Do you suppose this is the kind of logic that the Angels used when they signed Pujols?
I don't think I have ever heard the Pujols signing being linked to Trout until you posted it.
Do you suppose this is the kind of logic that the Angels used when they signed Pujols?
I don't think I have ever heard the Pujols signing being linked to Trout until you posted it.
I really don't think the Jays management sees the rebuild as a one-year deal, especially given how strong Boston, NY and even TB are going to be in the next few years. We'd be wasting 2-3 years of Keuchel, and by the time we're ready to compete again he'd be a liability.
Plus we'd have to pay a premium to attract a name free agent pitcher to a rebuilding team in the same division as the Yanks and Red Sox.
They aren’t necessarily bad though because he bought on potential for a rebuilding team. Hosmer might produce every other year but in those seasons there aren’t very many 1B as good as him.
There's no such thing as perfection. Preller is showing that you can take risks in FA and do enough elsewhere to not bury yourself instead of waiting for the perfect contention window.
I don't buy it for a number of reasons
1) Signing a 26 year old athletic outfielder (or a 26 year old shortstop) is extremely different than signing a "31" year old first baseman. I would never, ever, endorse signing Machado or Harper to a 10 year deal if they were 31 (and definitely not if they were actually 33). That Pujols contract was always going to be 100% downside.
2) A lot of the Angels issues revolved around the fact that they compounded that contract with an absolute ton of terrible large contracts either before or after (trading for Wells, signing Josh Hamilton etc). Assuming that the Jays accounting is consistent with what it was from the BJ Ryan/Frank Thomas days they currently have $9M committed for 2020. There is absolutely no way a Harper contract alone could cripple this team's ability to spend money in either the short or long term.
3) Waiting for Vlad/Bo to "hit their prime" before signing players implies that there are free agents of the age/level of Machado and Harper that are available every year, which historically is not true. Instead the more likely scenario is the Jays have to trade assets to acquire players or they end up signing inferior free agents. And as noted above, the age curve indicates that Harper is far more likely to be his current self than a liability in 3-4 years.
The one tricky thing is that Machado’s contract doesn’t exist in isolation. It exists alongside Eric Hosmer’s $144-million contract. It also exists alongside Wil Myers‘ $83-million contract. Machado is going to make $30 million per season. Hosmer makes $21 million each year until 2023. Myers is a year away from costing $22.5 million. In 2020, 2021, and 2022, Hosmer, Myers, and Machado will make more than $70 million combined. Just a couple seasons ago, the Padres’ opening-day payroll was about $70 million, total.
You can see how things might end up getting tight. The Padres will get a steady infusion of young talent, but good young talent becomes increasingly expensive, and the Padres already have a large three-player commitment. It’s relatively uncommon to see such giant contracts on smaller spenders. One might be reminded of Joey Votto‘s contract with the Reds. Or Giancarlo Stanton‘s contract with the Marlins, or Joe Mauer’s contract with the Twins. There exists the distinct possibility that, in the future, the Padres won’t be so flexible to make other necessary improvements. It’ll be up to ownership to prove it’s willing to invest what it has to. I’d consider it a good sign they were willing to make a strong play for Machado in the first place. I’d also imagine the Padres have become increasingly desperate to send Myers to somebody else. It would help the team’s future, presumably, to remove him from the books, and he’s still young enough to hold certain appeal.
1) If anything, I would assume that a 26 year old athletic outfielder or shortstop will begin to lose his value faster than a 31 year old gold-glove 1B (and a sure hall of famer to boot.)
2) & 3) Were you talking about Harper or Machado this whole time? Neither was ever coming to Canada to play in a rebuild. I'd assumed you were talking about signing the likes of Keuchel. Certainly if we could trick Harper into signing here I'd be all for it.
1) If anything, I would assume that a 26 year old athletic outfielder or shortstop will begin to lose his value faster than a 31 year old gold-glove 1B (and a sure hall of famer to boot.)
2) & 3) Were you talking about Harper or Machado this whole time? Neither was ever coming to Canada to play in a rebuild. I'd assumed you were talking about signing the likes of Keuchel. Certainly if we could trick Harper into signing here I'd be all for it.
For 1)....no sir.
WAR Grid | FanGraphs Baseball
Here's one from a Pujols article showing Pujols's decline, his decline if he's actually 2 years older than he says, and the decline of top 30 hitters (which implies he is more likely 4 years older than he says).
Is there a way to slice it by position? The chart seems to have a rather random distribution at a glance...with the only surprise being that many of those guys (at all positions) being quite effective into the early 30's (but then again, most guys on that list were powered by something stronger than Gatorade).
Yep, you can drill down by position. Its a tremendous tool.
And the heat map certainly reaches into the early thirties for some of the players. The common thread for each is ages 26-30 being quite clearly the center of the heat map (i.e. consistently a player's prime).
How the Angels Could Get Out of Paying Albert Pujols
Pertinent quote
'Let me explain what we’re seeing here. Thanks to the great work of Jeff Zimmerman and Sean Dolinar, we see three aging curves. The first is Pujols’ aging curve based on his reported age. The second is his aging curve if he’s two years older than reported. The third is a projection built from Pujols’ historical peers using the delta method — a group of players who, due to Pujols’ incredible Cardinals run, are all pretty much elite hitters. Interestingly, the “Pujols Plus Two” curve much more closely mirrors his historical peers, which might mean a lot or a little. For our purposes, it means a lot.'
So yes, it is grabbing hitters from the steroid era. But I don't see the peak years going into the mid-30's - age 26-32 look like the peak as expected.
I do agree that with a $100M payroll it is very risky and requires you to be virtually flawless with controllable guys. Although I would also say that the fact that a team that gets $100M+ of TV revenue every year and owns 20% of their RSN only has exceeded that payroll mark once is more of a bug than a feature.
From the Jays perspective, as I see them as a perpetual $150M+ spender that type of commitment is less of an issue.
Padres have ~20m in dead money dropping after 2019 and another 8.5m in 2020. Even adding Harper at 30m per would take them to 13th in payroll this season. Considering they've been bringing in 26-30k fans per game during a rebuild I don't see why they can't spend into the 125-150m range.
fwiw I meant that I see the Jays as a perpetual $150M spender, not the Padres.
Team Top 30 Prospects schedule:
Mon., Feb. 18 - AL East
Tue., Feb. 19 - NL East
Wed., Feb. 20 - AL Central
Thu., Feb. 21 - NL Central
Fri., Feb. 22 - AL West
Mon., Feb. 25 - NL West
If a team's list is not posted on the dates above, that team will be in our ranking of MLB's Top 10 farm systems, which will come out according to this schedule:
Tue., Feb. 26 - Nos. 9 & 10
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