Price to Red Sox 7 years $219 Million

[CheezWizHed]

Apparently the Cardinals were the runners up.

I read that Price was 'enamored' with the idea of playing in St. Louis - but in the end, money talked.

 

Given the Cardinal's strength is the SP and their weakness is on offense, that is surprising. I'm sure Price is an upgrade, but is that upgrade worth $31M per year? I would think they would want to spend that money on someone who can hit.

[MrTPlush]

Sooner or later the gravy train has to stop doesn't it? ESPN just laid off a bunch of staff in part because they overpaid for MLB rights. Will the networks finally learn?

 

It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. The big TV deals actually help competitive balance. When the big boys make more money that means more revenue sharing. So the Brewers get more money and the big market teams don't necessarily spend more on their team because of the luxury tax.

 

On the bright the Brewers will have their TV deal expire after the 2019 season when we, hopefully, are starting to compete again. So the Brewers will actually be in prime position to make a big splash in FA if they wanted to with the Braun contract coming off the books at nearly the same time.

[monty57]

This is a sensible response, but I think there's a very simple reality here: Having lots of money is way, way better than not having lots of money. Of course you can screw up wealth, but you can screw up poverty too, and poverty gives you a hell of a lot lower margin for error. To put the point another way, wealthy teams can play the build from within game as well as poor teams can -- and then the wealthy teams can separate themselves by spending money the poor teams don't have.

 

Agree, and this is my concern about the Cubs. If they "stay smart," they could become a dynasty. I hope they get greedy and make some stupid moves like signing a pitcher into his late 30's to $31MM per year, but we will have to wait and see.

 

In the real world, the rich and powerful beat the poor and powerless.

 

I don't agree here. I started relatively poor and am doing everything I can to become "rich" and I think everyone has that opportunity. You're only beaten if you believe it, but I won't go any further here for fear of going too far off topic.

[gregmag]

In the real world, the rich and powerful beat the poor and powerless. Major league baseball has become just another outpost of the real world.

 

World Series teams with opening day payroll rank

 

2015 KCR (16) NYM (21)

2014 SFG (07) KCR (19)

2013 BOS (04) STL (10)

2012 SFG (08) DET (05)

2011 STL (11) TEX (13)

2010 SFG (10) TEX (27)

2009 NYY (01) PHI (07)

2008 PHI (12) TBR (29)

2007 BOS (02) COL (25)

2006 STL (11) DET (14)

2005 CWS (13) HOU (12)

2004 BOS (02) STL (11)

2003 FLA (25) NYY (01)

2002 ANA (14) SFG (10)

2001 ARI (08) NYY (01)

2000 NYY (01) NYM (06)

 

Looks like a pretty even mix of teams. Zero of the last twelve WS teams have had a top 3 opening day payroll. Only two of the last twelve had a top 5 opening day payroll. If anything it appears that the trend is moving more towards the middle than earlier in the millenium when there were a lot more Yankees & Boston teams dominating the mix. Sure, the margin for error is much greater with a higher payroll, but the opportunity for error is that much greater as well.

This is good information, but it doesn't quite move me. Of the last 32 WS teams, if I'm counting right, 25 had top-15 payrolls, and 16 had top-10 payrolls. That's not what I would call parity, though you're right that it could be, and has been, worse. There's definitely been a trend away from top-10s, but it really only runs to top-15s, unless you think the last two years -- KC and an unusually parsimonious New York team -- is a trend line rather than a blip. If it turns out to be a trend line, I'll be much less grumpy.

 

The WS numbers also paint an incomplete picture (though a responsive one, as I specifically mentioned not watching the WS). Here's a good, recent piece from 538 on payroll-wins correlation:

 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont-be-fooled-by-baseballs-small-budget-success-stories/

 

Your last sentence, really your last phrase, seems beside the point. "Opportunity for error is much greater"? In absolute terms, that's true: You can't waste $50 million if you don't have $50 million. But that fact doesn't address the essential point about margin for error, which is that, if you waste $50 million and it doesn't deplete your resources, you can still win.

[CheezWizHed]

Does a "lack of PEDs" help the competitive balance?

 

For most players, the drafting team can control them until they turn 28-30 or so. With PEDs, those players were just peaking and were competitive to their late 30s, even to 40. Barry Bonds at 41? Not a problem. Mark McGwire at 37? Crushing it.

 

Now, without PEDs, we are looking at the peak around the 27 age. So people signing these big, long term contracts are in the drop-off point of their careers.

