Posted on 12/12/2015 11:36:28 AM PST by Jim W N
Aren’t they better served by getting more than one pitcher? If they had gone where Arizona did for Greinke, tehy would be unable to re-sign Leake, for example (though I think Leake may wind up in DC), or Fister, or any of the other middle-rotation starters.
Contemplate one of those guys in a rotation with Mad Bum, Peavy, and Samardzija. (Not to mention a healthy Cain.) Dynamite rotation.
It’s been shown by the evidence to be unwise to lock too high a percentage of payroll into one single player. It limits your ability to build a team that is strong all around. The Giants (and Dodgers) may be fortunate in spite of themselves.
Once a guy hits 30 you are insane to offer more than four years. Three years is more acceptable. The battlfield is littered with examples of why that is bad juju.
Of course they have the players to spend it on. Don’t you think a Justin Upton, for example, would look good in the middle of that lineup? (Then you trade Gardner for pitching.)
The Yankees aren’t going “100 million” over the luxury tax threshold. I suspect that they’ll be over it in 2019 or 2020, but not by a lot. And by getting under, they reset the tax at a lower rate (which is the point.)
They’re not going heavily into the free agent market. Their new pattern is to dive in every three years or so, grab three or four guys, and sit it out for a year or two. That’s not just because of luxury tax, although that is a factor, but because if they were to sign Upton, for example, or Chris Davis, or Ian Desmond, or any of a number of others, they’d have to give up a first-round draft pick.
Rather than give up a series of first picks, they’d rather give up 1, 2, and 3 in the same year. They’re trying to build a farm system — partly to keep a flow of good young players to keep winning AND reduce payroll (thus hopefully getting under the payroll threshold numerous times.)
This is smart strategy. And they can have a lot fewer problems with luxury tax and give up fewer dollars in revenue sharing, while preserving resources to be able to sign players they really want.
Right now the Yanks really aren’t dumping salary so much as they’re dumping overpriced aging stars that should have retired years ago. Once they’re gone the Yanks will start playing in free agency again, and resigning their current players to extremely high contracts so other teams can’t afford them.
They WILL be 100 mill over the cap by the end of the decade. It’s the Yanks, it’s how they do business. They have the money to spend, they have the money so that the “cap” doesn’t bother them, so they WILL spend it. Any prediction otherwise is ignoring history.
Microsoft face book ford.......................................................................................................................................... and a ball player makes the same is just INSANE.
No, they probably won’t start being heavy players in free agency. They really are trying to dump some salary. As I said, if you can get under the cap, even for a year, it reduces the luxury tax rate significantly.
The Steinbrenner boys seem to have learned from teh 1990s run, and they want to try to replicate it with a new homegrown core surrounded by younger, more athletic acquisitions. They will try to use the farm system either to provide or acquire depth, in the lineup, among the backups, and on the pitching staff. You can finish that off with free agency, but it doesn’t require being in on the big, expensive names.
Their business model has changed from George’s days.
For what Grienke would have cost them (and did cost he Diamondbacks), the Giants could sign Samardzija, perhaps sing another good starter, and still spend less than the D-Backs spent on one player.
Samardzija was pretty good with the Cubs and A’s. (He will ahve played for both Bay Area teams and both Chicago teams.) Switching from the American League to the National League should help him.
Who do you think will be the first $40 million-a-year player?
Of course the fact that we’re even having this discussion, and the discussion is how hard will the Yankees violate the cap not if, proves my original point. The MLB “cap” is at best a suggestion, and a complete joke.
As I said, their business model has changed. They might go back over as the salaries for their players “naturally” increase, but then, they might find a way to stay under, at least for a while.
The cap is more than a suggestion. That the Yankees, who have plenty of money, are working so hard to get under it (watch 2018) shows that. Right now, it’s biting them hard and restraining them. They’re in on NO free agents, not even modestly priced ones. That’s unlike their historical model.
The problem is that the small-market teams have become dependent on those Yankee revenue sharing checks, so if teh Yankees get under the cap (especially if they stay under it for a while), they’ll be complaining about that.
The business model hasn’t changed. They still have a soft cap, which thus means if they decide to pay the player X they just go ahead and do so. All the soft cap does is add a hidden cost, that if they pay that player X it will actually ding their bank account X+Y%, but they’re still free to pay the player X. Hard caps change the business model, in a hard capped league (NFL, NHL) if they want to pay the player X and that will put them over the cap they have the choice talking that player down, or getting rid of other good players.
The point of a cap is to make is so the richest teams don’t get to hoard the players with the highest perceived value. A soft cap doesn’t do that, all the soft cap does is make the richest teams spend a bit more, which isn’t really a problem for them, because they’re the richest teams. Which is why the soft cap is just a suggestion, it has no actual meaning, it makes no change to the business function.
