Cardinals/Marlins Offseason Dance - Stanton Says Nope

[cardsfantx]

It doesn't concern you that players don't want to play here so we have to throw more money to sway them?

And we can't do that with Stanton.

A little confused by this statement. You have to throw money at FA's to get them to sign and -- with the possible exception of Heyward (depending on how you do the math) -- there hasn't exactly been a rush of players who have rejected more money from us to play for someone else for less. And while we have a few examples in our past of players taking a little less to come here, the whole "home town discount" thing hasn't been real since the 2000's. And even then it usually didn't work -- see Renteria, Pujols, etc.

It was down to us and Toronto for Fowler, and we ALREADY had the top bid for his services. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to play for the Cardinals. They threw on more money (on top of what was already the best offer dollarwise) because of it.

but other have insisted they DO want to come here...david price in recent years.

he told his agent he wanted to play for st louis...went to bed/woke up and went to play in a golf tournament happy because he/his agent last spoke the cards made an offer/was the best one, and he was happy as he said it was his preferred destination.

then the red sox came in afterward and threw and ADDITIONAL 30 mil on top of our offer to convince him to go there.

so the boston freaking red sox (which seems like a preferred destination to me, like CHI, LA, NY), and THEY had to throw more money at price to convince him to go there. (and after he's been there/ with that media...you think he's regretting taking the extra money? i bet you he'd gladly give back the 30 extra million and come play for st louis with the st louis media after what he's gone through the last couple years there)

the whole STL thing is nonsense for the most part...90% of people are just going to go where the money is the best. The other 10% want to go where they grew up/a destination/big media type city, etc...and there's nothing you can do about that 10% of players except throw even more money at them and hope it convinces them.

The Red Sox also told everybody that’s exactly what they were going to do and they did.

I also doubt Price would change a thing because 30 million dollars.

that doesn't change the fact/answer the question..if the cards paid the extra 30 mil, he'd be a cardinal right now and not a red sox. they had to pay MORE, to pry him away from STL.

your whole point is that we have to pay more to get people to come here (which i agree with), but some players DO want to play here.

it's not a cardinal problem, why players may not want to play here in those cases...it's a saint louis problem.

[MrCrowesGarden]

It doesn't concern you that players don't want to play here so we have to throw more money to sway them?

And we can't do that with Stanton.

A little confused by this statement. You have to throw money at FA's to get them to sign and -- with the possible exception of Heyward (depending on how you do the math) -- there hasn't exactly been a rush of players who have rejected more money from us to play for someone else for less. And while we have a few examples in our past of players taking a little less to come here, the whole "home town discount" thing hasn't been real since the 2000's. And even then it usually didn't work -- see Renteria, Pujols, etc.

It was down to us and Toronto for Fowler, and we ALREADY had the top bid for his services. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to play for the Cardinals. They threw on more money (on top of what was already the best offer dollarwise) because of it.

Really? Where did you hear this?

I will try to find a link but we offered 4/60 and Toronto offered 4/56.

This says Toronto offered 4 for $64mm.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/re ... -64m-deal/

Ok, thank you. I found something saying the Cardinals offered in the range of 4/60, which maybe it was $64. Regardless, it took basically another year at $16 million to close it. That’s not just a little more.

But how do you know how negotiations went?

How do you know what Fowler was really thinking?

Maybe his agent said whoever offers a 5th year first gets him?

Just seems that jumping to the "free agents don't want to play in STL unless the Cards really blow the field away with an offer" is a major leap of an assumption to make.

How do you know what I know you know I know you know? Sometimes I connect the dots that aren’t the leap you make them out to be.

Cusumano, Bernie and Goold all addressed there was reluctance on Fowler’s behalf to sign in St. Louis. Yes, they are rumors— but these are pros. And the fact that a servile media said something remotely negative about the Cardinals leads me to believe there’s something to it.

[MrCrowesGarden]

It doesn't concern you that players don't want to play here so we have to throw more money to sway them?

And we can't do that with Stanton.