 

Certainly, having deep pockets still helps. The Red Sox will certainly be better with Price next year. But its not the advantage isn't nearly as long, nor as high as it used to be.

 

Ok, that was a very small sliver of a silver lining to a dark cloud, but still.

[jerichoholicninja]

This is a sensible response, but I think there's a very simple reality here: Having lots of money is way, way better than not having lots of money. Of course you can screw up wealth, but you can screw up poverty too, and poverty gives you a hell of a lot lower margin for error. To put the point another way, wealthy teams can play the build from within game as well as poor teams can -- and then the wealthy teams can separate themselves by spending money the poor teams don't have.

 

I'm with the disillusioned crowd. At this point, I'm really a Brewers fan, not a fan of major league baseball. Before anyone makes the obvious joke about that statement, what I mean is that I have fun watching and following my hometown team, but I don't really bother with the sport as a whole. I haven't watched a World Series game in years. Part of that is time and priorities, but part of it is disillusionment. Baseball is supposed to be fun, and fun means (among other things) better than the real world. In the real world, the rich and powerful beat the poor and powerless. Major league baseball has become just another outpost of the real world.

 

 

This is exactly it. If Price doesn't work out for the Red Sox, oh well, they can move on and still compete. But it could provide them with one of the best pitchers in baseball for the next 4-5 years as well. That is a HUGE advantage to have over a team like the Brewers. While yes, the Brewers don't get caught up in over spending, they also never get a chance to land a player that can transform a franchise. Huge disadvantage. Huge.

 

If baseball had a salary cap and the Brewers had the cap space to sign Price to this same contract, would this be a beneficial deal for the Brewers? Almost certainly not. The only way it could be would be if the Brewers could cut Price at some point with no cost to them like you can do in the NFL.

[pacopete4]

 

If baseball had a salary cap and the Brewers had the cap space to sign Price to this same contract, would this be a beneficial deal for the Brewers? Almost certainly not. The only way it could be would be if the Brewers could cut Price at some point with no cost to them like you can do in the NFL.

 

 

If baseball had a salary cap, maybe there wouldn't be all these longer contracts given out?

[JimH5]

Rich teams can't help themselves when it comes to spending money. They just seem to be obligated to do it. Good for Price for getting his money.

 

That the Brewers aren't able to swim in those waters isn't the worst thing in the world--a 7-year deal for a pitcher is likely to haunt the team at some point. Price's similarity scores on baseball-reference.com show the 3 most similar pitchers through their age 29 season are Johan Santana, Jered Weaver and Roy Oswalt. None of those pitchers had 7 years of ace left in them. But I'm sure the Red Sox are smart enough to know that.

[jerichoholicninja]

 

If baseball had a salary cap and the Brewers had the cap space to sign Price to this same contract, would this be a beneficial deal for the Brewers? Almost certainly not. The only way it could be would be if the Brewers could cut Price at some point with no cost to them like you can do in the NFL.

 

 

If baseball had a salary cap, maybe there wouldn't be all these longer contracts given out?

 

Doubt it. If you can't offer a free agent more money annually than everyone else, you give him more years of as much money as you can. Basically what happened in the NHL after they added their salary cap with players signing contracts of ridiculous length.

[Thurston Fluff]

This is a sensible response, but I think there's a very simple reality here: Having lots of money is way, way better than not having lots of money. Of course you can screw up wealth, but you can screw up poverty too, and poverty gives you a hell of a lot lower margin for error. To put the point another way, wealthy teams can play the build from within game as well as poor teams can -- and then the wealthy teams can separate themselves by spending money the poor teams don't have.

 

Yet no team who has the money has does that. At some point one has to ask why. What is going on that makes every team who has loads of cash take on huge risks? I don't think we can just write it off as they were all stupid. Personally I think it is the same dynamic going on in other big businesses. The CEO is paid on short term gains so he focuses on short term profits. Parallel that with a GM who's job is dependent on short term success. The fans know the team is floating in cash so it is almost impossible to tell them we have to wait until our farm produces good enough of players.

You can't be the Dodgers and have a five year rebuild when you have the money to win now. If I had to guess I would think the Cubs will do the same thing in a few years. They will have a bunch of these cheap players up for FA and there will be tremendous pressure to sign them. They have a great farm now but that was very much related to high draft picks for several years in a row. They will not have that over the foreseeable future. So they either have to be exceptional in drafting or go into another total rebuild. How well do you think that will play out in Chicago when the team gets four years of winning and are told they have to suffer through a few hundred loss seasons and at least five years before they become competitive again? Especially when the fans know all they have the money to spend. The money is nice but it puts you in a position where you have to spend it. Thus you are sort of stuck doing things that way. As much as we are stuck doing it the way we do.

