Assuming their position in regards to the on-field product has changed based on a sample of 1 is the opposite of reasonable.
If they are 12th in MLB in payroll in 2024, then we can talk.
Lou Merloni: Mookie asking price is 12 years, $420 million.
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
If they are 12th in MLB in payroll in 2024, then we can talk.
This is the take right here and it lines up with what Bill Veeck said about teams don't go broke over paying the superstars, they go broke over paying the mediocre players. If you know that your generational superstar is coming up for a big-time contract, you don't back up the Brinks truck for Nathan Eovaldi. You don't give a bunch of cash to a person who has wilted in August and September like Chris Sale. You take that money and sock it away for Betts.
I'm pretty much sure that Betts is going to get traded and I'm coming to grips with it. What I'm not going to ever understand is how the Sox could be like a poet on pay day when it came to spending money in the spring and then turning into Mr. Burns and announcing that they're cutting back on payroll in the fall? I do get that there was a big change in the front office during those six months, but everything still runs through John Henry, no?
And the reported players in exchange for Betts aren't going to be good. They may as well go the full nine yards and just sell him to the Padres or Dodgers. GTFOH with these fifth and sixth-ranked players and Wil Myers or Joc Pederson.
And with all that happening, the Sox still won a WS and you are still here posting and watching.
I will never fully understand WAR. To my eyes, and I watched and listened to a lot of games, Mookie had a very down year and XB was consistently great all year. Yet at the end, because Mookie played better defense (when I thought XB was solid) he has a higher WAR?
Machado got that deal as a free agent — Boston offered it to Betts two years out from FA. Machado also debuted about eighteen months younger than Betts did — Machado was barely 20, Betts was almost 22.
That wasn't an offer designed to be turned down.
Basically, yes. If you use fWAR, Xander had 6.8 and Mookie 6.6. If you use bWAR, Xander was at 5.2 and Mookie 6.8. Xander's defense is all over the place re the metrics. More so than other players.
The scary thing about giving Mookie that much money is a lot of his value is not tied up into hitting.
edit: Although that may make him less scary to some.
Kind of scary/weird when his defense has been on a downward trajectory, his speed has been hovering in the low 70th percentiles, and he stopped running last year (both steals and extra bases taken).
The next time the Red Sox do something that you're not fond of, I'll make sure to remember this quote and snarkily post it back to you.
Whether the Red Sox have one the World Series or not, is not the issue here. I like watching Mookie Betts play, I don't think that there has been a better homegrown player to come through the Red Sox system since Yaz. He is one of the players that I will stop what I'm doing and watch his at bats, even when the team is 19 games behind the Yankees. If you think that it's a good idea to trade a player like that for virtually nothing, cool. I disagree. I also think that it's dumb for the Red Sox to give a ton of money to Nathan Eovaldi and Chris Sale in November and March, then cry poor six months later.
Not only that, but to portray the Boston Red Sox as needing to stick to some sort of imaginary budget a few weeks before Forbes listed the worth of MLB franchises (the Red Sox are in the top two or three) and the team announced an increase in ticket sales.
So yeah, excuse me for not celebrating a World Series and not being excited to watch Wil Myers stumble his way around right field.
Aren't defensive metrics inherently flawed still?
No doubt Mookie is awesome out there, no doubt about it. But yeah, that much in defense doesn't seem to match what I'm seeing on the field. I just can't wrap my head around Mookie being a better player than XB and even Devers last year. 2018 he was an absolute wall-to-wall All Star...but last year he wasn't.
Bad moves happen. I probably lumped you in with the "I'm no longer going to watch" crowd unfairly but I'll always root and cheer for the Redsox because I know it's not out of the realm of possibility they win a WS in 2020 or any other year. Baseball is a funny game and the players always end up leaving, even if it's in retirement.
Mookie Betts will not make or break the Redsox.
People are always quick to point out that it's Henry's money and the RS make plenty of money, so who cares if he spends 12/420. That's part of the point, it is his money and in order for his investment to continue to appreciate, the RS have to make money. To get under the luxury tax this year is almost a mandatory move to have any chance to sign Betts next year. Otherwise, in effect, he will cost the Henry 12/420 + 50% luxury tax penalty (another 17.5 million/year) at least for the next 4-5 years and likely beyond. 12/420 means there will likely be other sacrifices to make in the future like Devers, or other free agents/trades in which the RS will have to pass. I know the counter-argument is why assign the 50% to Betts and not any of the other players. That's fair, but the decision point is now and anyone that is signed to a significant contract at this point in time and moving forward is what adds to the cap number. In addition, 12 years means the RS are paying 35 million per year for 5 years when Betts is 35 - 39. There is almost no chance that the last 5 years of the contract are not awful from the club's perspective, which means the 1st 7 years need to return well more than 35 million/year.
