Chris Davis 2019 and beyond

[Maverick Hiker]

14 minutes ago, UpstateNYfan said:

2037?? I wonder how many pages this thread will be by then??

 It'll set the record.

[interloper]

7 hours ago, Maverick Hiker said:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-chris-davis-bobby-bonilla-20190701-story.html

The deferred money will be going to Davis to the tune of more than a million a year through 2037, unless he agrees to a deal to retire for less (ideal but unlikely),. Thus the Davis contract will continue to weigh down the Orioles for 18 more years. 

Do people not understand that deferred money was set up with the intent to save the franchise from crippling payroll hits? The deferred money is peanuts and doesn't inflate. Without it Davis' yearly salary would be even more atrocious.

[Maverick Hiker]

59 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

1. The Bonilla and Davis contracts cost their teams less overall by using deferred money. Teams could have said no deferred money and the players probably would have high-fived, because deferred equals less.

2. The last few years competitive balance has declined a bit, but that's mostly because team realized there's little benefit to winning 78 games instead of 58.  But prior to that competitive balance was higher than in the 1960s.  Competitive balance generally just goes up, and it consistently has throughout baseball history.  From 1920-1965, all prior to free agency, the Yankees were in the World Series 29 times in 45 years.  Seven separate times they made the WS at least three consecutive years.  During that entire period the Yanks had one year with a losing record.

And during that same general period the Browns were in one Series, during the war, and had five winning records.  They had seasons where they drew under 100k fans.  The Phillies had a run where they lost 100+ games in a 154 game schedule 12 times in 25 years, including five straight.  From 1935-68 the A's had one winning record.  From 1917 through 1946 the Braves never finished higher than 4th.  From 1935 until they moved in 1960 the Senators finished 6th, 7th or 8th 19 times, never won the AL pennant, and only finished as high as 2nd twice.  Most of those teams moved because they were uncompetitive for generations and their fanbases withered away.

Do the math - there is a smaller average distance from first to last over the last 20 years than there was from 1940-60, and we simply don't have the situation where the Yanks are in the World Series two out of three years any more.  Yes, that's because of expanded playoffs, as much as better competitive balance, but the result is the same.  The Yanks cannot win the Series every year, or even close

3. Keeping your team together as long as the owner decides to sounds great.  Unless maybe you're the 1930, 40, 50s Braves or Browns or Phils or A's or Senators.  Doesn't accomplish a lot to have a team of indefinitely indentured (but happy and contented!) servants who win 63 games a year.

4.  We're not going back to 1960.  It just isn't happening.  Every team sport I know of has free agency.  Even the Russian hockey league has free agency.  And that's good, because free agency is a good thing.

I didn't say we should go back to 1960 or 1940.  I said 1968, or more specifically  the late 60's through early 70's.  Before 1965, the Yankees  had huge competitive advantages due to a flawed system. They used to sign almost  any young players they wanted using  their large market and revenue advantages.

 In 1965 baseball instituted the free agent draft which was a fair process, with the worst teams picking first, for the best high school and college players. This eliminated the Yankees advantages.

Is it a coincidence that the Yankees gravitated towards the basement in 1965-75? Or that the small market Orioles dominated those years? I think not. The Yankees lost their advantages during those years. They regained their advantage big time with the advent of free agency which I believe started in 1976.  By 1977 the Yankees were winning the WS with the help of  free agent stars

 

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, Maverick Hiker said:

I didn't say we should go back to 1960 or 1940.  I said 1968, or more specifically  the late 60's through early 70's.  Before 1965, the Yankees  had huge competitive advantages due to a flawed system. They used to sign almost  any young players they wanted using  their large market and revenue advantages.

 In 1965 baseball instituted the free agent draft which was a fair process, with the worst teams picking first, for the best high school and college players. This eliminated the Yankees advantages.

Is it a coincidence that the Yankees gravitated towards the basement in 1965-75? Or that the small market Orioles dominated those years? I think not. The Yankees lost their advantages during those years. They regained their advantage big time with the advent of free agency which I believe started in 1976.  By 1977 the Yankees were winning the WS with the help of  free agent stars

 

Yes, it's a coincidence.  The effects of a draft take hold 3, 4, 5 years afterwards.  Adley Rutschman is a very advanced college hitter and will not be a regular in Baltimore until at least 2021.  Most of the rest of the Orioles' most recent draft class won't be in the majors until 2023 or later.  The Yanks had their first losing record in 40 years in 1965, the year of the first draft.  There's no cause-and-effect there.

