Soto & Ohtani Might Be Available, interested?

[MCO'sFan]

11 hours ago, foxfield said:

He is representing his team.  And they should have paid the flight....unless....it was all part of the plan to piss him off so that he would win thereby getting yet another top prospect in return.   Then it would have been dastardly and unprofessional and likely brilliant.

I certainly think they should pay for the flight. Although, I don't know the standard or rules on that type of thing. But, I am not chartering a flight for him. I'd be interested to know how many MLB teams chartered flights for their players especially with just one representative. 

[Hallas]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't think I'd ever classify $50M a year plus giving up prospects as a steal.  Not when you can build a semi-competitive roster for less than one player's salary.

We've had debates here in the past about whether it was ever smart to give one player 20-30% of the payroll.  Here we'd be talking, at least in the short term, about giving one player 70% of the payroll.  There are all kinds of implications from that.  Clubhouse dynamics where Ohtani makes more in three months than the rest of the players combine for in a year.  Risk, if he goes down for six months that's six or eight wins.  I guess you could probably find examples where this worked but it would be like when David Beckham signed with LA Galaxy when he was still pretty much in his prime.  It would be like Giancarlo Stanton signing with the Long Island Ducks.  Or like if Bryce Harper had gone to high school in some small Iowa town that's never had a minor leaguer.

I'm not saying it couldn't work, it's just unusual and might present issues we don't expect.

In his last arbitration year he's going to get what, 25 million?  That would be close to a record.  If he's in fact a 10 win player by adding up his contributions as a DH and a pitcher, then he's getting massively underpaid at that salary number.  2 50 prospects and 1 55 prospect has a surplus value of ~90-100 million, so we'd only be in the hole a little bit.  But the qualifying offer system is staying, and so we'd get 2 picks in return, which likely makes up the difference in value for the 3 prospects.  And that's assuming we don't sign him to an extension.

 

By the time the extension values kick in, we are looking at our core entering arbitration, and he will not be making 70% of the team's salary.  Furthermore, our draft strategy suggests that we have to sign or trade for pitchers, so at some point we would have to pull the trigger.  Given that there are only 4 pitcher prospects in all of baseball with a 60+ grade, and we have one of them, trading for top tier pitching prospects seems really dicey.  I'd certainly wager my money on a trade for Ohtani being good trade value over a FV 60 pitching prospect.

 

You are obviously right that this is unusual and uncharted territory, but his status as the first full time 2-way player since the 19th century means he is without comps, and this makes him massively undervalued in my opinion.  While that presents unique risks, I believe that small market teams have to take some risks, and this is an extremely high-reward risk, on a scale that we are unlikely to see in the near future.  (If another 2-way player comes around, then they will be able to use Ohtani as a comp, reducing the risk profile.)

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, MCO'sFan said:

No problem sending him first class. No way I am chartering a flight.

It's a pretty big risk given the current status of flight cancellations, the importance of him arriving to a cross-country destination on time and well-rested due to scheduling commitments where he has to represent the team at a nationally televised event, and the fact that the Nationals played at home the day before.  Imagine if he had to miss the derby because of a flight cancellation.

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Hallas said:

It's a pretty big risk given the current status of flight cancellations, the importance of him arriving to a cross-country destination on time and well-rested due to scheduling commitments where he has to represent the team at a nationally televised event, and the fact that the Nationals played at home the day before.  Imagine if he had to miss the derby because of a flight cancellation.

Why isn't MLB chartering the flights?

[Hallas]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Why isn't MLB chartering the flights?

This makes the most sense, but then it's not like MLB makes revenue independent of the teams (and by extension the team owners.)  Maybe they came to an agreement that the teams will deal with ASG travel expenses?

[MCO'sFan]

29 minutes ago, Hallas said:

This makes the most sense, but then it's not like MLB makes revenue independent of the teams (and by extension the team owners.)  Maybe they came to an agreement that the teams will deal with ASG travel expenses?

We agree to disagree. I don't know what is standard for AS transportation. It doesn't sounds like you don't either. I could care less if Soto's feeling were hurt. He sounds like a pampered baby crying because he had to fly commercial with the peasants. 

[spiritof66]

26 minutes ago, Hallas said:

This makes the most sense, but then it's not like MLB makes revenue independent of the teams (and by extension the team owners.)  Maybe they came to an agreement that the teams will deal with ASG travel expenses?

MLB has plenty of money, enough to pay things like rent on its offices, legal fees, the costs of meetings of the teams, and salaries to dozens of employees (topping out at Manfred's $17.5 million plus, I'm sure, plenty of perqs). It's a big operation, and it's not run on the cheap except when it sees a benefit to doing that (like when it uses its own employee-investigators rather than hiring independent ones). Why the expense of getting players to the A-S game isn't an MLB expense is beyond me.

When MLB as a whole is entitled to payments (like those from ESPN, Fox, Amazon, etc., etc.), MLB keeps a hunk to cover its budgeted expenses.