Betts has always said he would test the market. Fortunately for him, his confidence in his ability has been borne out and he has not had a significant injury. So as long as everything goes well this year, his gamble will pay off handsomely, which is great for him. However, I think the wise thing for the RS is to drum up a competitive bidding market for him as they are doing, trade him if they judge the long term return + advantage of resetting > 1 yr of Mookie. Then the reset will allow them to make their most competitive offer for Betts, which I would guess if he has a good year is 10/350. The RS probably have 20 versions of modeling of what the numbers look like and after 4 WS in 15 years with this ownership group, they certainly deserve our trust.
Betts has always said he would test the market. Fortunately for him, his confidence in his ability has been borne out and he has not had a significant injury. So as long as everything goes well this year, his gamble will pay off handsomely, which is great for him. However, I think the wise thing for the RS is to drum up a competitive bidding market for him as they are doing, trade him if they judge the long term return + advantage of resetting > 1 yr of Mookie. Then the reset will allow them to make their most competitive offer for Betts, which I would guess if he has a good year is 10/350. The RS probably have 20 versions of modeling of what the numbers look like and after 4 WS in 15 years with this ownership group, they certainly deserve our trust.
Depends who you ask. Bogaerts' defense is uniquely divisive among the defensive systems. We should probably have a thread about why.
But look at this:
FG Betts offensive value: 37.0 runs (batting + baserunning)
FG Bogaerts offensive value: 37.6 runs (batting + baserunning)
B-R Betts offensive value: 39 runs (batting + baserunning)
B-R Bogaerts offensive value: 40 runs (batting + baserunning)
But now defense. Fangraphs and B-R source base their fielding metrics on different statistics (UZR and DRS respectively), and come to very different conclusions:
FG Betts defensive value: 12.6 runs of fielding value - 6.3 runs of positional adjustment = 6.3 runs of fielding value.
FG Bogaerts defensive value: 1.1 runs of fielding value + 6.9 runs of positional adjustment = 8 runs of fielding value.
B-R Betts defensive value: 15 runs of fielding value - 5 runs of positional adjustment = 10 runs of fielding value.
B-R Bogaerts defensive value: -21 runs of fielding value + 8 runs of positional adjustment = -13 runs of fielding value.
Put it all together:
Betts fWAR: 37 runs of offense + 6.3 runs of defense + AL adjustment (2.8 runs) + replacement level adjustment (22.2 runs) = 68.3 fRAR or 6.6 fWAR
Bogaerts fWAR: 37.6 runs of offense + 8.1 runs of defense + AL adjustment (2.7 runs) + replacement level adjustment (22.0 runs) = 70.4 fRAR or 6.8 fWAR
So Fangraphs sees them as basically equals. They are similar hitters, but FG sees Betts as a very good defender at an easy position and Bogaerts as an average defender at a hard position. They actually say that Bogaerts is a slightly more valuable defender, although whether a team that plays a lot of games in Fenway should use a negative position adjustment for evaluating the value of its RF is an interesting question. In any case, once the different levels of league/position replacement value are incorporated, it all shakes out to something that rounds to seven wins.
Betts rWAR: 37 runs of offense + 10 runs of defense + 23 runs of replacement/positional adjustment = 69 runs above replacement or 6.8 rWAR
Bogaerts rWAR: 40 runs of offense - 13 runs of defense + 24 runs of replacement/positional adjustment = 51 runs above replacement or 5.2 rWAR.
Fangraphs sees Betts basically exactly as Baseball-Reference sees him: a 7ish-win player.
But the story is different with Bogaerts: Defensive Runs Saved loathes Bogaerts' defense, but Ultimate Zone Rating thinks it's perfectly respectable: a couple runs from average any given season. So B-R, which bases its defensive values on DRS, thinks Bogaerts' defense cost the Red Sox 1.3 wins in 2019. Again, if anyone thinks they know what it is about Bogaerts (or the way the Sox position him) that makes these statistics diverge so sharply, I would love to read about it.
Just baseballreference:
using o(ffensive)WAR, Xander was at 7.1 and Betts 5.2
using d(efensive)WAR, Xander was at -1.0 and Betts at 1.1.
