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I think is the case with most of these free agents. Accept a short term contract with a high aav or stay unsigned.
Good question. I don’t think there is one. I recall at one point, it was mentioned the Cards might look into Darvish, but then a few weeks ago, there was a list of five supposed finalists that did not include St. Louis.
Well were in there now.
Milwaukee offered 5 years 110 million and it was rejected. Now Brian you know my feelings on the upper management with this team but one would think St. Louis wouldn’t be in the running if at least they either matched or exceeded that offer. Which brings me to my next point. If they were sold on the rotation then you’d figure they’d close up shop. Clearly Mozeliak doesn’t feel that way otherwise we’d just stick to our guns. Could they be offering more money and steer clear of a 6 year deal or maybe an opt out after the 1st season for that loaded FA class in 2018.
Well, if you have a legitimate source currently linking the Cardinals and Darvish, that is news. Feel free to start a new thread, but include a link, please.
As you point out, with Darvish reportedly having multiple five-year deals on the table of over $100 million, it seems HIGHLY unlikely that the Cards would be among these teams.
Still, I was curious, so I did a search. All I could find was a tweeter named Easton Leonard, who is notorious for tweeting any random rumor he sees, whether believable or not. Then when it is proved to be garbage, he says he never endorsed it. Good way to build followers – if you don’t care about your credibility.
Yesterday, Easton tweeted a link to a site called Inquisitr (no typo). Ever heard of it? Me, neither. Always a good sign for a journalism site to purposely misspell its name! Edgy.
Anyway, there, some guy named Ernest Shepard wrote an article summarizing an NBC article about Darvish. It in turn, mentions a report out of Minneapolis about the Twins’ interest in Darvish and says he has five offers. The NBC article does NOT mention the Cardinals, but Ernest does. He does not say why he added them.
Ever play Telephone when you were a kid? That is what internet sportswriting is about today. A legitimate source writes or tweets something, then a bunch of others quickly write their version, embellishing the original source, but with no real reporting. It generates clicks, though. And many readers, thirsting for news, don’t care enough to check if the original source is legitimate and credible.
To digress for a minute, there is one thing interesting in the Craig Calcaterra NBC article, though. It is directly related to a subject we were discussing yesterday about agents and teams and their motivations for leaking rumors. IMO, he hit the nail on the head. So, I actually did get a little something of value from my investigation – in an unexpected way.
Anyway, back to our new friend Ernest. Here is his Twitter bio: “Actor, sportswriter, improviser, comic, aspiring screenwriter & an overall interesting dude.”
Seems a highly unlikely source to break the news the Cards are in on Darvish. Ken Rosenthal, he ain’t. I checked his twitter feed for news and it has nothing about baseball. He did talk about his most recent comedy improv appearance, though. I will not dwell on the fact he has just 1700 followers as that would upset at least one of our regulars. 😉
The five teams reportedly in on Darvish are Cubs, Brewers, Twins, Yankees and Rangers.
Rosenthal, Nightengale and MLB.com (mentioning Heyman, Morosi and others) have all written about Darvish in the past few days. Zero mention of St. Louis, but yeah, ‘ol Ernest scooped them all!
https://www.mlb.com/news/yu-darvish-free-agent-rumors/c-266029528
Brian, while agreeing with you on source credibility, you are showing your age regarding the name Inquisitr. This is actually the hip way of spelling things these days. Evolved from texting culture where it is common to spell more phonetically (particularlly by leaving out vowels). Another option is that there could be trademark or copyright issues or even domain name issues with the correct spelling.
There have been many national insiders suggest that Darvish would be a good fit for the Cards but none have suggested we are pursuing him. Big difference.
There have also been many national insiders suggest wee would be good fits for Arrieta, Hosmer, Moose, and Holland but again that is different than pursuing them. Apparently Mo & Co have decided we are going into the season with what we have.
Our only hope of more additions will be in July.
Cubs just signed Darvish. 6 years $126M. No big surprise here. They are clear favorite to breeze through NL Central.
The Cubs basically traded Arrieta for Darvish. Is it a step up? Looks more sideways to me.
Rosenthal broke the news. Heyman added that the Dodgers’ offer was in the “same ballpark”.
P.S. I get that the Cards traded Lynn for Mikolas, so the gap increased.
From Morosi.
Yu Darvish’s average annual value of $21 million makes this the 19th largest starting pitching contract in @MLB history, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
From Crasnick:
Yu Darvish’s deal with the #Cubs includes an opt out clause and no trade protection, according to a source. There are escalators that can take it from $126M to $150M, as @Ken_Rosenthal reported.
https://twitter.com/jcrasnick/status/962427732759076865
From one of the Cubs beat writers:
Biggest contracts in Cubs history: Heyward: $184 million (8 years) Lester: $155 million (6) Soriano: $136 million (8) Darvish: $126 million (6)
The Cubs keep their rotation solid, with a top four of Lester, Darvish, Quintana and Henricks. We have Martinez, then a bunch of questions marks related to either health or youth – Wacha, Wainwright, Weaver, Flaherty, Mikolas. Plus they have a couple of good lefties, while we are all righty.
On paper, our rotation is not likely to make up the 9 games we were behind last year, but then you never know how a season will play out.
I’ll go with Martinez, Reyes, Wacha, Weaver, Flaherty, and Helsley/Hicks/Hudson/Gomber over the next few years.
The sad thing is that other teams who are in a similar situation projection wise the cardinals (brewers, twins just off top of head) are aggressively spending to get better. I dont know the #s revenue wise, but those teams net less than the cardinals, and will net much less over the next decade or so. So the difference is those teams might be putting themselves in a hole for the next few years to get to the postseason now, where we simply dont have that worry. Yet we sit on our hands.
I hate to sound like some people on here (or i guess old board) who bash owners regardless, but we have an extremely rich team who simply doesnt want to spend this year to contend. Spend your dollars accordingly, but Id rather have mike leake right now than unspent dry powder.
I am unsure there are any free agents on the market that are going to be worth the expense. If they react and sign more Fowlers and Leakes, is that really a good thing?
Personally, I would still like to see another trade for a true front line player, as they did with Ozuna, but it may not come until July, and only then if they are in contention.
Those overrated salaries are going to put the Cubs in a hole. There just won’t be enough talent to match the $$ paid out. They are already paying for poor production… and to dump these guys will be expensive. With the market seemingly going in the other direction those long term deals will bite CHC in the rear. Long term deals rarely can be justified.
Ben Hochman had this to say about developing pitchers as opposed to buying them. I like the point he makes.
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/benjamin-hochman/hochman-cards-develop-starters-cubs-buy-them-a-look-at/article_d9127e81-512c-5333-a289-44da198e44d8.htmlhttps://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/benjamin-hochman/hochman-cards-develop-starters-cubs-buy-them-a-look-at/article_d9127e81-512c-5333-a289-44da198e44d8.html
Cubs develop hitters and buy pitchers. Cards develop pitchers and acquire a few hitters, but not often enough.
I read a good impartial analysis of the NL Central here.
https://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/every-team-homegrown-nl-central/
The Ricketts who own the Cubs are the ideal owners for Theo, as they can afford his mistakes. But they cannot buy their way out of the Luxury Tax, which will almost certainly become an issue when the young players reach the service time they can fetch big contracts. Until then, however, the Cubs are strong on paper.
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