jung

Well if they are in fact over the LT cap and that benefits contribution would seem to be the killer, then if they are able to get back under again next year and stay under for three more consecutive years then they get back to a 0% rate again and they have their get out of jail free card. On the other hand with a couple of notable exceptions, going over for the guys they have signed so far would not appear to make much sense either. Maybe there is a grand plan to trade off salary, collect some credits and get back under this year but it seems unlikely if that Benefits Plan payments amount is accurate. I have been trying to find information about the actual Benefits Plan Payments calculation for last year plus any of the other benefits related adds to the LT cap as opposed to the estimated amount but have not found them as yet.

I thought the club had to exercise the option as well. Glad the Sox get something out of that contract language.

That's a good point E. Don't you think Ortiz gets there because there aren't any deal numbers that work at all when compared to an Arb year at $14M? Ortiz would be nuts to go for 2/20 just as an example. On the other hand would the Sox offer him 1/15 instead of going to Arb? Only reason to do that would be to protect against an Arb win that got him more than $15M right?

Well at least you have some money in there for the Arb guys that makes some sense. When I had fiddled with it awhile back I stuck Ortiz in at $15M just in case and that was to close for comfort. I think he is likely to come in at $14M. Wonder if Ells is the wild card.

I was typing something irrelevant while you were typing something relevant SoxFan...thanks for that.

The cap does get hard to figure if you don't have all the particulars (like we don't). There are additional debits and ultimately some credits that usually come your way with regard to the cap number before all is said and done. I think I posted this earlier but the cost of insurance on contracts goes into your cap calculation just as an example and is money against you in that regard. There are other items that usually come back your way a bit as the organization shifts around and settles on who they sign and under what terms and where they will play. In my case I could not envision a way for them to get under regardless of what credits they might be piling up or what contracts they might fudge around with if they either signed Kuroda or Oswalt. You guys might remember that the Sox used a loophole that nobody had ever used before when they signed AGons and moved his signing to a date that would eliminate his cost from the current year calculation to the following year. I don't think they closed that loophole in the new CBA which is kinda' surprising at least to me. I thought they would make this easy on us or at leasts me as they closed in on the cap but from the point where I had a decent idea, they started signing minor league deals. Unless they get something really good for their money I am going to be kinda' disappointed if they end up all debits in and all credits in going over by a number like $2-3M just because of the implications for next year. These minor league signings and other moves are sort of maddening in that sense because appearances would suggest they are not quite over yet. Again last I thought I had a bead on it, I thought they were at about $176M and then ya' got me. I did not pay close enough attention figuring there would be that one big signing that just left no doubt.....frustrating!

I heard on the radio that the Padilla deal is a minor league contract. That is where they have him at the moment. I am only guessing at this point but it appears that the strategy is to in fact stash a bunch of these guys in the minors at least up to and maybe for some beyond ST bringing them up or not as they prove themselves at some level??? I guess you can sign enough of them that the odds finally pay off and you get somebody out of that process. With guys that have the kinds of issues most of these guys have it is also just as likely that none of them really excels in any meaningful sense. You have to think that is what they are after as opposed to somebody for which expectations are rather limited and the player just meets those limited expectations. They must be looking for somebody to turn out to be a real contributor. I suspect they don't at this point know which guy or guys might be at the top of the heap in that regard. Right or wrong EEI Merloni thinks it highly unlikely that Oswalt will come over to the AL East on a one year contract. His argument is that if Oswalt does sign for 1 year somewhere he will want to mitigate the risk that he fails to impress by staying where he is comfortable and where there is less likelihood that he gets spanked around. The idea being that he uses the 1 year deal in an effort to parley that into something like a 3 year deal somewhere. Sounds reasonable and might explain why we have really not heard that much with regard to Oswalt and the Sox. EEI Merloni also saying that offering Tek an invite under the terms as described is actually a slap in the face more than it is a way to let Tek down easy in a graceful parting. Not sure if he is just trying to smooth this over for the Sox in this case but I can see his point. Maybe it is not a graceful way out after all. That said the Sox seem to be willing to work with Tek presuming the offer of a job somewhere in the organization is legitimate. Merloni is taking the position that some have taken here, that being that Tek will not show up under these terms even if he does not have anywhere else to go. Tek will just retire according to Merloni.

I have to admit that is funny E. I suppose if you really wanted to feed those concerned with more grist for their mill you could envision Tek chasing Salty around in ST trying to crack him across the knees with a baseball bat ala' Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.

