Pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training this week with the first games on the 23rd
Pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training this week with the first games on the 23rd
RBP (02-12-2018)
Teh One Who Knocks (02-12-2018)
Yeah... February. In other words, NOT SPRING YET.
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Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
Yeah, when it's not Spring yet.
Warning: The posts of this forum member may contain trigger language which may be considered offensive to some.
Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
The Issue at the Heart of MLB's Free-Agency Debate
Baseball’s labor rules are at odds with the larger, evolving understanding of the worth of aging superstars.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...debate/553841/
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Melky Cabrera is one of the faces of MLB’s free agent crisis
Over the past four seasons, Melky Cabrera has averaged 602 at-bats. At the age of 33, he has 13 seasons of major league experience. Yet the lifetime .286 hitter (which is 36th among active players), who also has a .335 on-base percentage and a .418 slugging percentage, is one of many who can’t get a job with the new way Major League Baseball is conducting business.
https://nypost.com/2018/02/28/melky-...-agent-crisis/
I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.
What kind of contract is he looking for? How much is he asking for and for how long? You get to a certain age and your physical abilities take a nose dive. It's a fact of life. He is a fantastic player, and he may still have that greatness in him today, but for how much longer? You don't build teams around declining players. And if he's asking for that much money, why would a club spend it on an aging player who might decline sharply without warning when the club can get younger guys at a better value who still have yet to peak?
Sorry Melky, but the odds are stacked against you. A team may pull you in on a short-term contract somewhere near the deadline for a push at the playoffs if a center piece goes down during the season, but that's an if. It may be time to start thinking ahead and move on to something new.
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Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
Do you agree that the equation has changed? I do see the point that the players are willing to accept the $500k years in exchange for the big pay day. But when the rules change and the teams say, "thanks for the cheap years, now go fuck yourself" then the promise has been broken.
I don't know, man. I look at Yu Darvish at 31 and Jake Arrieta at 32. That one is confusing to me. Yu got $21M a year for 6 years. Arrieta has better stats and hasn't been signed. https://www.mlb.com/news/comparing-f...ta/c-264756428
I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.
Is that really about the players though? Not to be a smartass, but maybe Melky should have gotten a better agent. The same with Arietta.
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Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
Yeah, Boras is a fucking dick. But for some odd reason, the league puts up with him and he wins 9 times out of 10. More evidence that there's something wrong with this world.
The first article presents a scenario that's more of a wait-and-see situation. Are clubs trying to replicate the Astros' success? They could be. I don't know. Has the equation changed? I don't know.
Has that promise been broken? Were they given a promise to begin with? Was is it in writing? An actual legally binding promise? Do you see where I'm going with this? Talk is cheap, as you well know. Everybody in the clubhouse can be patting the new guy on the back and propping him up as he's slumming around with an entry level contract, but what's management doing? Are they saying anything at all, and even if they are, does it really matter if they do? Where did the expectation to make more money enter? I mean, sure with the last CBA, the negotiations favored the players, but were there ever any guarantees that contracts would be tendered in the player's favor when he hit free agency for the first time? I'm thinking that's more of a situational luck/agent/utility thing. If you got a Boras in your corner and your utility is in demand when you hit free agency....
As an outsider looking in, I'm thinking "boohoo, they get paid more initially than people that actually deserve it more". It's hard to take my opinion out of the mix when looking at the 'fairness' of the current system. But honestly, at the most basic level of understanding, sports are a meat market. If you can get good fresh meat for cheap, then you're sitting pretty. Maybe the Astros knew that and decided to take it to the extreme and see what would happen. Maybe everybody else is following in their footsteps now. Maybe the older skilled players are going to be thrown away and we're going to have sucky baseball for a while until all the talent starts taking reduced pay. Maybe prices will fall. We'll see.
Last edited by DemonGeminiX; 03-01-2018 at 05:12 AM.
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Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
RBP (03-01-2018), Teh One Who Knocks (03-01-2018)
Look, I have a really hard time when athletes whine about how much they are (or are not) getting paid. Salaries have risen in astronomical fashion over the last 20 years or so. It got to the point where a lifetime .242 hitting utility infielder that was only used 50 games a year was commanding a salary of $2 to $3 million a year. And of course the superstars had stratospheric salaries that were really beyond comprehension. All to play a game. At some point, the owners had to stop, they can't keep paying players $20 or $30 or $40 million a year to play baseball. As it is, baseball is the last affordable ticket of the 4 major sports leagues in North America, but it's slowly becoming less affordable. Add on to the ticket price the $8 beers and $7 hot dogs and $20 to park if you don't want to hike 3/4 of a mile to the stadium, and now suddenly you have an outing that will cost you and your family well in excess of $100 for a few hours.
Salaries need to come down. As CC Sabathia mentioned in one of the linked articles, GM's are looking to get more long term value from players for their dollars spent. And if the athletes keep whining about needing more money, then attendance will keep going down and then there won't be anymore revenue streams for these athletes, that in most people's opinions, are vastly overpaid.
RBP (03-01-2018)
All good points, guys. It will be interesting to see where this shakes out. Maybe the rookie caps will come up a lot (or at least include large performance incentives) with the top end contracts coming down?
I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.