If we signed Cole for 9/$300M tomorrow I'd be thrilled. There's obvious injury risk, but you get very few opportunities to acquire legitimate #1 pitchers (not "a #1", but legitimately the most dominant pitcher) in their prime. I think it's worth the risk more than someone like MadBum at 5/$100 is worth that risk. Strasburg is a fascinating study from a sports science perspective and I would be scared of that contract if I were them, but if that's the price tag on him I'm sure a bunch of people far smarter than me think it can work.
outside of maybe Scherzer, have any of these long term, big money deals panned out? 7+ years is way too long at that position. Paying a premium for what tends to be around 2 maybe 3 years of value
Scherzer's been roughly a 6.5 fWAR per season pitcher the last five years. There's no maybe about whether he panned out. That's one of the best FA contracts ever. Greinke was worth that money, just not to the Diamondbacks. Sabathia was worth it in the end, even if he had a 2 year detour with off field stuff and his velo going down. Cole is roughly the same age Verlander was when he signed his 7 year extension in Detroit for what I believe was a record at the time, and he was worth that. Lester's been worth his deal through 5 years. 9 years for a pitcher is a little rich for my taste, and if he gets that I'm not sure what to think of it. Strasburg's deal is scary as hell for me and I don't think I would have done that because of his prior injury history. But I'm pretty much all in on Cole. He's Scherzer of 2014, but I think he's got a much better chance of maintaining his stuff long term than I thought of Scherzer at the time.
If you're interested. Of that list, Sterling Sharp would probably intrigue me most, but that might just be because of his name. I'd prefer we didn't just take a reliever. I can't see us taking someone like Wander Javier, either. Just seems like you're essentially killing that player's career if you take someone that unprepared for the big leagues and taking a year of development away from him.
I'd take Jacob Robson over a lot those guys. Seems like a solid 4th OF type who can play all over in Comerica's enormous OF, takes walks and can steal a base, and is still only 25.
I'm a Robson fan and think he's better than Victor Reyes, for one example, but most organizations have at least 1 or 2 versions of Robson. I could see him getting picked, but not sure a team is going out of its way to make sure he sticks with them all season.
I feel like he'd be an easy choice for a team looking for a 4th or 5th outfielder who may still develop some power down the road and can hold his own defensively and get on base some this year. But you're probably right that most teams already have that in their system. The rest are probably spending Rule 5 picks on higher upside fliers. He's also not having a very good Winter league in the DR.
I think the question with Robson is whether a team thinks he can play CF or RF. If teams think he can play CF well enough, and has enough arm for RF, he's a perfectly fine fourth OF. If you don't think he can play CF and doesn't have the arm for RF (which kind of seem like the consensus among prospect people), he's not terribly valuable as a LF only platoon guy without big power.
Meant maybe on Scherzer as in he's the only one. Looked up Greinke and he produced as well. I guess your definition of worth it is different than mine. Paying $25+ for a guy to have as many under 3 war seasons as over doesn't seem like a good investment to me.
I guess I view it like a given that there are going to be ups and downs over the life of a contract that long. Most guys aren't going to be Scherzer or Adrian Beltre. The reason I'm in favor of giving that kind of money to someone like Cole is that the system is set up in a way that those guys simply can't make what they're worth on the front end. If healthy, Cole is going to be worth somewhere between $50-70M next year, in all likelihood. He's that good. But a team can't pay someone that much, so it becomes a "how do you pay the player for his worth while not exposing your team to too much risk?" It's a tough thing to crack. I guess my point is that Jordan Zimmermann got 5/$110M, and if everything worked out as well as possible he probably would have been worth roughly $110M over the life of that contract. Thus, that's the stupid contract to do because there's no upside there. Same with Moustakas, IMO. Best case scenario, he's worth around $60-70M the next four years, and all you're paying for is downside. Cole could be worth $400M+ over the next 8 years if he stays healthy. You're taking on a massive risk on a deal that long, but the upside is extraordinary. I would give Cole and Rendon pretty much anything they want because I think they're both that good, and I think they both age very well.
Not expecting anything, but whatever. Avila said yesterday they're not trading him for a low A ball guy, which is stupid but par for the course.
This is the shit that we should be all over, yet probably will never even consider. Wilson was the #15 pick in last year's draft, and Cozart has one year left at $13M. Unless the PTBNL is significant for some reason, that's a steal for the Giants.
Tigers won’t get any of these guys. They’re all going to get st least two year contacts. Cheap ass Ilitch ain’t dishing out that cash
Padres must be shitting themselves if a one year/$13 million deal cost that high of a prospect. At that rate it'd take Tatis for someone to take on Myers $60 million
That’s another move Tigers should make, but won’t. They can probably get a top 10 prospect from Padres for taking on that contract.
I get everything you're saying, but given the shit teams end up playing in the OF in terms of CF range and OF arm, I bet Robson could very easily play 25 games in each of RF, LF and CF without getting exposed. That doesn't make him a prospect, but it makes him a 8-10 year MLBer.
He’s spot on in that article though. “Build it back up” is the biggest crock of shit. There are no prospects that are going to be coming up to start the season. Farm system is still middle of the road. The Farm system is only ranked where it is due to Mize and Greene who we drafted because we sucked ass. And he basically got nothing in return for every major asset that he traded (Paredes is only notable guy) On paper the team is going to be just as bad as they were last year.
We've traded everyone we need to trade, apparently, so there's nothing to tear down. All that's left is to suck for a long time.
Suck for Rocker. 2020 season motto. Let’s fucking go boys. MLB probably going to come up with a tanking rule due to us.
In terms of Fenech's crusade against the PR firm thing, I actually don't mind them bringing people in to help Avila because I've never heard a GM sound like that big of a moron in interviews. The man needs all the help he can get. I don't really get why that bothers him so much. Teams are going to put positive spin on what they do no matter where they are in terms of winning.
And if he did that, Fenech would be all over him because the team sucks and Avila would show no accountability by never being available to speak to media. If you're the GM of a major sport team, you have to talk at some point. They've been spinning this thing to ridiculous lengths long before this PR group came aboard. This isn't some new thing.
Traded to the White Sox. Nice job Avila. Can’t trade those prospects because it will hurt our rankings.
I'm not going to be mad at Avila for not offering enough to acquire a player who has been worth 1.7 fWAR in 537 career games
You need to embrace the Vin philosophy: Whatever we do is wrong, and whatever we don't do is wrong too.
I can sign on this but I don’t agree with the Emily Waldon hate. I think he should take her to a nice dinner
At least he's consistent. Although it would be nice to have at least one decent Detroit sports team so we can revive cocky Vin
It sure sounds like they're going back to the well of the Mercer, Ross, Moore, etc., type signings whenever the market slows down enough for Al to catch up. Good thing we've learned from our failures last year.