THE ATHLETIC: Buxton, Twins Cannot Come to Terms on an Extension

[diehardtwinsfan]

Buxton is hard to quantify. I don't think the Twins offer was exceptionally low for the simple reason that he's been unable to stay on the field. He's at a point in his career that the label of "brittle" certainly applies. I would be pretty queasy personally guaranteeing that kind of cash as is and think an incentive laden approach is the right answer. 

[Major League Ready]

3 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Don't forget, he's getting, what, $5-7MM next year, given how few games he played? Going to $15MM per year next year is a big jump for him in guarantees......Making the next 6 years look even better. If he'd sign for $15MM guaranteed for 7 years, I agree with Brock and Chief....make the incentives almost anything resembling realistic, plus insane ones. Because $15MM 7 years from now is going to look like peanuts for an average player....

Not so sure it looks that much different.  Is revenue going to continue to go up?  The momentum in popularity and revenue seems to have leveled off.  I would guess revenue growth slows considerably.  Then throw in the possibility of a work stoppage and that could turn even more people away.  It would be interesting to have all of the local TV data.  Is that slowing as well and along with it TV revenues?  The Twins contract is among the lowest in MLB and it's up in 2023.  I was hoping for a big bump but I am not so sure that happens.  Hopefully, MLB finds a distribution strategy that makes it easier for all fans to get the broadcast.  That could help TV revenues.

[Mike Sixel]

Just now, Major League Ready said:

Not so sure it looks that much different.  Is revenue going to continue to go up?  The momentum in popularity and revenue seems to have leveled off.  I would guess revenue growth slows considerably.  Then throw in the possibility of a work stoppage and that could turn even more people away.  It would be interesting to have all of the local TV data.  Is that slowing as well and along with it TV revenues?  The Twins contract is among the lowest in MLB and it's up in 2023.  I was hoping for a big bump but I am not so sure that happens.  Hopefully, MLB finds a distribution strategy that makes it easier for all fans to get the broadcast.  That could help TV revenues.

We've been predicting changes in revenue for years, yet it keeps going up. And teams keep selling for record numbers, so owners must think it won't be going down soon. I do agree with your other points.

[Major League Ready]

5 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

We've been predicting changes in revenue for years, yet it keeps going up. And teams keep selling for record numbers, so owners must think it won't be going down soon. I do agree with your other points.

All of the BETA tests in Milb are a testament to the league's awareness of the problem.  I suspect they also have examined a number of distribution options.   Not knowing their plans, my confidence might be lower than warranted.  It will be very interesting to see attendance numbers post attendance restrictions.

I also wonder if the next CBA distributes the available dollars a little differently.  I could see minimum salaries going to something like 750K / $850K / $1M over the first three year.  Arbitration could start year 3 and the amounts could creep up.  These factors would collectively redistribute dollars across to pre-arb and arbitration players. 

[Mike Sixel]

1 minute ago, Major League Ready said:

All of the BETA tests in Milb are a testament to the league's awareness of the problem.  I suspect they also have examined a number of distribution options.   Not knowing their plans, my confidence might be lower than warranted.  It will be very interesting to see attendance numbers post attendance restrictions.

I also wonder if the next CBA distributes the available dollars a little differently.  I could see minimum salaries going to something like 750K / $850K / $1M over the first three year.  Arbitration could start year 3 and the amounts could creep up.  These factors would collectively redistribute dollars across to pre-arb and arbitration players. 

I'm hoping that happens....and I agree, the next CBA could make some owners question signing guys to big deals this off season. Though some teams will forge ahead, and a FA only needs 1 to pay/play.

I think the minor league stuff is not something you and I will agree on, so I'll leave it at that.

[HrbieFan]

On 7/25/2021 at 10:41 PM, howeda7 said:

Sano makes $9.25 million next year. 

You are correct, in 2023 he will make $14m 

[Major League Ready]

49 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

I'm hoping that happens....and I agree, the next CBA could make some owners question signing guys to big deals this off season. Though some teams will forge ahead, and a FA only needs 1 to pay/play.

I think the minor league stuff is not something you and I will agree on, so I'll leave it at that.

The BETA tests I was referring to are rule changes and I don't have any strong opinions there.  For example, I am really on the fence on shift restrictions.  I thought players who learn to hit the other way and bunt should be rewarded but it does not seem like players / teams are going to adapt.  Therefore, maybe we should change thge rules, IDK.  In terms of compensation, I think Milb players should make double what they make now.  Why do you think we would disagree?

