I thought it was more an total innings (not at 162) disqualification, but you're probably right, might not have mattered.Originally Posted by Teh One Who Knocks
I thought it was more an total innings (not at 162) disqualification, but you're probably right, might not have mattered.
I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.
Yeah, I mean it probably shouldn't have mattered, but I think the fact that he seems 'fragile' in the 2nd half of the season (2 years in a row now) would have an effect on how the voters would vote. Unless he had ungodly stats otherwise.
RBP (11-16-2018)
Well, at least one of the BoSox grabbed an individual award....MVP for Mookie
RBP (11-16-2018)
Betts is only the second player in history to win MVP, a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger and the World Series in the same season. Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt also did it with the 1980 Phillies.
That's pretty damn impressive.
RBP (11-16-2018)
There's no real excuse for the Cubs not to go after Bryce Harper
NBC Sports Chicago
There's no real excuse for the Cubs not to go after Bryce Harper originally appeared on nbcsportschicago.com
Let's be clear from the jump: every single MLB team could use Bryce Harper.
The 120-win, reigning-champion Boston Red Sox would move Jackie Bradley Jr. or Andrew Benintendi in a heartbeat if it meant landing Harper. The Houston Astros, who've arguably been the best team in baseball over the last three years, tried to trade for him in August. His probably-previous team, the Washington Nationals, would have a top-5 OF *without* him and they're still going to bend over backwards to re-sign him. He's just that valuable, and as fun as it can be to take the contraian route and insist that your team doesn't have $350+ million to spend on Harper, they 1. absolutely do, and 2. probably wish they could.
This all brings us to the Cubs. Harper's long been rumored to have his eye on Chicago, and even the most shallow dive into Google would reveal more than enough Instragram posts with Kris Bryant to lend some weight to the rumors.
I hear you, I do. The Cubs will have the highest payroll in baseball heading into the 2019 season! With glaring holes in their rotation and at the top of the order, spending a cool 350 million bucks on one player who does neither of those things is a fool's errand! Jayson Heyward might bounce back from his 36-month slump!
For the sake of this article's word count, we'll skip past the financial "juggling" that signing Harper would take. For now, just know that signing him is entirely possible for a team that is worth $3 billion dollars and has an annual revenue around $500 million. Walk down Clark Street and tell me that spending money is a problem for the Cubs.
Signing Harper would immediately give the Cubs the offensive fire power that Theo Epstien and anyone that tuned into a Cubs game after the All-Star Game could see was missing. Here's a look at where Harper's 2018 stats would compare to the Cubs' 2018 leader in the same category:
- wRC+: 135 -- 1st (Baez 131)
- wOBA: .376 -- 1st (Baez .366)
- OPS: .889 -- 1st (Baez .881)
- SLG: .496 -- 2nd (Baez .554)
- Dingers: 34 -- Tied 1st (Baez)
- ISO: .247 -- 2nd (Baez .264)
- OBP: .393 -- 1st (Zobrist .378)
- BB%: 18.7 -- 1st (Schwarber 15.3%)
- K%: 24.3 -- 9th (only better than Schwarber -- 27.5 %-- and Happ -- 36.1 %)
- Avg. Exit Velo: 90.2 mph -- 1st (Schwarber/Happ 90.0) *though David Bote registered a 93.5 avg in 200 ABs*
To put it another way, Javy Baez had the season of his life, an MVP-caliber campaign, and he still wasn't as good of a hitter as Harper was during what many consider to be an underwhelming year for the latter. The narrative that Harper can only outslug an otherwise-more-well-rounded hitter in Baez isn't any more accurate, made evident by the fact that Baez also strikes out more, walks less, and makes weaker contact. He has a marginally better batting average, sure, but comparing batting averages is a nearly-useless exercise in 2018.
And yeah, okay, Harper's not a great fielder. Defensive stats are what they are, but even the most cynical stathead can look at Harper's fielding page on FanGraphs -- and the negative numbers splattered all over it -- and comfortably deduce that fielding isn't his specialty. With that said, the Cubs gave 82 percent of their innings in left field to *checks notes* Kyle Schwarber last year, so they clearly aren't all that worried about a strong glove at that position. After it was trendy to declare Schwarber's defense a fixed issue in the early goings of last season, his 11 outfield assists help hide the significant regression that followed. Credit where credit's due: Schwarber was better in left last season, but even his better isn't worth passing up Harper for.
