The Time to Make a Decision on Chris Davis is Now

[Nevermore]

I doubt there is a hard budget, but I am sure there are clear parameters that DD has to work within. In his opinion risking the 4th year didn't fit within those parameters.

Not going to discuss Cruz any longer right now. He's gone and that's that.

I just got through reading the "front office" thread (the one about the Cafardo article). My head is spinning. The comments on that thread are making me wonder if DD/Angelos/other FO people are capable of working together to come to a consensus about which players to resign (if any) or which new FA players (if any) to acquire. We may just have to go with the team that's left after the departures of all of the FAs. :rolleyestf:

[spiritof66]

Question: are the Mariners a mid-market team or a big-market team? If they are a mid-market team, why are they able to afford this risk and the O's cannot? . . . .

There may be a lot of reasons why the Mariners outbid the Orioles for Cruz, including a different assessment of his future performance and potential contribution to their team, a greater willingness to pay him when he might be unproductive, and a different salary structure for the rest of the team. (The Mariners have very large long-term commitments to King Felix and Cano. Their only other long-term contracts are with Nelson and Kyle Seager.)

But let's take a look at the question you asked. Seattle-Tacoma is a mid-sized market, though far larger than Baltimore. According to Forbes, the Mariners' revenues last year were just a little higher than the Orioles' ($250 to $245 million).

More to the point, though, is the outlook for those markets and for future revenues, since it was a difference in the teams' willingness to hire Cruz for 2018 that determined the outcome. The Seattle area is booming, with lots of high-tech growth and increasing numbers of highly paid professionals. It has one of the fastest-growing populations of any U.S. city. [/url]http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-no-longer-americas-fastest-growing-big-city/ Baltimore . . . well, maybe not so much.

It would be perfectly logical for the Mariners to believe they will have considerably more revenues available in 2018 for player payroll than the Orioles figure they will have available (and throw in the cloud of the MASN uncertainty). I don't know whether that has anything to do with Nellie ending up a Mariner, but I think that's the relevant comparison of the two markets.

[El Gordo]

There may be a lot of reasons why the Mariners outbid the Orioles for Cruz, including a different assessment of his future performance and potential contribution to their team, a greater willingness to pay him when he might be unproductive, and a different salary structure for the rest of the team. (The Mariners have very large long-term commitments to King Felix and Cano. Their only other long-term contracts are with Nelson and Kyle Seager.)

But let's take a look at the question you asked. Seattle-Tacoma is a mid-sized market, though far larger than Baltimore. According to Forbes, the Mariners' revenues last year were just a little higher than the Orioles' ($250 to $245 million).

More to the point, though, is the outlook for those markets and for future revenues, since it was a difference in the teams' willingness to hire Cruz for 2018 that determined the outcome. The Seattle area is booming, with lots of high-tech growth and increasing numbers of highly paid professionals. It has one of the fastest-growing populations of any U.S. city. [/url]http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-no-longer-americas-fastest-growing-big-city/ Baltimore . . . well, maybe not so much.

It would be perfectly logical for the Mariners to believe they will have considerably more revenues available in 2018 for player payroll than the Orioles figure they will have available (and throw in the cloud of the MASN uncertainty). I don't know whether that has anything to do with Nellie ending up a Mariner, but I think that's the relevant comparison of the two markets.

Once again too much logic for this venue.