Quote from: Shaka Shart on January 10, 2025, 02:04:17 PMArbitration offering less is fine. But grinding a young star through it endlessly rightfully puts a bad taste in one's mouth. 500k of goodwill to plan for the future is nothing!

Seriously? Is the thought that they are going to give them a break on a long term deal because they were nice to them during arbitration?

Quote from: The Sultan on January 10, 2025, 02:06:59 PMSeriously? Is the thought that they are going to give them a break on a long term deal because they were nice to them during arbitration?

Mitigating naked cynicism in extension negotiations is good in my opinion, yes. I believe it cascades across the org and league on how people approach you in transactions.

 I understand why you would disagree and honestly might depend on the agent.

There's an ROI trade off with the annual arbitration amounts where you are hedging that your young star is worth significantly more than what your first arbitration amount reaches. The question is, is the compounding savings you get up front going to torch you after round 3 of arbitration and open market salary hits with your player not giving you the benefit of the doubt? Many teams say yes but then that's where the haves and have nots come in with spending.

A significant chunk of teams have no intention of giving market FA value after the last round of arbitration anyway so why not set the market for the rest of your players hitting arb in the future.

Quote from: Shaka Shart on January 10, 2025, 02:04:17 PMArbitration offering less is fine. But grinding a young star through it endlessly rightfully puts a bad taste in one's mouth. 500k of goodwill to plan for the future is nothing!

Goodwill doesn't matter. Tucker will be looking for a $400+ million deal depending on the season he has. The Cubs aren't paying that to anybody. Heck, they've never even paid 1/2 of that to anybody.

Quote from: Shaka Shart on January 10, 2025, 02:13:57 PMMitigating naked cynicism in extension negotiations is good in my opinion, yes. I believe it cascades across the org and league on how people approach you in transactions.

 I understand why you would disagree and honestly might depend on the agent.

There's an ROI trade off with the annual arbitration amounts where you are hedging that your young star is worth significantly more than what your first arbitration amount reaches. The question is, is the compounding savings you get up front going to torch you after round 3 of arbitration and open market salary hits with your player not giving you the benefit of the doubt? Many teams say yes but then that's where the haves and have nots come in with spending.

A significant chunk of teams have no intention of giving market FA value after the last round of arbitration anyway so why not set the market for the rest of your players hitting arb in the future.

The Brewers are never going to be able to pay for players like Willie Adames or William Contreras when they hit free agency. They aren't going to give the Brewers a $250MM discount because the Brewers gave them an extra $500K in arbitration. They've been doing this for years, yet the Brewers are pretty universally praised as an organization.

Anyone know who the loser was who voted against Ichiro to keep him from being unanimous 1st ballot HOF?

Quote from: JWags85 on January 21, 2025, 06:52:25 PMAnyone know who the loser was who voted against Ichiro to keep him from being unanimous 1st ballot HOF?

Same loser that kept Babe Ruth from being unanimous?

Quote from: JWags85 on January 21, 2025, 06:52:25 PMAnyone know who the loser was who voted against Ichiro to keep him from being unanimous 1st ballot HOF?

Ichiro is 588th all time in OBP, not in the top 1000 in SLG, tied for 879th in OPS+, and in the bottom half of HOF outfielders in career WAR.  I don't think it is unreasonable for someone to think he is not a first ballot Hall of Famer.  If I had a vote, I would definitely have voted for him.  I'm just saying he's a weird guy to get upset about not being unanimous.

I'm a Red Sox fan, and Dustin Pedroia has higher numbers in all three categories, and is one of the best defensive second basemen I ever saw, and he's not getting in (and I would not vote for him either). 

I think the whole drama over whether or not he's unanimous (by both the voters and the media) is silly and takes away from the actual accomplishment.

I think it brings adequate attention to a bunch of voters being buffoons though

Quote from: CTWarrior on January 22, 2025, 02:50:40 PMIchiro is 588th all time in OBP, not in the top 1000 in SLG, tied for 879th in OPS+, and in the bottom half of HOF outfielders in career WAR.  I don't think it is unreasonable for someone to think he is not a first ballot Hall of Famer.  If I had a vote, I would definitely have voted for him.  I'm just saying he's a weird guy to get upset about not being unanimous.

I'm a Red Sox fan, and Dustin Pedroia has higher numbers in all three categories, and is one of the best defensive second basemen I ever saw, and he's not getting in (and I would not vote for him either). 

I think Ichiro's career has to be properly viewed through the lens of not playing an MLB season until he was 27 if you're talking about a counting stat like WAR.  Griffey had a WAR of over 40 by the time he was the age of Ichiro's debut.  Another light hitter like Tony Gwynn had 30ish.  Ichiro had a WAR of 25 by age 30...despite debuting at 27.  His longevity is impressive but those first 5 years were insane. The only people who accumulated GGs are the rate he did at an older age were Clemente and Willie Mays.  Pedroia was a really good fielding second baseman, but he was not in the top 5 discussion all time at the position, Ichiro can be.  Ichiro was a very very good hitter.  He was an even better outfielder.