A little confused by this statement. You have to throw money at FA's to get them to sign and -- with the possible exception of Heyward (depending on how you do the math) -- there hasn't exactly been a rush of players who have rejected more money from us to play for someone else for less. And while we have a few examples in our past of players taking a little less to come here, the whole "home town discount" thing hasn't been real since the 2000's. And even then it usually didn't work -- see Renteria, Pujols, etc.

It was down to us and Toronto for Fowler, and we ALREADY had the top bid for his services. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to play for the Cardinals. They threw on more money (on top of what was already the best offer dollarwise) because of it.

but other have insisted they DO want to come here...david price in recent years.

he told his agent he wanted to play for st louis...went to bed/woke up and went to play in a golf tournament happy because he/his agent last spoke the cards made an offer/was the best one, and he was happy as he said it was his preferred destination.

then the red sox came in afterward and threw and ADDITIONAL 30 mil on top of our offer to convince him to go there.

so the boston freaking red sox (which seems like a preferred destination to me, like CHI, LA, NY), and THEY had to throw more money at price to convince him to go there. (and after he's been there/ with that media...you think he's regretting taking the extra money? i bet you he'd gladly give back the 30 extra million and come play for st louis with the st louis media after what he's gone through the last couple years there)

the whole STL thing is nonsense for the most part...90% of people are just going to go where the money is the best. The other 10% want to go where they grew up/a destination/big media type city, etc...and there's nothing you can do about that 10% of players except throw even more money at them and hope it convinces them.

The Red Sox also told everybody that’s exactly what they were going to do and they did.

I also doubt Price would change a thing because 30 million dollars.

that doesn't change the fact/answer the question..if the cards paid the extra 30 mil, he'd be a cardinal right now and not a red sox. they had to pay MORE, to pry him away from STL.

your whole point is that we have to pay more to get people to come here (which i agree with), but some players DO want to play here.

it's not a cardinal problem, why players may not want to play here in those cases...it's a saint louis problem.

Can’t it be a Cardinal problem, a St. Louis problem, and money Uber alles? Price seems to be the only player recently who stated a desire to play with the Cardinals... and it still didn’t happen.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

It's going to come down to Stanton being willing to take a deal to STL IMO. The other most serious suitor is the Giants who don't have the prospects we have to offer. Maybe something will change between now and then, but that's how I see it at this time.

That said, if Stanton isn't willing to waive his NTC, it could be (emphasis on the "could") indicative of a bigger problem with the perception of this organization as it stands today.

I'm still not sure how much prospects have to do with this trade. The cost in dollars is going to have an impact on the cost in players, so a franchise like the Giants might have a weaker player package but a stronger financial package. Forum fans keep saying that money doesn't matter and we can afford it, but that's really easy to say and almost certainly not true. Regardless, that's definitely not how the Cards do things, and that's all that really matters here.

Also, the circumstances are going to play into this a lot when it comes to Stanton waiving/not waiving his NTC. If he wants to go home to California, then it really doesn't say anything about the Cards as a franchise. And choosing the Giants over the Cards based on recent history is hardly a statement on our perception. Both franchises have been really good until recently and are just a few moves away from being really good again.

Personally, I think the Giants have a real advantage over us and there might not be anything that we can do to keep them from Stanton if they choose to go after him and Stanton wants to go there.

I really agree with what MCG said. Let me ask you, at what point do you start worrying about players not wanting to come to StL instead of to the Cubs, or White Sox or (insert team here) when all things else are the same? Because, like I said in a previous post, Heyward flat out chose the Cubs over the Cardinals, Robert flat out chose the White Sox over the Cardinals, there were rumors that Turner wanted to stay in LA instead of entertaining offers from StL, if you add stanton to the list...that's a lot of high profile players refusing to come to StL that they really or at least moderately wanted to sign in the last 3 years? And, I can't really remember it ever happening before. Maybe some situations like Turner's get glossed over, but the Robert and Heyward decisions seemed to be unique at the time and are becoming common place anymore.

Cubs offer was better for Heyward long term (although it may not play out that way).

https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2016/4/20/ ... uts-salary

Robert took the better offer as well. Speaking of which.....

https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2017/10/2/ ... t-scouting

You seem to be completely missing my point.

