bill hAll Star

So you side with Albert Pujols being paid $26,000,000 in 2017 to put up -1.8 WAR Yes because free agency is the only way for the players to recoup the earnings that are withheld/stolen from them in their prime years. That 2017 salary is simply making up for his laughably low salaries during extraordinarily productive seasons. Using Pujols as an example: 2001 - $200,000 salary while putting up 6.6 bWAR, winning ROY, coming in 4th in MVP voting, making the AS team, and winning the Silver Slugger 2002 - $600,000 salary, 5.5 bWAR, 2nd in MVP voting 2003 - $900,000 salary, 8.7 bWAR, 2nd in MVP voting, All Star, Silver Slugger winner He then puts together 7 straight years with a WAR over 8, including a career high 9.7 WAR season in 2009 when he was making ~$14.5 million, still vastly underpaid. The way the system is set up robs players of their true worth when they are at their best, and free agency allows them to recoup that value later in their career after they've gotten past their arb years. The understanding was that ownership would be "overpaying" for free agents because they were extremely underpaying them in their years of team control/arbitration. Now baseball front offices have gotten "smarter" by not holding up their end of the bargain. So when this MLBPA strike eventually happens, I'll be rooting for the players, the guys who actually perform on the field for us for 162 games. Part of this is yet again the greedy owners at play but I'm very nervous about what they're going to do to remedy this. Shorten team control and we'll have the Yankees holding 5-6 prime superstars to eternity instead of overpaying some washed up players while they have a few superstars. There is probably a good way to do it where they can allow the players to get paid after 2-3 years of control and keep them from flocking or forcing the cheaper owners to trade them given high salary...but I'm not confident it'll be done right. Another issue: How would you handle/have reacted to Domingo Santana's salary spiking from $1 million to $8 million after 2017?

I agree. Burnes, Peralta and Woodruff don't even come close to touching where a few of their guys are ranked. Although I guess if they sign Keuchel, it would free them up to perhaps trade from their mountain of perceived high-end prospects to shore up a different spot on their roster. That organization is known for hugging the heck out of its prospects, though, so I don't see that happening. Folty, Newcomb, and Gausman are all guys that are probably the modern, "count on them for 4 or 5 and be happy if they go deeper than that" types. All of those guys have issues with early game pitch count if they're not on and can get up to 100 pitches by the 4th. So why not have Toussaint, Soroka, Wright, Gohara, and Anderson all available to fill in via injury or piggyback those guys as a lockdown multi-inning reliever? Teheran could be gone after this year, Gausman would be after next year, and they still have at least one spot open to be filled by that list. So just have those guys fill in then. You've also got injuries or things like Teheran underperforming again and being yanked from a rotation spot.

Almost like a team that signed and traded for All Star outfielders with a young, breakout player bumped from his spot and also routinely signs veteran reclamation projects for their pitching rotation with lots of [less hyped] talent waiting in the minors.

It worked last year and we're risking that it works again this year. It's our only way forward. Just like the Mets are praying that Jacob deGrom's arm stays healthy or Cleveland hopes for Kluber to pitch to his norms this year (this is a special case where they may win the division no matter what). We're risking a very contingency-based bullpen management strategy in lieu of having frontline aces. No, it worked in September and the playoffs last year. Throughout the regular season, we had 5 starters and 8 relief pitcher...and operated as a bullpen normally does. The biggest difference we may see this year is more multi-inning relievers, but we won't see the September type stuff that everyone seems to remember so well from last year...at least not consistently throughout the season. We still had pitchers getting yanked early and cycled in your Williams, Albers, Zagurski, and 10 other guys to pitch the 5th through 7th inning (or 9th) when the bullpen was out of gas or a blowout. It was even better in September but we operate on an abbreviated version of it prior to September. The Brewers had the 8th lowest innings pitched per start in the majors. 2 of the teams that had less were Tampa (obvious) and Oakland (also a heavy bullpenning team). The other 5 teams that had less were all the worst starting staffs in baseball and had guys pulled either due to performance or they were working in young pitchers that were capped most of the season.