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, HrbieFan said:

You are correct, in 2023 he will make $14m 

He is going to get bought out for 2.75M in 2023 unless 2022 is quite a bit better than 2021.  I would love for him to rebound enough in 2022 that they want to pay him $14M in 2023.  Who knows.  He was great in 2019.  Wouldn't it be nice to have that guy back because this guy is kind of hard to watch.

[KirbyDome89]

4 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

When you say Buxton is worth $20M a year, you have to take in to account how many games he plays.  If he only plays 80 games, then that means over 160 games he's worth $40M--he has to be Mike Trout offensively to be worth that.  If he plays 150 games for that $20M, then no, he doesn't need to be Mike Trout offensively to be worth that.  But what evidence is there that suggests you can count on Buxton to play 130-150 games a year well into his 30's, when he hasn't been able to get anywhere near that in his 20's?  As such, if you agree to guarantee Buxton $20M a year, you're either banking on a dramatic improvement in his health, or for him to play like one of the 5-10 best players in baseball when he's available.  Either seems fairly fraught with risk.

The foot/second data comes from baseball savant.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/byron-buxton-621439?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

You tossed out the $20M number, my point was that he doesn't need to hit like Mike Trout to be worth that amount. If the cost of a win on the FA market is roughly $9M then we can look at his WAR and do the math. Again, you can't just completely ignore his defense. I don't understand why you're trying to measure his value to the Twins using a stat that only encompasses offensive performance.

[KirbyDome89]

5 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Why would they disclose their counter?  It lets every team, should he go to free agency, know exactly what to offer and makes it much harder to start a bidding war, which is the Holy Grail for every free agent.  If the Twins offer is laughably low, they would absolutely disclose it, if for no other reason than to get a sense of if it truly is as laughably low as they suspect it to be.

You keep talking about Donaldson as being injury prone, while ignoring the reality that he has been, on average, even in his most injured seasons, LESS injured than Buxton has.  If Buxton has a worse injury record at 27 than Donaldson had at 33, what do you think Buxton's injury situation will look like in years 5-7 of a deal, when he will be 32-34 (with an extension) or 33-35?  Since signing with the Twins, Donaldson has missed 52 games, which is 32%.  That's not great or anything, but in that same timeframe, Buxton has missed 95 games, which is 59%.  Stop pretending that Donaldson is not a significantly lower injury risk at this point than Buxton, just because he is still a risk.  That's why Donaldson could get (essentially) 4/$92 before 2020--he had already accumulated over 40 WAR in his career (top 40 ALL TIME amongst 3B).  Currently, Buxton is 21st amongst CF in WAR just since 2015.

Is Buxton's ceiling higher than Donaldson's?  Yes, and it's not even close.  The potential maximum Buxton is a 10-12 WAR player who wins MVP, and is the best player in the game.  Is Buxton's floor lower than Donaldson's?  Yes--it is not impossible that Buxton struggles to accumulate 400 PA's for the rest of his career, and puts up 2-3 WAR while doing so.

I'm not interested in going from 90 losses to 85.  I'm interested in going from 90 losses to 90 wins, and then beyond.  Unless the Twins have a plan to surround Buxton with enough talent to get us above that 90 win threshold, paying him is a waste, and they should not forgo the opportunity to add multiple high-level prospects to the system that could potentially match his ceiling, but would likely exceed his floor.

Yeesh, the point was that Buxton opting not to leak details about the Twins offer is as meaningless as his silence on his own counter offer. 

Ok so.....I'm NOT comparing Buxton's injury history to Donaldson's. Donaldson was NOT signed because of the WAR he accumulated during his MVP stretch in the mid 2010s. I AM saying that his recent recurring injuries on top of his age made handing him $92M risky. I AM saying that despite Buxton's serious injury concerns, his relative youth and incredible upside make signing him a risk worth taking. I AM saying there is a comparison to be made between the risks associated with each signing. 

C'mon, he'd have to completely wash out of baseball in the next couple years for that scenario to play out. I'll take the over on your PA number. 

Teams get better by making steps, not massive leaps. Refusing to pay talented players is a good way to ensure you never make it to that 90+ win threshold. 

[Major League Ready]

26 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Yeesh, the point was that Buxton opting not to leak details about the Twins offer is as meaningless as his silence on his own counter offer. 