And with all of the supposed limiting effects of the draft they were back to .500 by '68, and back to 93 wins by 1970.  Looking through the transaction logs none of the 1976 World Series team was acquired by free agency.

[DrungoHazewood]

How about this: what if they gave up free agency for a set percentage of revenues?  How high would that have to be for the MLBPA to agree?  50%?  60%?  Never?  If I were a player I think I'd vote for never. I'd rather take less money in exchange for eventual freedom to choose my employer.

How does the guaranteed percentage of revenues thing work in other sports?  Is it league-wide revenues, or per team?

[thezeroes]

27 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yes, it's a coincidence.  The effects of a draft take hold 3, 4, 5 years afterwards.  Adley Rutschman is a very advanced college hitter and will not be a regular in Baltimore until at least 2021.  Most of the rest of the Orioles' most recent draft class won't be in the majors until 2023 or later.  The Yanks had their first losing record in 40 years in 1965, the year of the first draft.  There's no cause-and-effect there.

And with all of the supposed limiting effects of the draft they were back to .500 by '68, and back to 93 wins by 1970.  Looking through the transaction logs none of the 1976 World Series team was acquired by free agency.

Expansion and the Draft did more to bring the Yankees in check.  Expansion was immediate. 

16 teams in 1960

18 teams in 1961

20 teams in 1962

24 Teams in 1969

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, interloper said:

Do people not understand that deferred money was set up with the intent to save the franchise from crippling payroll hits? The deferred money is peanuts and doesn't inflate. Without it Davis' yearly salary would be even more atrocious.

The fact is, a discounted portion of the deferred money is getting stashed away 18 months after the end of each season for which Davis is under contract, per CBA rules.   The O’s will be done stashing that money away by July 2024, so the deferred payments that are made after that will be mostly or entirely funded by the money already set aside for that purpose (which, with interest, will have grown over time), not from post-2024 operations.   

[thezeroes]

13 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The fact is, a discounted portion of the deferred money is getting stashed away 18 months after the end of each season for which Davis is under contract, per CBA rules.   The O’s will be done stashing that money away by July 2024, so the deferred payments that are made after that will be mostly or entirely funded by the money already set aside for that purpose (which, with interest, will have grown over time), not from post-2024 operations.   

I was looking for this info, Thanks for posting.  The other part is that any "Buy Out" that would happen would include this deferred amount that had already been "Set Aside", I believe.  So that is a sunk cost also.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, thezeroes said:

Expansion and the Draft did more to bring the Yankees in check.  Expansion was immediate. 

16 teams in 1960

18 teams in 1961

20 teams in 1962

24 Teams in 1969

How did expansion keep the Yankees in check?  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

12 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

How did expansion keep the Yankees in check?  

The only thing that kept the Yankees in check was George Steinbrenner being a bad owner that decimated the Yankees farm system in the 1980's. That got corrected during George's suspension from baseball and him learning to listen to his front office. 

Maybe James Dolan can buy the Yankees. He has managed to kill the Knicks with some assistance from Isaiah Thomas. 

[Maverick Hiker]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yes, it's a coincidence.  The effects of a draft take hold 3, 4, 5 years afterwards.  Adley Rutschman is a very advanced college hitter and will not be a regular in Baltimore until at least 2021.  Most of the rest of the Orioles' most recent draft class won't be in the majors until 2023 or later.  The Yanks had their first losing record in 40 years in 1965, the year of the first draft.  There's no cause-and-effect there.

And with all of the supposed limiting effects of the draft they were back to .500 by '68, and back to 93 wins by 1970.  Looking through the transaction logs none of the 1976 World Series team was acquired by free agency.

The Yankees demise in the late 60's was indeed connected to the start of the  free agent draft, which evened the playing field for all MLB teams with attaining young players.. Remember some players make an impact right away after they are drafted. For example,  Mickey Mantle was a Yankee star by age 20.  Joe DiMaggio, age 21.  The Yankees no longer could fill their vacancies with the best young talent starting in 1965 without the other teams having a fair chance at those players. 

The Yankees had an overall  losing record in the 1965-69 period  and were mediocre through the early 70's (they fell from 93 wins in 1970, an aberration,  back a mediocre  82-80 record in 1971).  Some called this the "Horace Clarke" era for the Yankees, named after the mediocre  .250 hitting infielder.

While the Yankees made the WS in 1976, they got swept by the Reds  in a humiliating manner and were outscored 22-8. 

