Aaron Judge sticks with Yankees - 9 years, $360 million

[homer]

 

 

 

[monty57]

Judge is a very good (roughly 5 WAR) player who put up one of the best seasons in MLB history (11.4 WAR). I don't know how players are able to double their production in a contract year, but I hope Winker finds some of that magic this year.

Judge turns 31 in April, so this is the second contract this offseason that takes a player into his 40's. I guess the lessons learned after the steroids era have been forgotten.

[DuWayne Steurer]

weirdly, I'm glad he stayed with the Yankees.

[wibadgers23]

Padres came in with a late offer.  I understand they are in California but where the frick do they get us all this money?  Meanwhile, we're hoping we can sign someone for $10 million a year.

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan]

45 minutes ago, wibadgers23 said:

Padres came in with a late offer.  I understand they are in California but where the frick do they get us all this money?  Meanwhile, we're hoping we can sign someone for $10 million a year.

I know right!  It is almost as if ownership is taking equity out of the team to sign players.  Wonder how long this ownership will last.

[owbc]

The Padres are rumored to be planning to trade Tatis Jr which I assume is how they would have avoided going way, way over the luxury tax.

[monty57]

50 minutes ago, wibadgers23 said:

Padres came in with a late offer.  I understand they are in California but where the frick do they get us all this money?  Meanwhile, we're hoping we can sign someone for $10 million a year.

Don't remember who, but a while back a poster stated that the ownership group bought up a lot of the real estate and businesses around the park, so they get additional revenue on game days from that. Having a good team and selling out makes them a lot of money.

I remember that it started a discussion on whether the Brewers could do that, given Selig chose to build Miller Park where he did, are rather than building downtown.

[markedman5]

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, DuWayne Steurer said:

weirdly, I'm glad he stayed with the Yankees.

Same. As much as you can all imagine the depths to which I despise the Yankees, Judge seems like a pretty good dude and he should just be in pinstripes for his entire career.

[UpandIn]

4 hours ago, monty57 said:

Don't remember who, but a while back a poster stated that the ownership group bought up a lot of the real estate and businesses around the park, so they get additional revenue on game days from that. Having a good team and selling out makes them a lot of money.

I remember that it started a discussion on whether the Brewers could do that, given Selig chose to build Miller Park where he did, are rather than building downtown.

The ownership group opened up the books(which backfired at the time) in maybe 2018 or so and tried to explain why they weren't spending. They were in a bad place with the interest on the debt they inherited and they were also paying off a lot of real-estate loans.

They stated at that time, their plan was to get on better financial footing and then put that money toward the team. It hasn't really worked out all that well...and they'd be SO much better off right now if they actually had ran their team like the Brewers or a smaller market team given the closers they traded away. Clause was one, they traded away a couple other dominant relievers that would be cheap right now. Guys like France, Turner and then the ridiculous haul last year. They're doing a great job churning out MLB quality players, but they're just trading them for high priced players or players who will require big extensions. 

IIRC, the ticket prices at Petco are also about 4X what they are at Miller Park...so that's gotta help quite a bit. 

I still don't get how a team that needed the Brewers to take back Lamet last year to stay under the luxury tax...can come back and make a competitive offer for Aaron Judge, but good for them. 

[monty57]

21 minutes ago, UpandIn said:

I still don't get how a team that needed the Brewers to take back Lamet last year to stay under the luxury tax...can come back and make a competitive offer for Aaron Judge, but good for them. 

Trying to stay under the luxury tax and not having money are two different things. The luxury tax penalties grow if you stay over the tax for a series of years. Every so often (I believe every three years) teams need to get below the threshold for a season which "resets the clock" so they can go back over in future years.

I would guess that the Padres knew that they were going to be over, potentially significantly over, for the next few seasons, so they wanted to start 2023 as "year one."

[owbc]

 

30 minutes ago, UpandIn said:

The ownership group opened up the books(which backfired at the time) in maybe 2018 or so and tried to explain why they weren't spending. They were in a bad place with the interest on the debt they inherited and they were also paying off a lot of real-estate loans.

They stated at that time, their plan was to get on better financial footing and then put that money toward the team. It hasn't really worked out all that well...and they'd be SO much better off right now if they actually had ran their team like the Brewers or a smaller market team given the closers they traded away. Clause was one, they traded away a couple other dominant relievers that would be cheap right now. Guys like France, Turner and then the ridiculous haul last year. They're doing a great job churning out MLB quality players, but they're just trading them for high priced players or players who will require big extensions. 

IIRC, the ticket prices at Petco are also about 4X what they are at Miller Park...so that's gotta help quite a bit. 

I still don't get how a team that needed the Brewers to take back Lamet last year to stay under the luxury tax...can come back and make a competitive offer for Aaron Judge, but good for them. 

The Padres benefit from being the only 'big 4' professional sport left in San Diego but their roster management has been terrible. They took an elite group of minor leaguers and turned it into a fringe wild card team with a gigantic payroll. I think their track record in trades in the past 5-10 years is something insane like negative 100 WAR. 

