USAToday: Boras Quotes

[webbrick2010]

47 minutes ago, atomic said:

Guys in the lower minors are definitely not making a living wage.  Read some books about guys who have written about their minor league.   So the guys getting big bonuses are fine as they can live off of that but the guys with bonus' under 100k are going to suffer.  

I recently read Dick Hayhurst's "The Bullpen Gospels (A Non-Prospect's Pursuit of the Major Leagues and the Meaning of Life) "   That would give you a good idea what life is like in the minors. 

According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the living wage for Maryland is $15.48/hour.

So a guy in say low A doesn't make $32K a year

Eliminating all of the bonus guys I wonder how many are in that boat... and I'm sure the players union or the owners could make up the difference

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Sanfran327 said:

Care to elaborate?

It's the only smart way, IMO. There is zero reason to invest in the major league team here right now. That leads to a bad team, lots of losses, and high draft picks. While still unpredictable, odds are at least better for higher picks.

Brewers lost 94 games in 2015 and managed to win 96 and make the playoffs last year without tanking.  The Cardinals have never tanked.  Giants built their mini dynasty without tanking (unless you count 90 and 91 loss seasons as tanking).

[luismatos4prez]

I agree with Boras. Tanking is detrimental to the league.

I'm a broken record. But the fact that some think non-tendering Villar (or similar moves) is good strategy is frustrating to me. What does that ~$10M saved do for the club? What do they do with that money that's more productive than having a good baseball player play for the baseball team?

Winning 62 games instead of 58 means something to the fans that attend/watch those 4 games. And the payroll is already plenty low enough for a rebuild. About $65M without deferred money this year. About $80M lower than it was 2 years ago. Good for 29th in the majors last year, maybe low enough for 30th this year. And that's with Villar, Givens, Mancini, etc.

Non-tendering Villar is an awful idea. Trading him is fine, but I don't want to see a cash dump trade like Jim Johnson for Weeks. Villar's a valuable asset even with a high salary.

[CallMeBrooksie]

2 minutes ago, Philip said:

Thats irrelevant.  Any system that incentivizes losing should be changed. This suggestion incentivizes winning, without interfering with the concept of rebuilding through the draft. It just changes the parameters, instead of being the worst of 30 teams, you are the best of six out of that 30. That means you’re 24th. It creates an urgent incentive to not win 47 games.

I don't think your suggestion is quite the fix-all that you believe it to be. It doesn't eliminate this so-called incentive to lose.. you'd still have to be a bad team. It doesn't incentivize winning, imo. It would create a tank war between the last and next-to-last teams within most divisions for the last part of each season. It gives hope to many more teams of stealing that no. 1 overall pick.

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, webbrick2010 said:

According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the living wage for Maryland is $15.48/hour.

So a guy in say low A doesn't make $32K a year

Eliminating all of the bonus guys I wonder how many are in that boat... and I'm sure the players union or the owners could make up the difference

I'm sure they could.  If they had a desire to.  Neither side seems interested in that.

BTW I'm not at all opposed to guys in AA and below needing to have jobs in the offseason.  I don't think someone in short season ball, for instance, should be making 32K just for playing rookie league ball.

[Sanfran327]

I really don't consider there to be much difference between losing 94 and 104 games. Both teams are bad, and I'd imagine that at the start of a season that if Team A was projected for 104 losses and Team B was projected for 94 losses that Team B could easily finish with a worse record than Team A. 

Also, the Cards and Giants are two of the best orgs in baseball. Hopefully we get to that level soon.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Sanfran327 said:

I really don't consider there to be much difference between losing 94 and 104 games. Both teams are bad, and I'd imagine that at the start of a season that if Team A was projected for 104 losses and Team B was projected for 94 losses that Team B could easily finish with a worse record than Team A. 

Also, the Cards and Giants are two of the best orgs in baseball. Hopefully we get to that level soon.

You can be bad without tanking.

Heck you can trade off expiring assets while being bad without tanking.  Yankees did it, worked out really well for them.

Taking a team and tearing it down to a bare framework is not the only way to build a winner, even if you don't have unlimited payroll.

 

[Sanfran327]

Having said all of this, I don't think we're full-on tanking. I am 100% in favor of keeping Villar and Mancini (I don't consider them to be investments, per se), and we could be far worse than we have been over the last 2 years if we really wanted to be. We're about as bad as you can be while being capable of getting 24-27 outs 162 times a year. 

[7Mo]

2 minutes ago, luismatos4prez said:

I'm a broken record. But the fact that some think non-tendering Villar (or similar moves) is good strategy is frustrating to me. What does that ~$10M saved do for the club? What do they do with that money that's more productive than having a good baseball player play for the baseball team?

