The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

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EastonBlues22
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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

Post by EastonBlues22 »

haltz wrote:
3. Trade your young pitching prospects for arby pitching
I follow until here. Is there that much of a failure rate? I have no idea on the numbers.
Essentially you're trading your speculative commodities for a known, more polished product. It's just another way to reduce risk...trading off a cheap volatile product for a more stable, more expensive (but still manageably so for at least a few years) one. If you manage your assets well, you can probably fill out your rotation with good to average arby pitching for your pitching prospects...that should be enough to keep the team competitive until they reach FA. By then, the next crop of draftees should be ready to be turned into reasonably priced MLB pitching.

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JL21
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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

Post by JL21 »

EastonBlues22 wrote:Essentially you're trading your speculative commodities for a known, more polished product. It's just another way to reduce risk...trading off a cheap volatile product for a more stable, more expensive (but still manageably so for at least a few years) one. If you manage your assets well, you can probably fill out your rotation with good to average arby pitching for your pitching prospects...that should be enough to keep the team competitive until they reach FA. By then, the next crop of draftees should be ready to be turned into reasonably priced MLB pitching.
Interesting... would that be a constant cycle then?

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EastonBlues22
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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

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RC21 wrote:
EastonBlues22 wrote:Essentially you're trading your speculative commodities for a known, more polished product. It's just another way to reduce risk...trading off a cheap volatile product for a more stable, more expensive (but still manageably so for at least a few years) one. If you manage your assets well, you can probably fill out your rotation with good to average arby pitching for your pitching prospects...that should be enough to keep the team competitive until they reach FA. By then, the next crop of draftees should be ready to be turned into reasonably priced MLB pitching.
Interesting... would that be a constant cycle then?
It's not my model, but theoretically...yes. You could always sign long term any obvious gold that happened to fall into your lap (to replace the ace who's contract ran out, etc.), but for the most part you adhere to the cycle. Budget conscious teams will always be willing to listen to offers that keep their bottom line under control...so there should never be a lack of willing trading partners.

The best part is you don't have to actually develop any stud pitching prospects. As long as there is hype, there will be interest...so all you have to do is wait until their value is perceived to be high then sell. It's a lot easier to pull that off with prospects than it is with people who have established track records at the MLB level.

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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

Post by greenback44 »

EastonBlues22 wrote:
haltz wrote:
3. Trade your young pitching prospects for arby pitching
I follow until here. Is there that much of a failure rate? I have no idea on the numbers.
Essentially you're trading your speculative commodities for a known, more polished product. It's just another way to reduce risk...trading off a cheap volatile product for a more stable, more expensive (but still manageably so for at least a few years) one. If you manage your assets well, you can probably fill out your rotation with good to average arby pitching for your pitching prospects...that should be enough to keep the team competitive until they reach FA. By then, the next crop of draftees should be ready to be turned into reasonably priced MLB pitching.
A risk management scheme in an illiquid market will come with heavy transaction costs. That's how you end up with the Haren-Mulder trade.

It's also hard to produce good pitching prospects consistently.

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EastonBlues22
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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

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greenback44 wrote: A risk management scheme in an illiquid market will come with heavy transaction costs. That's how you end up with the Haren-Mulder trade.

It's also hard to produce good pitching prospects consistently.
In this sort of approach you're never going to be dealing for a post-arby all-star. You're not dealing pitchers who are ready to step in to the MLB that year...you might as well just keep them if you hold onto them for that long. Trades like Haren-Mulder and Jennings-Hirsh/Buchholz are not the ones being proposed.

You're essentially looking to aquire average arby pitching (with, obviously, the potential to be above average...if only slightly) with "top end" lower level prospects. Yes, you need the ability to draft kids with "potential"...but that's also part of why he specified that you draft pitchers to hitters in at least a 2:1 ratio, so that you'll have that stable of prospects to deal from.

If a few of them blossom with another team, well, that's great...that will keep teams coming back to make similar deals in the future. You're not trying to rob teams blind, just eliminate organizational risk to sustain a long run of competitiveness.

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Asmodai
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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

Post by Asmodai »

greenback44 wrote:It's also hard to produce good pitching prospects consistently.
That's not exactly true. It's hard to produce pitching prospects that produce at the ML level consistently, but it's not hard to produce pitching prospects and dump them before they get hurt or flame out. In other words, you're dealing with a market inefficiency - teams overpaying for pitching prospects. (actually it's the other way around right now. teams arent willing to part with their prospects. They think theyre trading at 1 to 1, so they wont do it. Theyre just not smart enough to realize they'd get $2 on the dollar by trading the prospect)

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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

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EastonBlues22 wrote:You're essentially looking to aquire average arby pitching (with, obviously, the potential to be above average...if only slightly) with "top end" lower level prospects.
Good luck with that. Again, there's a premium to be paid on these guys. Here's a list of all the pitchers in their first five years in the majors with at least 180 IP in 2007:

