MLB Offseason Thread

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by troutman

Only once - don't they play each other every week?

They know the Red Sox will be absolute garbage this year.

Who knows, they may even throw in a Blue Jays game in the fall. Dan Shulman would be ecstatic!

[Sylvanfan]

Interleague baseball in April? I don't like that. I think there is too much interleague play now. 12 games a year played in June I can live with, but they play a lot it seems now.

On another note, Matheny better hope he can hold down his position with the Cardinals for another 10 years.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb...5307--mlb.html

Circuit Court Judge Tom DePriest ruled that neither the country’s economic downturn nor the decision by The Business Bank of St. Louis to stop loaning money to Matheny and his wife relieved them of their obligations to repay the loans.
Court records say Matheny’s partnership still owes at least $4.4 million.
The group had initially sought to develop a stretch near Boone’s Crossing, across Highway 40 from the bustling Chesterfield Commons strip mall.
After the market crashed in 2008, Matheny said Friday, he worked full time for a year to try to develop or sell the lots, with no luck.
“We kept telling ourselves, ‘We’ve got a couple years. A lot can happen in a couple years,’ ” Matheny said Friday from his office at Busch Stadium. “And it was just amazing how quickly those years went.”

Matheny likely isn't on the hook for all of it, but certainly will likely end up paying back the bulk of that. I don't know what his salary is, but I would guess between 1 to 1.5 million. So after taxes he's looking at 5 years to get himself back to even up.

edit looks like it's around 2 million a year, still even at that, he'll be using this contact he has which is this coming season plus a 2014 option to pay back his debt.

[GirlySports]

I find it funny that in baseball people complain about inter-league play and this season in hockey people are whining that there are no inter-conference games.

I don't mind either way. I think it's cool the Cubs come to the SkyDome once every 6 years rather than another 3 game series against the White Sox.

[Drake]

Get her done Frank Wren, get the better of the two Upton brothers, and this would give you likely the best OF in the MLB.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/88...ording-sources

[Muffins]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Interleague baseball in April? I don't like that. I think there is too much interleague play now. 12 games a year played in June I can live with, but they play a lot it seems now.

They kinda have to now with 15 teams in each league.

[Drake]

The Braves have reached a preliminary agreement to acquire Justin Upton from the D-backs in exchange for four players, including Martin Prado.

According to a Major League source, the Braves will get Upton and Chris Johnson in exchange for Prado, shortstop prospect Nick Ahmed and right-handed pitchers Randall Delgado and Zeke Spruill. This deal is pending the completion of physicals.

http://markbowman.mlblogs.com/2013/0...another-upton/

[Ezio]

Originally Posted by Drake

http://markbowman.mlblogs.com/2013/0...another-upton/

This was going to inevitably happen.

Upton-Upton-Heyward. lol.

[fundmark19]

It is a good day to be a Braves fan! I am glad they are not in Al East sad that Rays didn't get the good Upton

[Sylvanfan]

King Felix on the verge of a 7 year 175 million dollar contract extension. Essentially the final two years from his current deal get replaced with the first two of this contact, so it's 5 more years and 135.5 million new dollars. Thats serious money, have to wonder what a guy like Price will command when his time comes.

[bluejays]

That's an unbelieveable amount for the guy. After A-Rod signed his contract years back, I thought that would be a once in a lifetime deal. Now every top tier player gets something similar.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by fleury

That's an unbelieveable amount for the guy. After A-Rod signed his contract years back, I thought that would be a once in a lifetime deal. Now every top tier player gets something similar.

Well we do have to remember that Arod signed more than 10 years ago. For arguements sake, let's say revenue has grown at an average of 5% for 10 years. That equates to a 60% growth in the total number from 10 years ago to today. So his 25 million average salary than would be like 40 million now. That year the Rangers signed Chan Ho Park for something like 60 million over 5 years...this Hernandez extension would be like 87 million over that same term.

Still that's a lot of money for a pitcher, it's only a matter of time until we have a 30 million dollar pitcher. Which is about 1.5 million per win, or something like 5 million per WAR for an ace pitcher.

[Clever_Iggy]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Well we do have to remember that Arod signed more than 10 years ago.