Winning 62 games instead of 58 means something to the fans that attend/watch those 4 games. And the payroll is already plenty low enough for a rebuild. About $65M without deferred money this year. About $80M lower than it was 2 years ago. Good for 29th in the majors last year, maybe low enough for 30th this year. And that's with Villar, Givens, Mancini, etc.

Non-tendering Villar is an awful idea. Trading him is fine, but I don't want to see a cash dump trade like Jim Johnson for Weeks. Villar's a valuable asset even with a high salary.

I don't agree with non-tendering Villar (and I don't think it will happen) but it's because I believe he has more value than $10M as a trade asset. 

I have no problem non-tendering a guy you don't believe has value above the arb figure and replacing him with a 6 year minor league guy you believe might provide similar production. 

[CallMeBrooksie]

1 minute ago, luismatos4prez said:

Winning 62 games instead of 58 means something to the fans that attend/watch those 4 games. And the payroll is already plenty low enough for a rebuild. About $65M without deferred money this year. About $80M lower than it was 2 years ago. Good for 29th in the majors last year, maybe low enough for 30th this year. And that's with Villar, Givens, Mancini, etc.

Non-tendering Villar is an awful idea. Trading him is fine, but I don't want to see a cash dump trade like Jim Johnson for Weeks. Villar's a valuable asset even with a high salary.

I think I can speak for all O's fans when I say it absolutely does not mean anything to win 62 vs. 58 games. Zilch.

I can sympathize with your argument to keep Villar and pay him the ~$10 mil. It's not an unreasonable argument and I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if they decide to go that route... but it's disingenuous to act like the flip-side of that argument is some sort of lunacy. $10 mil IS a lot for a rebuilding team to pay Jonathan Villar, who is a decent candidate for regression next year. His trade value is not much at that price-point.

[atomic]

16 minutes ago, webbrick2010 said:

According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the living wage for Maryland is $15.48/hour.

So a guy in say low A doesn't make $32K a year

Eliminating all of the bonus guys I wonder how many are in that boat... and I'm sure the players union or the owners could make up the difference

Average salary is $1300 a month at low A.  $1500 a month at high A.  They don't get paid for spring training.  There season is only 5 months long.  Pretty far from $32k a year.  

[Philip]

11 minutes ago, Philip said:

It isn’t like these teams have been awful for years. What’s worse, being terrible in brief time periods or irrelevant for over a decade plus?

 Beating in mind that Boras doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything except the benefit to his clients, baseball should do what is better for baseball.

the goal of any team is to establish a system that creates competitive baseball forever, with the inevitable valleys being shallow and brief. The Cardinals never have a single digit draft pick, yet they are always contenders, and to the best of my knowledge they don’t have the deep pockets that Boston or New York has.

I don’t think this new system would reward mediocre management: the teams that are regularly ranked 15 to 20 or so would neither benefit nor be penalized by this method.In the discussion about that stupid three batter rule, many posters said that it would not help the game.

This would help the game because the benefit would now come from winning instead of losing.

[atomic]

10 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm sure they could.  If they had a desire to.  Neither side seems interested in that.

BTW I'm not at all opposed to guys in AA and below needing to have jobs in the offseason.  I don't think someone in short season ball, for instance, should be making 32K just for playing rookie league ball.

Seems like they make $3300 a year.  Average salary $1100 a  month.  What do they play a 3 month season?  Should be required to at least pay room and board when they are paying those rates. 

[luismatos4prez]

1 minute ago, CallMeBrooksie said:

I think I can speak for all O's fans when I say it absolutely does not mean anything to win 62 vs. 58 games. Zilch.

I can sympathize with your argument to keep Villar and pay him the ~$10 mil. It's not an unreasonable argument and I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if they decide to go that route... but it's disingenuous to act like the flip-side of that argument is some sort of lunacy. $10 mil IS a lot for a rebuilding team to pay Jonathan Villar, who is a decent candidate for regression next year. His trade value is not much at that price-point.

$65M is an extremely low payroll already. I don't see any benefits to lowering that to $55M, but correct me if I'm wrong there.

Winning 62 games vs 58 games absolutely means something to me. I watch most games. I want to see the team win every time I watch. 

[CallMeBrooksie]

Just now, luismatos4prez said:

$65M is an extremely low payroll already. I don't see any benefits to lowering that to $55M, but correct me if I'm wrong there.

Winning 62 games vs 58 games absolutely means something to me. I watch most games. I want to see the team win every time I watch. 

I have faith that most fans in this Hangout community have enough of a long-term 'Big Picture' perspective that they don't fret over how many wins our last place club finished with while rebuilding.