In 39 games this year, the Cubs scored zero or one run. They went from being an above average offensive team (107 wRC+) in the 1st half to a subpar one (88 wRC+ -- 24th in MLB) in the 2nd. Not having Kris Bryant obviously plays a role. Kyle Schwarber's comically-bad performance in clutch moments likely won't repeat itself. There are reasons to believe that, given some better health and a few more fortunate bounces, the Cubs' offense could be much better even without Harper. With that said, rolling the dice on health and fortune isn't how you fix a problem. Signing Bryce Harper is.
RBP (11-27-2018)
Teams are going out of their way to avoid the competitive balance tax
by R.J. Anderson - CBS Sports
Anyone who follows baseball at a casual level or beyond has likely partaken in an argument about the need for a salary cap. For those who have been spared the indignity, the debate goes something like this. One person states that salary caps are important because they promote parity by limiting the resource gap between the teams with the league's biggest and smallest revenues. The other person, armed with hyperlinks and data, retorts that there's little evidence supporting the claim -- that salary caps, then, are just a socially acceptable method for wage suppression. And so on and so forth until aliens destroy the Earth and end the debate for good.
Aliens have not yet scored the fatal blow, but it does appear the debate has been won by those who implored Major League Baseball to adopt a salary cap.
You've probably heard of the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT). For those who haven't, consider this a primer. Basically, the CBT establishes a threshold that teams can spend up to; those who go over are taxed and/or penalized proportionally. Unlike with payroll, the CBT isn't determined based on yearly salaries. Rather, the player's average annual value is considered, as are benefits that add about $14 million to each team's number. Last season, the CBT threshold was $197 million. The number is up to $206 million for the 2019 season, and will increase to $210 million before the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires following the 2021 season.
As for the penalties, here's what MLB.com itself offers:
A club exceeding the Competitive Balance Tax threshold for the first time must pay a 20 percent tax on all overages. A club exceeding the threshold for a second consecutive season will see that figure rise to 30 percent, and three or more straight seasons of exceeding the threshold comes with a 50 percent luxury tax. If a club dips below the luxury tax threshold for a season, the penalty level is reset. So, a club that exceeds the threshold for two straight seasons but then drops below that level would be back at 20 percent the next time it exceeds the threshold.
Clubs that exceed the threshold by $20 million to $40 million are also subject to a 12 percent surtax. Meanwhile, those who exceed it by more than $40 million are taxed at a 42.5 percent rate the first time and a 45 percent rate if they exceed it by more than $40 million again the following year(s).
Starting in 2018, teams could also lose draft position if they went more than $40 million over. A team picking outside of the top six would have their first pick dropped 10 slots, and teams within the top six would have their second pick docked 10 positions.
Those penalties may not seem like an effective deterrent on paper, and yet teams are treating them as if they were. Last season, three clubs finished either over the CBT or within $10 million of the mark: the Boston Red Sox, Washington Nationals, and San Francisco Giants. As of right now, there are only two teams who are estimated to be over the CBT: The Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. The Red Sox -- the defending champions, mind you -- are reportedly looking to cut costs:
Every other team is at least $15 million off from the $206 million line. The Los Angeles Dodgers, Nationals, and New York Yankees are the only other teams within $40 million of the mark. Almost every team in baseball could add around $80 million to its tax figure before it would have its draft picks impacted -- and they could do it without fear of the repeater tax rate. Heck, three teams -- the Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago White Sox, and Oakland Athletics -- could add more than $100 million to their tax figure without risking any penalty, financial or otherwise. Each of those three could add significant talent to position themselves in a top-heavy American League.
Remember, Major League Baseball is awash in money: league-wide revenues exceeded $10 billion last year. There's no real reason for teams to be this scared of encroaching upon the CBT and perhaps even going over it. That they're all treating the CBT with the utmost seriousness, at a time when there's more playoff spots available than ever before, tells us that the owners are more concerned with maximizing profits than wins.
Hence baseball's informal salary cap; hence its commitment to honoring and maintaining it.
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After seeing this story, I saw another one that said the BoSox are going to let Kimbrel go because he will cost too much salary.
To me, salary caps are stupid. And I'm not just saying that because the Sox are one of the big spenders in MLB. It's because the smaller market teams rarely, if ever, use the money that get redistributed back from the penalties to increase their payrolls and bring in better quality players. Those owners just pocket the money. Plus, if having the biggest payroll every year guaranteed a World Series, then you would have the same 5 or 6 teams in the playoffs every year. In between those 4 World Series the Sox have recently won, there's a couple of last place finishes as well. Fat lot of good their payroll did there. The only way to make it fair is for MLB to force the other teams to increase their payroll and put out competitive teams.
