Blame MacPhail

[JTrea81]

Yeh, a six year deal because of a 15 day DL move makes a helluva lot of sense.

Try 60 day DL, and Pie has shown he can't stay on the field.

Reimold's defense is hurt by his Achillies so he's primarily a DH

And Luke Scott can play LF, but is extremely streaky.

Matt Holliday made perfect sense for this team before these developments, and makes even more sense now.

[JTrea81]

I don't think there is any scenario one could come up with where frontloading a contract makes sense for a team unless the total compensation is significantly less.

The Yankees did it with A-Rod.

It makes more sense to pay more for a player when they are in their prime and pay less for them in their declining years.

[JTrea81]

No, it didn't then. It still doesn't now. You can keep saying it, but it doesn't make it so. I'm going to have such a good time laughing at you about three years from now when the Lackey and Holliday contracts look awful.

So what do you do to fix LF if Reimold can't stick there defensively and Pie can't stay on the field?

We have no depth in the minors there as our OFers that we do have are 3 years away.

[mweb]

No, it didn't then. It still doesn't now. You can keep saying it, but it doesn't make it so. I'm going to have such a good time laughing at you about three years from now when the Lackey and Holliday contracts look awful.

May not have to wait that long for Lackey.

Of course I don't see him mentioning how good he would look for us now.

You may have to wait longer for Holliday though.

But the point remains that it doesn't make much sense for non-contending team to spend tons of money on a guy whose best years are expected to occur before contending.

[mweb]

So what do you do to fix LF if Reimold can't stick there defensively and Pie can't stay on the field?

We have no depth in the minors there as our OFers that we do have are 3 years away.

Well if none of the 3 in house options look good for the future, then you address it from outside, but I think out of the 3, there's a solid chance we want at least one of them in LF going forward.

Also nothing wrong with going after Werth for a shorter deal just like there's nothing wrong with going after guys like Pena and Lee for first. Or they can go "premium" with Crawford.

[Moose Milligan]

You're too funny. You were the guy touting Montanez last year as better than Reimold or Pie. Now that you're trying to "show us all", you conveniently just forget all about him. We still have five ML quality outfielders for three positions plus DH (Montanez, Reimold, Nick, AJ, Scott) plus Rhyne Hughes at AAA for added depth. Losing Pie for 60 days hurts for sure, but it has ZERO to do with Matt Holliday. Paying him to be here this year makes not a lick of sense at all. Unless you think Pie, Reimold, Montanez, Scott, Nick, and AJ aren't going to be available in 2011-2013, nothing has changed. You think so short term in every single situation.

You're touting the Pie injury as a justifying reason for Holliday, but I'd bet the rest of us feel the exact opposite. The fact that we're not manning that position with someone like Gathright or Fahey as we did a few years ago after losing a player of Pie's caliber is just evidence of how much OF depth we have available. As usual, you've got it all backward.

You're honestly advocating spending 130 million because we've got a player on the 60 day DL. Wow, you can't make this stuff up.

Like you're gonna talk sense into him. C'mon man, let it go.

[ChaosLex]

This one's headed for classic status.

[TonySoprano]

This is not going to end well.

My first, and now last, comment in this thread.

[Sports Guy]

Jtrea...Do you get the idea that the Holliday contract was an issue for years 4-7?

Is that a concept over your head or do you genuinely understand it? And if you do understand it, why on earth would you be talking about an injury that will cost us an OFer for a few months?

[Remember The Alomar]

You were a lot smarter than me. I should have done the same thing. I'd have three hours of my life back and nothing about the progression of this thread would have changed at all. We all ended up exactly where we started which we all knew was where we were heading when Trea posted the opening comment. I'm an idiot some days.

Your avatar pretty much summed up my reaction to this thread.

[JTrea81]

Jtrea...Do you get the idea that the Holliday contract was an issue for years 4-7?

Is that a concept over your head or do you genuinely understand it? And if you do understand it, why on earth would you be talking about an injury that will cost us an OFer for a few months?

Pie can't stay on the field and Reimold could have lingering issues.

Our OF is not solid by any means.

And the Holliday contract wouldn't be an issue as long as we won with him in those first 4-5 years The last two years of the contract is the price of winning games.

If you go after a player like Holliday you have to be committed to win now. As I said not pursuing that talent seriously shows me that MacPhail has not yet totally committed to winning now.

You may not call a player like him premium talent, but he has three Silver Sluggers and multiple AS appearances and a career .933 OPS. If he's not the definition of premium talent, he's the closest you are going to find without paying Teixeira type money.

[Can_of_corn]

It makes more sense to pay more for a player when they are in their prime and pay less for them in their declining years.

I am going to try and explain this to Jtrea so the rest of you have some pity on me.

Trea, does $100 have as much purchasing power now as it did 7 years ago?

The further into the future you send expenses the lower they are due to inflation. So $100 today is only going to be say $85 7 years from now.

Lets say you want to sign a player to a 5 year deal worth a total of $70,000,000. You can sign him to a deal that pays him 10,12,14,16,18 or a deal that pays him 18,16,14,12,10. You have the monies on hand to pay either way. By paying him 10 million the first year and investing the other 8 million at say 4.5% yearly compounded you save $1,540,148.81.

There are other factors in favor of backloading but I think two lessons in economics 101 should be enough for now.

[JTrea81]

I am going to try and explain this to Jtrea so the rest of you have some pity on me.

Trea, does $100 have as much purchasing power now as it did 7 years ago?

The further into the future you send expenses the lower they are due to inflation. So $100 today is only going to be say $85 7 years from now.

Lets say you want to sign a player to a 5 year deal worth a total of $70,000,000. You can sign him to a deal that pays him 10,12,14,16,18 or a deal that pays him 18,16,14,12,10. You have the monies on hand to pay either way. By paying him 10 million the first year and investing the other 8 million at say 4.5% yearly compounded you save $1,540,148.81.

There are other factors in favor of backloading but I think two lessons in economics 101 should be enough for now.

In a vaccum you are correct, but when you have esclating salaries for players like Markakis and eventually Jones, Wieters and whoever else we add, your payroll starts to increase. Now it may not be worth as much, but that doesn't stop the dollar figure from going up.

[LookinUp]

Booo....my formatting got screwed up.

So, just see my sig quote from AM.

[Can_of_corn]

In a vaccum you are correct, but when you have esclating salaries for players like Markakis and eventually Jones, Wieters and whoever else we add, your payroll starts to increase. Now it may not be worth as much, but that doesn't stop the dollar figure from going up.

Ok, I give up, I tried to explain it as simply as possible.