Tanaka to Yankees, 7yrs/$155MM

[FireAlexAnthopoulos]

LottOnBaseball

#BlueJays bid on Tanaka, but dropped out of talks when contract length went beyond five years, source says.

Opt-out clause was also problem for #BlueJays: source

 

AndrewStoeten 2m

Jays want it both ways. We have all the resources we could ever need, but we also have a policy that prevents us from ever using them.

As much as I dislike the idea of spending so much on an unproven player like Tanaka, this should be a fireable offense for AA. Somehow he allows us to lose out on talent with this rigid "no 5+ year contracts" rule but sees no problem with gutting the farm system to take on bad contracts instead.

[Angrioter]

This is the kind of news that we love.

 

"The Blue Jays have re-signed OF Ricardo Nanita and invited him to MLB Spring Training"

[FireAlexAnthopoulos]

Not meeting Tanaka's high price is a fireable offence?

 

No, the hypocrisy of refusing to sign any free agent for 5 or more years but being willing to gut our entire farm system for overpaid "talent" instead is what should get AA fired. As much as I don't like the idea of overpaying Tanaka, at least if he were to bust, we'd only lose money, not our farm system like with the disastrous Marlins and Mets trades.

 

The 5-year limit is just an excuse and allows AA to pretend like he's fiscally responsible, when in reality, we're already overpaying for mediocrity because of his bad asset management.

[Angrioter]

No, the hypocrisy of refusing to sign any free agent for 5 or more years but being willing to gut our entire farm system for overpaid "talent" instead is what should get AA fired. As much as I don't like the idea of overpaying Tanaka, at least if he were to bust, we'd only lose money, not our farm system like with the disastrous Marlins and Mets trades.

 

The 5-year limit is just an excuse and allows AA to pretend like he's fiscally responsible, when in reality, we're already overpaying for mediocrity because of his bad asset management.

 

Yankees have Tanaka (3, 4 or 5 good years); Jays have Happ.

[KingKat]

In that case, they will have paid him market value from his age 25 to 29 seasons, and then again from his age 29 to 33 seasons, and still get stuck with the actual s*** back-end years, which now instead of 29-32 will likely be his age 35-37 seasons.

 

Not if they don't want to. They can always walk away. If they renociate it's only because they are perfectly willing to do so and if they can find a better place to spend more power to them. I think it's great.

[Frenchsoup]

Someone should ask beeston at the state of the franchise event if he would sign mike trout for more then 5 years

[DuckDuckGose]

As much as I dislike the idea of spending so much on an unproven player like Tanaka, this should be a fireable offense for AA. Somehow he allows us to lose out on talent with this rigid "no 5+ year contracts" rule but sees no problem with gutting the farm system to take on bad contracts instead.

 

Why even bother putting a bid in? He was obviously going to get more than 5yrs.

[DuckDuckGose]

Someone should ask beeston at the state of the franchise event if he would sign mike trout for more then 5 years

 

You'd get the most BS answer of all time; "The Blue Jays do not comment on other teams' players. The does have a 5yr contract limit in place but is flexible and dependant on the situation."

[TwistedLogic]

Not if they don't want to. They can always walk away. If they renociate it's only because they are perfectly willing to do so and if they can find a better place to spend more power to them. I think it's great.

 

This is the case with every single player that ever hits free agency. By the time a guy becomes a free agent at the likely age of 29-31, if he was a star, he will command a contract that will likely have a poor back-end of the deal. If you think it's great to walk away from a long-term contract at age 29, then you're basically against ever signing any elite free agents. That's fine of course, that basically makes you operate like the Rays, but that strategy will not work for every team the way it does the Rays.

 

Again, an opt-out in this particular deal is not good. The argument of having a bad back-end of the deal works for guys that have contracts that end at 37 years old. In this particular situation, a straight seven year contract (age 25-32) is more valuable than a seven year contract with an opt-out after 4 years. In both situations, if the player sucked, you're stuck for seven years, but since players don't generally fall off cliffs from 29-32, in the event that the player turned out to be a superstar, you get only four market value/below market value years, as opposed to seven. At that point, yes, you can walk away, or you can choose to renegotiate, but those are still three good years that the payer had in his contract that you will not receive.

 

Opt outs basically just tell the player "If you're s***, we'll continue to pay you, but if you're good, you can leave". They almost never make sense.

[TwistedLogic]

You'd get the most BS answer of all time; "The Blue Jays do not comment on other teams' players. The does have a 5yr contract limit in place but is flexible and dependant on the situation."

 

The most BS answer of all time? http://i.imgur.com/FA2CI9v.gif That is the exact answer that they should give. If a fan is moronic enough to ask a GM or club president about another team's players, they deserve to get thrown out of the stadium, let alone given a generic answer. Commenting on the contracts of players on other teams is rightfully regarded as collusion. Go look at the backlash Randy Levine received for his comments about Mike Trout in the wake of the Robinson Cano signing.

[DuckDuckGose]

The most BS answer of all time? That is the exact answer that they should give. If a fan is moronic enough to ask a GM or club president about another team's players, they deserve to get thrown out of the stadium, let alone given a generic answer. Commenting on the contracts of players on other teams is rightfully regarded as collusion. Go look at the backlash Randy Levine received for his comments about giving Mike Trout in the wake of the Robinson Cano signing.

 

It's BS because it simply isn't true. No one likes being lied to and no one likes executives who can't answer questions directly. AA and Beeston are the masters of the old run around and it's exhausting -- by design.

[TwistedLogic]

It's BS because it simply isn't true. No one likes being lied to and no one likes executives who can't answer questions directly. AA and Beeston are the masters of the old run around and it's exhausting -- by design.

