This week in baseball blogs…
- The Point of Pittsburgh wonders whether the slow offseason is good business or corporate greed.
- Mets Daddy finds it “troubling” that Yasmani Grandal had to settle for a one-year deal.
- Reviewing The Brew believes acquiring Madison Bumgarner would be a mistake for the Brewers.
- Call to the Pen (links: 1, 2, 3) argues the Brewers make sense for Bumgarner, sees free agent Clay Buchholz as a potential bargain, and explores the options on the table for the Phillies.
- The Runner Sports (links: 1, 2) reacts to the Yankees’ signing of DJ LeMahieu and profiles Astros prospect Jairo Solis.
- Mets Critic responds to the club’s Jed Lowrie signing.
- Adkins On Sports explains why Reds fans should be excited about Luis Castillo.
- Halos Heaven examines the history of the Angels’ bullpen under general manager Billy Eppler.
- East Village Times focuses on Eric Hosmer’s 2018 struggles.
- Know Hitter asks if the Reds’ offseason moves will pay off.
- PhilliesNation looks at how Anthony Rendon extension talks with the Nationals could affect the Phillies in a variety of ways.
- Chin Music Baseball (links: 1, 2) identifies six hitters and pitchers with plenty to prove in 2019.
- Prospect Universe names one present or future trade candidate for each NL team.
- Tomahawk Take lists the five best relief options left for the Braves.
- The First Out At Third expects Travis Shaw to vie for an All-Star nod in 2019.
- Everything Bluebirds hopes the Blue Jays target Nationals outfielder Adam Eaton.
- Chipalatta takes a look at the years Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve had in 2018.
- The 3rd Man In profiles and interviews 2019 draft prospect Daniel Espino.
- Notes from the Sally previews the 2019 Delmarva Shorebirds, the Orioles’ South Atlantic League team.
- WanderRays analyzes new Rays hurler Oliver Drake.
- Bronx to Bushville argues the Phillies should avoid spending “stupid money.”
- Rotisserie Duck evaluates which pitchers had the best stuff in 2018.
- Rising Apple focuses on the Mets’ “new approach.”
- CheckSwings (links: 1, 2) conducts a mock expansion draft.
- Rox Pile takes a look at how re-signing Nolan Arenado would affect the Rockies’ payroll.
- Bronx Bomber Ball has a piece on the Yankees’ 2019 bounce-back candidates.
- MLB & Fantasy Baseball Analyzed proposes some bad contract swap trades.
- Foul Territory writes that “ownership is content to let the game degenerate into a boring home run, strikeout contest.”
- Around the Bases with Julian Bussells (podcast) talks about the likelihood of a future strike and chats with Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
- The Fro Zone hands out grades for some recent free-agent signings.
- Pinstriped Prospects ranks the Yankees’ top five starting pitching prospects.
Submissions: ZachBBWI @gmail.com
Who cares if the off season is slow. What’s the difference if there is a ton of activity then nothing for 6 weeks or nothing then a ton of activity. At least this way there’s anticipation of something.
i agree but personally i believe last offseason was the real yawner. this offseason hasnt beem slow. Alot of trades vs signings happened on the early go. trades are still off season activity . people declare slow because the big boys have not signed yet.
There is a wrong link to the Solis article. It directs to an article on Xander Bogarts
I feel like that Castillo article was basically pointing to Castillo having 2 pitches, and is only 26.
That doesn’t mean he’ll be better, it probably means he’s a reliever if he doesn’t have another pitch or is inconsistent like Wacha another change up pitcher missing a 3rd good pitch.
Tony Clark is going to use this “slow to sign FA” rhetoric to accuse owners of collusion. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a work stoppage before the next CBA is ratified.
We’re not talking Coal Miners, Auto Workers or Police Officers. This will be over not grabbing ankles & pillow biting to demands for $300M/10 year contracts (with the obligatory 4 year player opt-out clause)
It’s not quite collusion – it’s that the owners are making money hand-over-fist even without winning, so why spend money on better players? Owners are businessmen, and if they can make more money by putting cheaper players on the field they’ll do it. Winning doesn’t correlate to profits like it once did. The MLBPA will need to come up with some creative solutions to fix this, but they need tougher leadership – the Marvin Miller model.
Absolutely right, David. As long as winning and profit margins share a tenuous correlative relationship at best in this market, these issues will continue. Like you said, these guys are businessmen out make money. If winning isn’t the easiest route to profit, they’ll pick whatever is easier.
I didn’t mean to imply that I think it’s collusion
I think you’re somewhat in the area of correct, but certainly not as an absolute. First of all, it’s not collusion at all. Too many teams have been burned by handing out big contracts They are learning their lesson.