Geez SEAbeach you really are seeing Wakes and Teks coming out of the woodwork. Seriously though the way V commented would make you think he was already kinda' queered just for the fact of the invite. Like "what the hell are they doing wasting a locker on this guy?" I just don't think they want V bummin' because they shoved either one down his throat. At the end of the day there is nothing they can get that would make queering V worthwhile. I hereby give you complete freedom to "I told ya' so me right into the ground" if it happens but I really don't think so. Not to say I liked the invite...I hated it and said so. I think V's public comment makes it very difficult for management to sneak either onto the team.

And those players that appeared somewhat lethargic and roundish about the middle got that way during the season.... Staggering when you think about it, not so much because of the physical implications but the mental implications. Almost like the players employed more restraint under the care and guidance of their wives and lovers and became a bunch of petulant children eating and drinking to excess out of boredom and just because they could. In fact, Lester said as much.

Jackson and 5 years. Boras does play every possible angle doesn't he? No wonder he is so maddening to deal with for GM's, Pres and owners. I can see why players still want him though. He simply does not give up an inch without a fight and if you give him a pinky finger he is gnawing on your arm before you know it.

I actually can't see them screwing with V for either one of these two guys. They may not be happy with V for making a public statement...maybe they are happy that he did. Whatever. V is their hand picked guy. Can't see the Sox sticking V with either one of these guys after such a definitive statement. It is just not worth it. I can't argue with the fact that they often do things that are just not worth the grief and aggravation but I just don't see it this time.

If you mean Salty's catching skills, I think his receiving can improve a good deal. Not sure his throwing can improve much.

That's right. It is one year. Scanned right over that. Thanks Meh

Hmmmm....not a guaranteed contract! Wonder if that is why the Sox wanted to avoid arbitration with Salty and were willing to pay the additional $900k. Actually I am not sure what that really means. There must be some specific language in the contract relative to that issue. I don't think language that is directly contradictory to the CBA is considered binding. Must be something specific in there I would think. Maybe its a conditional contract.

Congrats to 700 for his Giants win. Packers must have some relatives on the Giants that they forgot on their Christmas shopping list: Here wanna' football....Here wanna' football.....Here.... (You get the picture)

I don't think Jackson will get down to having to take one year. But I would think that he will end up with three from somebody. Five is unreasonable but likely a negotiating position.

Geez 700 not that I am a Giants fan but I hope you were not typing something to us knuckleheads as that half ended.

Their waiting for Oswalt to fall to $5M on a one year deal.

I know there is no slight intended and none taken. I mean that I am glad to talk to you about which player is marginally better than which player and even which team is better than which team but that those marginally difference in players and teams should not translate into a marginal view of what accounts for success for a team of players. You either win it all or you don't. Winning it all is success and not is failure. I hope that answers your question. If your question is more one of context ala' organization vs team that is specifically why I made that distinction. I cannot change the fact that the teams are merely assets of the organization and that at least in pro sports the organizations are businesses. So maybe I should take the organizational view a step farther in an effort to explain. The organization in pro sports is there to make money. Winning is only valued to the degree that it satisfies their ultimate goal of making money. Taken to an extreme, don't expect a for profit business like a pro team to make changes that improve its chance of winning unless there is an associated benefit with a reasonable chance to flow to the bottom line. I don't accept the notion or expect that things like a "baseline level of success" on the field are valued anywhere. The "team" made up of players and coaches won't and should not give a damn and for a different set of reasons the owners/business organizations won't give a damn either. This is a different topic and only tangentially relevant but In part there is a relationship here to my comments regarding disappointment when Management reaches down into Baseball Operations. While it might not be avoidable Management should not be surprised when its reach exceeds its grasp and at the extreme ends of consequence they end up with a team that is rotten to the core. That is not the only reason that the seed of rot might be implanted in a team but it is one of them. Do I enjoy discussing the business aspects of pro baseball. Yes I do. But when I discuss the business aspects of pro baseball I do not have my fan hat on at all. So once again, even in that case, terms like baseline level of success really have no meaning for me (see above). Another only tangentially relevant discussion is JH and his propensity to admire James and contemporary statistical merits in team building because none of those elements to team building are interested in pretty faces. They don't care if a player has a Hollywood smile or a body like Adonis. The player either gets on base thus producing runs or he prevents guys from getting on base thus reducing runs (oversimplification... I know but you get my meaning). To me, JH owns an organization that regularly opts for style over substance....for marketing glitz over actual expectations for field performance. As has often been mentioned here, I think JH's view was at least more balanced toward winning earlier in his ownership than it is today. However I do not mean to imply that JH ever cared about winning any more than what was required to meet his true business objectives.

