2019 MLB regular season news.

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
Peter Alonso has been really impressive so far, he just hit his 6th HR 118 MPH 454 feet to dead center off Venters. He has a 1.349 OPS currently, in the top few in baseball.

Edit: Hardest hit HR of the Statcast era, non-Judge/Stanton division.
 

Plympton91

bubble burster
SoSH Member
Oct 19, 2008
12,408
Yes, this. $35 million guaranteed earnings by age 30 is a nice life. There's no guarantee he doesn't break his wrist tomorrow, wash out of the league in a couple years, and never sniff even a fraction of that money. The guy is a multimillionaire now, set for life, and people on the net are losing their minds.
$35 million is about $19 million after taxes. If he spends $500k a year for 6 years that’s $3 million gone. So if he’s reasonably smart with his money and invests in tax free muni bonds, he can keep getting about $500k a year to spend from those investments. That is definitely “set for life” by any sane standard. But it’s not kardashian money.
 

Marciano490

Urological Expert
SoSH Member
Nov 4, 2007
62,312
It’s probably really hard to turn down $35 million. Hell, Don King had a trick of paying people in cash because he knew they could lowball them if they actually saw the money in hand; that’s how he paid off Ali for $50k.

Let someone here turn down that money at 22, then criticize the agent and the player.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
Six second baseman all-time have put up a season as good as Albies did last year at his age, four of them are in the Hall of Fame. Take out some insurance and at least hold out another year or two if that's as high as they're going to go. Not blaming Albies, good luck to that agent getting new clients.

When I first saw it tweeted today without numbers, I thought 'cool, that will set a baseline for Gleyber and NY should be able to do that if they want' but it was so low that I think it may actually shut down that part of the extension market for a bit.
 

m0ckduck

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2005
1,714
Tim Wakefield could have gotten more than the 4M/1Y deal he continually renewed with the Sox, and nobody called him criminally stupid, or whatever the latest term being lobbed at Albies is.

The assumption that Albies couldn’t possibly have signed this deal with open eyes, that he’s being “taken to the cleaners”— I find it highly obnoxious. It’s fine to talk about how the deal is under-market— but the automatic assumption of stupidity or malpractice really grates.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
The assumption that Albies couldn’t possibly have signed this deal with open eyes, that he’s being “taken to the cleaners”— I find it highly obnoxious. It’s fine to talk about how the deal is under-market— but the automatic assumption of stupidity or malpractice really grates.
Well, he doesn't seem to know how many years he is committed for, this is from the Fangraphs comments on the piece on his signing:

==================================

Albies doesn’t even know what he just signed. Here’s a quote from the Savannah Morning News:

““I mean, I see it this way. If I left dollars on the table, I’m going to play hard to get it in four or five years, seven years,” Albies said. “If I left it on the table, it’s good that now I know I can get it then, coming back.”” https://www.savannahnow.com/sports/20190411/ozzie-albies-atlanta-braves-agree-to-35m-7-year-contract

No, Ozzie, not “four or five years.” Not even “seven years.” NINE YEARS.

He just turned 22. He’ll be on the wrong side of 30 when he’s finally able to try to “get it back.”

==================================

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ozzie-albies-just-signed-a-stinker/
 

santadevil

wears depends
Silver Supporter
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
6,472
Saskatchestan
Also of note, he could get insurance against future lost wealth if he was really worried about injury, it wouldn't be THAT expensive for a guy making 600k a year, especially given that he's a position player and injuries that completely end careers of young star players are pretty rare.

What makes the Albies deal so bad is that there isn't a good rationale for settling for so little, so early. Or for those 2 awful option years at the end.

What it feels like is that he is a young guy, it's a lot of money and he'd like to stay with his friend Acuna, and his agent just said,... sure to a terrible offer rather than do his job and tell his client that it was atrociously low and that he could get a much better deal either now or next year because the agent was a small agency and worried that if they did their job Albies might move to a bigger agency. Atlanta super low-balled him because they correctly read that his agents were chumps who wouldn't push too hard for a deal fitting with "market" for extensions like this.
Does anyone here really know the cost of insurance for a potential baseball star?

I would think he'd have to use most of that $600K salary to get any sort of high dollar insurance I think you guys are thinking about

This isn't like life insurance or hole in one insurance. Unless I'm totally missing something here
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
Does anyone here really know the cost of insurance for a potential baseball star?

