Offseason discussion/rumors

[CSF77]

Just fyi, if Otani is posted prior to july 1 2018 the cubs can only pay him $300k as this past july was the start of the 2 year penalty on IFA's.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/inte...tional-rules-change-game/#elHBOBgtMs1piY8X.97

Trading Pool Space

Teams are also allowed to trade pool money. They can acquire up to 75 percent of their original pool and they can trade away as much of their pool as they want. So a team with a $4.75 million pool can trade for up to $8.3 million while a team with $5.75 million can trade for up to just over $10 million. The stipulation is that they have to wait until the signing period opens on July 2 to trade pool space from that period.


$4.75 Million
Atlanta Braves*
Boston Red Sox
Chicago Cubs*
Chicago White Sox
Detroit Tigers
Houston Astros*
Los Angeles Angels
Los Angeles Dodgers*
New York Mets
New York Yankees
Philadelphia Phillies
San Francisco Giants*
Seattle Mariners
Texas Rangers
Toronto Blue Jays
Washington Nationals*

Because the Cubs exceeded their 2015-16 International Signing Bonus Pool (ISBP) by more than 15%, they are restricted to signing IFA who are subject to ISBP restrictions to bonuses of $300,000 or less in both the 2016-17 and 2017-18 International Signing Periods.

So that means this offseason and next they are limited to a 300k bonus. So that means if they post him after the 2017 post season they are restricted.

Now I'm wondering if there is any rule stating that they can just give him a starting contract after he accepts?

 

[chibears55]

The new collective bargaining agreement will significantly damage Japanese superstar Shohei Otani’s earning power if the 22-year-old immigrates to the majors before he turns 25, but that might not prevent him from coming to the big leagues prior to 2019. Hideki Kuriyama, Otani’s manager with the Nippon-Ham Fighters, said Thursday that he expects the right-handed ace/left-handed hitter to head to the majors next offseason (Twitter link via Jim Allen of Kyodo News). Otani will have to take a minor league deal if he signs with a major league team before he turns 25. That means he’d need to accrue six years of service time before becoming a major league free agent and having a real chance to cash in via the open market. As of last weekend, the Fighters were planning on posting Otani a year from now.

My point...
Pages about a guy who might post next year and Cubs won't even be able to get him anyway ,because of their 2 yr penalty..




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[beckdawg]

Now I'm wondering if there is any rule stating that they can just give him a starting contract after he accepts?

Technically they probably could sign him then just buy out all his remaining years. For example, you could in theory sign him to a $300k deal then announce like a 10 year extension for $197 million or whatever to get to 10 years $200 mil. But I suspect the MLB would be very shitty about that. They heavily penalized the red sox for skirting the rules.

Given the number of teams still on penalty, I think he might wait a year. You're talking about Arizona, Baltimore, Cleveland, Colorado, Pitt, Miami, Milwaukee, Minny, Tampa, Boston, White Sox, Detroit, Angels, Mets, Yankees, Phillies, M's, Rangers and blue jays as the teams not on penalty. Doing so would open SF, dodgers and cubs back up. Basically, for a guy like him it's going to be who he wants to play for long term. Assuming he doesn't just wait til he turns 25, I would expect what actually would happen is he'll sign with a team for whatever their max pool is, play 3 years for them and assuming everything goes as planned he'll agree to a pre-determined extension for loads of money. While that's basically what i outlined above, I think you're going to have to wait a few years of the MLB will be shitty about doing it.

 

[CSF77]

Technically they probably could sign him then just buy out all his remaining years. For example, you could in theory sign him to a $300k deal then announce like a 10 year extension for $197 million or whatever to get to 10 years $200 mil. But I suspect the MLB would be very shitty about that. They heavily penalized the red sox for skirting the rules.

Given the number of teams still on penalty, I think he might wait a year. You're talking about Arizona, Baltimore, Cleveland, Colorado, Pitt, Miami, Milwaukee, Minny, Tampa, Boston, White Sox, Detroit, Angels, Mets, Yankees, Phillies, M's, Rangers and blue jays as the teams not on penalty. Doing so would open SF, dodgers and cubs back up. Basically, for a guy like him it's going to be who he wants to play for long term. Assuming he doesn't just wait til he turns 25, I would expect what actually would happen is he'll sign with a team for whatever their max pool is, play 3 years for them and assuming everything goes as planned he'll agree to a pre-determined extension for loads of money. While that's basically what i outlined above, I think you're going to have to wait a few years of the MLB will be shitty about doing it.

