Interesting Take by Schmuck on Teixiera

[Sports Guy]

Why non tender him when they can trade him?

You could say that about a lot of players.

Maybe they don't want to risk keeping him and his salary?

Maybe they send out feelers early on and don't feel what they can get for him is worth taking up 40 man roster space?

Who knows.

I do tend to agree with both you and Frobby...but its a lot of money owed to him considering he was hurt a lot last year...and they have so much money owed.

OTOH, they could be fine with it and want to keep him.

[El Gordo]

No tendering him is pretty far fetched IMO. He isn't going to be making that much more with arbitration, and you can get something decent for him in trade if you didn't want to keep him.

[TonySoprano]

You really just don't know what you are talking about.

BTW, your ideas won't likely bring in a winner..especially a consistent one.

And if we made the playoffs and became a winner because of the moves, we could justify a ticket price increase as the demand would be there to see winning baseball in Baltimore.

Winning brings attendance. Win often enough, demand for tickets high enough, you can raise ticket prices (e.g. Boston and NY). I don't know about a payroll of $125M but the main point is correct.

[Sports Guy]

Winning brings attendance. Win often enough, demand for tickets high enough, you can raise ticket prices (e.g. Boston and NY). I don't know about a payroll of $125M but the main point is correct.

A lot of the time, Jtrea's main point is correct...His general, basic point(at its core) is correct.

But he goes way over the top, like expecting a 125 million dollar payroll.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Sure and I yours!

Now batting clean up for the Orioled Pena & his .190 batting average. Reynolds and stats comparable to 2009. And the non tendered candidate JJ Hardy. My point is no ,more stop gaps... None of these guys are star players.

The difference between Izzy & Hardy is about .13 point in batting average & 15 extra base hits over a season. I doubt Hardy's defense is equivalent to Izzy's.

You just called a 27-year-old third baseman with 121 homers over the past four years a stopgap. A 28-year-old shortstop whose OBP (on it's own nothing to be particularly proud of) is the same as Izturis' SLG (and whose average yearly defensive RSAA according to BBRef is 5, compared to Izturis' 6) a stopgap.

I have to agree with SG.

[DrungoHazewood]

A lot of the time, Jtrea's main point is correct...His general, basic point(at its core) is correct.

But he goes way over the top, like expecting a 125 million dollar payroll.

The premise is that the O's should take a big loss right now to win more games, then make it up with greatly expanded revenues in the outyears.

The problem with that is if the plan doesn't work, or is slow to work, or just misses the playoffs a few years. You can easily slip into a late 90s/early 2000s Oriole deathspiral, where you have huge payrolls and no big revenue stream to support it.

[Frobby]

Winning brings attendance. Win often enough, demand for tickets high enough, you can raise ticket prices (e.g. Boston and NY). I don't know about a payroll of $125M but the main point is correct.

The question is, how much winning does it take to affect attendance? If the O's were .500ish instead of in the mid to high 60's, would that cause a meaningful attendance increase? Or does the team really need to threaten to be in the pennant race?

The Blue Jays are an interesting case study. They drew 4 million people when they won the pennant. But since 1999, the best they've done is 2.4 mm, even though they Jays have been decent most years. This year, their attendance was atrocious (1.495 mm, a 380k drop) despite having a decent team.

[BaltimoreTerp]

The premise is that the O's should take a big loss right now to win more games, then make it up with greatly expanded revenues in the outyears.

The problem with that is if the plan doesn't work, or is slow to work, or just misses the playoffs a few years. You can easily slip into a late 90s/early 2000s Oriole deathspiral, where you have huge payrolls and no big revenue stream to support it.

And that's why no one supports his plan: we already saw it, and it led to much of the reasons we are where we are.

I mean, for as much crap as myself and others have received over the years for being optimistic, isn't he essentially the biggest one of them all? He believes that trading for players on short-term contracts are a good idea because once they get to Baltimore and see how awesome this place is they will beg the team for a new contract. He believes that free agents don't go with money or winning as their reasons for signing somewhere, but that a silver-tongued GM can talk a superstar into anything they want. He believes that the silver-tongued person in our case is a manager that walked into the Warehouse one day, completely marginalized a successful and highly-respected baseball man, and caused a legendary lawyer to give him full reign over the club. And that since all of this is accurate, the Orioles should easily be a playoff team next year.

How is any of that not the most over-optimistic view of any on the boards?

[LookinUp]

If this actually happens, I might actually start participating again. BTW, you need to change "some" to "most" in that last sentence. As long as you're changing things, I'd advise removing the "eventually", "for now", and adding a "not".

Posts like this are so heart warming. :hearts:

[TonySoprano]

The question is, how much winning does it take to affect attendance? If the O's were .500ish instead of in the mid to high 60's, would that cause a meaningful attendance increase? Or does the team really need to threaten to be in the pennant race?

The Blue Jays are an interesting case study. They drew 4 million people when they won the pennant. But since 1999, the best they've done is 2.4 mm, even though they Jays have been decent most years. This year, their attendance was atrocious (1.495 mm, a 380k drop) despite having a decent team.

It's a double-edged sword. I recall an interview that the Washington Post had with Angelos a few years ago. Angelos boasted about how he had tried to keep down ticket prices and how he needed attendance to have the resources to spend. I thought that was putting the cart before the horse. If you want to get the people to attend you have to give them a winner. As we saw this year, even after Showalter turned the team around, attendance didn't respond immediately. The fan base is understandably jilted and cyncical. I think the team has to first build the winner for sustained period, perhaps show to be a playoff contender for most of the season, for the fans to slowly migrate back.

[Sports Guy]

I am not as optimistic as you. Hardy was worth almost $10 mm this year according to fangraphs, so I don't see a smart organization letting him go for nothing or next to nothing. What's he going to get in arbitration, $6 mm or so?

I would normally agree with you.

But.....

Mauer: 23M

Morneau: 15M

Nathan: 11.25M

Cuddyer: 10.5M

baker: 5M

Blackburn: 3M

Span: 1M

Kubel: 500K(that's the buyout..if option picked up, its like 5.5M)

That is 69.25M committed to 8 players, one of which may not be on the roster and if he is, make that almost 75 million for those 8 players.

Arb eligible guys(2010 salary):

Hardy: 5.1M

Capps: 3.5M

Young: 2.5M

Liriano: 1.6M

Slowey: 470K

They also owe Brendan Harris 1.75M(guess they are paying part of his contract?)

So, forgetting Capps and Hardy for a moment, that is now 11 players that will be getting at least 82ish million.

You put Hardy in there for 6.5-7.5 million and it really drives up their payroll.

They had a 97 million dollar payroll in 2010 and they do lose some guys from FA...But they only have half their team under contract.

So, its going to be tough for them to have Hardy on the team when they have a young SS that I believe they like in Plouffe.

It's unclear to me what the Twins' economics are now with the new stadium. They drew 3.2 mm fans compared to 2.4 mm last year, and that 2.4 mm was the highest since 1992. So, depending on the terms of their lease, the Twins may be able to afford a much higher payroll than previously, so long as attendance is good. It certainly looks like the Twins decided last offseason that it was important to field a good team their first year in the new park, and they spent accordingly. Whether they can do it year after year, I don't know.

In any event, I just think the Twins are savvy enough to get some value in exchange for a player who is pretty good and is likely to be worth more than his salary.

We shall see...I really don't disagree with you but the NT talk, along with Plouffe and the salary already tied up makes me think that they will non tender him.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/10/twins-pick-up-kubels-option-decline-puntos.html

Twins decided to pick up Kubel's option. So, that's another 5 million they are on the hook for in 2011.