[Baldkin]

Does a "lack of PEDs" help the competitive balance?

 

For most players, the drafting team can control them until they turn 28-30 or so. With PEDs, those players were just peaking and were competitive to their late 30s, even to 40. Barry Bonds at 41? Not a problem. Mark McGwire at 37? Crushing it.

 

Now, without PEDs, we are looking at the peak around the 27 age. So people signing these big, long term contracts are in the drop-off point of their careers.

 

Certainly, having deep pockets still helps. The Red Sox will certainly be better with Price next year. But its not the advantage isn't nearly as long, nor as high as it used to be.

 

Ok, that was a very small sliver of a silver lining to a dark cloud, but still.

 

Do you really think guys aren't doing PEDs right now? Of course they are. Just because Bonds was a once in a generation freak of nature doesn't mean the aging curves have changed that much in 15 years.

[bill hAll Star]

If they're still doing PEDs, they're not doing the same ones that they used to.

 

2015 league-wide OPS: .730 (2014 was .706)

2010 was .734

2005 was .754

2000 was .792

 

Actually, you may be on to something just recently. The league OPS was continuing its decline up through 2014 and finally took a bounce back up. Probably just a shift in philosophies, but it finally bounced back up just a little bit.

[3and2Fastball]

I doubt PED's have gone away. Players are much more savvy as to masking agents and keeping secrets now. (Just my opinion)

 

We are in the midst of a historic pitching era combined with advanced analytics defensively (shifts, etc). That, in my opinion, is the biggest reason for the decline in league OPS

[CheezWizHed]

I'm sure its out there, but not at the obvious and widespread use that it was.

 

Bonds was a special player, but you won't convince me that the PEDs didn't aid his longevity. Nor Roger Clemons, Mark McGwire, etc... We went from a day when players were going past 35 with hardly a thought to where 35 is a pretty hard wall today.

 

Edit: Just for kicks, I went out to baseball reference and searched for number of players in the MLB that were 35 or older on June 30th (not sure why they use that date for the criteria).

2000: 117

2001: 127

2002: 118

2003: 134

2004: 140

2005: 149 (peak)

2006: 140

2007: 138

2008: 126

2009: 119

2010: 104

2011: 109

2012: 107

2013: 104

2014: 88

2015: 73 - Lowest in 15 years and less than half of the peak.

[AKCheesehead]

CheezWiz-

That is fascinating data. I'd be interested in seeing how it trends further back in history, but I'm not sure how to dig up this particular data on baseball reference.

[monty57]

This brings up the problem that when data is flawed, and it is the only data you have, how do you use it?

 

I think this affected a lot of teams who continued to sign players well into their 30's, and continued to believe that building a team the way you built in this era was the way to go. I think the Brewers were one of these teams, and I hope that with the new guard coming in, we will not be that way going forward.

 

This is why I think Braun's contract will be untradable in a couple of years, but it seems to be the only one currently on the Brewers' books other than Garza, who is already near the DFA point. The Red Sox signing a deal like this are pretty much guaranteeing that in a few years they will wish it was off the books.

[MrTPlush]

Having a big payroll may not guarantee many World Series appearances, but I bet if you checked those high payroll teams have winning records and more playoff appearances by a long shot. Small market teams will go 20 years just to reach the playoffs again, but the Yankees can't even manage 3 years of failure. Not only that, but a team like the Red Sox has lost 90 games only TWICE in nearly 50 years! These big markets can extend their winning window longer and get out of a rut faster.

 

Can you imagine if the Brewers had money? We could have kept Prince and Sabathia/Greinke and had 3-4 more 90 win seasons. What the Red Sox are doing the last two years is a perfect example of how big markets have a big advantage.

[sveumrules]

. What the Red Sox are doing the last two years is a perfect example of how big markets have a big advantage.

 

In 2015 the Red Sox had the 3rd highest opening day payroll, and finished last in their division.

 

In 2014 the Red Sox had the 4th highest opening day payroll, and finished last in their division.

[pacopete4]

. What the Red Sox are doing the last two years is a perfect example of how big markets have a big advantage.

 

In 2015 the Red Sox had the 3rd highest opening day payroll, and finished last in their division.

 

In 2014 the Red Sox had the 4th highest opening day payroll, and finished last in their division.

 

In 2004 the Red Sox had the 2nd highest opening day payroll, and won the World Series.

 

In 2007 the Red Sox had the 2nd highest opening day payroll, and won the World Series.

