I really wanted to see Patrick Corbin come to the Bronx but not at the tune of 20 million a year, up from 7 million per yr. I can't see you 41 year old could know being worth 25 million. The prize deal is Edwin Diaz who is not arbitration-eligible until 2020 and is only making less than $600,000... a phenomenal young Talent...
The Mets got a good one in Diaz, he'll add to the pitching staff. That was the good news, now the bad, a 36 year old 2nd baseman with a 20 something million dollar salary. Good luck against Philly & Atlanta there New York National.
I watched the brief Cano interview on MLB-tv last night. That boy is beyond repair. When asked about his suspension all he could say was, "I'm juss gonna go oud an do meye Yobb... His explanation of playing 2nd base, was "they tell utz dez daze to go to dis place, ober to by secone-d bahthes, or ober der, and day hidders hit de ball..." I can't believe they pay anyone over 5 Million a year to play this sport; for a kid who can only play baseball, and could never hold down a real Yob... It's no wonder nothings sacred to half the kids today, there's no respect left from the fans to the players. Of course I'm generalizing, as there are some real damn fine players with heads on their shoulders instead of up their ass....but those "damn fine players" are becoming scarcer rather rapidly, or else I'm just getting a helluva lot older a helluva lot faster; maybe senile too....
with Corbin heading to DC, what a 3 tandem trio, w/Mad-Max & Strasburg, along with not one but 2 Catchers, Gomes and Suzuki- Donaldson heading to Hotlanta along with McCann heading back home- Segura on his way to Philly- then the 2 head cases Mashito and Harper imo, more than likely one or the other to land in t/NL East... It's going 2b interesting to see which GM/Owner is dumb enough to take either one, especially Harper with his pipe dream of thinking he's worth 40 Mil-$$$, even though I'd be surprised if anyone offers him more than 25 Mil-$$$ and that's a stretch too...
Yankees eying the versatile & talented Nolan Arenado. Trashbin would have to unload several high talents for this guy.......and the Colorado Rockies should ask for the moon. Prefer Arenado any day over Machado &/or Harper. Amen.
I clipped this from the Washington Post. The WP limits readers to but a few articles, and this may not be available to read for some.... The 10-year, $400 million Bryce Harper contract that everybody has been speculating about for years — that’s dead. Over the next year, we will find out just how deeply it’s buried under the rubble of MLB’s collapsing free agent salary structure. Is his new price more like $300 million for eight years or perhaps $250 million, if he’s lucky, for seven years? My answer, after covering every MLB labor battle since 1976, the year of the first free agent, is that when the pendulum of baseball economics swings, it swings further than anybody anticipates. Whatever the number of years and dollars you think Harper, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson and Craig Kimbrel will be offered next winter, start slashing them. The shock waves of this salary tsunami have barely reached shore. When their full force is appreciated, fans will reevaluate their teams in a new light. That will require much digestion and analysis, one team at a time. But in Washington, even the Nationals’ own players shake their heads in disbelief as they acknowledge that all five of their important players who are in their walk years — Harper, Daniel Murphy, Gio Gonzalez, Matt Wieters and Ryan Madson — will face radically different and probably lowered prospects. While that may not be good for their teammates’ wallets, this new economic order should benefit the Nats as a whole. Just as $70 million will drop off the Nats’ payroll after 2018, the price of high-level talent is plummeting. The steep drop in free agents’ asking price does not benefit Bryce Harper. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post) Suddenly, the Nats’ chances of keeping Harper improve. But so do their options for moving away from Harper and instead focusing on long-term deals with stars such as Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner while still having payroll room to invest in prime free agents next winter. If the Nats don’t capitalize on this seismic shift to keep their title window wide open through 2021, then they have blown it. “I don’t think you’ll ever seen another [Giancarlo] Stanton contract — for anybody,” one Nat said of that 13-year, $325 million deal. From analyzing the recent contracts of a range of free agents, I think that almost all teams now believe that if they acquire a top free agent such as Harper, they will have to give up compensation — in draft picks and lost international bonus pool money — that is worth at least $50 million and perhaps more like $75 million. I will explain the math later. But Harper, Machado and the rest of the class of 2019 now probably have anchors tied to them. The only team that can sign them and not pay this huge compensation is their current team. The Nats and Orioles will start with a large advantage over rich competitors in keeping their own stars. How large? We will analyze that later. In this radically new market, the Nats have two options. So far, they have treated Harper as they did Stephen Strasburg, basically waiting to hear whether he wanted to talk about a stay-in-D.C. extension. Now, in a cheaper market and with their rivals disadvantaged, they might decide to get aggressive. Or since they already have so many outfielders under team control — Adam Eaton, Michael A. Taylor, Victor Robles, Juan Soto and Brian Goodwin — the Nats may look at “today’s prices” and focus on locking up Rendon, who is free after 2019, or the other young players they value