TheHurl

TORONTO—Righthander Deck McGuire showed signs in the second half of last season that he could be turning things around. Now he has been added to the Blue Jays’ 40-man roster. The 14th overall pick in the 2010 draft out of Georgia Tech has struggled since reaching Double-A New Hampshire near the end of 2011. In his second full season with the Fisher Cats in 2013, McGuire went 9-10, 4.86 with 143 strikeouts and 59 walks in 157 innings over 27 games (including 26 starts). That he was 5-3, 3.88, in 63 innings over the second half was encouraging. “Particularly the last month of the season, he really started to come on with his stuff and his location,” roving pitching instructor Dane Johnson said. “His stuff got a little bit firmer as he went along. He found a comfort level, was mixing his pitches a little better and was obviously keeping the ball down, which is big for him. I think it was reflected in the last month of the season.” The 24-year-old was 4-1, 2.95, including one complete game, in five starts and one relief outing in August. He struck out 35 and walked 12 over that span. “Going into 2014, we’re hoping to build on that,” Johnson said. “He’s still relatively young for his experience. You want them to move fast but a lot of times it doesn’t work that way.” Johnson feels that a young player can benefit from struggling in the minors. “You want them to struggle so that they get back up, get back on their feet and you find out what they’re all about and they make adjustments. And I think, in this case, Deck is making adjustments.” JAYS CHATTER Outfielder Kenny Wilson, a 23-year-old taken in the second round of the 2008 draft, also was added to the 40-man roster. He batted .259/.333/.375 in 55 games with Double-A New Hampshire in 2013. The righthanded hitter had three home runs and 11 RBIs and was 16-for-22 in stolen bases. In 23 games in the Arizona Fall League, he hit .258/.333/.392 with two homers, eight RBIs and 12 stolen bases in 17 attempts. Lefthander Sean Nolin was 2-2, 3.38 after six starts and 27 innings in the Dominican League. Nolin was 9-4, 2.77, between New Hampshire and Triple-A Buffalo in 2013. He lasted only 1 1/3 innings (six runs) in his only major league outing.

hey now, they need the CPH too. Yes, they are useless ****s, 3 years of cleaning up their errors at CIBC was not fun. At least the Gundy f***ups were guys that legitimately knew what they were doing, things just went wrong. Of course no expert can predict the dollar 100% correctly, but I can tell you that the top economists at CIBC were pretty damn good for me.

Prior to getting Lawrie half the board had a hard on for this guy. He got through 19 teams before the Jays claimed him so he's only got 10 more to clear waivers and make it to Buffalo

They'll give Chase d'Arnaud away.

Until you find out that these are all his 10 cent an hour employees.

Just use Wilner's account that's what the rest of us do

Can we get an aging curve for A-shuns? I'm certain it's much different than other races

Correct. Gaelic is not a language you'd want to learn on your own. I've got my standard St. Paddy's Day toasts learned and that's enough for me.

If you see a guy around campus, crying about a DDL fantasy baseball finals loss, kick him in the nads.

I'm willing to trade any of my picks not number 10 (because it's spoken for) for upgrades in the waiver draft.

funny enough the quickest way to get banned on the old board was make a post about the Mods.

and if A-Rod gets suspended for the year or at least most of it they would probably be able to do a salary dump deal at the deadline to get under. I really believe they want to be close to that $200M figure to be able to make a decision at the deadline.