/rant
Barry Petchesky - Deadspin
The championship window is rarely open as long as you’d like or expect it to be—just ask the 2014 Red Sox. And the current defending World Series champs can see it coming. In the next two to three years, Boston is going to have to worry about the following players hitting the open market: Chris Sale, Rick Porcello, Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr., potentially J.D. Martinez, if he opts out. But not yet. The Sox will have what was indisputably the best team in baseball back together for at least 2019, and will likely enter the season as favorites to repeat. Which makes these reports odd.
From USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, and confirmed by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal:
To these reports, Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski offered something less than an adamant denial:
“I can tell you that we’re not looking to move anybody. We’re not driven to move anybody. But I think you always keep open minds to anything that takes place.”
[...]
“You can always get better. I know, long term, we’re not going to be able to sign all of our players. That brings upon conversations and people calling you about various things. But I would guarantee you our primary focus is to try to win a world championship in 2019, to try to repeat.”
There would be logic in, say, using the money they’d otherwise spend on middle-of-the-rotation-guy Rick Porcello on a couple of top relievers, as that was Boston’s only glaring weakness last season. There’d be even more logic in keeping Porcello and just signing those relievers anyway. That would be the best team it could be.
But baseball teams, even the most expensive and most talented ones, are not trying to be the best they can be, and for that, blame MLB’s Competitive Balance Tax, which has one hell of an Orwellian name. (“Legalized collusion” would be a more accurate one.) As nicely spelled out here, it’s a salary cap, despite the name. If it weren’t, why would two of the three teams who were over the luxury tax threshold last year have fought so hard (and successfully) to get under it this year? Why would only two teams out of 30 be projected to be over it in 2019?
The Red Sox will be one of those teams, pretty much no matter what moves they make. There are three separate luxury tax thresholds, with increasing penalties ranging from money to a drop in the draft order. Boston—again, already prepared to pay some luxury tax—is concerned about hitting the highest threshold. What exactly are they trying to avoid? Tom Verducci does some math, and concludes that the difference between where they are now and where they might trade away useful players to avoid being is: An extra $4 million in tax payments, and their 33rd overall draft pick becoming the 43rd overall. That’s it. That’s all.
That would seem like nothing; a team as profitable as the Red Sox, you’d assume, would happily pay that in order to keep together the core of a championship team. Yes, the luxury tax gets more onerous with each consecutive year you’re over it, but with so many big contracts potentially coming off the books after 2019 and 2020, it’d be very easy to get under the threshold then, simply by attrition. When the championship window closes naturally, in other words.
But that’s not what baseball is anymore. Any team that doesn’t want to be subject to the natural cycle of things—compete, rebuild, compete, etc.—has to begin rebuilding even while it’s competitive, even while it’s a World Series favorite. That leads to absurd things like a team weighing the possibility of trading Jackie Bradley, who’s still got two arbitration years, for younger, potentially worse players because they have even more years of team control left. Or trading away a perfectly effective No. 3 starter, in a sport where no team has enough starting pitching. This is life with a salary cap. It’s frustrating, and I’m not sure who who exactly is served by it besides owners who now have a partial excuse for not spending more. (It certainly doesn’t serve fans of small-budget teams, because if the Red Sox step back, that just opens things up for the Dodgers or Yankees or Nationals or some other team with a $200 million payroll.) Boston is still the favorite in 2019, but it appears at least open to the idea of worsening its own odds.
Hang on, when did the Phillies pick up McCutchen?
Last edited by DemonGeminiX; 12-13-2018 at 02:05 PM.
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.
Yesterday. 3 years $50 million.
I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.
And they're still going after Machado and Harper.
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Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
I can't make heads nor tails of the winter meetings. Boras talked to the press for nearly an hour yesterday and said nothing.
I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.
Red Sox lost another reliever to free agency....Dodgers signed RP Joe Kelly to a 3 year, $25 million contract.
The Sox are unloading.
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.
With the loss od Kelly and the (most likely) impending loss of Kimbrel, their bullpen is going to be a shambles. I can see why they will probably pass on Kimbrel, 2 (unnamed) MLB execs are saying that his agent is looking for more than $100 million and 6 years. That's a pretty hefty contract ask for a guy that was awesome in the regular season, but was constantly in trouble in the post season. The Sox won the World Series in spite of Kimbrel, not because of him.
Kimbrel's best days were with the Braves. He was untouchable back then.
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Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
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