highest. Unless Harper becomes earnest in pursuing the Nats, as Strasburg did, I suspect that Washington will follow the second option. The tide has shifted. It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just change. All over MLB, teams have the leverage and the optionality. I expect to be shocked. A year from now, if there is no fervent pursuit by the Nats and with at least seven other glitzy free agents glutting a limited market of teams with both money and a will to win, Harper may indeed “reset the MLB market” but at a lower level than has been imagined. Maybe not. Over the next year, we will see whether my reading on this is approximately correct. Ryan Zimmerman disagrees: “Harp is a lot different than anybody in this year’s free agent class. What applies to him then may not be at all like what we’re seeing now.” Harper has taken the reasonable position, like Strasburg and Max Scherzer in the past, that he won’t talk at all about 2019 in 2018. But everybody else is talking. Last week, Mike Moustakas, whom FanGraphs estimated would get a five-year, $85 million contract, came crawling back to his old team, Kansas City, for a pay cut — $6.5 million for one year. “Moustakas hit 38 homers last year. He broke a Royals team home run record — in that [big] park — that had stood for like 25 years,” Murphy said, almost in disbelief. This week, Jake Arrieta, represented by Scott Boras, whose clients include Moustakas and Harper, signed a similarly stunning contract with the Phillies. Several months ago, Boras compared Arrieta’s value to that of Scherzer (seven years, $210 million). Even if that was bargaining, $150 million or perhaps the $126 million for six years that the Cubs gave Yu Darvish looked sensible for Arrieta. For pitchers, especially past 30, total guaranteed dollars are almost all that matters. Arrieta signed for $75 million over three years. Where is that extra $50-million-or-more safely in his hand? Does he ever get another big deal at 35? What prevented 29 teams, including the Nats, from offering a former Cy Young winner a bigger deal? Why didn’t Moustakas get anything? One partial explanation, a half-dozen are “tanking” to rebuild or to pocket cash rather than compete. “No, try 15 teams aren’t trying to win,” a Nats vet said. But the main reason for the salary plunge is the huge value teams place on the compensation that they must give up if they sign a top free agent who has rejected a qualifying offer ($17.4 million last year). “We were more and more amazed as the winter went on — right up to Moustakas,” said one of the Nats’ top decision-makers, who did not want to be quoted for fear of . . . you fill in the blank. Is it possible that part of this implosion is collusion by owners, like their sins in 1985-87 when MLB settled with its players for $280 million in damages? “I lived that,” said Nats assistant general manager Bob Boone, who was then one of the players determined, by an arbitrator, to be a victim of collusion. “It took 10 more years for me to get the check — with annual interest,” he added with a chuckle. “This time, I see a natural market correction,” said Boone, who, as management now, might be expected to say that. But Boone, one of the staunchest union men as a player, has a long history of being bluntly honest. “Young players are valued far higher now. Players past 30 are valued much less,” said Boone, a Stanford graduate. Analytics prove players peak younger than previously thought. Testing for PEDs and amphetamines has stopped older players from cheating to stay young. So the valuation gap has widened at warp speed. If the Nats had signed Arrieta, Lance Lynn or Alex Cobb as a free agent, they would have given up second- and fifth-round picks in the June draft, as well as $1 million in international bonus money. “Fans don’t understand all the value in those picks and bonus money,” Nats principal owner Mark Lerner said Tuesday. But the Lerners understand. In a few years, the Nats’ starting lineup may include outfielders Robles, 20, and Soto, 19, as well as Wilmer Difo and catcher Pedro Severino. A key piece in the 2016 trade for Eaton was 100-mph prospect Reynaldo Lopez. Those five Dominican players were all signed by the Nats for less than $400,000 in international bonus money. Could the ultimate value of all those internationals, plus draft picks that might pan out as well as a second-rounder like Jordan Zimmermann, provide the Nats with $50 million to $75 million in value — my guesstimate earlier — during their young, inexpensive 20s? Probably. It just took MLB a long time to figure it out. And the union didn’t. The events of the past few months and even weeks have implications that radiate in all directions. Suddenly, the window for Scherzer and Strasburg to remain a Nats tandem almost certainly extends through 2021. Why? Strasburg’s not going to opt out of his contract after 2019 or 2020. In this market? His current $175 million deal now looks like one of the last bonanzas. “There goes a lucky guy. He deserves every cent. But there won’t be many more contracts like that, maybe none for pitchers,” one veteran Nat said as Strasburg walked past. “Everybody talks about ‘windows.’ Ours just got bigger.” Consider Gonzalez, presumed to be going, going, gone after 2018 because some team would offer him a multiyear contract the Nats would be unwise to match. Not anymore. Gonzalez suddenly profiles like Lynn, who settled for one year and $12 million. Suddenly, almost nothing is unthinkable. Teams that theorize outside the box — or realize that the old box has been blown up — can flourish the next few years. The game may go back into labor pain, but happy teams still will go to those World Series. Several franchises will be positioned to prosper. But the Nats need to grasp that they should be one of them.