He signed his current deal in 2007 ($275M/10 years). His $225M/10 years was signed in 2000.

[evman150]

Very long, but very enjoyable article about former phenom Mark Prior.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...77950&c_id=mlb

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Clever_Iggy

He signed his current deal in 2007 ($275M/10 years). His $225M/10 years was signed in 2000.

Actually it was a 10 year deal for 252 signed before the 2001 season. So really it was signed in 2000, but didn't take effect till 2001. He was also a 25 year old player so the 10 year term was to buy up all productive seasons where he was playing gold glove short stop.

The last extension was for a 32 year old corner infielder to take effect in 2008. Annual salary maybe didn't inflate, but the peak production years were done at that time, the fact that he got 7 additional seasons for a higher annual salary was the big deal here.

For comparison sake Hernandez is supposedly going to be 27 in April, so this extension buys up the years from 29 to 34, and increases his pay at 27-28. So if Hernandez really is the age he claims this should buy up all productive seasons. Still only a matter of time until it's a million a start for an elite level pitcher.

[fundmark19]

I love that we have to question players ages in baseball

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by evman150

Very long, but very enjoyable article about former phenom Mark Prior.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...77950&c_id=mlb

He was never the same after Bartman.

[nik-]

Hard to believe Prior is still only 32. If he could get it together he'd still have several years as a pitcher left in him.

[moon]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

He was never the same after Bartman.

Never the same after Baker ruined his arm.

Terrible manager.

[Drake]

Early yesterday, I started hearing rumblings that Felix Hernandez had failed a physical that he’d taken up in Seattle ahead of agreeing to a five-year contract extension that would pay him an additional $135.5 million starting in 2015. I placed a flurry of phone calls, including one to his agent, Wil Polidor, asking whether this was true. Polidor did not return the call, nor did he reply to text messages.

That alone was disconcerting, because if it wasn’t true that Hernandez had failed a physical — and I was led to believe last week that he’d already taken one — then most people would want to quickly nip that rumor in the bud and put it out. All it takes is a “No way, not true!” and you’re done. Now, Polidor is a busy man. But he’s known to get back in touch with people.

But then came this afternon, with ESPN’s Buster Olney putting out a tweet saying that “concern about Felix Hernandez’s elbow” might have impacted his talks about an extension. Well, that’s a bit too much smoke added to the growing pile, so I phoned up Jack Zduriencik about 15 minutes ago and asked him point-blank whether Hernandez had failed a physical.

“I’m just not going to comment on that while negotiations are ongoing,” Zduriencik said. “That’s our policy. We don’t comment on any of that stuff.”
Fair enough, although again, that does nothing to put out the fire here. So, I asked Zduriencik whether Hernandez will be down in Peoria this week and whether he has been medically cleared to pitch.

“Oh yeah, he’ll be there,” Zduriencik said.

Zduriencik would not comment any further, other than to note that Tuesday is when all pitchers and catchers report to Peoria for their physicals before taking the field on Wednesday for a workout. He repeated that Hernandez would be among those players, but then would not go into any further details about the state of the pitcher’s health.

All we know is, the contract has not been announced, there have been rumblings since yesterday about Hernandez having some type of physical issue. We know that the pitcher’s agent told a reporter Hernandez will not be participating in the World Baseball Classic as previously planned. And we have this afternoon’s report by Buster Olney mentioning an issue with Hernandez’s elbow. Then, we have Zduriencik declining to comment when asked point-blank whether Hernandez failed a physical or not.

That’s all we know right now. Like I said, we’re trying to do the responsible thing here by going to the principals and avoiding any inflamatory conclusions. But something has clearly hit a snag here and for the past 24 hours, we’ve heard whispers that it was a medical issue.


So, we’ll see what happens from here. All I know is, Hernandez and the Mariners can shut everybody up by having him arrive here on Tuesday, pass any physical he needs to — if, in fact, he does need to — and then take the field on Wednesday and participate fully in all workouts. They could also calm people down if they announce the actual extension that reporters across America were told was effectively a done deal late last week.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/marine...-medical-snag/

[Drake]

Cleveland signs Micheal Bourn for 4 years $48M. Rumors going around they are going after Kyle Lohse too.