MLB also generates some revenues of its own, like from fines and luxury taxes, but I think those are pretty minor.

[AlbNYfan]

17 hours ago, Hallas said:

 

He's going there for work and representing the franchise for both pre-game festivities and the game itself.  It's not my money, obviously, but I think 60 grand for a chartered flight to make sure he arrives at all events well rested and on time, versus making him take commercial and arrive in the middle of the night, is reasonable.   the 1am arrival time probably screws his schedule up a bit more than advertised since he's also going back 3 hours.

It may say Nationals on his uni, but IMO, Soto only represents himself. Look at me!!

[Hallas]

20 minutes ago, AlbNYfan said:

It may say Nationals on his uni, but IMO, Soto only represents himself. Look at me!!

If I were Soto I'd rather have 4 days off and go into the second half of the season well rested so I can hit another 20 dongs and get myself more money in free agency.  If he were there for himself he wouldn't show up at all.  He's there for the Nationals, because that's who he represents and because he has to be there.

[Gentile4]

It appears that the price for either is going to be in the $450m+ range. I can't see the Orioles, under any circumstance, entertaining that kind of contract, and it has nothing to do with the Chris Davis fiasco. For that money, the team could sign three all star level players and have a much better chance of winning since they'd keep their key prospects. The Angels arguably have the two best players in baseball, and they suck. $40m a year on one player would be around a third of the O's payroll. 

[Tryptamine]

45 minutes ago, AlbNYfan said:

It may say Nationals on his uni, but IMO, Soto only represents himself. Look at me!!

This has become such a ridiculous sentiment over the last week. The guy turns down a contract and suddenly he only cares about himself. Lets ignore that the AAV of the contract was 29.3M(not even in the top 20 AAV amongst current contracts) and it would lock him up for 15 years so that there was basically zero chance he'd ever get another contract and that it was heavily backloaded, which if you know anything about the time value of money, makes the contract significantly less valuable. There's also the possibility that due to the Nationals MLB team being awful and the farm system being terrible too, that he just wants to be on a team that is competitive in the next like 4 or 5 years. 

[DrungoHazewood]

3 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Why isn't MLB chartering the flights?

How much does chartering a plane cost?  What would this be, like a Lear Jet?  The Google says something like $5-10k per billable flight hour.  Let's say you have to fly Soto to LA and back from DC.  That's about a five hour flight plus time on either end, so let's call it 12 hours... maybe as much as $120k.  Not counting the time the plane is sitting and waiting for Soto. 

Does even a $500M organization spend $100k on a flight for one guy just to be nice? My organization is a $100M piece of a $1B larger organization and everyone flies coach everywhere they go.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Tryptamine said:

This has become such a ridiculous sentiment over the last week. The guy turns down a contract and suddenly he only cares about himself. Lets ignore that the AAV of the contract was 29.3M(not even in the top 20 AAV amongst current contracts) and it would lock him up for 15 years so that there was basically zero chance he'd ever get another contract and that it was heavily backloaded, which if you know anything about the time value of money, makes the contract significantly less valuable. There's also the possibility that due to the Nationals MLB team being awful and the farm system being terrible too, that he just wants to be on a team that is competitive in the next like 4 or 5 years. 

I think the simplest explanation is that he just doesn't want to be in DC for the next 15 years.  Maybe they should have offered the deal at a time of year when it's not 95 degrees with 82% humidity.

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

How much does chartering a plane cost?  What would this be, like a Lear Jet?  The Google says something like $5-10k per billable flight hour.  Let's say you have to fly Soto to LA and back from DC.  That's about a five hour flight plus time on either end, so let's call it 12 hours... maybe as much as $120k.  Not counting the time the plane is sitting and waiting for Soto. 

Does even a $500M organization spend $100k on a flight for one guy just to be nice? My organization is a $100M piece of a $1B larger organization and everyone flies coach everywhere they go.

I'd probably argue that he only really benefits from a chartered flight on the way there.  On the way back he can fly commercial.  He has a day off after the ASG.  The main reason I thought it would be valid in this case is because he has a game the day before, he's flying cross-country, and he has to participate in media events and the HR derby the very next morning.  If he were playing in the game only I'd tell him to pound sand.

 

In a world of normal people, usually you schedule your day around trips such as this.  e.g. you're expected to get minimal work done on the day you're supposed to be traveling cross country.  If you had 2 events very far away from each other, on back to back days, you'd probably try to schedule it in such a way that you allow yourself time to travel and rest.  In Soto's case he has hard boundaries on scheduling.  My brother used to work for a high powered law firm and he flew chartered from time to time to take depos if his schedule was really tight.  He does not make millions.  I would imagine this is similar.

[Paul in Virginia]

The Orioles Actually Have a Shot at Acquiring Juan Soto (birdswatcher.com)

 

Interesting hypotheticals:

1) Mullins, Bradish, Hall, Stowers, and Westburg for Soto and Corbin, and

2) Henderson and Rodriguez for Soto and Corbin.

 

Both "offers" seem far less than what the Nats say they want.