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I believe Albert broke that mold. MLB banned personal services bonuses after that. They also eliminated career milestone bonuses like 100 wins or 2000 hits.
NJ, you raise an interesting question. Could any team have enough cap room for either Harper or Machado now plus Trout in two years, with both on long-term contracts? What we call that kind of roster in fantasy baseball is Stars and Scrubs. Two guys making roughly $85 million and the other 23 guys sharing the other $100 million, or something like that. It would take some really creative management to get a roster like that to work out. Certainly a really good farm system would help.
P.S. I took a quick look at a few top spending teams’ most expensive two players for 2019 (so far):
Yankees: $48 MM (Stanton+Tanaka)
Red Sox: $54.75 MM (Price+JD Martinez)
Cubs: $42.5 MM (Lester+Hamels)
Dodgers: $46.3 MM (Kershaw+Bailey)Cards could do it fairly easily and still keep Goldschmitt. The only guy I dumped is Fowler but doable for one year if you package with a decent prospect.
This lineup would be awesome if a few guys develop (mostly pitching) develops like it should.
2021 payroll would be about $180 million in this scenario (some rounding involved and quite a few arb guesses). 2022 would see some bumps but Wong and Miller would be gone (might be gone for 2021).
We would still have Gorman, Nunez and others for a strong core for the farm system.
Harper 35
Trout 50
Bader 3 (arb1)Goldshmitt 25
Wong 12.5
DeJong 4
Monteiro .5
Knizer .5Edmond .5
Urias .5
O’Neill 1
Backup C 1Martinez 11.5
Reyes 5 (arb2)
Flaherty 4 (arb1)
Hudson 1
Gomber 1Hicks 3 (arb1)
Leone 6 (arb4)
Brebbia 2 (arb1)
Helsley .5
Poncdeleon .5
Gonzalez .5
Miller 11.5
Cabrera .5I guess some team could adopt the Nationals model and just defer most of the money to later. Strasburg and Scherzer have a lot of money deferred. That seems like such a terrible business model to me. It should be called the Bobby Bonilla model.
I think I read somewhere the other day that the Cardinals might have some money deferred on someone. Is that true? I’ve never seen it mentioned on Cot’s.
Thanks for sharing, CC, as it must have taken some time to devise. So to get to that point, they would sign Harper now and stop all other free agent signings and extensions (like Mikolas) except Goldy for two years until Trout.
They would not let Molina and Carpenter stay beyond 2020. I don’t know the accounting, but my guess is they couldn’t write off all of Fowler’s salary before 2021. Seems like you’d have to include that, but I get that it is just an illustration.
Obviously very high risk since they wouldn’t know ahead of time if they could get Trout. Still, very interesting.
Back to NJ’s point, if the Cards could do it, maybe the Phillies could do it now, too. Their owner already said they would be spending “stupid money”. If they don’t get one of the two free agents now, it will get really ugly there, I bet.
The St. Louis Cardinals will pay Jim Edmonds a deferred payment of $300K in 2018 and 2019. The annual payment started in 2010.
— Mike Mayer (@mikemayer22) July 1, 2018
The St. Louis Cardinals will pay Matt Holliday $1.4 million on July 15th every year from 2020 to 2029.
— Mike Mayer (@mikemayer22) July 1, 2018
As I recall, Holliday volunteered to take deferred pay to help re-sign Albert.
I just want mostly to echo Brian’s thoughts: thanks for all the math, CC!
I do enjoy speculating on all things baseball, so…looking at that prospective roster, I’d replace Harper with O’Neill, Gomber with Mikolas, and Reyes with Kikuchi. Reyes is pushed to the bullpen. O’Neill’s bench slot is likely filled by Randy Arozarena or Justin Williams or Lane Thomas.
CC’s powerful lineup would almost surely lead the National League in runs scored, and maybe all of baseball. But I’m not crazy about the rotation or bullpen — and I also don’t like what’s happening in the minors right now, in terms of twirlers. There’s a non-zero chance that 12 months from now the top 16-18 Cardinal minor leaguers will all be position players.
