Matt explored the contract negotiating holdout of Michael Crabtree, and Monday is the deadline for Steven Strasburg, the Washington Nationals number one overall pick in the MLB draft to sign. Strasberg has yet to reach an agreement with the Washington Nationals. It doesn’t sound like a deal will get done by Monday’s deadline as the Boras and the Nationals have put different values on Strasburg. I’m not a Nationals fan by any means, so I kind of hope they don’t sign him. It could be the first time ever that a team has failed to sign their first round pick two years in a row!
I’m not a supporter of making a team pay $50 million for a player that hasn’t thrown one pitch at the major league level. I feel that their $30 million offer was more than fair, and probably too much. Regardless of what happens it shows that baseball needs to fix the way the outdated drafting and signing system is working.
Just like the NFL there are a lot of holdouts in baseball. I understand that players are just trying to get paid what their agents and others surrounding them feel they are worth, but what happened to proving your worth!?! Baseball needs to restructure signings, and put caps on contracts for the players that haven’t played one inning in the minors or majors. Putting parameters on guaranteed money and bonuses that the top choices can receive would make them like all of the other major sports, what a concept! They also need to make other ways for teams to avoid having to pay huge dollars for those top picks, like say, let a team trade picks!?! Wow, how hard is that. Baseball is the only sport that doesn’t allow the trading of draft picks. In this case, the Nationals could have traded their pick away to a team with money and willingness to sign Strasberg. I’m sure he would already be signed, and the Nationals could have had a couple of picks and could’ve signed a four or five players with money Strasberg is demanding.
Do you wonder why I’m so against Strasberg’s contract? Take a guy like Ryan Howard of the Phillies, who has already been rookie of the year, MVP, an All-Star, and a two time home run champ.
He won his bid for the highest arbitration awarded in the history of baseball for $10 million just last year. With the conclusion of this season Howard will have made a total of about $26 million in his three year career since being drafted, which sounds reasonable for one of the best young hitters in the game. Since Howard was a 5th round pick he probably was paid the right amount, but Strasberg would be making twice as much as him at the same point in his career if the contract that he’s asking for goes through. Is any player that hasn’t played worth $50 million? Can he really be as dominant as the money he’s due to recieve? Can any team justify really give any rookie that much money!?! Definitely not! Over the past 40 years there has been 14 pitcher taken #1 overall, and they have a combined zero Cy Youngs, zero 20 win season, and zero 200 career wins.
So how would being able to trade draft picks help? Well it’s been well documented that if this were the case the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets would end up with all the talent since they have all the money. I disagree if a small market team can turn that first pick into three picks, then they will likely find a good player out of the bunch with much less risk to their financial situation. Especially small market teams like the A’s, Rays, and Marlins would definitely benefit from taking numerous picks instead of that first rounder. People assume that teams are going to make a bad pick with the extra ones they have received, but nobody that’s drafted is garuanteed to have success. The players chosen might likely have more “tools”, but there is no guarantee that tying up their payroll in a prospect will help the team down the road. Don’t you think a team could get a better deal paying $6 to $10 million a year for a proven player? I think being able to swap picks will just give teams more options, and not give teams like the Nationals, a sign this guy or you’re out of luck scenario! Hell, Strasberg could even end up on my list of bad contracts before he throws a major league pitch.
If you look at how great the first seven years of his contract were for the Yankees, I’m sure there would be no hesitation in a do-over situation. You could say that someone like Eric Chavez would qualify as he’s due to make $11 million next season, and he has only played 418 games over the last 5 years of his 6 year contract. But on the flip side I can understand why they picked him to build a team around him at the time. He was never on the DL and won six straight gold gloves averaging nearly 25 HR’s and 100 RBI per season. So really when they signed him, it wasn’t quite as ridiculous as it looks. Here are a few of the ugliest contract situations in the MLB right now.
Vernon Wells is about as ridiculous as it gets! He’s owed $23 million in 2011 and $21 million in 2012. He isn’t a good defender, and isn’t exactly tearing the cover off the ball. He has a no trade clause as if anyone would want to take on that money. Wait, maybe the White Sox will!?!
If anything, you just hope the Giants learned their lesson after this one. They really didn’t though as they overpaid for Renteria this offseason, but not to the extent of Aaron Rowand’s deal that is in place. Rowand is going to make $12 million annually for the next three years. He did come off a great season, but since going to SF he hasn’t really showed that he was worth the money. I think he was on the over-rated side defensively to begin with. Yeah, he made some amazing catches, but overall he isn’t anything that special to warrant that much money.
Fuentes contract isn’t ridiculous, but personally I would have gone for something cheaper as he’s owed $10 million next year. At least his contract is a short one. Carlos Lee gets an honorable mention. He’s still a solid hitter, but how long can it last? He’s going to make $18.5 million annually for the next three years. He can’t run the bases or play in the outfield, so once he stops hitting it will look ridiculous. He looks to be on the road to being the next Travis Hafner, but at least the Indians only owe him $13 million annually over the next three years. As we wave goodbye to the steroid era (At least, I think) and the gross over spending on contracts for players on PED’s, I think lists like mine will shrink. If it doesn’t, we can blame it on GM’s like JP Riccardi!
