Detroit gives a bank to Miguel Cabrera

[3and2Fastball]

Deals like this are about a lot more than a players perceived value in a given year from ages 35-40. It is about marketing, sales hype, merchandise sales and yes TV $$$. It is about selling a "winning team" to the fans.

 

I still think the Brewers made a mistake not giving a truckload to Prince Fielder

 

 

You sell a winning team to the fans by putting a winning team on the field. For the Brewers that means being smart with their limited resources.

 

Exactly! Which means not giving Prince Fielder's money to the likes of Aramis Ramirez, Corey Hart, & Matt Garza!

[logan82]

That money is probably better spent on Ramirez, Hart, and Garza than it would have been on Fielder.

[DoubleSwitch]

There's no reason Illitch couldn't have just extended Cabrera for 4 year 150mil beyond the 2 years he already has with Cabrera and accomplish the same thing he's done

 

There's one pretty huge reason: Cabrera would have said 'no thanks'. It's not like the Tigers don't know that a shorter deal would have been better than a longer one. Cabrera got the deal he got because that's what it took to keep him.

 

Also as far as the Brewers backing up the Brinks truck to anyone's front door, I would have given it to Greinke over Fielder.

[RightFieldCoder]

I would have given it to Sabathia.

[Invader3K]

 

Exactly! Which means not giving Prince Fielder's money to the likes of Aramis Ramirez, Corey Hart, & Matt Garza!

 

When did we give Corey Hart a long term deal?

 

Also, if Fielder's contract with Detroit was such a great idea, why did they trade him two years later?

[RockCoCougars]

A stupid deal at stupid money. The bottom line is that this hurts all the teams in baseball with limited budgets because it sets the bar that much higher. Contract dollars are not going to regress moving forward. In the end, this is going to squeeze fans even more with ticket prices and the like. With this kind of money being thrown around, how much longer is a station like Fox Sports Wisconsin going to be available on most basic cable/satellite packages without a major rate hike? I'm guessing that the beancounters with MLB envision moving to an internet based pay service for games in the future similar to mlb.tv.

[Invader3K]

I'm guessing that the beancounters with MLB envision moving to an internet based pay service for games in the future similar to mlb.tv.

 

Actually, if I understand correctly, that would be a huge boon to small market teams like the Brewers. Internet revenues are shared equally between all 30 teams.

 

I bet MLB and the other leagues are watching what WWE is doing right now with great interest...they're charging $9.95 a month for basically unlimited access to all their shows and pay-per-views, via the internet. I could see most pro sports going to something like that eventually.

[owbc]

Absolutely not, local teams will never be on MLB.tv.

 

The majority of this new money is coming from non-sports fans through cable TV deals. If people get sick of paying for cable TV, the revenue stream disappears. That's why MLB or other sports will never remove their blackout restrictions in the current system--they can't have people canceling cable. Expect MLB to fight hard against proposed a la carte TV laws.

 

Recently the cable TV companies are now directly signing the baseball contracts, meaning that a hypothetical Time Warner customer in Wisconsin who has never watched a baseball game in his/her life is helping pay for that record-breaking Dodgers payroll.

 

If only people who watched baseball paid for these insane contracts, we would all be paying $200 a month to watch the Brewers.

[RockCoCougars]

At some point in the next decade or two, I've got to think that the cable/satellite bubble is going to burst. Streaming services are already a serious threat on the home consumer level. I've got to think that they are going to make a serious dent, and more so with people who do not care about or watch sports. It's apparent that one strategy is to move all the 'big events' to cable to keep customers... that and blackout rules are really the only cards that big sports is holding at this point.

[DoubleSwitch]

Yup, owbc is right on. I'd recommend anything Wendy Thurm has written about TV rights to get a good picture of the motivations and problems with the current system. Basically you won't see a mlb.tv for all type system until the current cable TV business model is dead in the ground. The good news is that might not be too far away, whether through legislation(doubtful), or people increasingly cutting the cord(much more likely.)