I would think he'd have to use most of that $600K salary to get any sort of high dollar insurance I think you guys are thinking about

This isn't like life insurance or hole in one insurance. Unless I'm totally missing something here
It seems like any reputable agent should be able to front that money against future earnings, although admittedly I am talking out of my ass here.
 

santadevil

wears depends
Silver Supporter
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
6,472
Saskatchestan
It seems like any reputable agent should be able to front that money against future earnings, although admittedly I am talking out of my ass here.
That's true, but it's still money Albies would have to pay at some point.
Plus, as mentioned, he's with a fairly small agency, so they may have guided him to sign this now, before they lose him to someone else.

Either way, I don't disagree that the contract he signed is fairly terrible for him in the long run.
It should have been a lot shorter than it is and for roughly the same money. 4/35, with higher option dollars.

God damn Tony Clark. How the hell does he still have a job?
I agree 100%. I don't believe for a minute that former player, Tony Clark is qualified to run the MLBPA.
The past leaders were guys who were smart as fuck lawyers. Tony Clark was an interested player rep while playing. One of these things is not like the others
 

Adrian's Dome

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 6, 2010
4,424
Does anyone here really know the cost of insurance for a potential baseball star?

I would think he'd have to use most of that $600K salary to get any sort of high dollar insurance I think you guys are thinking about

This isn't like life insurance or hole in one insurance. Unless I'm totally missing something here
If that was a real and viable thing, why doesn't every young player have it as a hedge against career derailing injuries? Especially pitchers? I don't think the insurance angle is as simple as he's making it out to be. How would it even work, like, okay, I hit .334 with a .525 slugging percentage in my age 22 year, so obviously I'm on track to make 300 million if I can keep that up until I hit FA in 5-6 years, so I'd like a company to cover me for those potential future earnings in case I happen to get a Lisfranc injury? Seems sketchy.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,463
Does anyone here really know the cost of insurance for a potential baseball star?

I would think he'd have to use most of that $600K salary to get any sort of high dollar insurance I think you guys are thinking about

This isn't like life insurance or hole in one insurance. Unless I'm totally missing something here
It would depend how much it covered, but I know that NCAA players get pretty reasonable rates. Ifo Ekpre-olumu had a 3M policy for 40K, one of the USC guys had about 10M for 100k. Those are loss of value, I don't know of any publicly available rates for what guys get on PTD, but I would guess it's a lower rate given that Loss of Value has a high chance of happening than disability. I would guess positional baseball players would have lower rates given their lower risk for truly career ending injuries.

basically how they work is the insurance company and the player agree to an estimate on earnings in a given period of time based on available information, and on the what conditions would trigger a payout.
 

santadevil

wears depends
Silver Supporter
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
6,472
Saskatchestan
If that was a real and viable thing, why doesn't every young player have it as a hedge against career derailing injuries? Especially pitchers? I don't think the insurance angle is as simple as he's making it out to be. How would it even work, like, okay, I hit .334 with a .525 slugging percentage in my age 22 year, so obviously I'm on track to make 300 million if I can keep that up until I hit FA in 5-6 years, so I'd like a company to cover me for those potential future earnings in case I happen to get a Lisfranc injury? Seems sketchy.
Exactly.

I think it was Brien Taylor, the guy the Yankees drafted #1 back in 1991. He was able to get insurance and some sort of payout, but from everything I've seen, none of the amounts were ever disclosed (cost or payout).

It would depend how much it covered, but I know that NCAA players get pretty reasonable rates. Ifo Ekpre-olumu had a 3M policy for 40K, one of the USC guys had about 10M for 100k. Those are loss of value, I don't know of any publicly available rates for what guys get on PTD, but I would guess it's a lower rate given that Loss of Value has a high chance of happening than disability. I would guess positional baseball players would have lower rates given their lower risk for truly career ending injuries.

basically how they work is the insurance company and the player agree to an estimate on earnings in a given period of time based on available information, and on the what conditions would trigger a payout.
Thanks, didn't know any of these examples
 

Hank Scorpio

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 1, 2013
6,917
Salem, NH
That's true, but it's still money Albies would have to pay at some point.
Plus, as mentioned, he's with a fairly small agency, so they may have guided him to sign this now, before they lose him to someone else.

Either way, I don't disagree that the contract he signed is fairly terrible for him in the long run.
It should have been a lot shorter than it is and for roughly the same money. 4/35, with higher option dollars.



I agree 100%. I don't believe for a minute that former player, Tony Clark is qualified to run the MLBPA.
The past leaders were guys who were smart as fuck lawyers. Tony Clark was an interested player rep while playing. One of these things is not like the others
What amazes me, and maybe I’m missing something here, much of what is totally screwing over players doesn’t seem like it would be a sticking point for many MLB owners or front offices.

- Do away with draft pick compensation for free agents, or at least revise it so teams aren’t penalized for the heinous crime of signing Craig Kimbrel.