Both the Heyward and Robert offers the Cardinals made were extremely similar to deals they ended up taking with different clubs from what I understand. And, while I can't find a link that the Cardinals offered more than the Sox, I also can't find one that the Sox offered more than the Cards for Robert other than teams just saying so...

Regardless, don't you find it problematic that in the recent past, the Cardinals have had to pay more money to players to convince them to come to St. Louis? They haven't been able to land players by simply offering them market value (heyward, robert), they had to offer them more (Fowler/Leake) to get them to come. With Fowler in particular, it seemed to be a troubling case that went like this:
Cardinals: Here's our offer, it's the best out there.
Fowler: I don't want to play in StL.
Cardinals: Come have a chat with Mike Matheny and John Mozeliak.
Fowler: Okay
**Meets with team**
Fowler: Meh.
Cardinals: Okay, fine. Here's an extra $10Mil
Fowler: Meh, okay.

I guess you could just say that's good negotiating, but given the recent past of also losing guys like Heyward and Robert (ignoring if they would have been good signing or not) to teams with extremely similar offers, doesn't that give people pause.

Now throw on top a guy like Stanton refusing to come to StL, and it's a full blown problem. Rather that problem is the City of Stl, a clubhouse problem, a manager problem, a front office problem, a combinatoni of them all, I don't know. But, I know this isn't something we've seen in the past or can continue to see in the future if they expect to be a successful organization.

The White Sox offered more than the Cards did. Not sure how else I can explain it besides copying the link that proved this.

You linked to an article that said the white sox were high bidders with a link as proof and that link did not say they were the high bidders, only that they paid him $26M bonus which is very close to where the Cardinals were expected to offer. I mean, it's frustrating to have a conversation when we can't even agree on facts. A mention in an artcile by vivaelbirdos does not make a fact.

[cardsfantx]

It doesn't concern you that players don't want to play here so we have to throw more money to sway them?

And we can't do that with Stanton.

A little confused by this statement. You have to throw money at FA's to get them to sign and -- with the possible exception of Heyward (depending on how you do the math) -- there hasn't exactly been a rush of players who have rejected more money from us to play for someone else for less. And while we have a few examples in our past of players taking a little less to come here, the whole "home town discount" thing hasn't been real since the 2000's. And even then it usually didn't work -- see Renteria, Pujols, etc.

It was down to us and Toronto for Fowler, and we ALREADY had the top bid for his services. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to play for the Cardinals. They threw on more money (on top of what was already the best offer dollarwise) because of it.

but other have insisted they DO want to come here...david price in recent years.

he told his agent he wanted to play for st louis...went to bed/woke up and went to play in a golf tournament happy because he/his agent last spoke the cards made an offer/was the best one, and he was happy as he said it was his preferred destination.

then the red sox came in afterward and threw and ADDITIONAL 30 mil on top of our offer to convince him to go there.

so the boston freaking red sox (which seems like a preferred destination to me, like CHI, LA, NY), and THEY had to throw more money at price to convince him to go there. (and after he's been there/ with that media...you think he's regretting taking the extra money? i bet you he'd gladly give back the 30 extra million and come play for st louis with the st louis media after what he's gone through the last couple years there)

the whole STL thing is nonsense for the most part...90% of people are just going to go where the money is the best. The other 10% want to go where they grew up/a destination/big media type city, etc...and there's nothing you can do about that 10% of players except throw even more money at them and hope it convinces them.

The Red Sox also told everybody that’s exactly what they were going to do and they did.

I also doubt Price would change a thing because 30 million dollars.

that doesn't change the fact/answer the question..if the cards paid the extra 30 mil, he'd be a cardinal right now and not a red sox. they had to pay MORE, to pry him away from STL.

your whole point is that we have to pay more to get people to come here (which i agree with), but some players DO want to play here.

it's not a cardinal problem, why players may not want to play here in those cases...it's a saint louis problem.