The could also sign him to a 6 year starter deal with Arb opt outs like Soler got but higher ended. Something like 5 mil year 1-3 then scaling up to 20 mil year 6. But if he hits super 2 he can opt out of the deal and go to arb.

 

[CSF77]

My point...
Pages about a guy who might post next year and Cubs won't even be able to get him anyway ,because of their 2 yr penalty..




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Don't think that is a major issue. He wants to compete on the highest stage. If he stayed in Japan he would get rings there. But it wouldn't be against the highest level of competition. So in view of this I believe he wants to be on a champion with a future that he can win rings with. The Cubs core is young so he would have years of opportunities to go to the play offs.

Teams like the Dodgers have so much dead weight in contract. Yanks are getting younger but they are a team has underachieved their budget.

There are not too many teams that have a market like the Cubs with a young core. We saw how the Cubs in game 7 beat Sunday night football in TV ratings. That just doesn't happen.

 

[beckdawg]

The could also sign him to a 6 year starter deal with Arb opt outs like Soler got but higher ended. Something like 5 mil year 1-3 then scaling up to 20 mil year 6. But if he hits super 2 he can opt out of the deal and go to arb.

Don't think they can anymore. Soler was signed prior to the IFA limits. The rules changed the following year to the penalty ways. I'm fairly certain that type of contract can't exist anymore for IFAs

 

[chibears55]

Don't think that is a major issue. He wants to compete on the highest stage. If he stayed in Japan he would get rings there. But it wouldn't be against the highest level of competition. So in view of this I believe he wants to be on a champion with a future that he can win rings with. The Cubs core is young so he would have years of opportunities to go to the play offs.

Teams like the Dodgers have so much dead weight in contract. Yanks are getting younger but they are a team has underachieved their budget.

There are not too many teams that have a market like the Cubs with a young core. We saw how the Cubs in game 7 beat Sunday night football in TV ratings. That just doesn't happen.

That all sounds nice but he going to sign with the team that offers the most money and such team most likely will be a good team..

BTW yes the Cubs have a nice core of young position players but until they can establish a good young pitching core, I'll hold off on predicting they'll be in contention year after year for years.

2017 rotation
Lester year older
Arrieta unknown good first half struggled 2nd half
Hendrick had career year, unknown what he'll do
Lackey old and pretty close to done
Montgomery is unknown

2018..
Only guy under contract is Lester ..
Plus Hendricks reruns

So, until they can get something established with the rotation.
Too early to say they'll have years of being in contention


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[CSF77]

That all sounds nice but he going to sign with the team that offers the most money and such team most likely will be a good team..

BTW yes the Cubs have a nice core of young position players but until they can establish a good young pitching core, I'll hold off on predicting they'll be in contention year after year for years.

2017 rotation
Lester year older
Arrieta unknown good first half struggled 2nd half
Hendrick had career year, unknown what he'll do
Lackey old and pretty close to done
Montgomery is unknown

2018..
Only guy under contract is Lester ..
Plus Hendricks reruns

So, until they can get something established with the rotation.
Too early to say they'll have years of being in contention


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It would be Lester, Hendricks and Montgomery. They would have to add a back of the rotation arm then.

Line up is still one of the best.

 

[CSF77]

Don't think they can anymore. Soler was signed prior to the IFA limits. The rules changed the following year to the penalty ways. I'm fairly certain that type of contract can't exist anymore for IFAs

It would be kinda like they did with Rizzo. Signed him to a deal after he was in control.

The Soler comment was more to do with the cash amount and arb opt outs.

Think Fielder signed a deal like this with the Brewers. Pujos also with the cards. No one could fine the Cubs for locking up their own player.

 

[beckdawg]

It would be kinda like they did with Rizzo. Signed him to a deal after he was in control.

Well that's literally the example I gave earlier. All I'm saying is I'm like 90% sure you can no longer give IFA's under 25 a major league contract. And if you're unfamiliar, the difference between a major league contract and a minor league contract is that in the case of Soler(major league contract) you guarantee them x amount of money over y amount of years. Minor league contracts are the literally what draft picks automatically get. The money for IFA's and draft picks are purely signing bonuses but because of the the last 2 CBA's they've changed the rules on both IFA's and draft picks such that there is a cap to how much you can pay people.