Why do you say that? Hader, Jeffress, Knebel handled late innings in close games all of last season and none of them were over-worked. I think what we miss sometimes is this list of 13 is just the initial list. They will use at least 10 other pitchers over the course of the season. That's how the middle innings get eaten up, even some of the starts. I guess I shouldn't point specifically to the late inning plan, but you can't have 5 options for innings 6-9 every game. I don't care how good you are at shuffling from AAA, it's not sustainable...especially when the inevitable extra innings games happen. This bridges into the whole 1st out getter thing(which is just a fancy way of saying starting pitcher) and piggybacking...all this stuff works well on paper when everything goes perfectly to plan...but that's not reality. It worked last year and we're risking that it works again this year. It's our only way forward. Just like the Mets are praying that Jacob deGrom's arm stays healthy or Cleveland hopes for Kluber to pitch to his norms this year (this is a special case where they may win the division no matter what). We're risking a very contingency-based bullpen management strategy in lieu of having frontline aces.

If your goal is to completely wreck the back end of the bullpen by July, this is a great plan. Joe Maddon would be proud. Why do you say that? Hader, Jeffress, Knebel handled late innings in close games all of last season and none of them were over-worked. I think what we miss sometimes is this list of 13 is just the initial list. They will use at least 10 other pitchers over the course of the season. That's how the middle innings get eaten up, even some of the starts. Right. It's all about leverage management. People hated Jennings more than they should have because Counsell left him in there to get eaten alive in games that we were losing 5-1 and his numbers were even worse than he actually was. We'll bring up Zagurski-esque scrubs as a last resort if the 2nd tier depth in the minors is also gassed or not ready. It's a risk, but the plan is to use an army of pitchers to get you through those less meaningful innings so that you can get most wins with certainty when you use the best part of your bullpen.

Last year it worked out in September because the pen had plenty of reinforcements with expanded rosters. But there were several points during the regular season pre-September that the pen was gassed due to overuse. The team is lucky that it didn't come back to bite them in a bigger way. I think for this team to sustain success, they are going to need solid extended starts. Counsell is always going to be a matchup guy prone to early hooks, but there isn't going to be piggybacking or any of that nonsense. At the end of the day, it's still baseball, and they are going to go into every game hoping the starter can go 6 strong. Here's the thing guys: -We weren't graced with a Chris Sale or Kluber in our system in the past few years. -We don't have the money to sign one. -Trading for one is a major risk. So... -We are playing bullpen ball. -It worked. -There is risk involved. It absolutely could bite us this year. -It is much better than the alternative of shaving 5+ games off your win total by trying to squeeze 115 pitches out of Davies every night or throwing James Shields in there to "eat innings." And to make one more list: -If the bullpen is gassed, they can push Davies or Burnes to 110 pitches for a game, especially if we luck out and have a lead. -Here's the important part: Davies or Burnes is better in the 6th inning than James Shields is. So if it comes down to it, we have guys that are better than James Shields at doing it. For a football metaphor, if you give Trent Richardson 300 carries and Alvin Kamara 150 carries, it doesn't mean that if by some reason you were forced to give Alvin Kamara 300 carries that Richardson would be superior at running the football because he's done it before.

Last year Shields wasn't great any time through the order. 1st - .747 OPS 2nd - .692 3rd - .770 His 2017 numbers are downright laughable. 1st - .786 2nd - .819 3rd - .897 Yeah, I am not really interested in him but obviously any time Stearns signs a pitcher I give the benefit of the doubt that they can fix something. All I'm saying is that we aren't loaded with "guys that can't go 6 innings." Rather, we just don't want our guys to go 6 or favor guys that are better at being cut off then. So this, "we need an innings-eater" thing is not really something that we really need unless that innings eater is Chris Sale or Verlander.