The best (worst?) part is that the 2022 NLCS appearance seems to justify it. Maybe the strategy is fine in the 'expanded playoffs' era of MLB, or maybe upsetting the Dodgers was more likely to happen with established major leaguers than inexperienced young guys. 

Things will be interesting now that the NLCS appearance is the baseline. Maybe they can ride their current roster for another year, but as the Brewers know well, you can't count on winning playoff series on a consistent basis with a sub-par roster. Or even a great roster like the Dodgers have. Pretty much everyone besides the Astros has been dealing with that reality. 

[UpandIn]

32 minutes ago, monty57 said:

Trying to stay under the luxury tax and not having money are two different things. The luxury tax penalties grow if you stay over the tax for a series of years. Every so often (I believe every three years) teams need to get below the threshold for a season which "resets the clock" so they can go back over in future years.

I would guess that the Padres knew that they were going to be over, potentially significantly over, for the next few seasons, so they wanted to start 2023 as "year one."

I get that of course as the Red Sox have slashed their payroll from time to time and are now getting pretty thrifty with some of their star players they hadn't in the past, presumably for that exact reason. And it makes sense they were trying to stay below it to avoid the progressive penalties. The Bucks desperately tried to do that the year they won the title in the NBA which has a somewhat similar system with a progressive tax(though that damn Jrue Holiday helped them win the title which triggered a 100K bonus and put them into the tax).

I just thought they were working to stay below it as a rule. Being in on a player who's getting an abnormally risky deal due to the history of players his size in MLB History on a contract that could push them not just over the tax, but into the 2nd or even 3rd tier(by the time they're done)...it's just surprising. 

 

[monty57]

7 minutes ago, UpandIn said:

I get that of course as the Red Sox have slashed their payroll from time to time and are now getting pretty thrifty with some of their star players they hadn't in the past, presumably for that exact reason. And it makes sense they were trying to stay below it to avoid the progressive penalties. The Bucks desperately tried to do that the year they won the title in the NBA which has a somewhat similar system with a progressive tax(though that damn Jrue Holiday helped them win the title which triggered a 100K bonus and put them into the tax).

I just thought they were working to stay below it as a rule. Being in on a player who's getting an abnormally risky deal due to the history of players his size in MLB History on a contract that could push them not just over the tax, but into the 2nd or even 3rd tier(by the time they're done)...it's just surprising. 

 

Well, the luxury tax threshold is $233M for 2023. Cots has the Padres at an estimated $205M opening day payroll, but a Competitive Balance tax payroll at $229,984,048.

It looks like they're trying to stay under it, so I'd guess they thought Judge would be a good enough player to be willing to pay the tax.

Otherwise, it doesn't look like the Padres will be making many more moves with the roughly $3M they have left to spend to stay under the threshold.

[UpandIn]

50 minutes ago, owbc said:

The Padres benefit from being the only 'big 4' professional sport left in San Diego but their roster management has been terrible. They took an elite group of minor leaguers and turned it into a fringe wild card team with a gigantic payroll. I think their track record in trades in the past 5-10 years is something insane like negative 100 WAR. 

That's insane...and it's even crazier when you consider some of the trades they've made where they've gotten a little lucky. Like Tatis Jr, Crownenworth.

It's just hard to believe Preller still has a job. I get that the Padres are in a good spot now, but he has made so many blunders both trading for bad contracts, signing bad deals like the Uptons, Kemp, Hosmer, trading away so much talent, ling about a pitchers health costing them Luis Castillo.

I'd say he needs to win it by the time Soto is a FA, but...he's gotten away with so many bad deals already, who knows. 

[UpandIn]

16 minutes ago, monty57 said:

Well, the luxury tax threshold is $233M for 2023. Cots has the Padres at an estimated $205M opening day payroll, but a Competitive Balance tax payroll at $229,984,048.

It looks like they're trying to stay under it, so I'd guess they thought Judge would be a good enough player to be willing to pay the tax.

Otherwise, it doesn't look like the Padres will be making many more moves with the roughly $3M they have left to spend to stay under the threshold.

I don't know, it's only December 7th and they were willing to hand out a massive deal to Judge. I'm skeptical they're not going to add anyone else...but we'll see. 

[CheezWizHed]

 

[UpandIn]

8 hours ago, monty57 said:

Well, the luxury tax threshold is $233M for 2023. Cots has the Padres at an estimated $205M opening day payroll, but a Competitive Balance tax payroll at $229,984,048.

It looks like they're trying to stay under it, so I'd guess they thought Judge would be a good enough player to be willing to pay the tax.

Otherwise, it doesn't look like the Padres will be making many more moves with the roughly $3M they have left to spend to stay under the threshold.

11 years and 280M to Xander Bogaerts later...

This is like Monopoly money to this team at this point. How are they doing this?