- Revise the draft pick selection order to penalize teams for “tanking”. Multiple ways to handle this. Consecutive terrible seasons, low payroll, some combination of the two. Whatever.

- Increase the luxury tax threshold, and require teams to use or lose revenue sharing dollars. (Owners would probably be split over this, but fuck the Loria types of the world)
 

VORP Speed

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 23, 2010
6,633
Ground Zero
I was going to edit, but there were responses so new post....
https://isinsurance.com/athletes
these guys are some of the leaders in the field, they were DeShaun Watson's insurer when he was a senior. It's a pretty interesting field
Is any of this applicable to pre-arb baseball players, though? It looks like they insure players for loss of value in the last season before being eligible for a guaranteed contract, up to 50% of the estimated value of the contract. These young baseball players are 5-6 years away from their first guaranteed contract. Even if you use their first arb year, then you’re talking about a one year deal for maybe $5-6m, so maybe up to $3m in insurance and most are still too far away from that to be eligible.

There are also total disability policies, but that seems less likely to apply in baseball and those are still short-term.

I don’t have any direct knowledge of this, but I’m guessing there is a reason you hear about these policies with upcoming NFL and NBA draft picks and not with rookie baseball players. Insurers are willing to underwrite short-term injury risk for sure-fire high draft picks, but not multiple years of performance risk plus injury risk. The math is pretty straightforward on what some of these guys are giving up per free-agent year they bargain away, and if there was a cost-effective hedge available, you would expect to not see all these early extensions getting done.
 

Marciano490

Urological Expert
SoSH Member
Nov 4, 2007
62,312
What’s the marginal difference - especially to a 22 year old - between 35 and 80 million? Especially against the risk of 0? I’d give serious, serious thought to it.
 

Plympton91

bubble burster
SoSH Member
Oct 19, 2008
12,408
What’s the marginal difference - especially to a 22 year old - between 35 and 80 million? Especially against the risk of 0? I’d give serious, serious thought to it.
Depends on what you want to do with your post- baseball life, I guess. If all you want to do is lay on a beach, be a talking head, or coach/manage/front office, then maybe it’s not that important. But, $~50 million is a lot of money to invest in a business (Schilling, Jeter, Jordan, Magic) or a charity (Rivera) or self-fund a political run (Bunning), if you’re a more ambitious and well rounded type.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
Matt Shoemaker had been pitching amazingly well for TOR through 5 starts (1.57 ERA), but he had to make a play in a rundown between first and second and tore his ACL, out for the season. TOR is 5-0 in his starts and 6-12 in other games, bad luck for them.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
Gio Gonzalez signs with the Brewers for just 1 year/$2M (MLB deal, not pro-rated) plus a possible $2M in incentives.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
Joey Wendle just came back this week, and was 2 for 2 today before being hit with a pitch and fracturing his wrist.
 

Average Game James

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 28, 2016
4,346

Vlad Jr. being called up on Friday. Such a strange coincidence he’s “ready” about a week after the deadline for him to accrue a full year of service time.
 

NDame616

will bailey
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2006
2,313

Vlad Jr. being called up on Friday. Such a strange coincidence he’s “ready” about a week after the deadline for him to accrue a full year of service time.
He certainly made it easy for them by showing up to camp 40 lbs overweight and getting hurt
 

santadevil

wears depends
Silver Supporter
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
6,472
Saskatchestan

Vlad Jr. being called up on Friday. Such a strange coincidence he’s “ready” about a week after the deadline for him to accrue a full year of service time.
Fuck the current Jays management. I'm a Red Sox fan, but still supported the Jays being Canada's team. Then they hired Shapiro and I won't support that team until he's gone

But I still want a Vlad Jr. tshirt
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,850

Vlad Jr. being called up on Friday. Such a strange coincidence he’s “ready” about a week after the deadline for him to accrue a full year of service time.

MLB is going overboard with this. I've received EASILY 2 dozen push notifications on my phone from MLB about this. We get it. If I'm a big enough fan to have the app, I don't need 50 reminders over the last 2.5 days about him.

Within the past 5 minutes I have one about what he was wearing when he arrived at stadium today and another about his dad's speech to him before his debut tonight,
 

santadevil

wears depends
Silver Supporter
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
6,472
Saskatchestan
MLB is going overboard with this. I've received EASILY 2 dozen push notifications on my phone from MLB about this. We get it. If I'm a big enough fan to have the app, I don't need 50 reminders over the last 2.5 days about him.