Overall: Xander 5.2, Betts 6.8.
It appears about half of it is defense. Xander loses another 1 WAR in base running and other parts of the game too, apparently. He's Mr. No Tangibles. Betts adds another 0.5 WAR through base running and other parts of the game.
I don't think you can blame the owners here, SJH. They've put their best foot forward in trying to buy out Betts' arbitration years and it seems like he is dead set on testing the open market. I don't think you want them bidding against themselves and give him $420 million when they don't really have to at this point. The FO has to make a choice: do you want to be above the tax and incur these penalties no matter what? If they do, then keep him but any contract you sign Betts to is going to have a huge tax bill attached to it. If Betts isn't signing now for any team, why not get under the tax this year with as much of a chance to re-sign him at the end of the year as if you would if he was here? Believe me, I was where you were for most of the offseason. I couldn't stomach to trade him because he's a great, great player in his prime. But, as I am reading all the facts it simply makes financial sense to trade him now, get as much as you can for him, and do what you need to do to get under the tax. If he leaves after the year, they'd get a mid-round pick for him which would be cancelled out with a mid-round pick they'd lose as an over-the-last-tax-threshold team. They lived above the tax and got a World Series for their troubles. It's time to reset and get ready for the next run. That run could still include Betts going forward whether you trade him or not. If it doesn't, the FA class after the 2021 season should be filled with a lot of franchise-type players.
Thanks for the breakdowns. I think this is where advanced stats break down for me. I can understand what they're trying to say, but in my opinion, they don't match what I watched all year.
I'm still hoping they just pay the $27M for Mookie this year, and let him prove he's Mike Trout-lite, and then decide. He wants to be the highest paid player in the game? Show you can do it more than once.
I think that in a sense you're right, Babe Ruth left the Red Sox. As did Fred Lynn, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Manny, Pedro, Nomar and Mo. Ted Williams, Yaz and David Ortiz all retired. And yes, the Boston Red Sox still play baseball in Fenway Park year in and year out.
I get the bottom line. I get the luxury tax implications. I get, deep down, that it's probably the right move to send him away. But I don't have to like it. And the reason why I don't like it is because I don't think that the 2020 Boston Red Sox are a better team without Mookie Betts. The Ewing Theory doesn't exist and teams that trade a superstar for nothing special don't normally do better without that star player. Will I watch a middling Red Sox team? Of course I will. I've watched 100+ Red Sox games every year from 1986 until today. I'm not going to turn in my Red Sox hat because they got rid of Mookie Betts. But it's a much more pleasurable experience to watch a good team with good players and not a lot of financial flexibility than watching a .500 team without their best player but a lot of room to throw around money in a year.
And honestly, if they are are worried about their financial future; just blow the team up today. If you trade Mookie Betts, you don't need a $20+ million DH, get rid of JBJ, Eovaldi and Price and Sale. Just bottom out and quit dicking around with half-measures. Build around Devers, Benintendi and Bogaerts. It might take longer, but just rip the damn band-aid off.
The one thing that I would caution the Red Sox on is that right now, Boston is a football town and the Red Sox are the number two team in the region, by a lot. The Patriots' window is rapidly closing and the chance are good that the greatest quarterback of all time will be calling signals for someone else. If the Red Sox ever want to be the number one team in town again, I don't think that it behooves them to trade the one player that could take Tom Brady's crown. This is not a Helen Lovejoy lament, but there are a lot of kids who are into the Red Sox because of Mookie Betts. And while you don't make moves specifically to garner future fans, a move like this could torpedo the team's status. Especially considering that baseball (and other teams sports) is losing the young fan to other things. Don't give them a reason to turn the game off, because that may not impact the bottom line today, but it will eventually.
I am padding for injury at least a touch, as Mookie has been reliably over 700 when healthy. That crude 0.5 win per-season drop also stems from a mix of both lost playing time and lost effectiveness from historical players.
I also have serious doubts that the cost per win is going to do anything but rise for superstar level players. We are beginning to see pronounced stratification because teams (especially bad ones) are more willing to take a shot on young and cheap than old and maybe-not-so-reliable when filling out the middle of their rosters, but there is no question that Betts is the caliber of player who will represent a substantial upgrade on essentially any team, and those guys will always get their money (even if they have to wait a bit).
I have no doubt in my mind Mookie Betts offers more value than Xander Bogaerts in other aspects of the game. When it causes a 3.5 WAR swing in value is when I start to question it.. and I think Xander is a below average SS and Mookie is GG caliber.