Ok so.....I'm NOT comparing Buxton's injury history to Donaldson's. Donaldson was NOT signed because of the WAR he accumulated during his MVP stretch in the mid 2010s. I AM saying that his recent recurring injuries on top of his age made handing him $92M risky. I AM saying that despite Buxton's serious injury concerns, his relative youth and incredible upside make signing him a risk worth taking. I AM saying there is a comparison to be made between the risks associated with each signing. 

C'mon, he'd have to completely wash out of baseball in the next couple years for that scenario to play out. I'll take the over on your PA number. 

Teams get better by making steps, not massive leaps. Refusing to pay talented players is a good way to ensure you never make it to that 90+ win threshold. 

I was with you up to the point where you made a sweeping statement about spending as if it were fact.  Houston let Cole go?  How are they doing?  Cleveland's largest contract ever is $60M and they have had many 90 win seasons.  The Ray's have had exactly one big contract, Longoria 100M and an AAV of 16.6M.  The Royals largest contract was $72M and the Pirate's was $60M.  One of the best decision the Cardinal's ever made was letting Pujlos go and one of the worst was signing 

Small/mid market teams making bad decisions is a way to be bad for a very long time.  It also does not do any good even for big market teams with a core of affordable talent.  Philly signed both Harper / Wheeler and Realmuto.  They have not been good for a while.  How about  the Angels.  They drafted the best player in the game and signed expensive free agents and have done very little for the last several years.  Pujlos contract, even with their revenue, hurt them badly.

[Cap'n Piranha]

20 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

You tossed out the $20M number, my point was that he doesn't need to hit like Mike Trout to be worth that amount. If the cost of a win on the FA market is roughly $9M then we can look at his WAR and do the math. Again, you can't just completely ignore his defense. I don't understand why you're trying to measure his value to the Twins using a stat that only encompasses offensive performance.

Are you saying you don't think Buxton is worth $20M a year?  If not, why are you quibbling with the $20M number?  Seems argumentative for argumentativeness' sake.  I'm not using the cast of WAR on the FA market because Buxton isn't on the FA market for one, and WAR on the FA market is vastly overpriced.  If a team full of replacement players is worth 48 wins, then to get to 95 wins (which should be the goal), a team needs 47 WAR.  For a team like the Twins, whose payroll is going to be in the $130M to $140M range, that means the Twins need to keep their dollars/WAR at about $3M.  If they pay Buxton $20M, and get 4 WAR, that means they need to get 3 WAR from a rookie-contract guy to offset that.  Doesn't seem too difficult, other than over the past 5 seasons, it's only happened 3 times (2019 Garver, 2018 Rosario, 2017 Buxton--Arraez may have done it this year, if not for the injury).  That leads to the other issue--what if the Twins pay Buxton $20M, and get 1.5 WAR?

I'm also not ignoring his defense, and for the record, neither does WAR.  Buxton gets 1.25 WAR tacked onto his total for every 162 games he plays in center field.  If he has to move to a corner as he ages and his defensive prowess declines, as both Kirby and Torii had to, he immediately loses 2 WAR for every 162 games played (corners are valued at -0.75 WAR/162, compared to CF's at 1.25/162).  

[Cap'n Piranha]

20 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Yeesh, the point was that Buxton opting not to leak details about the Twins offer is as meaningless as his silence on his own counter offer. 

Ok so.....I'm NOT comparing Buxton's injury history to Donaldson's. Donaldson was NOT signed because of the WAR he accumulated during his MVP stretch in the mid 2010s. I AM saying that his recent recurring injuries on top of his age made handing him $92M risky. I AM saying that despite Buxton's serious injury concerns, his relative youth and incredible upside make signing him a risk worth taking. I AM saying there is a comparison to be made between the risks associated with each signing. 

C'mon, he'd have to completely wash out of baseball in the next couple years for that scenario to play out. I'll take the over on your PA number. 

Teams get better by making steps, not massive leaps. Refusing to pay talented players is a good way to ensure you never make it to that 90+ win threshold. 

But they're not meaningless--I don't know how else to explain this to you.  When you're negotiating with someone, and a third party asked what they offered, you're far more likely to reveal that than you are to reveal what you yourself offered, especially if that third party will then immediately inform other people you may want to do business with.  People protect their information much more assiduously than they protect other people's information.  This isn't ground-breaking stuff.