The top 4 pitchers could all lose rookie eligibility by then (Reyes, Hudson, Helsley, Cabrera), and the fifth just got suspended for abject idiocy. (I do think Angel Rondon is being overlooked by many. The fastball velocity and curveball snap were both average or better when I saw him this summer. Couldn’t tell if the third pitch was a slider or straight change, but he began to show some feel for it after the 3rd inning or so. A solid 4/5 starter is not unrealistic with lucky health.)
Bob, of the TCN’s top-50 prospects list just finishing up, there will be only 4 pitchers at Adv.A or lower to open 2019 – Oviedo, Seijas, Roberts and Gingery. Not looking too good down below. In one year, unless there are a couple of DSL pitchers showing big improvements or the 2019 draft brings in some high quality arms, our solid pitching prospects will be few and very far between. As the pitching prospects from the ’14 and ’15 draft classes pass through the system, there is a small handful to be hopeful about from the ’16 -’17 – ’18 draft classes.
Most of our younger promising guys play the field as you stated. Quite a two-year reversal. That’s why we’ll need to get as many years from the younger pitchers on StL roster, (Flaherty – Gomber – Hudson – Ponce) on the MEM roster, (Woodford – Cabrera – Helsley) and Kruczynski at SPFD. Perhaps they’ll be able to get us through until some premium pitching prospects appear.
to bccran, homeruns mean very little to me if they are attached to horrible hitting otherwise. yea carpenter was babe ruth for a couple months but he was one of the worst hitters in the league the rest of the time. also his fielding isn’t terrible at third, its his arm that’s the main problem. also some on this board are funny in that they make certain statements about harper but don’t use them with other players. harper has trended downward since his mvp season but is still solid in areas and hes just coming into his prime years so theres a chance he improves especially with the right team. carpenter had a very down year minus a couple months and a lot of home runs but no one is projecting him down though hes at an age where going down is normal, not going up or getting back to the same.
I also think worrying about trout now is just stupid. also I feel hes a solid player but I don’t think hes the great player that the metrics make him out to be. he hasn’t carried the angels to any prominence like pujols did for a few years when they didn’t really have that much in their lineup. would he be a good player to get then, yea for any team, but no need to worry about him now.
In all fairness, I don’t think anyone is worrying about Trout. People are discussing baseball topics over the long winter. If you feel the discussion is stupid, just skip over it.
As far as dismissing Trout for playing for a bad team, I bet you didn’t think much of Ernie Banks, either. 😉
And for the record, Pujols did not carry the Angels anywhere. Trout was on the team before Albert got there. In their entire time there, they have made the playoffs just once and were eliminated three games straight (2014). In 2014, specifically, Trout’s numbers were superior to Albert’s across the board.
The Angels were way better in the years before Pujols got there, while he was with the Cardinals. Quite likely that his albatross of a contract is keeping the Angels from getting better players to remain competitive. Hard to imagine Trout is going to stay around there for another decade of mediocrity.
“Yea carpenter was babe ruth for a couple of months but he was one of the worst hitters in the league the rest of the time.”
Horribly inaccurate.
I hope I’m wrong but I really think Harper is going to end up with the Cubs. I’ve just read too many articles and tweets lately that indicate to me they are working very hard behind the scenes to make this happen. Epstein is just too aggressive and desperate to make another big splash for this not to happen.
If we start hearing more serious rumblings about a Heyward trade then we will know the Harper to the Cubs deal is going to happen. Of course to move Heyward they will have to eat some money and/or attach some young players with him like Contreras, Happ, or Almora.
14NyquisT
Bob, of the TCN’s top-50 prospects list just finishing up, there will be only 4 pitchers at Adv.A or lower to open 2019 – Oviedo, Seijas, Roberts and Gingery. Not looking too good down below. In one year, unless there are a couple of DSL pitchers showing big improvements or the 2019 draft brings in some high quality arms, our solid pitching prospects will be few and very far between. As the pitching prospects from the ’14 and ’15 draft classes pass through the system, there is a small handful to be hopeful about from the ’16 -’17 – ’18 draft classes.
