Mike Trout to the Orioles?

[Aristotelian]

Another question we should ask is whether having $37M annually committed to Trout through 2030 makes it more or less likely we extend future core players Adley, Gunnar, Grayson, Cowser, and Holiday. I would say almost no chance of Cowser and probably no more than one of the others. 

[foxfield]

16 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

He should be dealt for Pablo Lopez.  Here’s hoping they can pull that off.

How many players do you think Baltimore will need to include with Mullins to acquire Pablo Lopez?

As a follow up, if not traded, how long is Mullins a starter for Baltimore?

[Sports Guy]

23 minutes ago, foxfield said:

How many players do you think Baltimore will need to include with Mullins to acquire Pablo Lopez?

As a follow up, if not traded, how long is Mullins a starter for Baltimore?

I’m not sure anything has to be added.  Really depends on how the 2 teams view each player.

Lopez is worth 2 WAR this year.  His ERA is 3.66.  K rate is ok but not great.  Solid walk rate. FIP, xFIP and xERA line up with his ERA..very good but not elite. 
 

Mullins is a higher WAR guy.  Similar age and service time.

I like Lopez but he has yet to have a season where he shows himself to be much more than MOR starter.  Honestly, if you told me he would never be more than that, I wouldn’t be as gung ho to get him.  

But I like the potential of him being more.  He throws a lot of strikes and misses a lot of bats. 

And btw, this whole concept is based around the reports that the Marlins want and are valuing the CF position.  If that’s not true, obviously this deal wouldn’t occur.

[Sports Guy]

7 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

Another question we should ask is whether having $37M annually committed to Trout through 2030 makes it more or less likely we extend future core players Adley, Gunnar, Grayson, Cowser, and Holiday. I would say almost no chance of Cowser and probably no more than one of the others. 

Why couldn’t you extend those guys with a big contract like that on the books?  
 

When I see stuff like this, I don’t think people get just how cheap this team is going to be and just how cheap they can fill the back half of their roster in any given season.

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Why couldn’t you extend those guys with a big contract like that on the books?  
 

When I see stuff like this, I don’t think people get just how cheap this team is going to be and just how cheap they can fill the back half of their roster in any given season.

I am assuming perhaps $150M payroll. It is going to be tough to carry five star players when you have a 39 year old DH taking up $37M.

[Sports Guy]

30 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I am assuming perhaps $150M payroll. It is going to be tough to carry five star players when you have a 39 year old DH taking up $37M.

Depends on who you have signed and where they are in their service time.

For example, Jackson Holliday won’t likely even be at arb 3 that year.  Adley May be at the end of his deal.  
 

And btw, there will be years where the payroll will be higher.  The Orioles carried higher payrolls than 150 not that long ago and with more revenue pouring into the sport in the coming years and if the team is winning, they will be able to spend more.

But as guys get arb raises, they will see payrolls increase.  But just like there will be years where it’s higher, there will be plenty of years where it’s lower.

If you build your team properly and you do things the right way, managing the payroll is pretty easy.

[Aristotelian]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Depends on who you have signed and where they are in their service time.

For example, Jackson Holliday won’t likely even be at arb 3 that year.  Adley May be at the end of his deal.  
 

And btw, there will be years where the payroll will be higher.  The Orioles carried higher payrolls than 150 not that long ago and with more revenue pouring into the sport in the coming years and if the team is winning, they will be able to spend more.

But as guys get arb raises, they will see payrolls increase.  But just like there will be years where it’s higher, there will be plenty of years where it’s lower.

If you build your team properly and you do things the right way, managing the payroll is pretty easy.

Hm, I thought money saved now goes straight into the Angelos family pockets, not future payroll? Hard to tell the future but my impression is we may be running a leaner model than we have in the past, even after the switch is flipped. Even if we don't go full Tampa model, $150M would put us ahead of Houston and St. Louis which seem like reasonable comps. Bottom line, committing $37M to a future 39-40 yo DH will make it difficult to keep all those guys as well as limit our overall flexibility in all kinds of ways. If that contract became a Chris Davis level disaster that would be example number one of how not to "build your team properly". 

