lasitter

So what's up with this? http://tinyurl.com/33xwfrs I still like the idea of safety in numbers / many small trades versus one or two fat trades. If you could sign 10 pitchers with any relief potential for $1 million each, the chances are good that at least ONE of them would surprise you and be able to find home plate.

In my favorite fairy tale, baseball stadiums around the country would be filled to capacity by ravenous fans that were captivated by watching their local teams as they were actively in the hunt for a playoff spot. That sort of competitiveness would be a good thing for almost everybody, and would ultimately put money into the pockets of the owners and players from every level of play in the sport. Of course revenue sharing has done much to help small market teams stay in business, but the so called luxury tax is of little use in its current configuration. The money does not go to small market / under-performing teams, and never goes over a modest penalty percentage no matter how often a rich team tops the team salary limits. Forgetting for a moment that it will never be enacted because it might benefit the many at the expense of the powerful few, consider this idea for a different sort of luxury tax. I'd first propose that money from the luxury tax go directly to player salary support for the worst teams in the league. For sake of argument and working the math, say it would be split four ways. Second, teams over the cap would have to pay 100% of their overage in the very first year. So if a team were over by $10 million, it would shed an extra $2.5 million to each of the the four lowest teams. If they were still over in the second year by $10 million, the tax would double to $20 million, or $5 million per team. At some point, not even the richest offender could ignore this doubling. Requiring that the money go to player salaries somewhere in the A-AAAA system of ball would have to be popular amongst players. I think the players union would find this to be difficult to oppose. This new system would put downward pressure on the biggest salaries in the league, and so no doubt the most vigorous opponents of the salary cap would also fight this. The Yankees, of course, would oppose such a change with every fiber in their being, since they are the predominant beneficiaries of the current system, but I feel certain that some variation of this would benefit baseball as a whole.

I'm just saying that when you pay that much for someone, you have to be right about a lot of things. Staying healthy and fit is one thing, but when you get the attitude that he unleashed last season, you can end up seeing more red than is on the uniform. At some price point, the Dice-K deal could look like a good thing. It's just that two of his three years hear have certainly not lived up to the original hype. He has lots of pitches, but unless he gets his placement, nothing he's got is that overpowering. And his fastball is only fast in comparison to his other pitches. I don't think you're really got cheese unless you START at 95mph.

Please note: There's no "ass" in my name. (I like to think my ancestors chose that spelling for a reason ...) What do they pay for their minor league talent, compared to some? A better point, I'll agree, would be that their large investments often don't pan out, and that they have a largess in the money department shared by no other team.

One thing I have liked about the Sox is that they have managed to develop a lot of talent within the organization. It's been a winning strategy for them, and I wish they could do more with it. I'm just not a fan of mega-deals. When you put out over a hundred million for Dice-K, you have to be right about EVERYTHING, and the real cost is usually not what you forked over for that player, but what you might have gotten instead. Economists refer to this as the "opportunity cost". If you're the Yankees, have a mountain of money, laugh at the concept of a salary cap, and couldn't recognize emerging talent if it bit you in the azz, then you just buy every free agent in sight. You're bound to be right sometime. So I wish we could have taken the money we gave Dice-K and Beckett and played "small ball" in the player selection / grooming process. Investing money in a lot of down-list drift picks gives you lots of options. With a good scouting combined with a great coaching / talent development you can get players performing to their potential such that they look desirable at some level within the organization, even if they have flaws that don't make them big league material. Getting players that have a long time to go in their careers gives you plenty of time to work on them and generate value for your investment. You can then play them or trade them for more immediate impact players if needed. The important point here is that being wrong with these players is CHEAP. If you only turn up one or two winners out of ten, you cut the bums and let the winners run. You're still miles ahead of the game compared to when a high value target flops.

Thanks. Couple of weeks ago I had heard some commentators opining about how V-Mart's throwing had tailed off early in the season, but that now it was working its way back up to average again. I guess if that part of his game is at least average then maybe the trade was OK.

So I've forgotten the other details of the trade. Who else did the Guardians end up getting as a result of the trade and with draft picks? I see the first roles of the catcher as being a run-reducer, keeping bad pitches in front of him, stopping the running game with an arm like a cannon, fielding bunts, etc., etc. If someone did all that I'd be very happy with them batting their weight. Was the trade worth it?