So as mentioned, I think in theory you could give Otani a $300k(or up to I believe ~$10 mil max for teams not on penalty) signing bonus. And in theory you could day 2 after he is signed offer him a 10 year $197 mil extension or whatever. I think technically that would be legal under the current CBA. However, that quite clearly is skirting the rules that the CBA put in place. And as I mentioned, the Red Sox just got hit really hard because they did another technically legal way of skirting the rules for IFA penalty. In their case, they signed 5-6 guys at $300k which was the max they could spend. However, one of the guys was probably worth over $1 mil buy himself and the other guys largely were pretty shit players. Now it's not known for sure that they were essentially funneling money to the one player that way but that's likely what happened or even possibly more sleazy the trainer sold their good player cheap where they might not get as high a % on the return and instead got several lessor guys where he got a higher % of the money signed and he came away with more money.

Regardless, if any team were to pull that sort of move I almost guarantee that MLB could come down hard on them because while Otani is clearly a special case, once that is allowed, every team is going to start doing that to circumvent the rules.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

So after digging in to the new CBA some of which is discussed here http://www.bleachernation.com/2016/...s-a-large-market-club-will-be-very-difficult/ , it seems to me that despite all the rhetoric against so-called "tanking" that this new agreement virtually assures that there will be more of it, especially from larger market teams. By taking away 1st round compensation from the QO system, completely shutting down the international market and further restricting spending over the luxury tax they have given teams exactly one way to build a winner...lose first. The other option would be to trade your talent before it reaches FA but since this system is going to have teams putting even more of a premium on prospects there may not be much of a market for that. A trade like the Sale trade would be less likely to happen because there will be no more Yoan Moncada types to trade for. There will still be prospects of course but there will be less of them, or at least less at that stage of development at younger ages. In its endless search for parity MLB has ensured that at least a 1/3 of clubs will be losing on purpose in any given year. Im actually not opposed to that approach but MLB has said that it is and then they come up with something that, in theory, will make it worse.

 

[chibears55]

It would be Lester, Hendricks and Montgomery. They would have to add a back of the rotation arm then.

Line up is still one of the best.

Montgomery still a question..

I wouldn't be surprise if he ends up in pen most of year

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[beckdawg]

So after digging in to the new CBA some of which is discussed here http://www.bleachernation.com/2016/...s-a-large-market-club-will-be-very-difficult/ , it seems to me that despite all the rhetoric against so-called "tanking" that this new agreement virtually assures that there will be more of it, especially from larger market teams. By taking away 1st round compensation from the QO system, completely shutting down the international market and further restricting spending over the luxury tax they have given teams exactly one way to build a winner...lose first. The other option would be to trade your talent before it reaches FA but since this system is going to have teams putting even more of a premium on prospects there may not be much of a market for that. A trade like the Sale trade would be less likely to happen because there will be no more Yoan Moncada types to trade for. There will still be prospects of course but there will be less of them, or at least less at that stage of development at younger ages. In its endless search for parity MLB has ensured that at least a 1/3 of clubs will be losing on purpose in any given year. Im actually not opposed to that approach but MLB has said that it is and then they come up with something that, in theory, will make it worse.

My problem with it is that it rewards the small market teams so hard. I get that you want an even playing field but I think they've gone too far. To start with, there are the competitive balance picks which only small market teams are eligible for. You then add in the inability to spend both in the draft and internationally for big teams. And then on top of matters they have to give revenue sharing to those smaller teams. And the cherry on top is those small market teams will pay less in FA for QO players as well as having larger hard caps on international FAs not to mention the fact that the new luxury tax may as well be death to teams.

The problem as I see it was that prior to the more recent changes, big market teams could pay FA's, they could buy all the IFA's, and they could over spend in the draft never having to be bad. They hit all 3 of those areas. There's legitimately a problem when Cincy has almost $14 mil they can spend in the draft and the cubs can only spend $2.25 mil on top of he fact that one team is picking second in each round where as the other is picking 30th. IFA isn't as polar but the limits are honestly stupidly low. The reality is by putting such hard limits in those two areas they have essentially made FA worse for small market teams because it's the only area that large market competitive teams can actually compete to improve their team.

I think one other potential thing we are going to start seeing is big market teams buying out bad contracts to get prospects. We saw this a little in trades already but if you can get a decent prospect to eat someone's bad contract and just release the guy you don't have to deal with any of the crap in the draft and IFA.

 

[beckdawg]

On the flip side, a small market team will never even consider making a run at guys like Kershaw, Trout, Harper, Chapman, Jansen, while the usual prospects will (Yankees, Dodgers, Angels, Cubs, Giants, Nationals). If you don't want the small market team to have some advantages, how would a team like the Royals ever win?

