2016 Hot Stove Thread

[Kin]

Figured it'd be good to have a thread about player moves rather than a new thread for each one.

Anyways, Jeff Smardzija to the Giants for 5 years/90 million. A pitcher who's exceeded a 2.0 WAR once in his career.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/14294901/jeff-samardzija-agrees-5-year-90-million-deal-san-francisco-giants

 

[L K]

I don't know, maybe going back to the NL he looks a little better?  Nope, I can't convince myself  Giving him term OR dollars seems like a bad move.  Giving him both seems absurd.

He's coming off a year with a 4.96 ERA and looked awful down the stretch of the year. 

 

[Captain Canuck]

Ryan Madson leaving K.C. to sign with Oakland...3 years, $22 million

 

[Captain Canuck]

Dodgers finally making some noise: signed RH starter Hisashi Iwakuma, re-signed Chase Utley and traded for LH closer Aroldis Chapman

After losing Ryan Madson the Royals have signed Joakim Soria and re-signed Chris Young

Detroit along with the Mark Lowe signing, brought in RHP Mike Pelfrey and C Jared Saltalamacchia

 

[Kin]

Diamondbacks add big to their rotation again, getting Shelby Miller from the Braves.

Cubs sign Zobrist, trade Castro to the Yankees.

 

[Kin]

Couple of ex-Blue Jays on the move. Adam Lind, after a pretty solid season in Milwaukee, gets dealt to the Mariners and Brett Lawrie gets traded for the third time, this time to the White Sox.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

@Ken_Rosenthal

Sources: #Orioles have increased offer to Davis, possibly as high as 7/168. Team hopeful, even somewhat optimistic, that it can strike deal.

That's...a lot.

 

[bustaheims]

@Ken_Rosenthal

Sources: #Orioles have increased offer to Davis, possibly as high as 7/168. Team hopeful, even somewhat optimistic, that it can strike deal.

That's...a lot.

Rumour is he's asking for 8/$200M.

 

[Kin]

@Ken_Rosenthal

Sources: #Orioles have increased offer to Davis, possibly as high as 7/168. Team hopeful, even somewhat optimistic, that it can strike deal.

That's...a lot.

And don't think that's lost on someone like EE.

 

[Kin]

Another big name off the table. Looks like Jason Heyward for 8 years/185 million to the Cubs.

 

[L K]

I do understand that the Jays are going to have a budget but Shapiro sure knows how to get the fanbase engaged and excited:

?I think a lot of that is going to be dependent on how we do this year and how we perform as a business unit as well,? Shapiro told MLB.com on the subject of the payroll. ?It is a business. Like any business, we?ve got to increase revenue and grow revenue to increase expenses, and the expenses are player payroll when it comes to a major-league team. If we have a great year this year, that?s certainly going to afford us the ability to grow player payroll and player expenses.?

 

[Kin]

I do understand that the Jays are going to have a budget but Shapiro sure knows how to get the fanbase engaged and excited:

There's really no way he can win though if he's specifically asked about Team payroll in an offseason where it's pretty clear he's been instructed to either cut or maintain the current payroll. He could lie and say an upper limit doesn't exist, he could spin and say that the team doesn't need any more payroll or he could be bad at his job and deflect blame upstairs. Say what you want about this response, it's honest.

That's the thing that's struck me as unfair about the criticism of Shapiro. It's typically taken the guise of casting him as someone who isn't as ambitious as AA or who wouldn't enjoy going out and spending like a crazy person when, in reality, it's almost certainly the opposite. Rogers was probably looking for someone who could win with a lower payroll and that's why he got hired in the first place.

 

[L K]

I do understand that the Jays are going to have a budget but Shapiro sure knows how to get the fanbase engaged and excited:

There's really no way he can win though if he's specifically asked about Team payroll in an offseason where it's pretty clear he's been instructed to either cut or maintain the current payroll. He could lie and say an upper limit doesn't exist, he could spin and say that the team doesn't need any more payroll or he could be bad at his job and deflect blame upstairs. Say what you want about this response, it's honest.

That's the thing that's struck me as unfair about the criticism of Shapiro. It's typically taken the guise of casting him as someone who isn't as ambitious as AA or who wouldn't enjoy going out and spending like a crazy person when, in reality, it's almost certainly the opposite. Rogers was probably looking for someone who could win with a lower payroll and that's why he got hired in the first place.

That's fair, although as a fan my interest in the Rogers pocket books is negligible.  I understand that teams are going to have budgets but I'm not going to be happy about a team that does things like underselling their broadcast rights to themselves and then claims a lack of revenue to spend on the team.  I'm also not impressed that we are hearing more of the "if the fans come then we will spend more, when the fans showed up down the stretch, bumped revenue by quite a bit and conveniently it's all going to go into the dollar loss. 

