Davis Signs With Baltimore (7/$161M, incl $42M deferred)

[Frobby]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Source: Union assigns present-day value of $147.7M to Chris Davis’ seven-year, $161M contract with the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Orioles?src=hash">#Orioles</a>. Impact of deferred money.</p>— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href="

">January 22, 2016</a></blockquote>

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Which is exactly what David Cameron said and then someone accused him of being biased against the Orioles. The figure makes sense to me if you accept the 4% discount rate that MLB and the union have agreed upon for luxury tax purposes. In the real world, you could argue for higher or lower.

[Ohfan67]

Chris Davis is not even in the top 10 2016 players for the AL East.

He is a top ten position player in the AL East.

[MurphDogg]

Which is exactly what David Cameron said and then someone accused him of being biased against the Orioles. The figure makes sense to me if you accept the 4% discount rate that MLB and the union have agreed upon for luxury tax purposes. In the real world, you could argue for higher or lower.

True, although the MLBPA is not an unbiased observer. They have an interest in assigning a higher present-day value.

[Can_of_corn]

He is a top ten position player in the AL East.

You could make a case he is.

You could make a case he isn't.

Would depend on the definitions used.

By WAR he was top 5 last year.

Reckon he was a lot lower than that in 2014.

[Can_of_corn]

True, although the MLBPA is not an unbiased observer. They have an interest in assigning a higher present-day value.

I fear the inevitable luxury tax ramifications.

[MurphDogg]

I fear the inevitable luxury tax ramifications.

May we be so fortunate.

[weams]

Which is exactly what David Cameron said and then someone accused him of being biased against the Orioles. The figure makes sense to me if you accept the 4% discount rate that MLB and the union have agreed upon for luxury tax purposes. In the real world, you could argue for higher or lower.

Again, crow here. But yeah, the four percent discount does do that. So the Orioles record is now 147.7 million.

[Frobby]

True, although the MLBPA is not an unbiased observer. They have an interest in assigning a higher present-day value.

Actually, I believe the union wants it lower, not higher. The lower it is considered to be, the more room teams have to pay players while staying under the luxury tax, and that is good for players, who would prefer that the luxury tax didn't exist.

[Number5]

Which is exactly what David Cameron said and then someone accused him of being biased against the Orioles. The figure makes sense to me if you accept the 4% discount rate that MLB and the union have agreed upon for luxury tax purposes. In the real world, you could argue for higher or lower.

I was the someone, and my opinion that Cameron is biased was formulated long before this.

I have made it as clear as I can that I have neither the ability nor the training to perform this calculation. I also pointed out that Cameron's figure was higher than any other that I had seen, by a wide margin, and indeed it was.

It had been reported that MLB was using 7/$128 for luxury tax purposes. If that has changed, I have not seen any change reported.

The union, of course would like to use a high a number as possible in all player contract negotiations going forward. Other than that usage, I am unclear as to what meaning the assignation of any such number by the union actually means. The union is not involved with the luxury tax, is it? It seems to me that the luxury tax is strictly between the owners. No?

For the same reason that the union would like to use a number that is as high as possible, I would imagine that the owners, as a group, would like to see as low as possible being used for salary negotiation purposes, but there is, on the other hand, reason for most of the owners (those of teams that aren't subject to the luxury tax) see the high numbers used in order to achieve a higher luxury tax revenue. I'm not sure that the salary negotiation motive would outweigh the luxury tax motive for the ownership group as a whole. I really don't know, though.

I still have no knowledge of how this number should be calculated, but I'm not sure that the opinion of either Cameron or the union should be taken as the definitive answer in this case. If MLB changes the luxury tax number from 128 to 147, that would be definitive to me.

[Number5]

Actually, I believe the union wants it lower, not higher. The lower it is considered to be, the more room teams have to pay players while staying under the luxury tax, and that is good for players, who would prefer that the luxury tax didn't exist.

Interesting. I hadn't considered it in that light. I would have thought it obvious that the union would want to use a high number, but now you are throwing me for a loop. Man, I am just out of my league with these calculations.

[scOtt]

Reimold is a flawed player but he does have pretty good plate discipline.

And speed. Several years ago I was visibly surprised by how fast he was. From the 3b Upper Deck hangout night. Up the 1B line. Probably slower by now but he still has to be fast.

[scOtt]

Jones may be a free swinger, but he can also hit most pitches he swings at out of the park. Also, even the guy with the worst plate discipline in MLB can learn not to swing if pitchers are showing a pattern. Jones usually lays off the terrible pitches (slurve in the dirt with 2 strikes notwithstanding.) And I think we can both agree that Davis' problem is more with contact, rather than with discipline.

Pitchers can't sit on the weaknesses of good MLB hitters. If they could, then they wouldn't be good MLB hitters. Jones is a good hitter, and while we all wish he had better plate discipline, the fact that they don't try and exploit this weakness with a diet of breaking balls 6 inches off the plate is a good indication that Jones could (and would) punish this strategy.

Adam is a HR waiting to happen. On ANY pitch. Make a mistake and you're gonna burn!

[weams]

Actually, I believe the union wants it lower, not higher. The lower it is considered to be, the more room teams have to pay players while staying under the luxury tax, and that is good for players, who would prefer that the luxury tax didn't exist.

I think for the basis of arbitration awards and for future negotiations they are not terribly worried about the Luxury tax implications. Especially not with the contract expiring.

[Can_of_corn]

I think for the basis of arbitration awards and for future negotiations they are not terribly worried about the Luxury tax implications. Especially not with the contract expiring.

Arb 3 players can use Davis as a comp.

[scOtt]

Mark Reynolds had the hilarious quality of being able to identify good strikes to hit but then just not being able to make contact with them.

Never seen anyone more capable of swinging through a middle-middle fastball.

Indeed! It was freaky the way he would swing thru a middle-middle FB and miss. You couldn't believe he missed it.