So the Jays revealed their new logo. Spoiler I am amazed Rogers / Jays managed to get something so right. I am really happy
Did not expect JV to win the MVP. Mostly because he's a pitcher. Secondly, because Cabrera had a monstrous last 2 months, making JV slightly less valuable. It's awesome though.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...2/collective.bargaining.agreement/?xid=cnnbin Welp, as a small market fan whose team was trying to use the draft to improve its lot in the league, I loathe this new CBA. Blood testing for HGH is good though. Disagree with moving Houston to the AL. More playoff teams, meh, we'll see how that one turns out.
I don't get why you hate it, this will help small market teams in the draft get better players as teams will be less willing to go over slotting value. The Type A free agents will be harder to get draft picks for however.
I guess part of the argument is that they are more likely to get J.D. Drew'd if they can't pay to compensate for their undesirability. The likes of Strasburg might be less willing to put on a Nationals uniform if there wasn't a big payday involved. The argument is strained by the fact that it was the Phillies that got fucked by Drew, though.
Small market teams typically spend more in the draft because they can't afford to get in on bidding for expensive free agents. It's a cost effective way to get impact talent (giving a draft pick a million dollars over slot was a lot cheaper than forking out an extra 20 million and a few extra years to sign a big name free agent).
Thank you. Do you guys really not see the problem here? The biggest weapon a small team has in its arsenal to stay competitive is the draft, and this arrangement severely impedes on the one advantage they have. First, a lot of times a player will decide to pass on a team's offer to instead play for college if that offer isn't enticing enough (or go into a different sport in some rare cases). Additionally, your margin for error in the draft is reduced even further b/c you now have to adjust and budget your draft payroll, essentially removing a smaller team's chance to gamble on a high risk, high pay, high reward player. This year the Pirates spent $17 million on their draft picks to help a pretty depleted farm system and land two potentially stud pitchers. Supposedly the highest a team will have under this new agreement would be a little over $11 million. Oh, and those compensatory picks you get at the end of the draft? What good are they if you still have the budgetary constraints impeding on your effort to sign them? Finally, do you really expect someone like Scott Boras or any other agent of a top 10 draft pick to play nice b/c you now have a concrete cash pool you can offer your picks? Course not. He's still going to demand as much of that cash as possible, making it more difficult to sign later picks if you take him up on it. This is why I raise my eyebrows and doubt the "we don't want teams losing picks b/c of signability" argument. None of this is completely damning. You can still draft and compete but it's going to be just that much more difficult in a league where a lot (admittedly not all) of people complain about a problem with lack of parity and competitive balance. In the end, the owners like this because it will keep draft signings down and save them money and the MLBPA likes it b/c (1) the unions in most professional sports always seem to be more concerned with the welfare of their current players/members (you know, the ones with voting rights), than potential future players and (2) the MLBPA foolishly think this money saved on the draft will be used to sign veteran free agents instead (I'm working on a proposal to sell them a few bridges as well).
The range for next year will be $11.5 million for the top team to $4.5 million for the last. If you go 10% over this, you lose your first round draft pick the next year. If they go 15% over you could lose your next two first round picks. From 11th round on, teams can offer a max $100,000 signing bonus to each pick without it costing against the limit. How is a team like the Yanks going to screw over a small market team? They will be at around the $4.5 million limit and aren't going to risk losing their next two first round picks. Do you honestly think a team is going to give up signing their round 2-10 picks to sign one Boras client?
What you're saying is completely unrelated to Arms Akimbo's complaint. He isn't arguing that the Yankees will outbid the Pirates for picks. He's arguing that this is the one place where the Pirates have been able to spend successfully. Lower the amount that the Pirates can spend, and they end up 1) being able to sign fewer picks, and 2) with more high-profile picks holding out and reentering. This is both marginally less likely to occur to the Yankees/Sox/Cubs/Phillies (since people will require less money to play for these teams), and less likely to seriously affect them as they don't need the draft as much. If the draft is disproportionately important for small market teams (since they can't compete in the free agency market), it then follows that limitations upon draft structure disproportionately affect small market teams.