[And That]

If Illitch were so hell-bent on spending his money now, why not give a bunch of it to Scherzer too?

[trwi7]

If Illitch were so hell-bent on spending his money now, why not give a bunch of it to Scherzer too?

 

He tried. Offered him 6/144.5 and it was declined.

[And That]

If Illitch were so hell-bent on spending his money now, why not give a bunch of it to Scherzer too?

 

He tried. Offered him 6/144.5 and it was declined.

 

I realize they made a play for Scherzer, but Illitch is worth north of a lot of billions... a bunch is not $144.5 million. If they really wanted to re-sign Max, they could have. Which makes the Cabrera deal even worse.

 

In fact, I would argue that the lack of a Scherzer deal is a good argument for the Tigers being incompetently rich, as opposed to impetuously rich.

[LouisEly]

That money is probably better spent on Ramirez, Hart, and Garza than it would have been on Fielder.

[sarcasm]The Milwaukee Brewers First Base Circus of 2013 and likely 2014 says hello.[/sarcasm]

 

Pick two of the three. Can't get all three for $24M this season. Actually, you can't get Ramirez + Garza for $24M. Ramirez + Hart = $22M + Hart's incentives. Ramirez + Hart vs. Fielder? All things equal, prolly Ramirez and Hart, but I think the Brewers lost a lot more than Fielder's WAR when they lost their biggest, if not only, left-handed threat.

 

If anything, it would have saved this site a boatload of bandwidth and debate over 33 pages of posts.

[And That]

Actually, you can't get Ramirez + Garza for $24M.

 

Yes you can. Ramirez has $6 mil deferred in 2014, $2 mil more deferred for Garza. The Brewers owe them a guaranteed $20.5M this year, possibly another $500k more if Garza goes over 190 IP.

[logan82]

That money is probably better spent on Ramirez, Hart, and Garza than it would have been on Fielder.

[sarcasm]The Milwaukee Brewers First Base Circus of 2013 and likely 2014 says hello.[/sarcasm]

We would have moved the circus to 3B instead. 3B is even more desolate in the minors for us than 1B.

 

Over the past 2 years the fWAR of Ramirez and Fielder has been virtually identical and since WAR is a counting stat that is even more impressive when you consider Ramirez has done it in about 70% of the PA. Add in he did it at half the price and a fraction of the years and I don't think a very strong argument can be made that we would be better off with Fielder.

[logan82]

This contract makes no sense. I doubt they paid less than they would have if he signed as a free agent. They don't look like they got a deal and they signed him for many of his declining years. If you go over to Cot's and look at the average per year value of the highest contracts they are going up incrementally except for this contract and Kershaw's contract. Then again maybe $30m per year is the new bar for star contracts.

[Roderick]

This deal doesn't affect Milwaukee's ability to sign FAs. Nobody here wants the Brewers to commit 10years of money to somebody 31years of age. Also, clearly Cabrera has a DH future something the Brewers can't commit money to a position player with that as a backup plan as one ages.

The deal to watch out for that will affect Milwaukee will be what Mike Trout gets. How many years. at what insane cost? Because extending players in the early 20s is about the only kind of extensions the Brewers brass should be invested in doing.

 

A deal like this trickles down to all levels of pay (other than the first three pre-arby years). So I do think it affects the Brewers. Younger players going to contract will say they are practically as good as him and deserve 90% of his contract, etc, etc. Which in turn will guys you want to resign and guys that are young enough to effect arby comparisons. All of which pertains to the Brewers.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Not to mention Trout's deal - even if teams are successful at identifying top tier talent through the draft, they will need to pay through the nose to keep them from nasty arbitration battles even earlier in their careers. There aren't going to be many more pre arby contracts like Lucroy's or even Braun's 1st extension...teams are terrified to even get to the first year of arbitration with premier talent because these bloated FA deals set the market beyond the reach of small market payrolls. So, the window of cost-control for young players keeps getting shorter, and it will make it even more difficult for teams on tight budgets to stay consistently competitive.