Can’t it be a Cardinal problem, a St. Louis problem, and money Uber alles? Price seems to be the only player recently who stated a desire to play with the Cardinals... and it still didn’t happen.

i dunno, could be.

we won matt holliday.

we lost pujols and price to more money (which we're obv glad we did on pujols...but, if we'd have matched either, they'd be playing in STL now)

we lost heyward (again, glad we did..but he wanted to play for the cubs)

we just don't try for many big time FA (they we know of/gets put out there...can add beltran we won, but i don't know if there was much competition for him)

so we lost 1 out of 4 that i can remember, specifically because they wanted another team more than STL.

that's going to happen. we play in the middle of the country...there's not [expletive] to do...there's much better places to raise a family, warmer weather, prettier girls, better night life, better food, etc.

i don't put that on the cards as a team. anyone STILL that comes through as a visitor still mentions how great it is when the play here. the stadium is always sold out, the media is weak, the stadium is fair, even the manager is known as a players manager...there's not much else the cardinals can do as a team. if joe maddon managed the cards, i don't see us getting a FA we missed out on in the past.

saint louis is the issue/the city in which the team resides...

so if we offer the top $, then i'd say 90% of the time the player will sign...the other 10%, there's just nothing we can do. we can try and throw an extra 30 mil like the sox did with price i guess...but that just seems foolish to me.

[Fat Strat]

I think you guys are off base with the Fowler thing. Fowler is only making $14.5M over the next 4 years. That's a very team friendly deal; well below market value for a player of Fowler's capabilities. So... we're criticizing the team for signing a really good player to a less than market value contract because the player apparently wasn't super excited about the deal? How excited would Fowler have been to play for the Cards if we would have paid him for the 3+ WAR that's he probably deserved?

[MrCrowesGarden]

I think you guys are off base with the Fowler thing. Fowler is only making $14.5M over the next 4 years. That's a very team friendly deal; well below market value for a player of Fowler's capabilities. So... we're criticizing the team for signing a really good player to a less than market value contract because the player apparently wasn't super excited about the deal? How excited would Fowler have been to play for the Cards if we would have paid him for the 3+ WAR that's he probably deserved?

As I recall you were one of the most bothered by the 5th year. What has changed?

[Fat Strat]

I think you guys are off base with the Fowler thing. Fowler is only making $14.5M over the next 4 years. That's a very team friendly deal; well below market value for a player of Fowler's capabilities. So... we're criticizing the team for signing a really good player to a less than market value contract because the player apparently wasn't super excited about the deal? How excited would Fowler have been to play for the Cards if we would have paid him for the 3+ WAR that's he probably deserved?

As I recall you were one of the most bothered by the 5th year. What has changed?

Oh, no, I wasn't a huge fan of Fowler's -- mostly because I liked other players better as impact guys and that 5th year.

But, like the deal or not (at the time of signing), I don't see Fowler as a good example of a player being reluctant to play here because of some kind of perception of the Cards. His enthusiasm apparently climbed as we added more money to it... he would have sung our praises to the heavens if we had offered him the $20M he probably wanted and originally expected.

[MrCrowesGarden]

I don’t know what to tell you then.

http://insidestl.com/the-press-box-seg- ... 22/1980401

https://www.101sports.com/2016/12/02/ca ... -big-move/

All acknowledge at least rumors Fowler didn’t want to be here. You can brush them off as nothing, but this is a media that kowtows to the Cardinals, and they’re acknowledging something that puts the team in a negative light.

[Fat Strat]

All acknowledge at least rumors Fowler didn’t want to be here. You can brush them off as nothing, but this is a media that kowtows to the Cardinals, and they’re acknowledging something that puts the team in a negative light.

But, he is here. And he's here cheaply. I'm not really sure what it proves that he wasn't originally jumping up and down to come play here for less than he hoped to get, other than proving the point that we all agree on -- you want good players, you gotta pay 'em.

If the Cards were so unattractive to him, then why didn't he wait longer and try to find a better place to play? Why did he take less than the market should have paid him? Fowler signed on Dec. 9th. That's just a few days after the winter meetings. At that point, the Cards were far from his last option.

Whatever concerns Fowler might have had about coming here were obviously resolved in his mind and the Cards got a good player on a good deal... it seems to me like that's an example of the Cards doing what we want them to do -- win players over -- instead of the opposite.