KC had an opening day payroll of $131,487,125. The cubs opening day payroll was $171,611,834. That gap isn't that big when you consider how much money KC also gets in revenue sharing. The problem is teams like Tampa who opened with a $66,681,991 payroll. But that's not a big market/small market problem. That's a team being in a shit city. Likewise, Oakland just lost their small market status despite having ~$87 mil in payroll last year. They were across the bay from SF who opened with $172 mil. In their case, no one wants to go to their stadium.

I'm not saying small market teams should play on a 100% level playing field. In my mind, you should just increase revenue sharing such that they are on roughly equal footing. My problem is the way they have set up the system, the teams aren't even playing the same game from a roster construction stand point. Smaller market teams are going to find it much easier to build with young cost effective players than say the Angels who may be rebuilding shortly because those small market teams get more money to spend on IFA's and get more draft picks which means more draft pool to allot over their picks.

 

[anotheridiot]

KC had an opening day payroll of $131,487,125. The cubs opening day payroll was $171,611,834. That gap isn't that big when you consider how much money KC also gets in revenue sharing. The problem is teams like Tampa who opened with a $66,681,991 payroll. But that's not a big market/small market problem. That's a team being in a shit city. Likewise, Oakland just lost their small market status despite having ~$87 mil in payroll last year. They were across the bay from SF who opened with $172 mil. In their case, no one wants to go to their stadium.

I'm not saying small market teams should play on a 100% level playing field. In my mind, you should just increase revenue sharing such that they are on roughly equal footing. My problem is the way they have set up the system, the teams aren't even playing the same game from a roster construction stand point. Smaller market teams are going to find it much easier to build with young cost effective players than say the Angels who may be rebuilding shortly because those small market teams get more money to spend on IFA's and get more draft picks which means more draft pool to allot over their picks.

They try to do this in most pro sports, there are teams that fight to keep the cap floor low. The revenue sharing is simply done to allow teams to get high dollar free agents, but the teams that get the sharing also choose not to spend the money. The teams that do not use the money for big free agents should not get the money. There is also the case where star players dont want to play in the small markets. Remember LeBrons original endorsement deal? He would have made three times the revenue with endorsements if he signed in LA, Chicago or New York.

But you also look at the cubs. That payroll is ungodly for a team with so much controlled home grown talent. We can argue for years that Heyward was not necessary last year, if they could have developed pitching Lester, Hammel, Lackey and needing that offensive catcher in Montero instead of running with Castillo for these years you dropped the payroll down to 100k and the team would have still been strong. The extra 70 million got the championship a year or two faster, but you can argue that payroll was not all that necessary. Even if we just stuck with our position players and paid the pitchers the team would have still made the playoffs.
Most of the small market teams want to be the ones that knock off the overpaying teams.

 

[brett05]

So after digging in to the new CBA some of which is discussed here http://www.bleachernation.com/2016/...s-a-large-market-club-will-be-very-difficult/ , it seems to me that despite all the rhetoric against so-called "tanking" that this new agreement virtually assures that there will be more of it, especially from larger market teams. By taking away 1st round compensation from the QO system, completely shutting down the international market and further restricting spending over the luxury tax they have given teams exactly one way to build a winner...lose first. The other option would be to trade your talent before it reaches FA but since this system is going to have teams putting even more of a premium on prospects there may not be much of a market for that. A trade like the Sale trade would be less likely to happen because there will be no more Yoan Moncada types to trade for. There will still be prospects of course but there will be less of them, or at least less at that stage of development at younger ages. In its endless search for parity MLB has ensured that at least a 1/3 of clubs will be losing on purpose in any given year. Im actually not opposed to that approach but MLB has said that it is and then they come up with something that, in theory, will make it worse.

I agree with you outside of the last part. Anything that rewards tanking is bad for any sport and really robs it of what a sport is supposed to be.

 

[beckdawg]

They try to do this in most pro sports, there are teams that fight to keep the cap floor low. The revenue sharing is simply done to allow teams to get high dollar free agents, but the teams that get the sharing also choose not to spend the money. The teams that do not use the money for big free agents should not get the money. There is also the case where star players dont want to play in the small markets. Remember LeBrons original endorsement deal? He would have made three times the revenue with endorsements if he signed in LA, Chicago or New York.