I have said this in every James Shields thread. If they want to sign him, that's fine. However, Peralta (unless pitch-counted very early), Woodruff, Burnes, Davies, Chacin, etc. all can easily go 6 innings. They don't go 6 innings by design. I get the idea that Shields may have more of a variety of stuff to make it into the 6th, but the White Sox let him pitch 6 because they didn't care about winning or losing. If Shields is pitching and he puts 1st/2nd with 1 out in the 5th or even 2 out in the 4th in a close game, Counsell is walking out there and it's over.

yup, they should have ran it back. Tried to get some under the radar SPs who could fit well in that park and tried to win for a few years. They couldn't spend a lot due to the Stanton deal and some bad contracts but you had a great offense. Some forward thinking regarding pitching like how MKE has done it and they could have done well. It wasn’t that they couldn’t spend based on payroll. Their owner was a crook and milked every dollar out of that organization. Both can be true. If I'm a Marlins fan (one of 10, and I understand they've had a very tumultuous/bad relationship with owners so I'd be mad that they've done this to me again) - I'm glad they tore it down. Bour played out of his mind, Stanton had his best year by far, Ozuna had his best year, Yelich was fine... ...and they won 77 games. They were up to $115 million in payroll and, while the owner at the time may have been a crook, that is way higher of a payroll than they had ever had. They were going nowhere. I'm someone that is OK with tanking but I do understand the reality that you have about a 50-60% chance of remaining in the dumpster for a decade...that said, they were going nowhere but 75 win land with that roster unless they made some drastic, lucky moves. Jose Fernandez's death had massive ripple effects.

Coors Field games with a DH will average no less than 4 hours of runtime.

The Angels could probably barely sneak Machado or Harper in under the luxury tax threshold if that is their goal. If it's Harper, they probably wouldn't have a huge problem moving Calhoun for a similarly overpriced 1 year risk at pitcher or just eating a few million and giving him away. Poo Holes can be a part-time guy at 1B and DH. At this point he can't really complain about that role.

In my opinion, if you are going to sign a player to that kind of contract, he should be a solid ambassador for the game and for your team. Machado isn't even a solid ambassador for himself. Yeah, he's probably going to put up good numbers wherever he goes. He's a top 5 offensive player in the game. But his shenanigans in the playoffs last year were not isolated incidents. He's a douche. Have you really dug deep into his numbers? You'd probably be surprised even just looking at his 2017 which is obviously very recent. The bold is probably a big overstatement if talking pure offense (not offense for someone who can play SS). Overall though I think the logic would be that handing out a ridiculous deal fro someone with this attitude concerns could be a problem for the mentioned ambassador stuff but also that he could be the type to take his 200 mil and then his effort curtails. Combine that if you dig into his hitting he's not thaaaaaat crazy good as the reputation is implying. Whereas Harper to me I don't think that effort thing is a concern at all, he's got that crazy competitive vibe to him. That said, if all these points are cutting his cost drastically so he's not in that ridiculous world initially discussed then it becomes more palatable. Like that rumored White Sox deal isn't crazy. 1. I don't think "all of these points are cutting his cost drastically." Call it collusion or just smarter ownership under different constraints but they aren't offering this sort of money to anyone. If he signs a smaller-than-expected deal people will say it's "because he's a douche" which may account for him losing like 5% of his perceived value, but not $160 million instead of $300 million. 2. Replying to the 3 or so people - yes, he's a crappy person on the field (Machado) and very self-absorbed. It could backfire in effort or some sort of PR disaster but to me, I wouldn't blame an organization for paying him a bunch of money to play for their team.

Why are several posters suggesting that signing Machado is stupid for the Phillies (or anyone)?

This comes with limited data (I'm surprised he's only 33) but watching Asdrubal move around, I have minimal interest. I guess $3.5 million is a decent risk to take, but if you watch him play, he looks like he's one step from falling apart or one more notch of regression from being out of baseball. His K% and BB% numbers got worse last year, he's relatively slow and breaking down, and he wasn't a great OBP player as it was. I could see a huge dropoff soon.

They can at least extend the QO to Puig and recoup a pick or get him back for $13 million or a longer contract (not sure that's a good thing, but they could).

The thing that would terrify me as a Reds fan is that they've given up arguably more of their system than the Brewers did to bolster an inferior team...and if it does fail, they're paying Votto/Suarez/Gray $50 million 4 years from now. Suarez is probably fine, but if this doesn't work out, they could hit the 10 year mark of futility pretty easily. I get what they're doing, though.