WHAT are you talking about? None of my points related to the Yankees whatsoever. It doesn't relate to any LARGE team's ability to sign in the draft at all. The most basic way to say it is: the draft is the best way for a small team to acquire talent in order to compete with the larger teams who have the ability to get explosive talent from free agency. A team like the Royals has almost no chance of signing someone like Albert Pujols, but they might be able to sign the next Prince Fielder. This new CBA, in my opinion, makes drafting more difficult and dangerous for smaller teams, ultimately hurting their chances to compete on the field. It takes the biggest tool they have to acquire the kind of talent they need to compete and ties a hand behind their backs. And yeah, I think there will be time where a team faced with someone like a Stephen Strasburg would be tempted to pay way over slot for a player and risk losing the ability to sign later draft picks.
We'll see but I think the draft rules and the hard cap on International signings will hurt the large market teams more than the small.
Heath Bell is getting $9 million a year and Albert Pujols is getting a QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS. Pujols is getting paid more each year that the entire 2005-2006 Stanley Cup Penguins team. But yeah, rookie spending is what we should be concerned about. Anyway, interesting move by the Angels. Definitely going to be a tighter race in the AL West next season. And I'm intrigued about all the changes in Miami. For some reason I feel they're going to be one of those high payroll, low win teams (e.g. the Mets). EDIT: CJ Wilson to the Angels at $75mil/5 years. Jeez.
The Marlins have a new stadium opening next season. And they are trying to draw more fans, especially Latin fans. They Marlins have always done OK with one of the 3 lowest payrolls in the league. I don't think they will win a ton more games because of Reyes & Bell & Buehrle, but they should win a couple more. The other reason they are spending money is to drive up the value of the franchise so Loria can sell it. It's long been speculated that the reason he agreed to the new BP is to inflate the value of the organization so it can be sold.
The Marlins have won the World Series in 1997 and 2003. In 1997 they had the 5th highest payroll. In 2003 they were #20 out of 30 (though Wiki has them at 25). Granted the 2008 and 2009 teams finished moderately well, but 2010 and 2011 really demonstrated how far they have to go. Last year they finished last in their division at 72-90 and 30 games behind the Phillies. They were 18 games behind the Cardinals for the Wildcard. This is a lot of spending to only be looking at .500. I realize they're trying to fill the new stadium and increase the value of the team. I just think that there is a good chance they're going to seriously underperform and Miami doesn't exactly have the most loyal fans like the Mets or Cubs who are going to fill up the seats regardless of their record. Nevertheless, their primary objective right now is selling luxury boxes and season tickets, and I'm sure this is helping. And the experience of a new park, despite how god awful its new centerpiece is supposed to be: will also draw in a decent number of fans in 2012. We'll see how 2013 goes is the team doesn't win games however.
Well, you can expect the Angels' fanbase to increase 300% next year on bandwagoning alone. I'm surprised Pujols decided to leave St. Louis, coming off of that epic World Series run. And how has nobody in this thread touched on the fact that the Marlins' new jerseys look like something out of BASEketball?
I didn't say their plan was going to work. The majority of people down here are fans of other teams because they grew up somewhere else or they just don't care about baseball. Personally, I am not driving into the middle of the ghetto a couple times a week to see the Marlins. They want to become the Miami Marlins? Fine...let's see how many people from Miami you get to show up. What was a nice 30min trip is now 75-90 minutes, give or take 15 min for the occasional stabbing. The Marlins has some key injuries last year and some seriously underperforming stars (rhymes with Schmanley). To me, the signing of Reyes spells the end for Ramirez. And I don't think many Marlins fans are gonna lose much sleep over it. The fact is, without making some sort of FA splash, the new ballpark was going to be empty. They have been underspending the past couple seasons and pocketing the profit from the revenue sharing, and MLB was all over them to spend at least most of what they got. As far as the "centerpiece", that's exactly what it looks like. The centerpiece on every table at a gay prison wedding.
Marlins beat writer is saying that Wilson walked away from a 6ys/$90-$100mil contract offer from the Marlins because he wanted to play for a West Coast team. You have to REALLY like surfing to leave $20mil on the table. Good for him!
NL MVP Ryan Braun tests positive for PED's. Is this the highest level MLB player to test positive why still playing? All the other big names were retired or over the hill (Manny) when they tested positive.
Damn. Couldn't have seen this coming. Apparently he (and MLB officials) knew about this in October, a full month before they named him NL MVP. Though he appealed the results and immediately requested a second test, which he passed. This could get messy.
Just a quick note for everyone that will inevitably talk about the MLB revoking his MVP award or something similar. The MVP awards are voted on by the BBWAA, therefore the MLB has no authority to take away his MVP award.