But you also look at the cubs. That payroll is ungodly for a team with so much controlled home grown talent. We can argue for years that Heyward was not necessary last year, if they could have developed pitching Lester, Hammel, Lackey and needing that offensive catcher in Montero instead of running with Castillo for these years you dropped the payroll down to 100k and the team would have still been strong. The extra 70 million got the championship a year or two faster, but you can argue that payroll was not all that necessary. Even if we just stuck with our position players and paid the pitchers the team would have still made the playoffs.
Most of the small market teams want to be the ones that knock off the overpaying teams.

I mean if the problem is stars don't want to play in podunk towns then why are there franchises there? That's obviously a cut throat way of looking at the game but I don't particularly feel sorry for a Rays franchise that struggles to bring in money. The MLB screwed up putting 2 teams in florida to being with when they weren't teams with a fan base already.

Either way, I don't really see the argument that giving extra developmental tools(more picks/IFA money) makes those small market teams more likely to win a championship. I think in reality what happens is it makes them far better at being a feeding system. The problem those teams always encounter is that when they get a decent core together they can't keep it together. The fix for that isn't more young players. It's giving them the money to re-sign their guys before they hit FA. KC is a perfect example of this right now. They had a WS team and couldn't bring back Zobrist. Then Davis became to expensive for them and chances are we see them dealing several more players in short order. Now there's always the possibility that a team just tanks and doesn't use the money to improve. But that's an entirely different issue frankly. Perhaps you just put caveats on it that they only get it if <x> amount is spent on FA's or re-signing young players.

I guess my thing is limiting the ways a team can improve quickly is always going to be a bad thing. By putting caps on IFA's and handling the draft the way they have they are handcuffing teams and as TC mentions it basically encourages middling teams to go full on bad in a race to the bottom.

 

[CSF77]

KC had an opening day payroll of $131,487,125. The cubs opening day payroll was $171,611,834. That gap isn't that big when you consider how much money KC also gets in revenue sharing. The problem is teams like Tampa who opened with a $66,681,991 payroll. But that's not a big market/small market problem. That's a team being in a shit city. Likewise, Oakland just lost their small market status despite having ~$87 mil in payroll last year. They were across the bay from SF who opened with $172 mil. In their case, no one wants to go to their stadium.

I'm not saying small market teams should play on a 100% level playing field. In my mind, you should just increase revenue sharing such that they are on roughly equal footing. My problem is the way they have set up the system, the teams aren't even playing the same game from a roster construction stand point. Smaller market teams are going to find it much easier to build with young cost effective players than say the Angels who may be rebuilding shortly because those small market teams get more money to spend on IFA's and get more draft picks which means more draft pool to allot over their picks.

Oakland needs to move to San Jose. Bigger city.

Fla doesn't support their baseball teams. They need to move that team. Maybe Indiana.

 

[DanTown]

So after digging in to the new CBA some of which is discussed here http://www.bleachernation.com/2016/...s-a-large-market-club-will-be-very-difficult/ , it seems to me that despite all the rhetoric against so-called "tanking" that this new agreement virtually assures that there will be more of it, especially from larger market teams. By taking away 1st round compensation from the QO system, completely shutting down the international market and further restricting spending over the luxury tax they have given teams exactly one way to build a winner...lose first. The other option would be to trade your talent before it reaches FA but since this system is going to have teams putting even more of a premium on prospects there may not be much of a market for that. A trade like the Sale trade would be less likely to happen because there will be no more Yoan Moncada types to trade for. There will still be prospects of course but there will be less of them, or at least less at that stage of development at younger ages. In its endless search for parity MLB has ensured that at least a 1/3 of clubs will be losing on purpose in any given year. Im actually not opposed to that approach but MLB has said that it is and then they come up with something that, in theory, will make it worse.

I feel that the players feel that the owners will be forced to spend on MLB talent if they're heavily restricted from spending outside of the MLB payroll. Now, the draft and international markets will essentially be leveled and the teams who succeed at actual scouting, not the teams who have the pockets to just throw money at IFA, will be rewarded.

I mean I get the idea, but the CBA is once again another time owners essentially limit where other owners can spend money.

With regards to tanking, there will always be tanking because of how much value prospects can have and how you can accumulate low cost talent so quickly if you tank at the right time (i.e what the Sox did by selling off two assets now instead of waiting).

 

[DanTown]

Oakland needs to move to San Jose. Bigger city.

Fla doesn't support their baseball teams. They need to move that team. Maybe Indiana.

Yeah, the Warriors really struggle in the NBA because they're in Oakland. Considering the massive amount of wealth and growth in Silicon Valley, it's amazing to try and argue that Oakland doesn't have money to support two baseball teams.