Secondly, yes teams can make money without winning, but there is a correlation between winning and drawing at the gate. Look at the Pirates. When they were a playoff team they drew much better than now. They drew over a million less in attendance in 2018 than they did the last time they were in the PS. The Giants attendance has dropped. Not by much, but it’s definitely trending down. Almost every team in the playoffs last year drew well at the gate. Some teams, like the Florida teams won’t draw no matter what, but that’s due to regional disinterest in the sport, and they are outliers.
And thirdly, there are much better ways to make money than owning a sports team, so I don’t believe that is why owners acquired their teams. If it was just about money why go through all the hassle, when they could make more money much easier?
I agree the system has it’s flaws and needs to be tweaked. I hope it will be. But blaming the problems on greedy owners is too simplistic an explanation for the problems.
Gate revenue is a tiny revenue stream for team now though – most team revenues come from MLBAM, TV Revenue, The fantec settlement money and the gambling money that’s about to pour in. Gate receipts are a very small portion of the revenue stream.
When gate receipts were more important, winning was also more important, because winning draws more customers to the games. But not much of the revenue generated from a game even leaves the stadium, and the other revenue streams dwarf the money made at the gate.
I agree. But what cable company is going to up their bid for rights, when people aren’t watching, because the team is losing? How many fans are going to buy merchandise when their teams has no stars, and no PS appearances? What’s true about the gate applies to all the other revenue streams as well.
Not every team is making money.
The slow offseason is due to the agents if anything especially Scott Boras. They are the ones world touring and waiting out Machado & Harper.
The off-season is slow because players/agents are delusional. They think that a 10-year $300M contract has been established in the marketplace because such has been previously awarded to star players. The reality is that all such deals have bee proven to be poor investments. MLB teams have learned these are poor decisions and will no longer support them. Common sense. If prior deals of this sort had worked out it would be different. Sorry, players, you had your chance and you failed. Move on.
Worthless
The bad contract swap had a few decent possibilities, but to me, a perfect idea is the Indians sending Kipnis to the Rockies for Bryan Shaw. The total money is almost identical except for the fact that Shaw has two years left and Kipnis only has one, but it makes a ton of sense for each side, although it made a little more sense before the Rockies got Daniel Murphy to keep the seat warm for their infield prospects instead.
I thought the idea was to have Murphy play 1st and go with the kids at 2b.
I always read the Frozone article just to humor myself with the guys biased trash writing. I was not disappointed this week. It makes me appreciative of what we have here in mlbtraderumors
You’re a better man than I (assuming you are a man). I tried reading the Fro Zone, but just couldn’t take the ineptitude. But maybe I should try again, and go in with the attitude that what I read is intended as comedy.
Considering some agents…ahem…Boras…purposely delay signing their clients, I cant agree with the idea this is corporate greed. Agents trying to work and set the market for a few players greatly effects all of the other players. It’s bad practice all around.
Trying to blame someone for the “slow” offseason is kind of pointless. Teams want to pay players less than they’re worth, players want teams to pay them more than they’re worth. The top teams drive prices past what most teams can reasonably pay. The mid range free agents try to use their elite counterparts as a bar and ruin their own market. A miserable pay scale for pre FA and especially pre arb players (which neither the league nor the union give any F’s about) means there’s tons of talent available for nowhere near FA prices and with today’s analytics teams are better than ever and finding it. And with today’s analytics it’s never been more obvious how indisputably horrible so many FA deals of the past have been.
The balance just changed slightly but abruptly a couple years ago, tipped towards the teams for the first time since 1994, and it exposed how broken the MLB financial system is up and down.
Of course EVT forgot to mention Hosmer hit .179 against lefties.
Grandal turned down a 4 year, $60M offer after a lot of other teams with needs at catcher had already addressed their issues. That’s why he took a 1 year contract.
Grandal and his agent were unable to convince teams of his value with pitch framing. Grandal is not the premier catcher being chased (J.T. Realmuto).
If teams were convinced of Grandal’s premier value, they would have offered him a bit more, but lets be real, by the major stat sites, he’s a 3WAR player. It was always going to take some work to get a team on board with seeing him as an All Star level player worthy of more than 4 years and $60M.
In the NBA, NFL and NHL, the players get between 47-50% of the revenue. In MLB, the players get 39%.
Why?
No salary cap mean no salary floor. And without a salary floor, there are more than enough comparable players that teams don’t feel the need to overspend. The two most anticipated free agents in MLB history have a combined 7 suitors.
Meanwhile, in the NBA the salary floor is so high teams have to overpay mediocre players just to reach it. And NHL players have a higher minimum salary than MLB players in a league with less than half the revenues.
So, the notion that a cap and floor system is bad for players is based in belief more than facts.