1
What is the prognosis for a Vargas return and 250 innings of sub 4 ERA ball? Any more arm clot or gopheritis concerns?
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Q. What, $300M isn't enough? Is there any limit to greed any more?
A. If that had been Kershaw's angle, then yeah, you'd have been reading a jeremiad. But from what the accounts say, it was just too huge a corporate merger for Kershaw to decide on while in the film room prep'ping for his next start.
Everybody says they'll get something done.
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Q. What happens when you give a pitcher $30M a year, and then he gets hurt?
A. Well ... Felix' contract contains a fascinating provision. "If you miss a year to surgery, then the ballclub gets an extra year for $1 million." The idea seems to be, that year-2015 medicine is going to be able to get a pitcher back on the mound and throwing well.
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Q. Isn't it possible that Kershaw would underperform his contract? What if you pay him for 6 WAR a year, and he only gives you 4 WAR?
A. Magic Johnson's quote is the pivot point on this kind of a corporate merger:
“We already know we've got to give him a lot of money. What's a few more zeroes? I'm hoping we give him a lot of money.”
This will send a lot of 'net rats screaming into the night, but most of them do not have a net worth of $500,000,000, as Magic Johnson does. They don't run in Magic's circles. They don't sit at the poker table that Magic does.
We 'net rats have tried to reduce MLB(TM) to a one-page fantasy sweepstakes, in which there is nothing more to consider than "bang for the buck" one-year contracts. We see, again and again, that the real franchises in MLB pay a huge premium (in dollars and risk) for Stars & Scrubs attacks on the world championship.
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Q. What do you have against WAR/$ analysis?
A. Thusly:
"I was just trying to be smart" - Susan, in Narnia
"No! You were trying to be clever." - Peter
The Boston Red Sox, and LA Dodgers, are well aware of what each contract's WAR/$ comes out to. MLB general managers don't replace [the attempt to win the World Series] with [a demonstration of their cost-effectiveness IQ].
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Q. Does it really make sense to "get carried away" with an attempt to go to the World Series? (Chuck Armstrong famous last words)
A. The Mariners run that paradigm, that winning is not really the point of what you're doing.
You've got a $1.3 billion company selling widgets, but all you really have to do is sign up the accounts, and then tell your customers that you intend to ship them widgets, some day. That is one whale of a business to get into, if you can get an outlet.
But virtually every other team with money --- > cares deeply about delivering widgets, cares about delivering the World Series. Here's how much the Dodgers care:
- Kershaw = ? $30M per, forever
- AGone = $22M per year, thru 2018
- Crawford = $21M per, thru 2017
- Kemp = $21M, thru 2018+
- Greinke = $26M, thru 2018+
- Beckett = $17M next year
- Hanley Ramirez = $16M next year
- Ethier = $17M per, thru 2017
- Billingsley = $12M next year
- League (LOL) = $8.5M per, next three years
We can look at that third bullet point and go, "Bwahaha! You see? That's why you shouldn't get carried away with winning." Chuck himself did that, when he powerflushed Randy Johnson and asked, "What if something happens and Randy can't pitch at that level?"
Every major league team sets its priorities, makes its choices as to what it cares about. The irony is, the team that chooses a full-throated fight for the pennant, that team retains its soul, and that team retains its financial future WHILE maintaining a trust with its fans.
Detroit was mocked for giving Miguel Cabrera $168M. Then they paid Prince Fielder $200M+ to play Cabrera's position! Think about it: they were so desperate to play Stars & Scrubs that they signed the TWO best* first basmen in the game. They've got Verlander in there, making $28M per season longterm. Add to that Anibal Sanchez, making $17M per.
...........
Seattle retained Felix Hernandez as a shim for its corporate brand. LA gets Kershaw not only as a boost to its public brand, but also as a deployable weapon for a fight that they wish to actually engage.
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Q. On strictly baseball terms -- no corporate branding factored in -- would Dr. D consider a Clayton Kershaw contract to be a wise investment?
A. ...
NEXT
Bill James advisory. Wait for it ... this is good even by his standards...
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Comments
2
We made real (REAL) efforts, expensive ones, to get those guys. Way too expensive for my blood.....But Z made the bids.
If we had got them, with the identical bids we made, would there be such a flood of, "The M's are too "fracking" cheap and don't really want to win?' I think not.
But here's the rub...can you say we would be better off with them? Upton had a nice year, granted. Would you give up that year, and two more just like it, for 12 years (combined) of Walker and Franklin?
Hamilton was basically a M. Saunders last year? Worth the huge dinero?
And then our options are further limited this year.
I'm all for signing stars, but AGone and Crawford will eventually be anchors, in the contract-sense. The Dodgers are trying to purchase a World Series, now. The other LA team, too. Didn't work out this year. Might not next. Heck the Dodgers are trying to sell Kemp to pay for Kershaw's raise.
Kershaw, by the way, bobbled that decision. Unless he really wants to pitch in Boston or New York or for the Ranger AND we wants to give them a discount (hometown for Texas) then he just turned down $300M and rolled the dice he won't get in a car wreck or blow his knee falling down some stairs.
Take THAT kind of money and run
moe
3
I was watching Shark Tank the other day. One of the Sharks offered the entrepreneur twice what she was asking for. Mark Cuban was shocked. "You are going to think about that?" She wanted to hear the other offers...and wound up getting a deal with Cuban and Barbara for the original asking price after the sharks started whittling them down. Sometimes you can't be afraid to say yes.
I have little doubt that they will get a deal done and that he'll be the highest paid pitcher in history. Deservedly so. But turning down $300 million? That takes some huevos.
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He's from SoCal, went to college here. I'd be very surprised if the Angel don't make him a competitive offer. He was their second best pitcher when healthy.
5
actually why not thread this out...