To what extent does the prospect of a significant work stoppage around Mookie's age-28 and age-29 seasons figure in to all these calculations?
Agreed fully.
I'd be happy to dump David Price and offer Mookie whatever, and hope to got Groome can figure his shit out. But like I wish the Sox did in 2018, let Sale finish out his contract and deal with him once he's proven he's healthy. Instead they gave him a big deal (lower than he could have gotten in FA I know), and then missed most of the year in 2019. That is crippling if he's unable to perform like Chris Sale. Let Mookie play for his $27M, and figure it out in October.
At this point you have to hope Groome can even stay healthy. The most "realistic optimistic" scenario would have Groome in Boston in 2021. That would have Groome starting the season in Salem and earning a mid season promotion to Portland. Then he'd start 2021 in AAA and be a call away. More likely is fall of 2022 or sometime in 2023 if things go somewhat normal for a legit prospect.
Over the past few years, a few 18 year old pitchers who were sitting at 88-90 are now sitting at 94-96+ at 20 (Bryan Mata, Brayan Bello, some guy I'm forgetting atm.) Mata isn't rated very highly but he's an intriguing arm. He'll still be 20 years old to start the season and could possibly start the year in AAA. Most likely he starts in AA where he'd still be one of the youngest pitchers. Bello pitched really well in his last 10 games which is masked by his terrible first half. "Cherry picking" but these are prospects who are learning how to play the game and small things can lead to huge gains. Plus he was learning how to pitch with the added 4-6 mph.
If something like that were to happen to LHP Jorge Rodriguez this off season, it would go a long way. They have a few guys where if things go right, they'll have some arms. Tanner Houck did considerably better in the 2nd half too, finishing the year in relief in AAA but going back to a SP in the Arizona Fall League and doing quite well.
We'll probably see Houck this year, may even see Mata at some point.
edit: Ship has probably sailed on Darwinzon (as a SP), which I'm 100% in agreement with.
I'd be really surprised if we saw a work stoppage in the age of cord cutting. There are too many options and some people wouldn't bother coming back. They'd realize there's better stuff to do.
Saying his defense "has been on a downward trajectory" might be hyping the decline a little too hard. I mean, as I understand it, it's completely normal for defense to decline starting at around age 25, because defense (much more than hitting) is about pure athleticism, and therefore about youth.
Second, the nature of advanced defensive metrics is bound to exaggerate the impact of a relatively minor decline in effectiveness for the top players, because everybody is being measured relative to league average. If league average is a 5, and you've been a 9 and are now an 8, you've lost 25% of your positive value....but you're still much better than most people. Mookie's DRS for the past four seasons has been 32, 31, 20, 15. But his ranking among all MLB outfielders has been 1, 1, 2, 5. At half the DRS he had two years previously, he was still a top-5 (out of 50) defensive outfielder.
He's not likely to stop contributing positive value with his glove for years to come. The positive value is just going to continue to shrink to modest rather than superhuman levels.
This is all true, but the discussion is about what makes Mookie valuable... and if his defense is becoming less and less valuable, and makes up a huge component of his overall value, then we have reason to be concerned that he would not be worth the value of the contract, even if his offense were to hold steady for a while.
I'm not sure that everyone opposed to trading and/or not signing Mookie for 12 years realizes how long 12 years is.
Mookie could provide awesome value for 7 or 8 years... and the Sox could still be on the hook for 4-5 years and $140-$175M.
I don't see how his innings can rise quickly enough to even be a SP candidate in 2023, but I don't know how quickly they jump someone who has just 4 innings since 2017 (did he pitch winter ball or somewhere else?).
This may be true but more of Mookie's value comes from defense than other players, so that decline would hurt Mookie's value more. His 2016 looks far less impressive without the extra 3.3 WAR worth of value outside of hitting. In fact, it starts to look like basically every other season he's had outside of 2018.
There is no possible way Jason Groome will be a realistic scenario for the major leagues in 2021. It is just not realistic. If he can stay healthy, the most realistic scneario would be end of 2022 or 2023 if at all.
That's fine. I quoted "realistically optimistic" for a reason. With his injury history, it's really not. For a normal prospect, it's really not. It's "special case."
edit: We are also all assuming he ends up being a starter. If he gets converted, his time table accelerates. This was a discussion about SP though so fair enough.
Well, you can certainly blame the owners for making short-sighted financial decisions (Sale, Eovaldi, etc.) knowing that this showdown was looming.
