I don't understand why people make this argument for salary caps in baseball. It is never going to happen it just isn't. It's unfortunate yes but teams just have to work with what they have. Look at the Cubs, they are always near the top in payroll yet consistently suck on a yearly basis. Teams that realize they can't support a large salary are smart and make due with what they have and change their free agent and drafting tactics. Such as the Marlins/Padres/Twins. Teams that consistently can field a decent team without high payrolls. Good GMs/Teams can adapt to not having a large payroll.
I was born in Boston and still spend plenty of time there so thats why I wear the t-shirt. It's always been a nice sideshow to my stros. The stros just need an owner with infinite money.
Appears this deal has fallen through. And although they werent guaranteed to sign him or get him, appears they also just lost out on Jayson Werth. He's signing with the Nationals.
Did the nats overpay or has it just gotten this crazy? 127 for 6 years from what I heard. That seems extremely high to me
for 7 years. he'll be 32 like a month into the season. had to overpay only way they were going to get him, but still, terrible contract.
The Nats overpaid BIG TIME. BUT... they have to. Teams like the Nationals have to make super crazy offers that players simply can't refuse. Otherwise, if given the choice to play for the Nats or Sox with contracts anywhere within 5 mil of each other, they will choose the Sox every time. Just another manifestation of the broken MLB system.
It might just be me but it seems like the MLB economy must be on the rise. Because it seems teams are starting once again overpay for players like they did before the economy went down. Werth just got a monster deal,Tulowitzki, Victor Martinez, Adam Dunn all the same. And Berkman just got 1 year at 8million..... I remember when Dunn struggled to even get a 2yr/20M dollar contract from the Nationals when he was a FA. These signings remind me of the Carlos Lee signing, considerately overpaying for players. This all seemed to stop around the 06-07 season but now it seems like its happening again.
Wow. What a stupid post. You think a perpetually losing team paying more than a perpetual contender to get a premier free agent is a sign of a broken system? Is your contention that in the NFL or the NBA a marquee free agent would pick a team that has never been good over a perennial contender if the money was the same? Please people, think before you post. Baseball works as a marketplace. Free agents get teams to bid against each other and the team that bids the most usually gets the player. But yes, teams that generally suck are not going to be given a discount so a marquee player can go waste his career and get paid LESS than market value for the privilege.
Please hear me out because I think you misunderstood my post. (also, calling someone else's post 'stupid' is never a good idea) As far as your question about the NBA or MLB... in those leagues, the good to great teams would not even be in the running for the high dollar players because their payroll would be close to full already. In baseball, however, some teams are capable of spending and spending and spending no matter what the current payroll is. So not only are the less-talented teams up against the fact that the other team is a much better and contending team, but that contending team can also offer much more money than they can. The system is broken plain and simple. Here's another Yankees example: A few years back the Yanks gave Carl Pavano a big big money contract. Pavano failed to meet expectations, so they kept him in the minor leagues. So the Yankees are paying Carl Pavano tens of millions to play AAA and the Yanks didn't miss a beat. No worries, just on to the next big name.. throw a big contract in his face, problem solved. Let's say a team like the Orioles had signed Pavano to that same contract. They wouldn't be able to recover from that bad contract temporarily and would be stuck with a huge bad contract preventing them from signing other talents.
Smaller market teams realize that they can't spend as much as teams like NY/Bos so they have to adapt and change the way they draft and sign free agents. Look at the Marlins, they always have young talent. Keep them until they are about to become eligible to FA and then get restocked with talent. Baseball isn't "broken", most of these good young players that come up aren't even eligible to become a free agent until after 5 or 6 years depending on when they are brought up. This allows these teams to decide what to do with the players and make salary room if necessary to keep face of the franchise players. Yes having money helps but it isn't everything. This isn't going to change, baseball will always be this way.
The reason I say that it's "broken" is because you have teams that should and most likely always will be good like the Yanks, Sox, Angels etc. because they can always just go sign a player if they need to make up for any lack in player development. Whereas you have other franchises who have to draft PERFECTLY or they will never have a chance. It's not even close to fair. What I'm saying is that a vastly uneven playing field = broken
the whole pay roll thing all come down to the fans. Yankees and Boston haves fans that willing to pay over price ticket to see the team win and play.
How does two being able to outspend others make the team great? "It's always been that way" is a dumb argument. The game has constantly changed over time. For a long time, there wasn't even free agency. I wonder if, back then, they should have made the same argument and not added things like free agency?
No - no they don't. Part of the reason the Nats suck is because they make deals like this which come back to haunt them. What they should instead do is simply not sign 32 year old free agents for $18 million / year and focus on getting younger, cheaper players.
Sure, you're right when you say that they don't have to make this deal. But what I'm saying is that they have no chance to sign Werth unless they offer him that kind of outrageouss offer.