Before signing with the Twins, Donaldson had put up 11.3 WAR in his previous 3 seasons.  That is the same as in Buxton's entire CAREER.  Donaldson had averaged 458 PA's, despite that sample size including his two most-injured seasons.  Buxton's only hit that many PA's in the majors in a season once.  If Donaldson's recent recurring injuries made his contract a risk, than Buxton's recent injury history makes him a potential disaster.  The Twins bet on Donaldson staying generally healthy, like he did in 2019, and while they haven't gotten that, they haven't been super far off either--Donaldson already has basically as many PA's this year as Buxton has had every year of his career, save 2017.  Sure Buxton is younger--but that's a bad thing.  He's already more injury prone than Donaldson, despite being at the point in his career when he is less likely to get injured.

To date, the Twins have paid Donaldson $21M, and gotten 2.5 WAR--market rates for FA.  If the Twins end up paying Buxton $100M on the low end, and $150M on the high end over the next 7 years, they'd need to get 12 to 18 WAR from Buxton for it to equalize.  That's 100% possible, especially if Buxton stays healthy and plays like he has this year.  But the enormous risk you seem to dismiss outright is that Buxton could very quickly decline; he might not hit like this again--Joe Mauer never had another 2009 after he signed his contract.  He might get moved out of center 2-3 years into the deal--like Joe Mauer.  And he might miss 40-60 games a year with injuries.  Should the Twins be so quick to sign a guy to a big deal when a very realistic possibility is that he becomes a corner outfielder with an above average bat, who also gets hurt a lot?

I said struggle to reach 400 PA's a year--over 7 years that's 2800 PA's.  From 2013 to 2019, only 136 players were able to hit that threshold, out of 423 players who had the minimum number of PA's to qualify for the batting title.  I would happily take the under on a number of Buxton PA's in the next 7 years if the over/under is set at 2800.

Teams get better by taking multiple steps.  That's why I said the Twins need to be able to surround Buxton with talent if they're going to sign him.  I'm not confident we can do that with what we have in the system right now, and the money we will be able to spend, at least not in the next 2-3 years.  At that point, Buxton will be past 30, and likely in his decline phase, which for an individual of Buxton's profile (speedy, athletic, injury-prone), will probably happen in a hurry.

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

I was with you up to the point where you made a sweeping statement about spending as if it were fact.  Houston let Cole go?  How are they doing?  Cleveland's largest contract ever is $60M and they have had many 90 win seasons.  The Ray's have had exactly one big contract, Longoria 100M and an AAV of 16.6M.  The Royals largest contract was $72M and the Pirate's was $60M.  One of the best decision the Cardinal's ever made was letting Pujlos go and one of the worst was signing 

Small/mid market teams making bad decisions is a way to be bad for a very long time.  It also does not do any good even for big market teams with a core of affordable talent.  Philly signed both Harper / Wheeler and Realmuto.  They have not been good for a while.  How about  the Angels.  They drafted the best player in the game and signed expensive free agents and have done very little for the last several years.  Pujlos contract, even with their revenue, hurt them badly.

If you read the post to which I was responding then you understand that what I pushed back against was the notion that signing talented players is a waste if the team doesn't project to be good. If you aren't willing to commit financial resources to getting better, I don't know how you expect to suddenly go from 90+ losses to 90+ wins. If the argument is you focus on the acquisition and development of young players until you're at 80ish wins before making commitments, you're destined to be the Pirates of the 2000s, i.e. a feeder organization. Development isn't linear, or even necessarily reliable. Choosing to handicap your franchise makes absolutely no sense.

Would the Phillies be better without Wheeler or Harper? How about the Angels, would they be a better team if Trout wasn't extended? This is silly. There's nothing to suggest the Twins are capable of developing arms the way a team like TB or Cleveland has. "Be the [insert team here]," has been beaten to death in other threads, go back and revive them if that's the argument you want to make. 

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Are you saying you don't think Buxton is worth $20M a year?  If not, why are you quibbling with the $20M number?  Seems argumentative for argumentativeness' sake.  I'm not using the cast of WAR on the FA market because Buxton isn't on the FA market for one, and WAR on the FA market is vastly overpriced.  If a team full of replacement players is worth 48 wins, then to get to 95 wins (which should be the goal), a team needs 47 WAR.  For a team like the Twins, whose payroll is going to be in the $130M to $140M range, that means the Twins need to keep their dollars/WAR at about $3M.  If they pay Buxton $20M, and get 4 WAR, that means they need to get 3 WAR from a rookie-contract guy to offset that.  Doesn't seem too difficult, other than over the past 5 seasons, it's only happened 3 times (2019 Garver, 2018 Rosario, 2017 Buxton--Arraez may have done it this year, if not for the injury).  That leads to the other issue--what if the Twins pay Buxton $20M, and get 1.5 WAR?