Another decent read from the Washington Post. Collusion or common sense? Either way, baseball may be headed toward labor war WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The foundations of Major League Baseball’s long, wonderful period of peace are starting to shake. Baseball is undergoing the first stage of a dramatic paradigm shift in the way players are valued in the free agent market as well as a tilt in MLB’s balance of power toward owners and away from the powerful players’ union. How the game copes with these tectonic forces between now and the expiration of the current collective bargain agreement after the 2021 season will profoundly impact the health, wealth and popularity of the sport for a generation. The game has what seems like an eternity — four seasons — to adjust to changing market dynamics and extend what will be a 27-year era of labor peace. But conditions are changing so fast that players are disoriented and disturbed, while owners click their heels with their sport awash in new revenue streams. The stunning symbol of this confluence of factors is the current spring training camp, run by the union, for players who have no job even though the exhibition season is underway. Dozens of free agents remain unsigned. A few are stars, but many are vets who are in shock they have not had multimillion-dollar offers. Nationals pitchers and catchers workout as spring training begins A team of these “outcasts” would include some players who just don’t want to sign fat contracts because they aren’t fat enough but also many who don’t even have an invitation to come to a spring training camp to try to make a team. Such a hypothetical club could have Jake Arrieta, Lance Lynn, Alex Cobb, John Lackey and Ricky Nolasco in its rotation, National League saves leader Greg Holland as its closer and a lineup with Carlos Gonzalez, Jon Jay and Jose Bautista in its outfield, an infield of Matt Holliday, Neil Walker, J.J. Hardy and Mike Moustakas, as well as Jonathan Lucroy at catcher with Adam Lind, Jayson Werth and Mark Reynolds (30 homers) on its bench. These guys have won batting, home run and RBI titles or helped take teams to World Series. Not one has a deal? Really? Three weeks ago, MLB Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark said, “A record number of talented free agents remain unemployed in an industry where revenue and franchise values are at record highs. . . . This year a significant number of teams are engaged in a race to the bottom. This conduct is a fundamental breach of the trust between a team and its fans and threatens the very integrity of our game.” On Tuesday, the next shoe dropped as word got out that the MLBPA filed a grievance against MLB accusing the Athletics, Marlins, Pirates and Rays of failing to abide by the rules on how they spend their revenue-sharing money. Whether that is true or not, players will have to recognize that other trends also are undermining their salary leverage. In recent years, analytics-driven teams have come to value young controllable talent more than ever while avoiding over-30 vets, especially on long contracts. And many teams now shy from signing top free agents, those who have rejected qualifying offers, because of the steep cost in compensation that they must pay. Adding to this youth-over-age — and cheap-over-expensive — trend is MLB’s confidence that its drug testing for performance-enhancing drugs and amphetamines is effective. That means older players are even less likely to be able to extend their careers through chemistry. As a result, MLB’s basic model for paying players — underpaying players in their prime years in their 20s while spurning all but the best star players in their 30s — soon may be outdated and so unbalanced that the sport may have to reinvent the way it does business. The last such upheaval, from the arrival of the first free agent in 1976 through the strike that canceled the 1994 World Series, produced almost 20 years of labor war. I covered it all. It was hellish. “Guys like Adam Lind deserve to be on a big league team,” the Nationals’ Ryan Zimmerman said. “What Adam did last year (.875 on-base-plus-slugging percentage), you’re telling me every team’s good? He’s not needed? That’s where I get upset.” In the past several weeks, three major signings — Eric Hosmer, Yu Darvish and J.D. Martinez for nearly $400 million combined — have shown that the market for stars, while crimped, is hardly crashing. Perhaps this offseason is just a recalibration or a financial deep breath by teams that want to save money for next winter’s far more impressive cast of free agents, led by Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. But plenty of players are mad. They exchange stories, such as an all-star who got three lowball offers from three tail-end teams, then weeks of silence from the other 27 teams. Softening him up to sign for half of his market price a year ago? So far, calm players such as the Nationals’ Sean Doolittle are trying to see both sides and figure out where common ground can be found for “the long-term serious conversation that we need to start having — now. “But it is concerning. I don’t know enough about the moving parts behind the scenes to come right out and call it collusion, because that’s a really serious charge,” said Doolittle, aware that 30 years ago owners were fined $280 million for three straight winters of