Holliday to Cards, 7 years $120 million

[rluzinski]

I don't think it matters too much how your talent is distributed on offense. I also don't see how paying market value for Fielder getMs the Brewers closer to the World Series. It's easy to pay market value for wins. Allocating $120 mil to one player seems very risky for a team like the Brewers.

[wishicouldhit]

I don't think it matters too much how your talent is distributed on offense. I also don't see how paying market value for Fielder getMs the Brewers closer to the World Series. It's easy to pay market value for wins. Allocating $120 mil to one player seems very risky for a team like the Brewers.

 

than what would you suggest the brewers do to stay competitive if they dont sign prince

[Thurston Fluff]

You can spend that money on Prince and not be able to fill another hole or you can spend it on Prince's replacement and fill another hole as well. We either have a great player and a void or we have average players with no holes. Personally I don't care either way as long as the production is there.

[dadofandrew]

Too long, too much. Makes the Mets deal with Bay look superb. As stated, SL outbid...the fact he could, in theory, not play for anyone.

 

Pujols and Holliday will cost SL about $40M per. That's quite a chunk.

[rluzinski]

Look for players on the market that are still good but might be somewhat undervalued. It's not like the Brewers don't have any positions that could be upgraded. And even if they aren't a bargain, you at least won't have to sign them to a 7 year deal. If Prince is willing to give a hometown discount, great. Otherwise, spend the money somewhere else.

[sheethead]

Pretty amazing the Cards gave that much money to the guy that cost them game two in the NLDS. Of course he is a great hitter, but I am personally happy that goat stayed in St. Louis.

[CheezWizHed]

... but I am personally happy that goat stayed in St. Louis.

Of course the Cubs kicked the goat out and have had horrible luck ever since! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[rluzinski]

Pretty amazing the Cards gave that much money to the guy that cost them game two in the NLDS

 

That's because you are thinking like a fan, not like a GM of of a professional baseball team.

[Tbadder]

I think the deal is a double edge sword for the Cards. I think it means they win the divisions for a few years running (2, maybe 3) but that they'll be unable to get better than they were last year. Okay if you sneak a championship in there, otherwise risky business. Of course paying a guy 17 mil in the fifth, sixth, and seventh year will be galling, but maybe by then that will be the league average salary (we can only hope for the players union sake).

[endaround]

One thing to keep in mind is that if the Cards didn't sign Holliday Pujols might have told them don't expect him to come back

[logan82]

The Cardinals and Brewers were both projected with similar records before the 2009 season. Our team is not as good as it was then and the Cardinals are a little better. I think this move puts us in 3rd place in the division. Cubs are probably still the best, but not by a large margin anymore. Of course all 3 teams are so close that good luck or a few career years from some players along with bad years from the Cubs and Cardinals an we could still win the division.

[jhart05]

"It'll be interesting to see what Holliday does in a full season in St. Louis"

 

 

He has a career .370 average in Busch.

[bacon06]

Apparently, Holliday will be paid by the Cardinals until the year 2029. That was a very classy decision by the Cardinals, to pay a guy $1.4-1.6 million a year when he isn't even playing anymore.

 

Link

[TooLiveBrew]

He has a career .370 average in Busch.

 

That's a sample of roughly 200 PAs. His career home line (1,860 PAs) is .351/.420/.632/1.052 ... career road line (1,778 PAs) of .284/.353/.454/.808.

 

7/$120M is an awful lot of money to spend on a guy in any event, but especially if he's a LF only giving you an OPS in the .850 neighborhood.

[crewcrazy]

Apparently, Holliday will be paid by the Cardinals until the year 2029. That was a very classy decision by the Cardinals, to pay a guy $1.4-1.6 million a year when he isn't even playing anymore.

 

Link

 

Maybe the Brewers can afford to keep Prince, after all, by paying him $2 million a year every year until 2050. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

It makes this deal a bit more affordable for the Cards, but these types of deferred money deals can also look really bad, especially if he doesn't end up "earning" the contract in fans' eyes. Although I do look forward to making fun of Cards fans in 2025 by reminding them they're still wasting $2 million a year on a guy who's no longer playing (then again, $2 million might be the league minimum by then, so who knows).

[sheethead]

Pretty amazing the Cards gave that much money to the guy that cost them game two in the NLDS

That's because you are thinking like a fan, not like a GM of of a professional baseball team.

That could be because I am a fan, and not actually a GM (nor to I attempt to perpetrate one).

 

If I was a GM, I would think... "Matt, $120 million smackers sound good for 7 years? Yes? Well OK then, don't drop any more fly balls in the playoffs, cool? Great, welcome back."

 

However, if I was GM of, say, the Milwaukee Brewers, it would be more like... "Matt, $70 million smackers sound good for 5 years? No? Well fine, go play for the Cardinals then."