Code: Select all

  Cnt Player            ERA+   IP  Year Age
+----+-----------------+----+-----+----+---+
    1 Brandon Webb       156 236.1 2007  28 
    2 Fausto Carmona     145 215   2007  23 
    3 Danny Haren        143 222.2 2007  26 
    4 Erik Bedard        141 182   2007  28 
    5 Cole Hamels        135 183.1 2007  23 
    6 Scott Kazmir       132 206.2 2007  23 
    7 Justin Verlander   122 201.2 2007  24 
    8 Matt Cain          122 200   2007  22 
    9 James Shields      120 215   2007  25 
   10 Ian Snell          118 208   2007  25 
   11 Adam Wainwright    118 202   2007  25 
   12 Chien-Ming Wang    117 199.1 2007  27 
   13 Rich Hill          116 195   2007  27 
   14 Tom Gorzelanny     114 201.2 2007  24 
   15 Jeff Francis       112 215.1 2007  26 
   16 Joe Blanton        111 230   2007  26 
   17 Felix Hernandez    109 190.1 2007  21 
   18 John Maine         109 191   2007  26 
   19 Daisuke Matsuzaka  104 204.2 2007  26 
   20 Chad Gaudin         99 199.1 2007  24 
   21 Wandy Rodriguez     98 182.2 2007  28 
   22 David Bush          87 186.1 2007  27 
   23 Jose Contreras      83 189   2007  35 
   24 Dontrelle Willis    82 205.1 2007  25 
   25 Daniel Cabrera      81 204.1 2007  26 
The list is pretty similar, though slightly longer in 2006:

Code: Select all

  Cnt Player            ERA+   IP  Year Age
+----+-----------------+----+-----+----+---+
    1 Brandon Webb       154 235   2006  27 
    2 Aaron Harang       128 234.1 2006  28 
    3 Justin Verlander   125 186   2006  23 
    4 John Lackey        123 217.2 2006  27 
    5 Chien-Ming Wang    121 218   2006  26 
    6 Erik Bedard        120 196.1 2006  27 
    7 Brett Myers        118 198   2006  25 
    8 Nate Robertson     118 208.2 2006  28 
    9 Jeff Francis       116 199   2006  25 
   10 Clay Hensley       114 187   2006  26 
   11 Aaron Cook         114 212.2 2006  27 
   12 Chris Capuano      112 221.1 2006  27 
   13 Dontrelle Willis   112 223.1 2006  24 
   14 Jeremy Bonderman   111 214   2006  23 
   15 Jose Contreras     109 196   2006  34 
   16 Matt Cain          108 190.2 2006  21 
   17 Danny Haren        108 223   2006  25 
   18 Scott Olsen        107 180.2 2006  22 
   19 Jake Peavy         103 202.1 2006  25 
   20 Ervin Santana      102 204   2006  23 
   21 David Bush         102 210   2006  26 
   22 Cliff Lee          102 200.2 2006  27 
   23 Zach Duke          100 215.1 2006  23 
   24 Felix Hernandez     96 191   2006  20 
   25 Ian Snell           95 186   2006  24 
+----+-----------------+----+-----+----+---+
  Cnt Player            ERA+   IP  Year Age
+----+-----------------+----+-----+----+---+
   26 Joe Blanton         92 194.1 2006  25 
   27 Carlos Silva        75 180.1 2006  27 
The average to above-average guys who "manage risk" on these lists are pretty much gold. You're not getting somebody like that for Mitch Boggs or Adam Ottavino.

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EastonBlues22
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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

Post by EastonBlues22 »

We're talking players like the pitcher Jason Marquis was before his arby years, not guys who are already league average or better in their early 20s. We're talking guys who should be league average through most of their arby years, but who are not there yet.

Pitchers like that are a lot cheaper.

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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

Post by planet planet »

What makes this even more ridiculous is that Rivera hasn't responded...
According to SI.com's Jon Heyman, Mariano Rivera hasn't responded to a three-year, $39 million offer made by the Yankees.

$39 million for a 38-year-old reliever who slipped last year seems more than fair. His previous deal was two years with an option, and he ended up earning $31.5 million over the three seasons. Obviously, he's a weaker bet for the future now than he was then.
And did anyone else hear about this potential trade? Colletti would have been dense to make this deal (and the Marlins for not accepting).
The same report says the Dodgers and Marlins discussed a Cabrera deal during the summer, with Chad Billingsley, Matt Kemp and James Loney going the other way. According to MLB.com's Jim Molony, the Marlins turned it down. If that's the case, they must be regretting it right now. As is, they'd be quite fortunate to get two of those players from the Dodgers.

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Re: The outrageously exorbitant contract $ thread

Post by MrCrowesGarden »

BOSTON -- Mike Lowell now has a formal offer to consider.

While the details are not clear, the Boston Herald and WBZ-TV's Dan Roche are reporting that the World Series MVP has been offered a three-year contract worth $35-$45 million.
I'm not sure if this means the Red Sox offered him this contract or if another team did.

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