Now THAT'S desperation. Throw in Bard and Tovar at a minimum, even if you think Bryant is worth $20M per year rather than $9M.
I think the poster who pointed it out earlier is absolutely correct. Crane is secretly cheap and wants everyone to believe otherwise. He isnt even going to spend up to the luxury tax line.
https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/ looks like we are currently 10th on salary and 13th in AAV (CBT salary)
The wise money can win a Championship on the 9th highest payroll in Baseball while the foolish just spend money with no purpose other than to be loved by the fans for spending money.
We just got knocked down to 12th by CWS. CBT plus Arb + Pre-arb. Our best moves my be via extensions. Valdez, Javier, Urquidy, Tucker or even Dubon. Stanek, Neris and Maton as well.
This line of thinking really only provides cover for Crane, a billionaire who frankly doesn’t need it. None of this is our money. And Crane isn’t the one preaching prudence - he’s the one feeding into the narrative that we have the money to spend and that he wants to be aggressive in the market to improve the team. Signing players that fill positions of need to market deals isn’t “spending just to spend.” It’s the cost of doing business. For all of Crane’s hemming and hawing about being aggressive, he’s actually shed payroll the last 3 years. Meanwhile he’s let guys like Springer, Cole, Correa, and JV walk. He’ll also likely let Tucker walk. Abreu has been the only material FA signing in that time, so his actions certainly don’t match his words, words he’s more than happy to go to the media with. Look, disciplined spending is great. It’s literally sustained this incredible run of ours. But money Crane isn’t spending to improve the club is going one place and one place only - him and his investors. Unless you think we can continue replacing top tier talent almost exclusively through the farm, I see almost zero reason to celebrate our owner not living up to the expectations he himself insists on setting. We have the resources to be players in the market, so do it.
I guess but Being in the middle of spending really means we are closer to the bottom than we think. IMO Teams like the As, Pirates, Marlins, Rays etc should not be factored in since they do not spend.
In the long term maybe. But for this year I expect to spend up to the CBT to improve the team. Even if that means trading for a terrible short term contract to get a useful player/prospect only to cut the bad contract if they aren’t good enough to play for a contender (I.e. buying players to extend the window with the extra cash) For example: Take on Madison Bumgarner full contract in 2023 in order to reduce the prospect cost for Alex Thomas to AAA relievers/lottery tickets like Maton/Martinez/Whitley or something. Trade calculator says MadBum cancels out value of Thomas but you’ll have to give them something.
Yeah/ that’s not super high for a team that’s the likely favorite to win the AL and top 4 to win the WS. Going into the year with 2 gaping holes in the lineup and 40M to spend up to the first tax should be seen as a quasi criminal offense. we won the WS last year with 2 massive holes in the lineup- one of them at DH! Our DH’s were like 3/43 in the playoffs and we’ve done nothing to get better there and are down to rejects and cripples left to improve the team. Just fundamentally a terrible process right now. you might win another one anyway but it sure doesn’t look like you are spending to give yourself the best chance at making that happen. As a 5 year season ticket holder that disappoints me. Cmon Crane- time to put some money where your mouth is dude. 1 extra year or 3M extra AAV (or a player option that’s likely to be exercised and not leave you in the lurch) isn’t some sort of inconceivable risk that should be avoided like the plague my dude- it’s the cost of doing business for a team that has a couple discreet needs and a fair amount of money to fill them.