I'm also not ignoring his defense, and for the record, neither does WAR.  Buxton gets 1.25 WAR tacked onto his total for every 162 games he plays in center field.  If he has to move to a corner as he ages and his defensive prowess declines, as both Kirby and Torii had to, he immediately loses 2 WAR for every 162 games played (corners are valued at -0.75 WAR/162, compared to CF's at 1.25/162).  

I'd be surprised if that's his base on a long term deal. Is he worth it? According to the value he brings to his team, he's been worth it the last three seasons prorating 2020. I'm not going to argue that WAR isn't overvalued on the open market, but that's FA. Buxton is set to become a FA after next year, and I'd be shocked if he wasn't negotiating from that point. 

Torii didn't move to RF full time until he was 35 years old. Buxton is 27. It's certainly possible Buxton remains in CF, even for the life of a 7 year deal if that's what he ultimately signs. 

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

But they're not meaningless--I don't know how else to explain this to you.  When you're negotiating with someone, and a third party asked what they offered, you're far more likely to reveal that than you are to reveal what you yourself offered, especially if that third party will then immediately inform other people you may want to do business with.  People protect their information much more assiduously than they protect other people's information.  This isn't ground-breaking stuff.

Before signing with the Twins, Donaldson had put up 11.3 WAR in his previous 3 seasons.  That is the same as in Buxton's entire CAREER.  Donaldson had averaged 458 PA's, despite that sample size including his two most-injured seasons.  Buxton's only hit that many PA's in the majors in a season once.  If Donaldson's recent recurring injuries made his contract a risk, than Buxton's recent injury history makes him a potential disaster.  The Twins bet on Donaldson staying generally healthy, like he did in 2019, and while they haven't gotten that, they haven't been super far off either--Donaldson already has basically as many PA's this year as Buxton has had every year of his career, save 2017.  Sure Buxton is younger--but that's a bad thing.  He's already more injury prone than Donaldson, despite being at the point in his career when he is less likely to get injured.

To date, the Twins have paid Donaldson $21M, and gotten 2.5 WAR--market rates for FA.  If the Twins end up paying Buxton $100M on the low end, and $150M on the high end over the next 7 years, they'd need to get 12 to 18 WAR from Buxton for it to equalize.  That's 100% possible, especially if Buxton stays healthy and plays like he has this year.  But the enormous risk you seem to dismiss outright is that Buxton could very quickly decline; he might not hit like this again--Joe Mauer never had another 2009 after he signed his contract.  He might get moved out of center 2-3 years into the deal--like Joe Mauer.  And he might miss 40-60 games a year with injuries.  Should the Twins be so quick to sign a guy to a big deal when a very realistic possibility is that he becomes a corner outfielder with an above average bat, who also gets hurt a lot?

I said struggle to reach 400 PA's a year--over 7 years that's 2800 PA's.  From 2013 to 2019, only 136 players were able to hit that threshold, out of 423 players who had the minimum number of PA's to qualify for the batting title.  I would happily take the under on a number of Buxton PA's in the next 7 years if the over/under is set at 2800.

Teams get better by taking multiple steps.  That's why I said the Twins need to be able to surround Buxton with talent if they're going to sign him.  I'm not confident we can do that with what we have in the system right now, and the money we will be able to spend, at least not in the next 2-3 years.  At that point, Buxton will be past 30, and likely in his decline phase, which for an individual of Buxton's profile (speedy, athletic, injury-prone), will probably happen in a hurry.

Recurring calf injuries as a result of baseball movements just aren't the same as breaking your hand on a HBP or fracturing your toe on a foul ball. I think we view Donaldson's injury history with the Twins differently if last season had been a normal one. He was set for a second extended absence due to another calf injury, it just so happened that it occurred a game or two before postseason play started. Buxton's youth isn't a negative. All things equal, any MLB team would rather sign a 27 year old. If you're signing Buxton, you're paying for what you think he'll become. When MN signed Donaldson it was with the hope he'd maintain a level somewhere near what he'd recently been. 

I don't think I've ever once dismissed the risk; I feel that up to a point he's worth it, especially to this team. Do you expect Buxton to play C, take a foul ball off the head, and suffer concussion issues for the rest of his career? I mean, I don't know what you expect me to do with that comp. There isn't a Buxton replacement on the horizon. The Twins are going to have to pay an average FA CF between 10-14M for at least the next two years, probably 3. MN isn't saving significant money to allocate elsewhere by letting Buxton go. 