 

It simply isn't true that the Blue Jays don't comment on other team's players? No actually that is very much true, because they are not allowed to comment on other team's players.

[Dr. Dinger]

The most BS answer of all time? http://i.imgur.com/FA2CI9v.gif That is the exact answer that they should give. If a fan is moronic enough to ask a GM or club president about another team's players, they deserve to get thrown out of the stadium, let alone given a generic answer. Commenting on the contracts of players on other teams is rightfully regarded as collusion. Go look at the backlash Randy Levine received for his comments about Mike Trout in the wake of the Robinson Cano signing.

 

Actually, that's tampering, not collusion.

[FireAlexAnthopoulos]

It's BS because it simply isn't true. No one likes being lied to and no one likes executives who can't answer questions directly. AA and Beeston are the masters of the old run around and it's exhausting -- by design.

 

I'm actually going to defend The Two Stooges here... they have to spew that BS in order to avoid running afoul of the MLB.

[DuckDuckGose]

It simply isn't true that the Blue Jays don't comment on other team's players? No actually that is very much true, because they are not allowed to comment on other team's players.

 

Huh, it wasn't meant to be broken in to individual statements. The answer to the proposed question would be BS. I offered a hypothetical response. Furthermore, what would actually be untruthful is the "the 5yr contract limit is flexible". It clearly isn't.

[DuckDuckGose]

I'm actually going to defend The Two Stooges here... they have to spew that BS in order to avoid running afoul of the MLB.

 

They could say; "we are not a big market team, we cannot afford Tanaka" because that's what obviously has happened here.

[TwistedLogic]

Actually, that's tampering, not collusion.

 

Meh whatever. I guess I did a mental shuffle since Levine's been accused of both in the past month or two. Tampering on the Mike Trout comments and collusion on the A-Rod case.

[Smokey]

It simply isn't true that the Blue Jays don't comment on other team's players? No actually that is very much true, because they are not allowed to comment on other team's players.

 

The issue isn't about commenting on other players, it's about the ridiculousness of a policy that puts further restrictions on signing players to play on the turf, when instead they should be providing extra incentives.

[Ehjays]

I don't wish for a guy to be injured, but I hope that the Yanks dread this contract.

 

The way I look at this is AA just got played.

 

Cashman fooled everyone, saying he wanted to stay under the 189 level while secretly knowing he was all in for Tanaka. Just like Cinci surprised everyone with Chapman. (Not that anyones surprised with NY but they kept preaching about staying under that threshold) AA however has let his everyone know he

won't go past the 5 yrs. Again giving the other teams the advantage of knowing what you're thinking.

 

Baseball is a competitive sport and you don't give your competion the edge on the field or off or else they will expose your weakness. AA once again was exposed.

[TwistedLogic]

They could say; "we are not a big market team, we cannot afford Tanaka" because that's what obviously has happened here.

 

May I ask why, according to you, the answer to:

 

Q: "Would you sign Mike Trout for more than five years"

 

is:

 

A: "We are not a big market team, we cannot afford Tanaka"

 

?

[FireAlexAnthopoulos]

They could say; "we are not a big market team, we cannot afford Tanaka" because that's what obviously has happened here.

That would be an even worse answer for two reasons - one being that Toronto actually is a big market, and the other being that the natural follow-up question to that would be, "so why did you spend upwards of $125 million last year on a last-place team?"

[DuckDuckGose]

May I ask why, according to you, the answer to:

 

Q: "Would you sign Mike Trout for more than five years"

 

is:

 

A: "We are not a big market team, we cannot afford Tanaka"

 

?

 

Yes.

[DuckDuckGose]

That would be an even worse answer for two reasons - one being that Toronto actually is a big market, and the other being that the natural follow-up question to that would be, "so why did you spend upwards of $125 million last year on a last-place team?"

 

Because we enjoy pretending to compete and the Jays are really just a PR front for Rogers.

[Dr. Dinger]

ITT: *******s complain that we didn't pay $25M/year for a pitcher they've never seen.

 

I wouldn't pay that much for Darvish.

[FireAlexAnthopoulos]

ITT: *******s complain that we didn't pay $25M/year for a pitcher they've never seen.

 

That's not what I'm complaining about. I'm complaining about the inconsistency of gutting the farm system for washed-up expensive talent but then getting cold feet when a free agent wants more than 5 years. The way this team operates is completely backwards and makes no sense.

[DuckDuckGose]

$25M/yr for Darvish or $16M/yr for Buehrle? Easy decision for me.

[DuckDuckGose]

That's not what I'm complaining about. I'm complaining about the inconsistency of gutting the farm system for washed-up expensive talent but then getting cold feet when a free agent wants more than 5 years.

 

Ya, they had depth on the farm but moved it for a bunch of guys on big money FA deals but refuse to actually go out and sign a big $ FA.

[saskjayfan]

Yankees have Tanaka (3, 4 or 5 good years); Jays have Happ.

 

I'll agree Happ was ridiculous signing, but you can't overlook the value of EE on 9 mil AAV or Bautista on 13 mil AAV either...

[TwistedLogic]

That's not what I'm complaining about. I'm complaining about the inconsistency of gutting the farm system for washed-up expensive talent but then getting cold feet when a free agent wants more than 5 years. The way this team operates is completely backwards and makes no sense.

 

Please name all of the 6+ year deals that were made this offseason that the Jays should have paid more to acquire themselves.

 

I'll agree Happ was ridiculous signing, but you can't overlook the value of EE on 9 mil AAV or Bautista on 13 mil AAV either...

 

Of course you can. Rational thoughts are unwelcome here.

[Angrioter]

vaswani_

The Blue Jays wouldn’t go more than five years for a 25-year-old free agent. It’s insane.