Separately, one thing I think people shouldn't necessarily be assuming here is that there is no downside to trading Mookie this year because they can always make him an offer next offseason. Sure, that's true, but it ignores that this year's Sox team will be dramatically worse because Mookie won't be on it. So the question then becomes whether the Sox would be improving their chances of a World Series in future years sufficiently enough that sacrificing their chances this year is worth it. And this very interesting FanGraphs article from November suggests that is hardly certain.
Put another way - even if you assume Mookie is definitely gone after this season, the wisest choice (depending on trade offers, of course) may nonetheless be to keep him for one more year and deal with his absence after that.
Exactly.
wOBA, 2016-2019
| Name | wOBA |
| Mike Trout | 0.434 |
| J.D. Martinez | 0.406 |
| Aaron Judge | 0.397 |
| Juan Soto | 0.393 |
| Christian Yelich | 0.392 |
| Freddie Freeman | 0.392 |
| Nolan Arenado | 0.391 |
| Charlie Blackmon | 0.391 |
| Joey Votto | 0.388 |
| Josh Donaldson | 0.387 |
| Kris Bryant | 0.386 |
| Mookie Betts | 0.385 |
| Nelson Cruz | 0.385 |
wRC+ 2016-2019
| Name | wRC+ |
| Mike Trout | 180 |
| J.D. Martinez | 154 |
| Aaron Judge | 152 |
| Christian Yelich | 147 |
| Nelson Cruz | 147 |
| Jose Altuve | 147 |
| Alex Bregman | 146 |
| Freddie Freeman | 144 |
| Juan Soto | 143 |
| Josh Donaldson | 143 |
| Kris Bryant | 140 |
| Cody Bellinger | 140 |
| Joey Votto | 139 |
| Mookie Betts | 139 |
| Justin Turner | 139 |
If his defense slips, he is only in the range of the ~10-15th best offensive player.
You have to balance having Betts for this year with also being another year over the tax and the penalties that go along with it versus getting back under the tax and being able to spend money with little to no penalty in the future.
You're assuming both parties would act reasonably, if not logically. I'm assuming a textbook Tragedy of the Commons..
I think Mookie will be an elite player for the next handful of years. Then he will slip into being merely a very good player for a handful. Then he will slip into being an above average, down to an average, player by the end.
The first stage, we will mourn that (assuming) he is gone, watching him put up tremendous numbers for another team. The second stage, we will note that while he's really good, maybe he isn't worth all that money. The last stage, we'll think, yeah, I wouldn't want to be paying him that kind of dough.
Though, of course, by the time that last stage comes, inflation will mean that he isn't getting paid the same, relatively speaking, as he would be in the first stage (unless they make the contract work that way).
It's always painful to see great players leave your favorite team. It's also painful to be locked into ridiculously huge contracts.
FWIW, here were the top 10 paid players in 2019 (from: https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/highest-paid-mlb-players-14880433 ):
1. Strasburg - 38.3m - Won the WS
2. Scherzer - 37.4m - Won the WS
3. Grienke - 34.5m - Lost the WS
4. Trout - 34.1m - Missed playoffs
5. Kershaw - 31.0m - Made playoffs
6. Price - 31.0m - Missed playoffs
7. Cabrera - 30.0m - Missed playoffs
8. Cespedes - 29.0m - Missed playoffs
9. Pujols - 28.0m - Missed playoffs
10. Verander - 28.0m - Lost the WS
Just getting a sense of whether having a player on that kind of contract makes it more or less likely for you to win it all. Two won the WS, two lost the WS, 5 made the playoffs, 5 missed the playoffs.
But of the pitchers, 5 of 6 made the playoffs. Of the position players 0 of 4 made the playoffs.
Yep. I mean, I love Mookie as much as anyone. I do NOT want him to play anywhere else. But my god if he's gonna require a 12 year, $420-450 million contract....I don't see how that's wise at all.
Fangraphs very negative on the rumored deals:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/walking-through-a-potential-mookie-betts-trade/
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/walking-through-a-potential-mookie-betts-trade/
that article claims we're likely a 95 win team with a good shot at the division. That seems very optimistic, or are we getting too colored by recent (2019) results?
I think we are. The roster we're looking at isn't that different from last year or from 2018 frankly. The primary difference between 2018 and 2019 was health, particularly in the rotation. With good health in the rotation, with a full season of typical Chris Sale, typical David Price, typical Nathan Eovaldi, and typical Eduardo Rodriguez, shouldn't this team be significantly better than 2019? I imagine that Fangraphs isn't assuming that those guys will collectively miss 30-35 starts again.