 

In this offseason you've had the biggest contract ever given out to a position player, the biggest contract ever given out to a pitcher, and the biggest contract ever (by leaps and bounds) given out to a pre-arbitration player. If Cabrera, Kershaw, and Trout are worth what they've been guaranteed is debatable (of the three, only Trout's deal makes sense from an expected performance standpoint IMO), but these contracts have unquestionably sent shockwaves through small market teams that have limited capabilities to collect TV money...like the Brewers.

[HiAndTight]

Deals like this are about a lot more than a players perceived value in a given year from ages 35-40. It is about marketing, sales hype, merchandise sales and yes TV $$$. It is about selling a "winning team" to the fans.

 

I still think the Brewers made a mistake not giving a truckload to Prince Fielder

 

 

You sell a winning team to the fans by putting a winning team on the field. For the Brewers that means being smart with their limited resources.

 

 

Ok, you also ignored the other aspects of this deal he talked about.

 

Cabrera may very well end up being one of the top 2-3 greatest right handed hitters of all time.

He could very well be closing in on 3500 hits(or more as that would be ~150 a year over the next 10) and 700+ HR's.

 

The Tigers will make 110 million a year before they sell a single ticket, jersey or beer just from the national TV deals and their own local TV deals.

 

So signing a player of Cabrera's caliber is more than just paying him for his on field production(which is why they were undoubtedly not interested in a 4 year extension). It's about capitalizing on all the baseball value he has left, especially in the short term, but also about capitalizing on his marketability as his career winds down.

 

It's plausible that he could end up with the most hits in Tiger history(which obviously would be a pretty damn remarkable feat) and the HR record as he moves to DH if he is still playing reasonably well during these option years(41 and 42). There's a whole lot of money in that.

 

So basically this is a lot more than just a baseball deal. I'm also not sure why there is so much outrage and insults being hurled towards the Tigers.

[HiAndTight]

This deal doesn't affect Milwaukee's ability to sign FAs. Nobody here wants the Brewers to commit 10years of money to somebody 31years of age. Also, clearly Cabrera has a DH future something the Brewers can't commit money to a position player with that as a backup plan as one ages.

The deal to watch out for that will affect Milwaukee will be what Mike Trout gets. How many years. at what insane cost? Because extending players in the early 20s is about the only kind of extensions the Brewers brass should be invested in doing.

 

A deal like this trickles down to all levels of pay (other than the first three pre-arby years). So I do think it affects the Brewers. Younger players going to contract will say they are practically as good as him and deserve 90% of his contract, etc, etc. Which in turn will guys you want to resign and guys that are young enough to effect arby comparisons. All of which pertains to the Brewers.

 

 

Really? There are going to be young playerS who are going to try and argue they're "practically," as good as Miguel Cabrera and are going to try to argue that because of this deal, even as soon as their 1st three years of arbitration they should get 90% or 27 million dollars a year?

 

Who are these players do you think?

 

This is a guy who's coming off 4 years with an OPS+ of 178, 179, 164(the year he won the Triple Crown by the way) and 187.

 

I'm guessing you're in no real danger of this influx of young players who are going go try to make the argument they're basically the same as Miggy and as such should get 90 pct of his deal, just as you didn't get the same argument when Arod signed his deal or Jeter signed his 189 million dollar deal.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I feel bad for the GM that has to deal with Cabrera's contract 5 seasons from now...knowing he's stuck with a severely diminished player nearing his late 30's who can only DH for FIVE more seasons and about 150 million bucks.

 

Cabrera's had substance abuse issues in his not too recent past, coupled with him being on the wrong side of 30 and a negative defensive value that has him becoming a DH in the next few seasons. He could very well leave the game as one of the very best RH hitters of all time, if not the best. He could just as easily break down due to injury (started with a weird injury in mid-late 2013) and become a shell of the great player he currently is.

 

Good for him to get that kind of payday, but it's just too long a deal for a player his age, regardless of how great he is.