Within the past 5 minutes I have one about what he was wearing when he arrived at stadium today and another about his dad's speech to him before his debut tonight,
Turn off your push notifications. I did that right away
 

E5 Yaz

Transcends message boarding
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Apr 25, 2002
90,020
Oregon
AJ Pollock having surgery

This is not a recording
 

SemperFidelisSox

Member
SoSH Member
May 25, 2008
31,089
Boston, MA
Madison Bumgarner’s eight-team no-trade list:

Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Astros, Brewers, Yankees, Phillies, Cardinals.

He must not what to sniff October then.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
Madison Bumgarner’s eight-team no-trade list:

Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Astros, Brewers, Yankees, Phillies, Cardinals.

He must not what to sniff October then.
No, he just picked the most likely teams, so he has more control over it.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
Astros lose a rotation option, Corbin Martin, with Tommy John surgery today. Martin is MLB.com's #48 overall prospect currently, a 23 year old 2017 2nd round pick who dominated AAA in April, was called up for a month and struggled, was sent back to AAA and then got hurt.
 

Sad Sam Jones

Member
SoSH Member
May 5, 2017
2,495
This story of Carrasco's journey from Venezuela to a summer of pizza in the bush leagues to MLB to US citizenship has been posted before, but it's always worth another read. In a town where we expect our stars to jump at the first chance to leave for bigger money, Cookie signed an extension last year at well below market value so he can retire as an Indian. He really is one of the few professional athletes I'd consider a role model.

The American Dream

*
 

edoug

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
6,007
This story of Carrasco's journey from Venezuela to a summer of pizza in the bush leagues to MLB to US citizenship has been posted before, but it's always worth another read. In a town where we expect our stars to jump at the first chance to leave for bigger money, Cookie signed an extension last year at well below market value so he can retire as an Indian. He really is one of the few professional athletes I'd consider a role model.

The American Dream

*
Amazing story. Someone you can root for no matter the uniform. He might pitch again this season is great news.

P.S. Always listen to mama.
 
Last edited:

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,730
The Padres have brought up three of their top prospects, Luis Urias (already on the 40 man and activated today) and two pitchers from AA, Adrian Morejon and Michel Baez, both of whom need 40 man spots and neither of whom were actually activated yet. The interesting part of this is that it likely means SD will be moving guys very soon to make roster space, I wonder if Kirby Yates will be one of them.
 

DanoooME

above replacement level
SoSH Member
Mar 16, 2008
19,831
Henderson, NV
Flotilla of released players lately:

Reds DFA RP David Hernandez
Mets DFA IF Adeiny Hechhaverria after signing 2B Joe Panik after he was DFA by the Giants
Giants claimed RP Kyle Barraclough off waivers from the Nationals
Tigers released IF Josh Harrison
Nationals released RP Tony Sipp
Cubs DFA RP Brad Brach, who signs with the Mets
Blue Jays claim SP/RP Zack Godley off waivers from the Diamondbacks
 

Sad Sam Jones

Member
SoSH Member
May 5, 2017
2,495
Carlos Carrasco, working his way back from leukemia, will face live hitters on Friday (against the Indians Lo-A team prior to their game). It's too early to form any real plan, but the hope is that he can return to Cleveland in early September pitching out of the bullpen.
 

Lowrielicious

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 19, 2011
4,328
Carlos Carrasco, working his way back from leukemia, will face live hitters on Friday (against the Indians Lo-A team prior to their game). It's too early to form any real plan, but the hope is that he can return to Cleveland in early September pitching out of the bullpen.
With Bieber/Clevinger at the top of the rotation.
Lindor, Jose Ramirez apparently back, Carlos Santana hitting like its 2016.
Hand at closer.
If carrasco can come back in the bullpen ace role then that’s some fairytale stuff in the making.
 

Sad Sam Jones

Member
SoSH Member
May 5, 2017
2,495
Jose Ramirez has a broken hamate in his right hand. Yet to determine if it will require surgery, but either way his season is most likely over. He had a disastrous first two months of the season but had hit .312/.360/.647 over his last 58 games. Some combination of Mike Freeman/Yu Chang will attempt to help Cleveland reach the postseason.
 

h8mfy

New Member
Jul 15, 2005
336
Orange County, CA

edoug

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
6,007
Carlos Carrasco, working his way back from leukemia, will face live hitters on Friday (against the Indians Lo-A team prior to their game). It's too early to form any real plan, but the hope is that he can return to Cleveland in early September pitching out of the bullpen.
With Bieber/Clevinger at the top of the rotation.
Lindor, Jose Ramirez apparently back, Carlos Santana hitting like its 2016.
Hand at closer.
If carrasco can come back in the bullpen ace role then that’s some fairytale stuff in the making.
Carrasco is coming back on Sunday.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/indians-carlos-carrasco-set-to-return-on-sunday-for-first-time-since-leukemia-diagnosis/