Who gives a s*** about a "baseline level of success." Wanna' ask Tito what he thinks about a baseline level of success? Even as a fan I don't give a crap about a baseline level of success, not as a measure of success. Ya' know this is in fact what disturbs me about baseball more than the other major sports. I love the game. I loved playing the game. I love watching the game. But the degree to which people dive into the minutia of baseball which appears to allow them to lose track of the one undeniable fact of major pro sports "teams" (not organizations) drives me nuts. I am even willing to accept what I cannot change....the fact that the owners of baseball organization or any pro sport are running businesses to which a team is merely an asset and those business agenda's may be different from mine as a fan and different from those players and coaches taking the field. It is fun to talk about stats and who is marginally better than what. Do not distort what in fact is the goal of any healthy, pro sports team (to distinguish from organization) and even any organized sports team from high school on. Do not undervalue the one underlying goal that every one of them has and do not imply that anything less is considered success. You either win it all or you don't. I will even happily talk to you about who is better than what. However I cannot tolerate the view that the goal is something other than what I know it to be and there is some level of "satisfaction" that is derived from anything less. Pleasure at watching the game played....sure there is that. Satisfaction is a different standard even for me as a fan and it surely was different as a player and should be different for every player taking the field and every coach coaching them.

Oh yea the Rays. Another example of the "all you have to do is get to the post season" argument. That is right. I forgot. The Rays were hooottttt going into the post season and sure enough, they won it all in 2011. Sure they did. Iortiz if I take your meaning correctly you are saying that the Sox had settled on a process for team building that left them exposed. I agree with that and have said as much. In fact I have argued the flaws of that process so God Damned many times it is coming out of my ears. However the point is being made that years of that process should have been successfully overturned and corrected or successfully "patched" I don't give a damn what you want to call it and the underperformance of key elements of some of those starters that remained should have been accounted for and also correct/patched whatever in the course of an ongoing major league season thus allowing the Sox to win the 2011 WS. In my opinion that argument is bunk. I have asked for examples and none appear forthcoming. and If I may make an effort to transcend the pitching dilemma of 2011, I will ask for another example. Lets see if I have more luck this time. Give me an example of any team in any major professional sport that was as beaten down mentally at the end of the regular season, with the combination of underperforming and/ or injured players, with as many guys that through their own individual make-ups , lacking in leadership everywhere in the organization including the locker room had become so self-possessed, even to the point of being vocally and visually self-possessed, so lacking in heart, playing as gutlessly as the Sox were playing by season end that then went on to win a championship. Hint...there aren't any. Do not even try to present Dem fightin' A's or Jackson's "straw that stirs the drink" Yanks cause neither will wash with me. That Sox team rotted from within. Ya' want to present the pitching issue as the reason why it rotted from within. Go ahead. There are teams with 0 budgets that in reality don't have a prayer or at least should not have a prayer that start the season with worse pitching than the Sox had that by the end of the last season had they been in a division series heads up with the Sox would have both beaten that dog in its tracks and had a better shot at winning a championship. One pitcher one way or the other would not have changed that. Certainly even pitchers that were available that the Sox could have been reasonably expected to have acquired/traded for given the assets at hand would not have changed that. So I am with iortiz in what I believe he states is now his argument. This argument that the pitching dilemma that directly resulted should have been "successfully" righted during the course of an active regular season is a bunch of bunk and the argument that having done so thus crawling into the post season on the bellies would have produced a WS champion is bunk.

Oh yea and that team was on fire at the end of the season. Clearly with the addition of one more pitcher they would have been the hottest team going into the post season...clearly ready to go all the way. I am going to say it one more time and I am absolutely sure that anybody that has played organized sports at any level from high school on will tell you the same thing. There is only one definition for a successful season....winning the last game played that year (i.e. winning the championship)!

OK...have it your way. Remembering that the goal is to win the last game played in any season...do you have an example of a team that suffered that much underperformance AND injury in its rotation and "successfully" patched it during the course of the season.

So you want to call them 8's for the most part...fine call them 8's I don't give a damn. I repeat remember the goal. It is winning the last game played in any given season. That "team" had no chance of getting to and through and then winning a WS. I am not of the school of "all you need to do is get to the post season and then your chances are as good as anybody else's. That team would not have gotten out of the first round. So do you have an example of a team that successfully did what you are asking that the Sox have done last year or not?