Post by rog on Dec 29, 2017 16:26:51 GMT -5
Hopefully we all get the MLB Network. If so, watch the hour show MLB Now, and I guarantee you'll learn something.
Wednesday they led with the Giants, asking the same question the McCovey Chronicles also asked -- are the Giants worth improving?
Yesterday they spoke to the dangers of signing free agents to big contract.
Very few of the high-priced free agents have signed this off-season. I don't remember a winter this slow, although not so much so for the Giants, who have made two trades and still have a lot to do. Teams may be waiting, hoping that prices will come down.
They also may be realizing that most big deals over $100 million aren't working out as well as teams would like. On MLB they showed 14 such recent deals, and as few as two of them are deals the signing team would repeat now if they could have a do-over.
As Boly and perhaps Randy mentioned, contracts such as Giancarlo Stanton's and to a lesser extent Evan Longoria's can for a long time muck up a team's ability to sign or trade for players. The Giants are perhaps baseball's top example. Their commitments over the next four seasons are already $161, $137, $125 and $92 million. And that doesn't include an extension for Madison Bumgarner, which would almost certainly exceed $20 million per season.
MLB Now's host, Brian Kinney -- Boagie's personal favorite, right up there with Carlos Beltran -- wrote a book a couple of years ago in which he discussed the five factors that could lead to failed long-term contracts:
. Wrong side of 30 (Most free agents are over 30. The ones who come into the league at a young enough age to be eligible for free agency before the age of 30 are often re-signed by their own teams.
. Wrong side of the defensive spectrum. A shortstop can move to many other positions as he slows down. A first baseman rarely affords the same flexibility.
. Misreading of the metrics. As discussed here, that was the case with Pablo Sandoval and might be with Evan Longoria.
. Contract longer than five years. The Giants have gone outside their own organization to do this with a younger Barry Bonds, and with Barry Zito and Johnny Cueto. Bonds of course turned out great. He was on the right side of 30. The Zito contract was a failure, and Cueto's pact is in question.
. Branding over baseball. Some here have mentioned this as a concern in the proposed Giancarlo Stanton trade and in the Evan Longoria deal.
Kinney's conclusion, by the way, was never to do a contract over five years -- never. Even if it's the "final piece." Never. As in infinitely less often than rarely. The risk is too high.
Using that as a guide, by the way, would augur against the Stanton deal -- especially with its opt out clause increasing the risk/reward ratio. Maybe augur against trading for Longoria, although the net cost to the Giants is far below $100 million.
By the way, I don't necessarily watch the entire MLB Now show. Between the two days, I watched less than half an hour out of the two hours, and I was able to learn a fair amount about the Giants and the free agency situation.
It's well worth a watch. Watching the game is the best fun, but studying it is a lot of fun as well. And it gives us a lot more to talk about here.
Wednesday they led with the Giants, asking the same question the McCovey Chronicles also asked -- are the Giants worth improving?
Yesterday they spoke to the dangers of signing free agents to big contract.
Very few of the high-priced free agents have signed this off-season. I don't remember a winter this slow, although not so much so for the Giants, who have made two trades and still have a lot to do. Teams may be waiting, hoping that prices will come down.
They also may be realizing that most big deals over $100 million aren't working out as well as teams would like. On MLB they showed 14 such recent deals, and as few as two of them are deals the signing team would repeat now if they could have a do-over.
As Boly and perhaps Randy mentioned, contracts such as Giancarlo Stanton's and to a lesser extent Evan Longoria's can for a long time muck up a team's ability to sign or trade for players. The Giants are perhaps baseball's top example. Their commitments over the next four seasons are already $161, $137, $125 and $92 million. And that doesn't include an extension for Madison Bumgarner, which would almost certainly exceed $20 million per season.
MLB Now's host, Brian Kinney -- Boagie's personal favorite, right up there with Carlos Beltran -- wrote a book a couple of years ago in which he discussed the five factors that could lead to failed long-term contracts:
. Wrong side of 30 (Most free agents are over 30. The ones who come into the league at a young enough age to be eligible for free agency before the age of 30 are often re-signed by their own teams.
. Wrong side of the defensive spectrum. A shortstop can move to many other positions as he slows down. A first baseman rarely affords the same flexibility.
. Misreading of the metrics. As discussed here, that was the case with Pablo Sandoval and might be with Evan Longoria.
. Contract longer than five years. The Giants have gone outside their own organization to do this with a younger Barry Bonds, and with Barry Zito and Johnny Cueto. Bonds of course turned out great. He was on the right side of 30. The Zito contract was a failure, and Cueto's pact is in question.
. Branding over baseball. Some here have mentioned this as a concern in the proposed Giancarlo Stanton trade and in the Evan Longoria deal.
Kinney's conclusion, by the way, was never to do a contract over five years -- never. Even if it's the "final piece." Never. As in infinitely less often than rarely. The risk is too high.
Using that as a guide, by the way, would augur against the Stanton deal -- especially with its opt out clause increasing the risk/reward ratio. Maybe augur against trading for Longoria, although the net cost to the Giants is far below $100 million.
By the way, I don't necessarily watch the entire MLB Now show. Between the two days, I watched less than half an hour out of the two hours, and I was able to learn a fair amount about the Giants and the free agency situation.
It's well worth a watch. Watching the game is the best fun, but studying it is a lot of fun as well. And it gives us a lot more to talk about here.