coordinated salary suppression. “But the later you get in this process — and we’re now in spring training — it does make you wonder what’s going on. Because you hope that’s not the case, right?” Baseball’s labor-war death-wish era need not be repeated. But take heed. Now is the time for measured evaluation, not a rush to condemn either side. Positions, once taken publicly, are hard to walk back. Players need to understand that the realities of their situation have changed, not through devious actions but by evolution in our understanding of the sport. Analytics and PED testing are both advances for baseball. But they have damaged the perceived value of older players while boosting the status of young ones. Nonetheless, players, agents and the union are wise to be skeptical. This month, club officials have sworn to me on their grandmothers’ graves that they aren’t colluding. They all just got analytical at the same time and came to similar evaluations of almost every player’s worth. What a convenient coincidence. Luckily, baseball has four years to work through this brier patch. “We’re definitely in a transition period. Because of analytics, the days when 30-year-olds get seven-year deals aren’t going to happen very much anymore,” Zimmerman said. “I don’t blame teams for that. It’s smart. But if owners are going to put so much value into the first part of people’s careers, then [future] players should be compensated at the beginning of their career more than they are now. “Most guys don’t get to the big leagues until they are 24, 25. I’m not a genius, but 24-25, plus six years [until free agency], is 30 or 31. Look around at how many 30-, 31-year-olds are basically just getting pushed out of the game right now. So the system, I don’t want to say it’s outdated, but . . .” But it is. Many players fear they won’t get their fair share of MLB’s huge revenue at the beginning or the end of their careers. How do you fix that? “I don’t even know where to start that discussion,” Zimmerman said. “You’d be switching the entire thing. That’s above my pay grade.” Rimshot, irony. But someone better figure it out. Last time MLB had to create a new system, it was a 30-year brawl. Scars still show. Bud Selig is in the Hall of Fame; Marvin Miller isn’t. Four years seems like plenty of time to avoid a disaster. I promise, it will fly past.
Now if Trashbin can only accelerate deals for Sonny (I’m not a New York kind of guy) Gray and Jacoby (I am Yankee refuse) Ellsbury. I’d say Trashbin would have accomplished a whole lot.
For once, just once, the M-Kay show is correct. Should the Yankees consider Dallas Kuckoo?? Not no, hell no... FK no... No efff-ing way... I would rather have a 45-50 year old J. Happ, or even the Big Sloppy throwing 55 miles per hour... Houston with no attempts to read sign Dallas in Houston speaks volumes.... Maybe the Rangers will sign them so Dallas can do Dallas I mean Debbie...
Heard Dallas Kackel at interviews trash talking the Yankee Franchise, fuck him, I wouldn't even want him as an Usher,
Your time is up with a team, you decide to declare free agency and be on your own. Nobody wants your services for whatever reason. No we pull the collusion card. People forgot about Curt Flood who got that Free Agency, Marvin Miller for getting players wages upscaled and George Steinbrenner for paying players well for their service. In todays game if you are in your early Thirties you'd best forget long terms contracts at sky high salaries.
Diamondbacks get Luke Weaver, Carson Kelly, Andy Young, and a Draft Pick from the St. Louis Cardinals for Paul Goldschmidt as per Ken Rosenthal.
....^^^^ Will St Louey strike gold by the Mississippi at the Gateway to the West??? Wow- Goldy to Saint Louey- Sounds like the Dbacks are afraid to sign anybody who is worth anything $$$ wise; D'Backs shunning Free Agents to be, ntm- letting J D Martinez flee to Boston last year... Goldie Hawn be a one-year rental if St Louis doesn't make it to the playoffs... Some interesting statistics on Goldschmidt's weird year last year... *Entering his final season before free agency, he'll be playing his age-31 season in 2019 but remains an excellent all-around player. He's not quite the hitter he was a few years ago -- his OPS peaked at 1.005 in 2015 and was down to .922 in 2018 -- and he's probably lost a step on the bases (32 steals in 2016, but just seven last season), but he still hit .290/.389/.533 with 33 home runs and was worth 5.4 WAR. Goldschmidt struggled early in 2018 when he was striking out at a prodigious rate. His average dropped to .198 on May 22, but he made some tweaks to his setup and hit .328/.418/.606 the rest of the season. In fact, ESPN Stats & Info reports that from June 1, just Mike Trout, Christian Yelich and J.D. Martinez had a higher OPS than Goldschmidt. Through May 22 he struck out 31.5 percent of the time with a swing-and-miss rate of 31 percent. From May 23 on, he fanned 22.4 percent of the time with a miss rate of 24.5 percent. If the Cardinals get that player over a full season, they just acquired an MVP candidate.
Arizona trades Paul Goldschmidt to St. Louis Cardinals for 3 non roster prospects. What was Arizona thinking? Cardinals “steal” Goldschmidt is my first reaction.
He got paid serious $$$. It's time to go after Happ or Eovaldi. Then maybe find a left handed bat in Michael Brantley along with a defensive 2B like DJ LeMahieu.