With 1977 and the advent of free agency, the Yankees signed Reggie Jackson as a free agent and he led the Yankees to a world championship, hitting 3 HR against the Dodgers in the final game of the WS. Without Jackson they would not even have made the playoffs that year.

 

 

 

[DrungoHazewood]

Just now, Maverick Hiker said:

The Yankees demise in the late 60's was indeed connected to the start of the  free agent draft, which evened the playing field for all MLB teams with attaining young players.. Remember some players make an impact right away after they are drafted. For example,  Mickey Mantle was a Yankee star by age 20.  Joe DiMaggio, age 21.  

Who were the players the Yanks missed out on in the '65 draft who would have immediately vaulted them back into contention?  A quick perusal of the first round indicated that only one or two players taken that year played at all in the majors in '65 or '66, and those were brief cups of coffee.

Rick Monday was the first 1:1.  Surely before the draft he would have been a Yank target.  He didn't play in the majors for the awful KC A's until late '66, and wasn't a regular until '67.  Three other players from that first first round had solid careers.  Joe Coleman had 27 MLB innings prior to '67, and in 1967 he had a 69 ERA+.   Ray Fosse didn't become a MLB regular until 1970, same with Bernie Carbo.  Same story with the second round.

The Yanks' only last-place season between 1912 and 1990 happened when essentially the entire 1965 draft class was in the minors.  The Yanks fell apart in the mid-60s for a few years because of bad management, not because their talent source was choked off by the draft.

[Maverick Hiker]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Who were the players the Yanks missed out on in the '65 draft who would have immediately vaulted them back into contention?  A quick perusal of the first round indicated that only one or two players taken that year played at all in the majors in '65 or '66, and those were brief cups of coffee.

 

Reggie Jackson came out of the draft in '66 and was a MLB star for the A's by 1969. If the Yankees had been able to sign him (with no draft as they used to do pre-1965)

then that would've shifted the balance of power in the AL East 8 years before the Yankees did acquire him in 1977. 

The point of all this is that the present system is not really working and it has not worked since free agency started in MLB. The big market Yankees have a big competitive advantage. When the Orioles waste money on a signing like Chris Davis they cannot shake it off as easily as the Yankees can do.  

MLB did have a much better system for achieving competitive balance in the 1965-75 period.  To me, this was truly the  golden age of MLB, with the major league draft starting in 1965, and and prior to free agency starting  in 1976.  In 1965-75  all teams had a fair chance,  no team had. a big competitive advantage based on market size,  and the Orioles dominated that period like no other team in MLB(most wins).  

[DrungoHazewood]

9 minutes ago, Maverick Hiker said:

Reggie Jackson came out of the draft in '66 and was a MLB star for the A's by 1969. If the Yankees had been able to sign him (with no draft as they used to do pre-1965)

then that would've shifted the balance of power in the AL East 8 years before the Yankees did acquire him in 1977. 

The point of all this is that the present system is not really working and it has not worked since free agency started in MLB. The big market Yankees have a big competitive advantage. When the Orioles waste money on a signing like Chris Davis they cannot shake it off as easily as the Yankees can do.  

MLB did have a much better system for achieving competitive balance in the 1965-75 period.  To me, this was truly the  golden age of MLB, with the major league draft starting in 1965, and and prior to free agency starting  in 1976.  In 1965-75  all teams had a fair chance,  no team had. a big competitive advantage based on market size,  and the Orioles dominated that period like no other team in MLB(most wins).  

I'll concede that there was a brief period where money wasn't that a big of a deal, because there really wasn't anything to spend money on.  The owners had successfully held off challenges to the reserve clause, and they'd successfully stopped the only free agency of the pre-1970s era: amateurs.  There was about a decade where no player had any say in where he played or how much he made.  

That is never coming back.  Never ever.  It wouldn't last 30 seconds in the courts.  If you think that competitive balance is messed up and market size and resources are skewing baseball you're going to have to come up with a different solution.  Free agency is here to stay.

And if you did go back to a 1970 setup you'd have players fleeing from baseball to other sports where they could make much more money and have choice in employers.  The salary Frank Robinson made in 1965 was the equivalent of about $500k today, or what is now the MLB minimum.  Many players of that era made today's equivalent of less than $100k.  Any top young athlete and his parents would see that and steer their kids to all the other sports where they could make ten or 100 times that.  I'm sure soccer and football and basketball and hockey would love the influx of talent.

[Enjoy Terror]

I was daydreaming about the Orioles having Chris Davis as a 51 year old DH, setting all kinds of weird records. Mostly ones beginning with “oldest”, “worst”, and “lowest”.