"Yes--it is not impossible that Buxton struggles to accumulate 400 PA's for the rest of his career, and puts up 2-3 WAR while doing so." -- That's the quote I responded to. 

I agree, they do, but those steps don't often occur all at once. Money not spent in down years isn't bankrolled and available at a later date. 

[RpR]

On 7/26/2021 at 4:35 PM, KirbyDome89 said:

I've seen it, and you won't get any argument from me that it's anything but brutal. 

I agree, I just don't see him falling off a cliff during his age 27-30 or 31 seasons. 

He could be a Ricky Henderson type, who had 66 stolen bases at age 39 and while not being a bomba home run hitter still had 14 home runs the same year, plus even at age 42 he had 25 stolen bases and 42 rbi.

[USAFChief]

2 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

If you read the post to which I was responding then you understand that what I pushed back against was the notion that signing talented players is a waste if the team doesn't project to be good. If you aren't willing to commit financial resources to getting better, I don't know how you expect to suddenly go from 90+ losses to 90+ wins. If the argument is you focus on the acquisition and development of young players until you're at 80ish wins before making commitments, you're destined to be the Pirates of the 2000s, i.e. a feeder organization. Development isn't linear, or even necessarily reliable. Choosing to handicap your franchise makes absolutely no sense.

Would the Phillies be better without Wheeler or Harper? How about the Angels, would they be a better team if Trout wasn't extended? This is silly. There's nothing to suggest the Twins are capable of developing arms the way a team like TB or Cleveland has. "Be the [insert team here]," has been beaten to death in other threads, go back and revive them if that's the argument you want to make. 

Great post 

 

[nicksaviking]

On 7/27/2021 at 7:31 PM, Major League Ready said:

I was with you up to the point where you made a sweeping statement about spending as if it were fact.  Houston let Cole go?  How are they doing?  Cleveland's largest contract ever is $60M and they have had many 90 win seasons.  The Ray's have had exactly one big contract, Longoria 100M and an AAV of 16.6M.  The Royals largest contract was $72M and the Pirate's was $60M.  One of the best decision the Cardinal's ever made was letting Pujlos go and one of the worst was signing 

Small/mid market teams making bad decisions is a way to be bad for a very long time.  It also does not do any good even for big market teams with a core of affordable talent.  Philly signed both Harper / Wheeler and Realmuto.  They have not been good for a while.  How about  the Angels.  They drafted the best player in the game and signed expensive free agents and have done very little for the last several years.  Pujlos contract, even with their revenue, hurt them badly.

Obviously teams can still win with small payrolls and teams can still lose with big payrolls.

But it's indisputable that having a larger payroll gives you a greater margin for error. And this year, this organization is making errors by the boatload, so.......

[Major League Ready]

26 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Obviously teams can still win with small payrolls and teams can still lose with big payrolls.

But it's indisputable that having a larger payroll gives you a greater margin for error. And this year, this organization is making errors by the boatload, so.......

I would hope this post and my previous posts were not so poorly constructed as to have you would believe I don't understand that a larger payroll is advantageous.  My point was that others quite frequently measure the quality of a transaction by the amount spent and present that premise as if it's an obvious fact.

[nicksaviking]

40 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

I would hope this post and my previous posts were not so poorly constructed as to have you would believe I don't understand that a larger payroll is advantageous.  My point was that others quite frequently measure the quality of a transaction by the amount spent and present that premise as if it's an obvious fact.

Honestly, I think most people measure the quality of a transaction by the final production. 

People are going to speculate about the production prior to seeing the final results, that's human nature. However, it seems to me the people who measure the quality of a transaction by the amount spent, aren't doing so presenting it as fact, but on the odds that it will work out.

I mean, I certainly disagree that using prognostication is an argument so I'd never support someone using it as fact, but if they're suggesting that greater investment is likelier to induce greater results, I'm obviously going to support that.

[HrbieFan]

On 7/27/2021 at 5:54 PM, Major League Ready said:

He is going to get bought out for 2.75M in 2023 unless 2022 is quite a bit better than 2021.  I would love for him to rebound enough in 2022 that they want to pay him $14M in 2023.  Who knows.  He was great in 2019.  Wouldn't it be nice to have that guy back because this guy is kind of hard to watch.

Contract year, so let's hope he shows up next year!