This past weekend, Phillies OF Shane Victorino was ejected – from center field – for whining about calls. Today, he’s whining about something else. Someone threw a beer on him. So, naturally, Victorino 
Maybe they saw how well it worked out for the Angels by overpaying on Gary Matthews Jr. to be their fourth or fifth outfielder. One thing I still can’t figure out is, why wouldn’t the White Sox just let him not get claimed? If they let him fall through waivers, which he probably would have with his terrible numbers this season (.264 BA, 14 HR, 62 RBI over 108 games). This is also his second straight declining season, which makes this even more baffling. If and when he cleared waivers, they could have signed him to a different contract over the off-season and easily could have paid him less than $10 million a year. They are three games out of the division race at the moment, and I don’t see how this will help them other than having a “good player” to fill in when other players have their rest days. If they made the move because they had Thome, Dye and Contreras coming off the books in 2010, then why not wait until the off-season to make this move to try not to upset the clubhouse hierarchy? If anything, this move will hurt them financially and chemistry wise, unless he has a Matt Holliday-like turnaround in his new surroundings. There’s one big difference, Rios doesn’t have Pujols or have the excuse of going back to a familiar league! Good luck with that one Chicity.
The prized prospect in the Matt Holliday deal made his Raley Field debut tonight in his new hometown of Sacramento. The River Cats wasted no time pencilling him into the cleanup spot. He also got the start at third base, where many question whether he will stick, or eventually make the move to first base or designated hitter. While he didn’t do anything extraordinary in the field, he didn’t make any mistakes either. The Salt Lake Bees wasted little time testing his glove, as leadoff hitter Brad Coon hit a sharp grounder to the left of Wallace. Wallace made a diving effort to no avail. It wasn’t a play he should’ve made, but he didn’t exactly make a gold glove attempt. The other balls hit to him were routine, and he fielded them cleanly and threw perfect strikes to first. So far, so good.
I almost dropped them to #2 after seeing the new look Cardinals win their second in a row against them, but you can’t argue with the best record in the league!
The Angels seem to be catching fire winning 3 out of 4 from the Twins, and winning 12 of their last 15. They need to get someone so they don’t have to rely on Santana, because he looks like a black hole in the rotation.
Maybe not to the extent they were last year, but if they can figure out a way to get Kazmir and Price functioning properly they should make a push at the wild card spot.
Seattle seems to be fading behind the Rangers and Angels, but look much improved over the past few teams they put out there.
If they don’t make a move at the trade deadline, Prince and company may have to slug their way into the playoffs. I don’t like the odds of that happening.
They haven’t shown signs of anything good or consistent. The emergence of Brandon Phillips bat has helped fantasy teams out though. They seem to be stuck in the same situation year after year, and yup, it’s a bad one.
The 2009 Baseball America Prospect Handbook says, “Brett Wallace, think batting champ with the ability to be a big bopper. “ This is one of many interesting players that the A’s have acquired as the rebuilding is starting to take some shape.
Tonight he is facing the Yankees with a 21 inning scoreless streak going into the game. The guy I was excited about for awhile, Carlos Gonzalez, was traded away in the Holliday trade, and he hasn’t impressed so far hitting only .229 in 97 at bats for Colorado this season. Street is having a pretty good year for Colorado, but even when he was on the A’s last year he wasn’t even the closer as Brad Ziegler took the spot from him. Beane has never seemed to highly value the closer’s role, so losing Street and C-Gon, hasn’t hurt them.
help offensively in the lineup. The fact is, he simply wasn’t hitting. It’s not like he was constantly hitting balls that died on the warning track. Or that he was racking up hits but getting left on base when others failed to come through. You can’t even attribute his struggles to seeing few good pitches, because pitchers weren’t pitching around him. He had plenty of opportunities with runners on and saw plenty of pitches to hit. He just wasn’t hitting them. He filled in nicely for Mark Ellis providing the team’s bulk of infield pop-ups. At the same time, he beat out Bobby Crosby for the title of best at hitting into inning-ending double plays. Don’t let the past week or two fool you. The A’s could’ve traded him for the ol’ proverbial bag of balls and come out winners.
However, Oakland didn’t receive a bag of balls in this deal, but rather two top ten prospects from the Cardinals’ system. Brett Wallace is a supposed can’t miss big leaguer, and is probably less than a year away. Despite being a fat gut, scouts say he is in fact athletic, and could stick at third base for years to come. Third base, as A’s fans know too well, is a huge hole for the team. On top of that, they managed to snag St. Louis’ 2nd best pitching prospect, and 6th best prospect overall. It’s unlikely he’ll be the next Dan Haren, but he is projected to be a future #3 starter. The bottom line is the three players the A’s got are almost guaranteed to be better than the two compensation picks they would’ve received at the end of the season. The added bonus is that Holliday is out of lineup two months sooner!
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cali4dre
chappy81
dyslecix
mceezy
Doin Work 