The Yankees are NOT trying to get under the cap. They’re dumping antique players that should have retired years ago. It’s a side effect that they’ll also get under the cap for a few months, but not the goal. They’re chasing no free agents because they already have too many over aged formerly talented players. They need roster room for youth.
The MLB cap is a joke. Period. Sorry you can’t see it. Have fun.
It’s a tax — a soft cap, not a hard one like in the NBA. The MLB Players Association will never permit a soft cap. In fact, they won’t even allow a minimum payroll, as they view that as a step towards a salary cap.
IMO, the Players Association is too powerful. The owners should offer free agency after three years (which is when arbitration kicks in). The MLBPA will never allow it, as it would glut the market, but some players would want it.
A luxury tax does serve as a disincentive to “hoarding”. And if you think that’s going on, please explain the Royals, Astros, Blue Jays, Diamondbacks, and Pirates? all but the D-Backs were playoff teams, and the D-Backs have just spent a bunch of money to contend.
So I’m to take your word that the Yankees aren’t trying to get under the cap, rather than that of the Yankees? They have some big contracts expiring after 2016 and more after 2017. Those players are not likely to be replaced with more big-money players. They’ll be replaced with younger, more athletic talent, which is also talent more likely to win. This is how the Yankees did it in teh 1990s and also how the Indians were a power in that time period.
They’re combining that with the Oriole model of working a few young players into a veteran roster, a bit at a time, to keep a flow of young talent while still contending for titles.
That’s a much more cost-effective way to win. Watch them get under the cap in 2018.
BTW, the NBA “hard cap” has an exception you could drive a truck through: you can go over the cap to re-sign your own guys. so if your team has a name free agent, you sign all the other guys you want first, then go over for your own player.
The NBA doesn’t have a hard cap either. They have the same ridiculous soft cap the MLB has, the Cavs right now are nearly 50% over the cap.
The tax doesn’t serve as a disincentive to hoarding. If it did the Yankees wouldn’t have turned themselves into a collection of antiques. Hoarding is still clearly going on, The Nats have such a hoard people keep insisting they’ll be the best team ever. The Dodgers are a hoard, the Red Sox. And right now the Cubs are trying to become a hoard. Of course the punchline is that’s not actually a good way to build a team, especially not in a sport with guaranteed contracts, your hoard becomes you prison as you suddenly find yourself with half your roster being 3 years past their prime with 4 more years on their contracts.
Never believe what a team says about themselves. If teams spoke the truth about themselves the Cowboys would have won half a dozen Superbowls in the last 20 years instead of 2 playoff games because they’d have actually been the team Jerry says they are. The math for the Yankees has been obvious for a while, too may players that are too old with too many years left in their contracts. It became even worse for them when the league finally started testing for ‘roids and a bunch of the older players in the league suddenly started acting their age. The Yankees got obsessed with holding onto the stars that gave them a bunch of pennants and started thinking they were just one or two more good players from getting back, that’s when teams start making free agency splashes, that’s when teams start over paying, that’s when teams start signing has beens, to long term guaranteed contracts, and they wind up in the situation the Yankees are in. The problem for the Yankees isn’t that they’re way over the cap, the problem is they’re way over the cap AND stink. If they were winning their division and going deep in the playoffs like they were in from the 90s through 00s they wouldn’t be dumping cap now, they’d be ADDING so they could keep it going.
The NBA doesn’t have a hard cap. The only hard caps in America are the NFL and NHL. If you violate the caps in those leagues you lose draft picks, no BS with a luxury tax, you get actually punished.
The NBA has a hard cap, but with a major exemption, as I noted before. (You can not exceed the cap for free agents, but you can to re-sign your own players. So if the Knicks wanted to get Stephen Curry from the Warriors, they’d have to fit him within the cap — but if they re-sign Carmelo when his contract is up, they can go pretty much as high as they like.)
Teams manipulate that all the time.
There are actual penalties in MLB for going over the threshold. They’re monetary penalties. Only a few clubs are currently paying them. It does serve as a disincentive.
No it doesn’t. The NBA is a soft cap, it’s softer when you’re resigning your own players, and much like MLB the punishment is a luxury tax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_salary_cap
The only real disincentive is that smart teams don’t overpay for players anyway, and tax results in accelerated overpaying. It’s bad enough to overpay your players and the get all the money, it’s worse when a chunk goes back to the league instead of to the player. But teams that are comfortable overpaying will pay the tax.
Is this good enough for you?
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/12/giants-sign-johnny-cueto.html
Add that to the prior signing of Samardzija, as well as "incumbents" Bumgarner and Peavy, and they have quite a rotation!
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