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MLB 17-18 Offseason: The Giants are preparing for EYBS' return

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Timby said:
Considering they make literal billions for their bosses, I don't see an issue with players being paid tens of millions of dollars. What I do have an issue with is ownership's rather transparent desire to cast aside guys once they're over 30 and pay them relative peanuts.
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In the case of JD Martinez, we aren't talking peanuts. The Red Sox offer is for five-years and $125 million dollars. I'd laugh at any one whose prime job was going to be as a DH needing seven-years and $210 million.

Teams are no longer interested in giving older players monster contracts where at least half the contract is an albatross they have to carry.
 
BillJ said:
Teams are no longer interested in giving older players monster contracts where at least half the contract is an albatross they have to carry.
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"Albatrosses" are relative for any team not named the Marlins (well, and I suppose the Dodgers, but that's due more to their whackadoo debt ratio, and they're going to be facing a reckoning on that far sooner than later). It's entirely possible for league revenues to top $11 billion this year and franchise values continue to skyrocket. The Pirates, for example, were purchased by the Nutting family for somewhere in the neighborhood of $90 million; today they're worth $1.2 billion, yet they dumped McCutchen to San Francisco for garbage because they didn't want to pay him. Between tickets, concessions, parking, television and radio, in some cases revenue sharing, and one-time things like the $50 million cash payout every team received this winter, everyone in baseball is making money hand over fist, yet labor's share of overall revenue has never been smaller in the modern era.

It's not that teams can't pay for those deals anymore, it's that they don't want to (and I'll reiterate that this cold free-agent market reeks even more of collusion than Ueberroth's fuckery back in the '80s), because management will always do its best to bone labor of its share of the pie. No one can say with a straight face that a long-term deal for JD Martinez would seriously hamstring a team's long-term operations.

But this is what the league wanted, and had wanted since they locked out the players in 1990: "Cost certainty," to use the management term. The harsh luxury tax penalties (which reach a dollar-for-dollar point after repeat offenses) are acting as a soft cap. Not really, because the marginal cost for going over the $197MM tax is negligible, but ownership gets to point at the tax and plead poverty and use it as a cudgel to drive salaries down. Which is bullshit.

Edit: I'll put it even more succinctly: Large free-agent contracts are the incentive that labor has to give teams the most productive years of their careers at dirt-cheap rates. If MLB teams suddenly decide not to pay free agents decent money (money which is still minuscule compared to the money those players make for them), that isn't "good business," they're abrogating their responsibility to the market. Teams can't pay players a pittance (comparatively) because "You'll make it back as a free agent," and then refuse to pay for free agents because they're too expensive.
 
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Timby said:
"Albatrosses" are relative for any team not named the Marlins (well, and I suppose the Dodgers, but that's due more to their whackadoo debt ratio, and they're going to be facing a reckoning on that far sooner than later). It's entirely possible for league revenues to top $11 billion this year and franchise values continue to skyrocket. The Pirates, for example, were purchased by the Nutting family for somewhere in the neighborhood of $90 million; today they're worth $1.2 billion, yet they dumped McCutchen to San Francisco for garbage because they didn't want to pay him. Between tickets, concessions, parking, television and radio, in some cases revenue sharing, and one-time things like the $50 million cash payout every team received this winter, everyone in baseball is making money hand over fist, yet labor's share of overall revenue has never been smaller in the modern era.

It's not that teams can't pay for those deals anymore, it's that they don't want to (and I'll reiterate that this cold free-agent market reeks even more of collusion than Ueberroth's fuckery back in the '80s), because management will always do its best to bone labor of its share of the pie. No one can say with a straight face that a long-term deal for JD Martinez would seriously hamstring a team's long-term operations.

But this is what the league wanted, and had wanted since they locked out the players in 1990: "Cost certainty," to use the management term. The harsh luxury tax penalties (which reach a dollar-for-dollar point after repeat offenses) are acting as a soft cap. Not really, because the marginal cost for going over the $197MM tax is negligible, but ownership gets to point at the tax and plead poverty and use it as a cudgel to drive salaries down. Which is bullshit.

Edit: I'll put it even more succinctly: Large free-agent contracts are the incentive that labor has to give teams the most productive years of their careers at dirt-cheap rates. If MLB teams suddenly decide not to pay free agents money that isn't "good business," they're abrogating their responsibility to the market. Teams can't pay players a pittance (comparatively) because "You'll make it back as a free agent," and then refuse to pay for free agents because they're too expensive.
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I agree there need to be changes on the front end of what players make. Larger arbitration awards, earlier free-agency, larger minimum salaries, more money in the minors. Expecting teams to continue to pay out bad deals long-term doesn't help things in the slightest. There should absolutely be a salary floor each and every team has to spend to.

Eating huge dollars over multiple years especially makes no sense when you have no history with a player.
 
BillJ said:
In the case of JD Martinez, we aren't talking peanuts. The Red Sox offer is for five-years and $125 million dollars. I'd laugh at any one whose prime job was going to be as a DH needing seven-years and $210 million.

Teams are no longer interested in giving older players monster contracts where at least half the contract is an albatross they have to carry.
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It's ridiculous to give JD 7/$210. Batshit crazy in fact. If he's holding to that then I hope the Sox don't bite.
 
It's not even the total money that bothers me, it's the years. I'd rather they offer less years but more money. You'd think the players would go for that. Whether it's 7/$210 or 4/$210, the player is still getting the money they want and at fewer years, they can still attempt to get another deal when the 4 years is up.
Having said that, I don't think any team would offer a deal like 4/$210 to any player but maybe they should consider fewer years at more money per year
 
No team would do 4 / 210 because the luxury tax impact of a contract is determined by the AAV. Again, it's the cudgel the owners wanted for more than two decades (and why Marvin Miller was furious at Don Fehr for the settlement of the 1990 lockout).
 
And the union accepting the luxury tax / soft cap is precisely why you don't elect a former player as the executive director as the head of your union. No matter how much Tony Clark "gets" the players or how often he worked with the union when he was a player, he was never going to be able to go toe-to-toe in negotiations against Manfred, a Harvard Law graduate with decades of experience in labor and employment law, more specifically a guy who has literally spent his entire career attacking and breaking organized labor.
 
Chipper, Vlad, JimJam and Trevor Hoffman will be joining Alan Trammell and (barrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfffffffffff) Jack Morris on the stage at the Hall of Fame.
 
Speaking of Vlad, his son is going to be something special. Eighteen years old in high-A, more walks than strikeouts, elite power and average. At eighteen.
 
The Brewers have added Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain (a 5 year contract for a 31 year old, but still....).

They might just be a team to worry about now. The Pirates certainly aren't, the Reds almost never are and the Cardinals are always a pain in the ass. The Cubs better have their shit together early this year.
 
I'm thrilled Chipper Jones was elected on the first ballot on such a high-percentage (97.2%!).

I feel old. I remember watching him play with the Durham Bulls.
 
Timby said:
Even-Year Bullshit.
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I’m a giants fan but wasn’t that debunked2years ago. It’s time to move on and into the future. The World Series wins we’re great but this core is starting to show its age and getting Cutch and Longoria is almost like putting a bandaid on a scab. I liked getting those players too, but this team isn’t getting younger.
 
Timby said:
Chipper, Vlad, JimJam and Trevor Hoffman will be joining Alan Trammell and (barrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfffffffffff) Jack Morris on the stage at the Hall of Fame.
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I know there is some hate for Hoffman getting into the Hall but you shouldn’t be penalized just because you played a position. He was a damn good closer, and Rivera is getting in next year so the precedent has been set.
 
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