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Hm, I thought money saved now goes straight into the Angelos family pockets, not future payroll? Hard to tell the future but my impression is we may be running a leaner model than we have in the past, even after the switch is flipped. Even if we don't go full Tampa model, $150M would put us ahead of Houston and St. Louis which seem like reasonable comps. Bottom line, committing $37M to a future 39-40 yo DH will make it difficult to keep all those guys as well as limit our overall flexibility in all kinds of ways. If that contract became a Chris Davis level disaster that would be example number one of how not to "build your team properly". 

Tampa isn't even going full Tampa model.

Edited August 28, 2022 by Can_of_corn

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

Hm, I thought money saved now goes straight into the Angelos family pockets, not future payroll? Hard to tell the future but my impression is we may be running a leaner model than we have in the past, even after the switch is flipped. Even if we don't go full Tampa model, $150M would put us ahead of Houston and St. Louis which seem like reasonable comps. Bottom line, committing $37M to a future 39-40 yo DH will make it difficult to keep all those guys as well as limit our overall flexibility in all kinds of ways. If that contract became a Chris Davis level disaster that would be example number one of how not to "build your team properly". 

I know I've sometimes said something like "save today so we can spend more tomorrow" but is there any evidence of teams (Orioles or otherwise) putting significantly more money in to a team because they'd had small payrolls in prior years?  I think absent real evidence we have to assume that money saved today just goes into this year's profits.

[Aristotelian]

Just now, DrungoHazewood said:

I know I've sometimes said something like "save today so we can spend more tomorrow" but is there any evidence of teams (Orioles or otherwise) putting significantly more money in to a team because they'd had small payrolls in prior years?  I think absent real evidence we have to assume that money saved today just goes into this year's profits.

Even if we had evidence from previous years we don't know what the process is now. I don't know either way, although mathematically it is true that less money spent now means more in the bank account at the end of the year. My point was that SG has been saying that profits go directly into owners pockets. I don't know how we get to $200 or $250 without carrying forward some of those saved dollars.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 minute ago, Aristotelian said:

Even if we had evidence from previous years we don't know what the process is now. I don't know either way, although mathematically it is true that less money spent now means more in the bank account at the end of the year. My point was that SG has been saying that profits go directly into owners pockets. I don't know how we get to $200 or $250 without carrying forward some of those saved dollars.

I don't think they get to $200-250M payrolls.  I assume that if they're winning consistently and drawing relatively well and media revenue doesn't tank they could be in the $125M-150M range at least sometimes.

I still don't know where all the revenues go.  Forbes says the O's bring in $250M a year, but they've never had a payroll much over $150M, so we're saying they have $80-100M in expenses to run the team.  But we know that, for example, there are Premier League soccer teams that spend close to 90% of revenues on player salary... I'd love to see an itemized list of expenses the Orioles have to keep the lights on and the front office employed.  Or the Yanks, who have $650M+ in annual revenues but only spend $200M on players but Forbes says they only make a small profit.

North American owners tend to run teams as a business, expecting to at least break even annually and seeing the franchise value go up indefinitely. Nobody runs the team solely as a vanity project, taking huge losses for the glory.

Anyway... I don't count on any of the payroll savings of the last few years to go to expenditures beyond revenues in the future.

[Sports Guy]

9 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Even if we had evidence from previous years we don't know what the process is now. I don't know either way, although mathematically it is true that less money spent now means more in the bank account at the end of the year. My point was that SG has been saying that profits go directly into owners pockets. I don't know how we get to $200 or $250 without carrying forward some of those saved dollars.

No one said anything about 200-250M payrolls.  You are just making stuff up.

[Aristotelian]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

No one said anything about 200-250M payrolls.  You are just making stuff up.

I said $150 and you said that was too low. $200 is the next round number up but if you have a problem with it go ahead and give us a budget that works with Trout.

[Sports Guy]

7 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I said $150 and you said that was too low. 

No I didn’t 

[Aristotelian]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

No I didn’t 

Ok, buddy. I am done with this ridiculous thread as well as your moving targets.