Most of our younger promising guys play the field as you stated. Quite a two-year reversal. That’s why we’ll need to get as many years from the younger pitchers on StL roster, (Flaherty – Gomber – Hudson – Ponce) on the MEM roster, (Woodford – Cabrera – Helsley) and Kruczynski at SPFD. Perhaps they’ll be able to get us through until some premium pitching prospects appear.
Of course, the 2019 draft will likely add another, if not two, top 10 prospects to our depths and those will likely be pitchers. If Gorman was a pitcher like Ryan Rolison or Brady Singer, that player would’ve shored up the lower minors pitching depth. We actually haven’t used our first pick on a pitcher since Luke Weaver in 2014 (Plummer, Perez, Vacated, and Gorman since)
gscottar
If we start hearing more serious rumblings about a Heyward trade then we will know the Harper to the Cubs deal is going to happen. Of course to move Heyward they will have to eat some money and/or attach some young players with him like Contreras, Happ, or Almora.
They would be hard-pressed to get any relief from trading Heyward. They could move Quintana, Zobrist, or Cishek which would help. I could see Schwarber being traded so they’d have a place for Harper in the outfield. They may not want to give away so much in the luxury tax additions, which they are far over the limit currently.
jj-cf-stl
“Yea carpenter was babe ruth for a couple of months but he was one of the worst hitters in the league the rest of the time.”
Horribly inaccurate.
Yep.
Carpenter by month:
April – .579
May – .961
June – 1.040
July – 1.222
August – .984
September – .558This is a post from a Braves blogger. There is nothing to indicate that this will actually happen but this is the kind of thing that very well could be happening behind the scenes.
Carp did have a couple bad months, but notice his obp was still .305 and .313, even though the batted balls weren’t finding the outfield grass.
For their season, dejong had a .313 obp and yadi a .314
Something to be said for “keeping the line moving” even if your BAbip is killing you.to b Walton, people were talking about waiting for trout. while stupid was the wrong term to use, ill say misguided. hedging today for a player that for a myriad of reasons might not be available in a couple of years doesn’t fix today. far as pujols comment, I meant that he carried the cardinals for a few years there after Edmonds started going downhill all the way up til he went to the angels. yea holiday came along but im not his biggest fan. to others, far as my comments on carpenter. his batting average those other months were in the low 200s, maybe that’s good to some of you guys, but I have a little higher expectation for a guy that generally hits leadoff. yea im sure his on base was ok. but should have been better. he struck out looking way too often constantly getting into it with umpires, most of the time the umpires were right. he may have been frustrated with his hitting but taking hittable pitches and hoping for walks isn’t the right way to get out of bad hitting.
oh b Walton, im not dissing trout. hes a fine player, I just don’t see the same greatness everyone else does. yea, the numbers say I should but my eyes see a really good to great player not hey this is a great player. he doesn’t jump at you like a ken griffy jr, or a barry bonds, or albert in his prime. now I don’t watch him every day but I didn’t watch griffy jr a lot either but I saw greatness when I did. what I said, he should be able to compensate some for a bad offensive squad just the way albert did for the cardinals after Edmonds went downhill. the cards had some really average to below guys around him for a few years there far as hitting goes. far as ernie banks goes. im sure he was a fine player but he played for the cubs hence I hate the cubs, they deserve to lose every game they play.
to say that Trout is only a good player but not great it comical at BEST and on the verge of idiotic….right now he is the BEST player in baseball period…he is a stupid a great super star….better than anybody else in baseball….
Any bets on this “source” being from the Boras Corp.? The media can be a powerful negotiating tool. I wonder if Bowden checked with the Nats to try to verify?
#Nationals last offer to Bryce Harper was actually “much more than the $300m being reported by the media” according to a source. Apparently, The 10-year $300m offer was actually just the team’s 1st offer to Harper.
— Jim Bowden⚾️🏈 (@JimBowdenGM) January 4, 2019
Now we even have Dodgers-focused writers questioning Harper’s demands.
#Dodgers Are Smart Not To Spend Stupid Money via @forbes https://t.co/nDaeTYkzIJ #MLB
— John Perrotto (@JPerrotto) January 4, 2019
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