FWIW, I think there are numerous other guys who should have been unanimous.  The fact that Ichiro got so close and lost by a vote just highlighted the buffoonery of the voting process for a lot of writers.  "oh he's a HOF player, no doubt, he just doesn't deserve to get in right away".

Quote from: JWags85 on January 22, 2025, 08:07:30 PMI think Ichiro's career has to be properly viewed through the lens of not playing an MLB season until he was 27 if you're talking about a counting stat like WAR.  Griffey had a WAR of over 40 by the time he was the age of Ichiro's debut.  Another light hitter like Tony Gwynn had 30ish.  Ichiro had a WAR of 25 by age 30...despite debuting at 27.  His longevity is impressive but those first 5 years were insane. The only people who accumulated GGs are the rate he did at an older age were Clemente and Willie Mays.  Pedroia was a really good fielding second baseman, but he was not in the top 5 discussion all time at the position, Ichiro can be.  Ichiro was a very very good hitter.  He was an even better outfielder.

I thought the exact same thing regarding career WAR, but looked at Ichiro's WAR7 (his seven peak years)and it wasn't nearly as impressive as I'd have thought.
His WAR7 was 43.7, which ties him with Scott Rolen and Edgar Martinez and puts him below the likes of Sammy Sosa, Joey Votto, Sal Bando and Alan Trammel.
Among right fielders, he ranks 15th all time in this category. But everyone ahead of him, and six of the 10 behind him, are in the Hall. The ones ahead of him that aren't are Joe Jackson, Aaron Judge and Sammy Sosa.
Anyhow, Ichiro clearly is a Hall of Famer, but perhaps not as dominant as my memory indicates.

And I agree that the whole first ballot thing is silly. A player either is or isn't worthy of Cooperstown. The idea that some writers will vote against a guy one year, but deem him worthy two years later based on no new criteria or information is nonsensical.

Brewers agree to contract with Contreras and avoid arbitration hearing. 

Quote from: HutchwasClutch on February 01, 2025, 07:43:23 AMBrewers agree to contract with Contreras and avoid arbitration hearing. 

No longer a cheap or incompetent organization that players can't wait to leave!

Flaherty returns to the Tigers on a two year deal.  $25 million in 2025, $10 million in 2026, bumping up to $20 million if he makes more than 15 starts in 2025.  Player opt out after 2025.
A healthy Flaherty behind a healthy Skubal is a nice top of the rotation.  Detroit's pitching is loaded, at least on paper.   Of course, I thought that a season ago and injuries matched only by the Lion's defense led to the pitching chaos they turned into a virtue.   
Fingers crossed for health.

Quote from: tower912 on February 03, 2025, 06:40:29 AMFlaherty returns to the Tigers on a two year deal.  $25 million in 2025, $10 million in 2026, bumping up to $20 million if he makes more than 15 starts in 2025.  Player opt out after 2025.
A healthy Flaherty behind a healthy Skubal is a nice top of the rotation.  Detroit's pitching is loaded, at least on paper.   Of course, I thought that a season ago and injuries matched only by the Lion's defense led to the pitching chaos they turned into a virtue.   
Fingers crossed for health.

Detroit trades Flaherty, gets two promising prospects in return (one who played in the post season last year) and then gets Flaherty back. Al Avila is definitely not in charge in Detroit anymore.

It's not hot stove related, but the Brewers are shrinking capacity by 1600 seats to expand Terrace Level offices:

https://x.com/DairylandSent/status/1886604397947277391

Quote from: Billy Hoyle on February 04, 2025, 10:17:15 AMIt's not hot stove related, but the Brewers are shrinking capacity by 1600 seats to expand Terrace Level offices:

https://x.com/DairylandSent/status/1886604397947277391

The average attendance for the Brewers this year, one of their best regular seasons ever, was 31,000.  And that's tickets sold, not bodies in seats.  Stadium capacity is 41,000. 10,000 unsold tickets per game.  Taking away 1,600 from the 400s level is fine.  Would guess it'll be over whatever the club is called now that is on the club level of the left field corner.

The team offices are on the RF side, those terrace seats up there are some of the worst in the ballpark. They probably sell those less than a dozen times per season.

Schlesinger said they they expect to be able to add back some of the lost 1600 seats in other areas, maybe the new party deck they're planning.

Quote from: wadesworld on February 04, 2025, 10:27:53 AMThe average attendance for the Brewers this year, one of their best regular seasons ever, was 31,000.  And that's tickets sold, not bodies in seats.  Stadium capacity is 41,000. 10,000 unsold tickets per game.  Taking away 1,600 from the 400s level is fine.  Would guess it'll be over whatever the club is called now that is on the club level of the left field corner.

Also the assumption that pure ticket sales is some massive differentiator for the Brewers eligible moves as a small market team.  Even if those tickets were completely sold out, lets say $30 a pop, removing those seats in a vacuumm would be only a few million for a team that does $300MM+ in revenue