Organizations like Rogers should be accounting for this stuff.  Economists have been calling for the dollar to drop to 70 cents for years.  Rogers shoud have been investing their previous money in US funds.

 

[Kin]

That's fair, although as a fan my interest in the Rogers pocket books is negligible.  I understand that teams are going to have budgets but I'm not going to be happy about a team that does things like underselling their broadcast rights to themselves and then claims a lack of revenue to spend on the team.  I'm also not impressed that we are hearing more of the "if the fans come then we will spend more, when the fans showed up down the stretch, bumped revenue by quite a bit and conveniently it's all going to go into the dollar loss. 

I think one of the big misconceptions about what I've been saying about this issue is that I'm saying people should have personal interest in Rogers' bottom line. I'm not and I have all manner of personal and political issues with the Cable/Telecom industry in this country so people can "hate" Rogers all they want in my book.

What I've tried to argue is, I think, a few key points

1. Whether we like it or not, what Rogers spends on the team is tied to their revenues from the team.

2. It's not overly reasonable to get upset over #1 because it's true of basically every professional sports team in the world.

3. Rogers is, I think we can mostly agree, good at making money and probably know their business better than we do and if increasing the payroll significantly would end up being profitable, they'd probably do it.

4. In any case, none of this is Shapiro's fault. The Jays were going in this direction anyway.

As to the specifics of Rogers' decision this off-season I have something of a theory. I think we can all agree that whatever we might think about the team's profitability this year, we can all probably agree that the team didn't do terrifically well last year or the year before despite payrolls of 136m and 124m. By how much we don't know.

So let me just throw this idea out there, what if the increased revenues of this season basically told Rogers that even in a season like last year where virtually everything goes right, a 120-130 million dollar payroll is sort of the range they need to keep things in for it to still be profitable. After all, it's not super realistic to think that whatever revenue growth they had this year is going to be exponential(there are only so many seats in the stadium/TV sets in the country).

At that point, I guess each fan has to ask themselves if that 120-130 million dollar figure which represents a top 10 payroll in baseball is a level where they feel hard done by. Personally, and I can only speak for me I suppose, it's not.

PS Are you sure about the underselling the rights thing? I've looked for documentation about what Rogers pays itself and can't find anything.

 

[Frank E]

Person1:  The team wants to trim payroll to get properly profitable.

Person2:  I don't care about the profitability of the team, as a fan. 

Person1:  I don't care either, but that's what they're saying the mandate is.

Person2:  Well, they make tons of money on other businesses, they shouldn't care about if they make money or not in the baseball business, and they should only care about putting a better team on the field.

Person1:  Again, I'm not suggesting that they should or shouldn't care about making money in the baseball business, I'm just saying that they do indeed seem to care.

Person2:  Why are you a ownership apologist?

Person1:  I'm not.  I'm just stating that they seem to want to trim expenses.  I'm not happy about it, but I get it.

Person2:  I get it too, and I don't like it either.  You should be angrier though. 

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

This doesn't really belong here or anywhere else that I can find, nor does it warrant its own thread, but here's Stroman, Donaldson and Tulowitzki having a good time in Las Vegas:
https://www.instagram.com/p/_M3yq6lPBV/

 

[Kin]

Looks like the last of the big name starters is off the table. Cueto to the Giants on a 6 year deal is being reported.

 

[L K]

I'm not impressed by Shapiro coming out and stating that grass really isn't a priority for the Dome.  It's pretty clear that Rogers has gone into full on don't care mode.  Shapiro being left out to be the fall guy for a pretty pathetic ownership.

 

[Kin]

I'm not impressed by Shapiro coming out and stating that grass really isn't a priority for the Dome.  It's pretty clear that Rogers has gone into full on don't care mode.  Shapiro being left out to be the fall guy for a pretty pathetic ownership.

Would you be happier if Shapiro did what Beeston did and talk about how great it would be and then never actually do it? This news bugs me too but let's be real, if it were ever a top priority for the Team it would have been friggin' done by now.

 

[L K]

I'm not impressed by Shapiro coming out and stating that grass really isn't a priority for the Dome.  It's pretty clear that Rogers has gone into full on don't care mode.  Shapiro being left out to be the fall guy for a pretty pathetic ownership.

Would you be happier if Shapiro did what Beeston did and talk about how great it would be and then never actually do it? This news bugs me too but let's be real, if it were ever a top priority for the Team it would have been friggin' done by now.

Oh, I'm not annoyed at Shapiro on this.  I feel bad for the guy at this point.  Rogers is going full bore on letting Shapiro be the fall guy for their terrible team building strategies.  It's just the story itself.  The last ditch argument they had was that the Argos would tear up grass and they didn't want to have to replace the field constantly.  That excuse was gone...so the fact that Rogers showed that they don't give a rats ass is just frustrating.  I do get that Rogers likes to tell those little white lies and just delay the news until it's forgotten.  This one really bugs me though.