off
Alex Rodriguez 10 years 275 Million
Carlos Beltran 7 years 119 Million
Mark Teixeira 8 years 180 Million
Derek Lowe 4 years 60 Million
Matt Holliday 7 years 120 Million
Jayson Werth 7 years 126 Million
Adrian Beltre 6 years 96 Million
Prince Fielder ???????????????
Whats crazy about these deals is teams are still paying these types of dollars for non superstars like Jayson Werth and Adrian Beltre. Jayson Werth was probably the sixth best player on his own team. Boras was able to talk the Washington Nationals into a seven year deal for a 31 year old player! There is no way he will ever be able to live up to that contract. Adrian Beltre is a contract year player. If it’s his contract year he’ll bust out crazy numbers like he did in LA, Seattle and Boston. If you get him on any other year, you get a very average player who is good at defense. Also don’t touch his head, he’ll punch you in the face.(seriously, look it up!) To give Beltre a six year deal is insane! These kind of deals kill baseball even more. Now average players will want to cash in like these guys.
The Milwaukee Brewers inquired about re signing Prince Fielder the last few years and Boras wouldn’t even give them a chance. He knows if these kind of guys are getting these deals, what’s a guy with 192 career home runs at age 27 going to cost you? Look for the Cubs to sign Prince for a 10 year $250 million dollar contract. Not because Prince is worth that money, but because Scott Boras says he is. Then look for the Brewers to have Matt Gamel making $400k playing first base. The cycle continues………rich get richer, poorer get poorer......
I hate Scott Boras, but I have to admit that he is a pretty darn good agent. He creates hype around his players and gets teams bidding against themselves just so they don't "miss out" on the chance to land a "top-notch" free agent. Jayson Werth @ 7/126 is absolutely insane. It makes the Brewers signing of Corey Hart a steal since they are almost an identical player except Hart is younger and Werth has a marginally better MLB history.
ReplyDeleteBottom line is that until the teams stop giving into Boras and his ludicrous demands, nothing is going to change. For a team to remain competitive, player scouting and development is crucial so that you can replace the players that leave.
One thing you have to give Doug Melvin credit for is locking guys up for longer contracts before they hit free agency. Braun and Gallardo are signed through 2015 at reasonable rates. If Melvin can work out extensions for Weeks and Marcum with McGehee and Lucroy on the cheap for a few more years as well, the Brewers don't have to completely overhaul there lineup and rotation after 2011 and 2012.
I totally agree Aaron. The Corey Hart signing was a huge steal compared to Jayson Werth. I still can't get over the Beltre signing. What a horrible contract!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about Doug Melvin. I think the Brewers have created an environment that player want to play there. Guys like Braun and Gallardo re signing made is key for a guy like Hart to want to stick around. I hope they can figure something out with Weeks also. Hopefully Greinke sees that Milwaukee isn't like the Royals and actually tries keeping its own players. I would love to see him re sign with the crew also!
I just dont see the Cubs paying that much money for one guy! The Cubs arent that rich! Look for Prince to sign with the Angels or Dodgers. And Aaron, dont give Doug Melvin too musch credit because if the Grienke/Marcum deals dont work out, then Melvin WILL get fired!
ReplyDeleteI agree Jamie, but you can't say that Melvin didn't try to put a competitive team on the field. Most people in baseball feel that the Brewers had the best offseason of any team in baseball so if Melvin is wrong, then so is everybody else. It's always easy to analyze a move in hindsight, but I couldn't see a scenario where Melvin could have done more this offseason to improve the Brewers at the major league level.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff guys. Doug Melvin does deserve some credit no matter how this season works out. Locking up Yo and Brauny helps the team for years to come. The Prince thing comes down to how this season goes. If things don't go well he might get traded at mid-season to a contender who needs him and will pay good money to lock him up for years. If this season goes well for him and the Brewers there will be a bidding war that the Brewers will need to stay out of in order to keep the pitching staff together. I would agree that the Cubs will NOT pay Prince $250,000,000. He might never get the kind of money that Scott Boras was trying to get for him unless 2011 turns out to be his most productive year!
ReplyDeleteHe's not the only one doing it either. Even some of these "home town discounts" that other agents give out to teams (Joe Mauer)are insane.
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