FG’s projection system has them with the fourth-most WAR in the league, which is where they’re getting the from:
(this is from an article about Texas, which is why they’re in red.)
poor Baltimore...
I still feel like we're one of the highest-variances on that chart, just due to the rotation alone. like I said, winning 75 games wouldn't surprise me, neither would 95.
I do feel like however 95 will be nowhere near enough for the division, the Yanks might coast to 100+ again.
I still feel like we're one of the highest-variances on that chart, just due to the rotation alone. like I said, winning 75 games wouldn't surprise me, neither would 95.
I do feel like however 95 will be nowhere near enough for the division, the Yanks might coast to 100+ again.
I know Chris Sale had a down year but the guy has still been a superstar for the vast majority of his career. So IDK if he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Nathan Eovaldi. Do people really think he is no longer going to be a top flight pitcher? The Eovaldi deal was bad in hindsight but the Sale deal really isnt that bad
The Sale deal was horrendous in real time. He barely pitched past August of 2018. It was an unnecessary deal. Let him pitch in 2019 and then re-assess. It was a massive mistake. If he was a free agent this offseason what do you think he would have gotten? Not 5/$150.
Take emotion out of it and start writing down a list of all the things that can happen with Mookie each season. Start with “suffers season ending injury in April.” Move to “suffers season ending injury in May”..., then “Has worst season of career for no good reason,” ... and end with “Wins MVP”. Then write a positive probability next to each one of those outcomes, remembering that the sum of those probabilities must equal 100%.
You’ll quickly see how it is more likely that he will be out of baseball 6 years from now (like Pedroia), let alone performing as an above average RF and bat.
I totally agree with this. When it was signed, I was like...whoa, wait a minute. Not that I don't like Chris Sale...love the guy. But that was a TON of money paid needlessly at the time. Even if it ultimately works out, just terrible GMing by DD there.
What's "typical Nathan Eovaldi"? None of his 8 seasons in MLB look anything remotely like one another.
On this theme I did a quick comp between mookie and a frequently used comparable player for him , McCutchen . Similar size, quick hands, good speed etc.
First 5 full seasons for both were age 23-27.
Min games played for cutch was 146. For mookie 136 (in 2018) and rest 145+.
WAR and achievements:
Mookie
2015 - WAR 4.8 - MVP 19th
2016 - WAR 8.3 - MVP 2nd, Allstar, GG, SS
2017 - WAR 5.3 - MVP 6th, Allstar, GG
2018 - WAR 10.4 - MVP 1st, Allstar, GG, SS
2019 - WAR 6.6 - MVP 8th, Allstar, GG, SS
Total WAR 35.4
Cutch
2010 - WAR 3.4 -
2011 - WAR 5.4 - Allstar
2012 - WAR 7.3 - MVP 3rd, Allstar, GG, SS
2013 - WAR 8.1 - MVP 1st, Allstar, SS
2014 - WAR 7.4 - MVP 3Rd, Allstar, SS
Total WAR 31.6
McCutchens 2015 (equivalent of mookies 2020) WAR 6.0, MVP 5th, SS
If Mookie puts up a year like that this year how much would you offer ?
Since then Mccutchen has played 3 full seasons and on 59 game season for a total of 8.9 WAR. Is 33 and coming off an ACL injury.
If he'd been given 10/350 going in to 2016 he'd still have 6/210 remaining and not much left in the tank. That would hurt for a looong time.
Has anyone seen an evaluation of how short guys age? I think the assumption is that smaller players age poorly, but I'm wondering if the stats back that up.
The one thing I'll throw out there is that while I think it's likely a long-term Mookie deal ends poorly, if I'd had my choice between overpaying Eovaldi and Sale or overpaying Mookie, I'd have chosen Mookie. And that's what's causing a lot of my frustration with the team atm.
The one thing I'll throw out there is that while I think it's likely a long-term Mookie deal ends poorly, if I'd had my choice between overpaying Eovaldi and Sale or overpaying Mookie, I'd have chosen Mookie. And that's what's causing a lot of my frustration with the team atm.
We talked about this last night. See pages 2-3. But if Cutch was a 27 YO FA now, and signed the 12/$420 deal that Mookie is seeking... then had the same 5 years that he actually had from 27-32... he would still be owed 7/$245. That would be ridiculously depressing to think about.