I'm thinking he still finds a way on to a club where he has much more of a starting gig.

For whatever it's worth, Saladino is a 78 WRC+ hitter against lefties. Actually had a bad 2018 against them but a small amount of PAs. I get the idea as Shaw is actually better against lefties over his career but I think with Saladino's slight improvements as a hitter, if Shaw is really not good against lefties as some worry, Saladino may be about as good of a hitter against lefties, possibly provide better defense, and leave Shaw in for a late game PH against a RH pitcher. But you are right...the splits can be a bit overplayed.

I generally agree with you on overutilizing platoons/splits being a bad strategy over the course of a season. SP generally aren't as tough on same handed hitters as relief pithcers. And you don't want to hide Shaw from all lefties or Perez from all righties...as they'll have to see them at least some of the time when relief pitchers come in. They only get worse in those situations if you try to hide them. With our current roster, Yelich/Cain/Braun/Aguilar/Shaw/Grandal/Arcia should be playing almost every day. The occasional off days for Braun/Aguilar/Shaw/Grandal should generally come against same handed SP, but I wouldn't at all call it a platoon and look at as simply planning the occasional offday. Shaw and Grandal should see plenty of LHP, Braun and Aguilar will obviously see plenty of RHP. On top of all of this, when you know you have a stretch of 5 lefty starting pitchers in 7 days coming up, somebody can and will exaggerate an injury and Tyler Saladino will be on a flight from San Antonio to join the team to start against 3 or 4 of them or at least be a bat off the bench.

I kinda liken this to the last CBA that the NBA had. There was a hilarious era in the early/mid 2000s era where Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, and others got ridiculous deals that crippled their franchise payrolls for nearly a decade. One of my favorite trade deadlines ever was when Raef Lafrentz's expiring contract was the top ticket. Everyone wanted to clear their bad contracts for it. I get some of the hand-wringing from writers that teams should be able to easily afford Machado/Harper and that both would be worth it (and that is generally true (Harper could be argued a bit)). The NBA changed it so that the contracts were generally shorter. This saved some of the owners from themselves. The only difference here is that right now, the owners/teams are creating these changes by themselves. They're making the contracts shorter for any 2nd tier players and it may even trickle up to Harper/Machado. They're also self-enforcing a salary cap at the luxury tax level. Something will have to be figured out to pay the pre-arby guys a bit better or shorten that timeframe in this next CBA as we all know. And of course that solution is going to have to be reasonable enough to not just allow young, star players to flock to the Yankees after 3 years. It's possible that making guys like Christian Yelich free agents at the 3-year mark will allow the money to start flowing again (I'm not sure he'd have taken the extension if that was the case).

There's probably some opposing forces of DiPoto listening to management to [mostly] clear 2021 and beyond but DiPoto still getting some win-now guys, but I'd probably take Kikuchi (with the potential for long-term extension), Crawford, and any prospects gained from Encarnacion trade/potential tanking over age 30+ Segura in 2021. Not a huge Crawford fan but I guess that's the [somewhat flawed] logic they've used here. They got something for Segura, shortened the long-term burden on his money, and got another asset that may (or may not) have as a long-term piece in Kikuchi.

Yes, I know. I'm just saying the D-Backs would do it if it somehow worked (to completely contradict your point that we shouldn't even talk about it haha).

I actually do think the D-Backs would do it. They still are half-competing in their minds but I think ownership is pretty sold on selling things off. They've cut payroll enough that Greinke can maybe just rot away there at 30% of their payroll (and much higher than that the next 2 years), but I think they'd get rid of the 2nd half of his contract, essentially.

Castro isn’t dead money. He was worth over 2 wins last year, can play SS part time and is only owed $11 million this year then has a $16 mil team option/$1 mil buyout for next year. There’s plenty of value in him at that contract and he’s still under 30. He’d be a very nice target for us. Forgive the hyperbole but he has not really played SS for going on 4 years. He's fine, I guess...but the point remains that I don't think he softens the blow of what is needed in the trade.