As complicated as it all is, this is my go to document when I'm trying to figure things out. Written by some law student at Delaware I believe. http://www.law.du.edu/documents/sports-and-entertainment-law-journal/issues/03/dosh-money-postseason-mlb.pdf Calculating the Actual Club Payroll - Calculating a club’s payroll upon which a tax may be assessed is a complicated matter that requires taking into account the possibility of assignment of player contracts, termination of contracts, multi-year contracts, performance bonuses and a whole host of other payments and payment issues. The attitude of some is very similar to the attitude taken by some with individual taxes: find the loopholes and exploit them. Clubs can use mechanisms of deferred compensation and other creative solutions to decrease not only the strain of a player’s salary on the club’s budget, but also to bring the club’s aggregate payroll down low enough to incur little or no luxury tax. Accordingly, there are very detailed rules as to the calculation of a club’s payroll for luxury tax purposes and the Office of the Commissioner of MLB completes the calculations. As a starting point, the 1996 CBA defines “Actual Club Payroll” to be the sum of: (a) 1/28th of player benefit costs (MLB administers such things as worker’s compensation and player pensions, so each of the 28 clubs are expected to pay their share), ( the yearly salaries of all players under a Uniform Player Contract with the club for that year, and © other sums defined under the rules.84 The most complicated aspect of the calculation is which player contracts, or portions of player contracts, are attributable to the current year’s Actual Club Payroll calculation. The easiest point to start from is to include the salary, attributable to that contract year, for each player who remains on a club’s active list for the entire season.85 While this may sound simple, it can get far more complicated when attempting to determine the value of a multi-year contract for any single season and when attempting to attribute deferred compensation to any one season. For a multi-year contract, an Average Annual Value is calculated as follows: the sum of (a) the base salary for each guaranteed year86 plus ( any signing bonus, or portion thereof, which is attributed to a guaranteed year87 plus © any deferred compensation attributed to a guaranteed year.88 The total sum derived from this calculation is then divided by the number of guaranteed years to give an Average Annual Value of the contract.89 Other types of bonuses, such as performance and award bonuses, are attributable to the year in which they are earned.90 Similarly, a contract clause which increases the base salary in future guaranteed years for performance in a prior year is added to the Average Annual Value for each of those years.91 As mentioned above, some player contracts include option years, which are years in a contract that are not guaranteed, but which are exercisable at the option of either the player or the club, depending on how the option is structured. Not surprisingly, any option year which is exercised results in the base salary for that year being includible in the calculations for that year’s Actual Club Payroll. However, many contracts require payment to the player of some monies if the option is not exercised by the club, sometimes referred to as an option buyout. These monies are deemed a signing bonus and are thus either distributed pro rata over the guaranteed years in the contract during the Average Annual Value calculation or are attributed to the first full year if there are no guaranteed years.92 If the player then never receives the option buyout, there are provisions by which the club is credited or refunded the amount of the option. buyout that has already been included in the Actual Club Payroll for any previous years.93 The last complication in calculating an Actual Club Payroll relates to deferred compensation. Put simply, deferred compensation is any amount due to a player after the last season of his contract has been performed. This mechanism is sometimes used to defer some of the burden of a player’s salary so that a team can afford to acquire him without taking a current hit to its budget. Presumably because it might also be used to defer compensation to later years in order to keep Actual Club Payroll numbers down and avoid the luxury tax, the rules are specific as to how these monies are to be allocated in Actual Club Payroll calculations. If the contract specifies which year(s) the deferred compensation is attributable to, then those amounts are includible in the Actual Club Payroll for that year.94 If, however, the deferred compensation is not attributable to any given year, the amount is prorated over the guaranteed years of the contract.95 Included as deferred compensation is any annuity compensation arrangement, which is an agreement by the club to purchase an annuity to pay the player after his services as a player are over.96 The cost to the club of purchasing the annuity is includible, but not the proceeds the player is scheduled to receive after his service as a player is over. sorry for not removing all the citing but you get the idea

Soriano is only $5M. Cubs pay $14M of him. So with an A-Rod suspension they really have a shot at getting under it. Although there are other items in this calculation, which aren't public so who knows.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/marcus-stroman-the-mythbusting-machine/

I prefer my "luv you" messages to be private

Maybe now we might not have the 100's of trying to figure out "who Moh really is" responses and what alias' he might have. Trying to figure out the trolls already drove one poster insane, not sure why so many fixate on it and can't respond to them about baseball only. It's the best way to deal with them, IMO.

I'll give you a two word response.

Spankanese

Stroman isn't a max-effort guy though. At least not in comparison to most of the other short pitchers.

Bryce's 20 year old season was on par with Lebron's 19 year old. He's a year behind, means top 5 player this year and first MVP by 25.

a second violation. That's when you know a player is just stupid

They seldom do though.

we'll need one of NJH or BTS around to create the "Around Baseball 2014" thread. Outside of that, I don't see them as useful.

There is no nice in baseball. I've always been big on small moves and having a plan B for all failures/injuries. I'm not talking about being able to replace their production but at least having defensive replacements or potential short term hot bats. Having four below replacement level catchers on the 40 man is just horrible management (especially when there is a 5th who isn't MLB ready). People don't see this as an issue but I do. I rage this way about other GM's too, just mostly on other accounts. As for my niceness, I see it as I have a higher tolerance than most anyone. I believe in sending a message first. How a person reacts to that message forms my opinion of them. Also embracing a troll sometimes discourages them more than banning them.