[Baldkin]

Can't believe how much this deal was for, considering Bay's deal. Looks like the Cards dropped the ball on this one! ZING!

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/7134/hollidaydrop.gif

[endaround]

Holliday is a much, much better player than Bay. Bay's WAR for the past 4 years: 5.5, 0.0, 2.9, 3.5. Holliday's WAR: 4.4, 8.0, 6.3, 5.7. Bay is an above average player, Holliday is Ryan Braun with good defense.

[TooLiveBrew]

Holliday, playing half his games at Coors, has been Ryan Braun with better defense. I bet Braun outproduces him at the plate in 2010.

[Gobias Industries]

I still had a good view of the botched catch .gif posted above endaround's reply about Holliday's good defense. Bad timing.

[BoKnowsBall]

Didn't deferring salary really come back to bite the Diamondbacks and they still owe some ridiculous amount of money for their world series team?

[crewcrazy]

Didn't deferring salary really come back to bite the Diamondbacks and they still owe some ridiculous amount of money for their world series team?

 

Yeah, at one point they owed $270 million in deferred salary to 18 players, and after spending most of the decade cutting costs, they've managed to get it down to about $30 million heading into next season.

 

Now that the Cards have done this with Holliday, I wouldn't be surprised to see them do it with Pujols as well. Obviously, for something like the Arizona situation to happen, the front office would have to show complete disregard for the future health of the franchise -- what happened with the D'Backs was incredible, and probably a unique circumstance (the front office desperately wanted to quickly build the fanbase, and thought winning early at any cost would accomplish that).

[Tbadder]

This only screws the Cards if they then can't sign Pujols. They don't need pitching if they remain healthy. This signing really puts the Brewers behind the 8-ball. It increases the chances that the Brewers will lose their Fielder window of opportunity. It'll hurt the Cards later in the contract--it always does--but as far as the Crew goes it's put the kabosh on the next 3 years unless injuries rear their ugly heads.

[Crew2323]

This only screws the Cards if they then can't sign Pujols. They don't need pitching if they remain healthy. This signing really puts the Brewers behind the 8-ball. It increases the chances that the Brewers will lose their Fielder window of opportunity. It'll hurt the Cards later in the contract--it always does--but as far as the Crew goes it's put the kabosh on the next 3 years unless injuries rear their ugly heads.

I guess I don't understand how anyone can so definitively say the Brewers have no chance. Is Holliday a good player? Yes. But look at what it took for the Cards to win the division last year. They needed career years from guys like Joel Pinero and Adam Wainright. And not only that, Chris Carpenter actually stayed pretty healthy the entire year. They traded for DeRosa and Holliday and still managed to win only 91 games in a down division. At this point they retained Holliday, but have lost some of the pieces they had last year. I wouldn't be overly shocked if the 2010 Cardinals had a year similar to the 2009 Cubs.

 

Let's not forget that the Brewers were in first place for a good portion of the season, until their starting pitching imploded. And even so, the Brewers won 80 games last year with one of the worst--if not the worst--starting rotations in all of baseball. They won 80 games with their starting shortstop playing way below expectations, with their starting right fielder playing below expectaions, and with their starting second baseman missing for the majority of the season. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for some of these guys to start playing up to their potential (see Hart, Parra, and now Gomez etc.). There's no reason to think that the Brewers won't be able to hang with the Cardinals, and there's no reason to think that they cannot win the division. The off-season still isn't over, so who knows what Melvin has up his sleeve yet. But to categorically state that the Brewers are toast for the next three years seems to be a bit extreme.

[Tbadder]

You maybe entirely correct. But I think the Braun-Fielder combo is now exceeded by the Pujols-Holliday combo. Add that to Milwaukee's long term problems in the starting rotation especially against a Duncan led staff which will inevitably be better and it doesn't look good. You may also be right about the young guys, but I simply disagree. Gomez is almost the definition of a bad offensive player, Hart's long swing hasn't gotten any shorter, Casey should come down to earth, I can't see Escobar being better than Counsell was offensively, Rickie--I love the guy, but come on, do we really think he's gonna make it thru a season. Parra may come around. I think he's got the best chance of the bunch, but I'm not counting on it for another two or three years ala Jorge.

 

Melvin's lost the touch in my opinion. I was a big supporter of him up to this last round of trades and signings. I expect we'll get another Looper type, which simply won't be enough. And I don't believe the Brewers are toast, only that they won't win the division without injury help. There's always the wildcard if big market NL teams like the Mets keep being stupid. My projections may be entirely incorrect but companies need to make those long term projections and it can't look good in the Brewer camp when opposing divisional teams can make anchor signings and they cannot.