 

In 2013 the Red Sox had the 4th highest opening day payroll, and won the World Series.

[sveumrules]

MrTPlush referred specifically to the last two years. Any advantage the Red Sox may or may not have had during that time has apparently been squandered.

[MrTPlush]

. What the Red Sox are doing the last two years is a perfect example of how big markets have a big advantage.

 

In 2015 the Red Sox had the 3rd highest opening day payroll, and finished last in their division.

 

In 2014 the Red Sox had the 4th highest opening day payroll, and finished last in their division.

 

Yes, but the concept is what is successful. Just because they decided to make their splurge on Ramirez/Sandoval doesn't ignore the fact that what they are doing is a reason why big market find such long term success. Their ability to spend money to avoid a rebuild and in other cases spend money to extend a strong team longer.

 

I should t have said it was a perfect example, but it is the exact concept that so many big market use to stay competitive.

[bill hAll Star]

Totally agree that high payroll allows a longer window of success and better ability to bounce back. It's silly to point at some teams where it has crashed and burned to disagree with that statement. It can crash and burn for 5 larger market teams/year, but they can all come out of the doldrums more quickly.

 

Even big-market teams like the Cubs can see this advantage. They just broke out of their extended slump from their own hole that they dug by being "smart" and having a bunch of cost controlled players. By the end of the year, they already had a higher payroll than the Brewers opened 2015 with. The Brewers were still "going for it" with one of their largest payrolls in history and a team that is just in their infancy of opening up a long contention window had a higher payroll. Just imagine what it will be when Bryant, Arrieta, Soler, Russell, Schwarber, etc. all get their "buy out of free agency" or 2nd contract and they dump a pile of money in front of another FA pitcher. They'll suddenly be over $200 or $250 million.

 

Imagine if the Brewers were able to hang on to Sabathia, Fielder, and just signed a Greinke-esque pitcher instead of having to dump a bunch of prospects for Greinke...or even if they just got to keep Greinke. Sure, eventually some of these big $ players have crumbled to injury, but the Brewers' window would have been open much longer (or they'd at least have given themselves 1-2 extra playoff chances). They'd still have to "pay for it" someday down the road, but the only advantage the Brewers have right now over the Cubs in 2011 or 2012 when they finally gave up on winning in the current timeframe is that the Brewers have less of a payroll burden to worry about. The Cubs chose to take 3-4 years to rebuild, but a big market team could just build things back up in a year or two if they so chose.

[sveumrules]

That's the thing, though, the concept isn't always successful. When the Phillies went on their postseason run from 2007-11 they ranked 13th (Lost LDS), 12th (Won WS), 7th (Lost WS), 4th (Lost NLCS) & 2nd (Lost LDS) in opening day payroll. Over the next 4 years they have ranked 2nd (81 wins), 3rd (73 wins), 3rd (73 wins) and 9th (63 wins). By trying to spend money to extend a strong team longer they've dug themselves into a huge hole requiring a complete tear down & rebuild.

[bill hAll Star]

MrTPlush referred specifically to the last two years. Any advantage the Red Sox may or may not have had during that time has apparently been squandered.

 

If there are 10 "big spenders" in the league, let's say 7 or 8 of them are always "getting it right" whereas 2-3 of them randomly mess up and get Sandoval/Ramirez and crash and burn.

 

The Brewers still have to beat the 7 or 8 teams that have spent big bucks on current, excellent players. Maybe last year it was the Cubs and Yankees...the next year it may be the Red Sox and Rangers. Percentages tell you that not every team that throws a bunch of money at players will have it work - and the percentages keep getting "worse" for the big-dollar players...but it's still a competitive disadvantage.

[bill hAll Star]

That's the thing, though, the concept isn't always successful. When the Phillies went on their postseason run from 2007-11 they ranked 13th (Lost LDS), 12th (Won WS), 7th (Lost WS), 4th (Lost NLCS) & 2nd (Lost LDS) in opening day payroll. Over the next 4 years they have ranked 2nd (81 wins), 3rd (73 wins), 3rd (73 wins) and 9th (63 wins). By trying to spend money to extend a strong team longer they've dug themselves into a huge hole requiring a complete tear down & rebuild.

 

Everyone knows the Phillies have been foolish lately waiting to tear their roster down and that the Cubs were foolish at the back end of their Soriano/Ramirez/Zambrano run. The Phillies still won a title. The Cubs are still coming out of choosing to take a long-form rebuild with the ability to keep all of their superstar players and buy Jon Lester and other supporting pieces.