Tigers sign Schoop to a 1-year $6.1M contract

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Philip said:

I’m kind of disappointed the Twins didn’t keep Schoop. He did pretty well for them, and I’d rather see him with them than as a Tiger.

meanwhile, why are the tigers spending? They seem to be risking a lot on the chance of trading for prospects in June.

Schoop kind of got pushed out of Minnesota by Luis Arraez.    Schoop started 74 of 89 games before the all star break, but only 39 of 73 after.    

[byrdz]

Always like Schoop so good for him. Hope he has a contract year.

[scOtt]

Good for Jonathan! Chance to play and make some good money. And a chance to get traded to a contender if he plays well. Contender or pretender... otherwise it's gonna be a LONG baseball year in Motown.

[DrungoHazewood]

18 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

My take:  Tigers can afford to take on payrolll and they are willing to spend 3M for the chance to flip Schoop for prospects.

My take is that they are spending $3M and perhaps as much as $6.1M on 2-win player, on the hopes that they can flip him for prospects when the more efficient way to acquire prospects would be to just spend the money directly.

You have $50 and you need some bread and eggs.  So you go buy a baby goat, you raise the goat, you feed the goat, you hope the goat grows up to be big and strong, and that he attracts a lot of interest at the livestock sales in six months, then you can sell him and get the money for the bread and eggs.  Why didn't you just buy the bread and eggs from the store? 

Feel free to poke holes in my analogy, and that the store isn't always fully stocked with bread and eggs that you can simply purchase.  But this is still a very indirect route to the final goal.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

My take is that they are spending $3M and perhaps as much as $6.1M on 2-win player, on the hopes that they can flip him for prospects when the more efficient way to acquire prospects would be to just spend the money directly.

You have $50 and you need some bread and eggs.  So you go buy a baby goat, you raise the goat, you feed the goat, you hope the goat grows up to be big and strong, and that he attracts a lot of interest at the livestock sales in six months, then you can sell him and get the money for the bread and eggs.  Why didn't you just buy the bread and eggs from the store? 

Feel free to poke holes in my analogy, and that the store isn't always fully stocked with bread and eggs that you can simply purchase.  But this is still a very indirect route to the final goal.

How?

Let's assume that the Tigers have already spent their International pool money for the current period.  What mechanism is in place for them to turn money into potential prospects? 

I don't think simply buying players from other teams would be more efficient.

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

How?

Let's assume that the Tigers have already spent their International pool money for the current period.  What mechanism is in place for them to turn money into potential prospects? 

I don't think simply buying players from other teams would be more efficient.

Have they spent their allotment?  Perhaps I'm thinking too logically, downplaying all the impediments baseball puts in the way of teams who would like to just go spend some money to fix their team.

I'm going to start using Goat Farming as a reference to baseball's bizarre choices in bureaucratic roadblocks.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Have they spent their allotment?  Perhaps I'm thinking too logically, downplaying all the impediments baseball puts in the way of teams who would like to just go spend some money to fix their team.

I don't know, I'm assuming most teams have spent all or nearly all of the money by now.

We do know that the Braves and the Dodgers were willing to spend millions on an end of the second round draft pick, so 3M for a prospect or two doesn't seem out of line to me.

 

[weams]

44 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Have they spent their allotment?  Perhaps I'm thinking too logically, downplaying all the impediments baseball puts in the way of teams who would like to just go spend some money to fix their team.

I'm going to start using Goat Farming as a reference to baseball's bizarre choices in bureaucratic roadblocks.

You can always buy a prospect if you look hard enough. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, weams said:

You can always buy a prospect if you look hard enough. 

A body sure, a prospect?

[weams]

16 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

A body sure, a prospect?

A prospect.

[Scalious]

17 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Have they spent their allotment?  Perhaps I'm thinking too logically, downplaying all the impediments baseball puts in the way of teams who would like to just go spend some money to fix their team.

I'm going to start using Goat Farming as a reference to baseball's bizarre choices in bureaucratic roadblocks.

There are fixed caps for spending. The only remaining paths are into player dev infrastructure or the MLB roster. Or investing the money in ways that have nothing to do with getting talent. Wouldn't surprise me if ownership groups set their GMs a budget.

Money not invested is money wasted. Most salary dump for prospect trades end up being more then 6M. So, might as well get a useful MLB player and see if you can leverage something later.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Scalious

[LookinUp]

On 12/22/2019 at 8:47 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

My take is that they are spending $3M and perhaps as much as $6.1M on 2-win player, on the hopes that they can flip him for prospects when the more efficient way to acquire prospects would be to just spend the money directly.

You have $50 and you need some bread and eggs.  So you go buy a baby goat, you raise the goat, you feed the goat, you hope the goat grows up to be big and strong, and that he attracts a lot of interest at the livestock sales in six months, then you can sell him and get the money for the bread and eggs.  Why didn't you just buy the bread and eggs from the store? 

Feel free to poke holes in my analogy, and that the store isn't always fully stocked with bread and eggs that you can simply purchase.  But this is still a very indirect route to the final goal.

Magic of goat farming aside, I think this concept isn't a different way to the same goal, it's an additional path to a larger goal. 

If every team has a direct path to 10 prospects, Detroit theoretically just created a path to another 2-3 prospects that wouldn't otherwise be there. This could be considered a wise move if 1) they're taking advantage of all of the other paths and 2) anything lost w/r/t having a better team (e.g., draft slots, team cash) is outweighed by whatever they gain through future prospect trades. 

My problem isn't that Detroit did this, it's that they did it for Schoop (low OBP, low BA guy) and Cron (1B). The market for these two isn't going to be massive, so I really doubt they get good prospects back and this works out from a pure FV standpoint.

I essentially think they just blew a few million on a few more wins to shut the fans up.

[sportsfan8703]

Tough ballpark to sign two HR reliant players to try and flip.  But juiced ball and all.  

[MurphDogg]

3 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

I essentially think they just blew a few million on a few more wins to shut the fans up.

Yeah, screw those fans spending their hard-earned dollars who would prefer to see a competent team on the field!

[sportsfan8703]

13 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Yeah, screw those fans spending their hard-earned dollars who would prefer to see a competent team on the field!

What's your definition of competent?  The Jays are spending money to finish in 4th place.