Abomination

The concern for me about Fielder is his weight. If he can keep it under control, he'll probably be playable until the end, but that seems kind of iffy. The last 3 years of that contract they may be paying him to be the world's fattest (but happiest) cheerleader.

Certainly some teams would have an advantage, but unless they were the "dream team" for a player I tend to think the player would follow the money. Heck, let's say the Yankees offered someone 1M instead of the Astros at 1.4M - chances are that the guy is traded before making it to the Bronx anyhow (possibly to the Astros). Also, a prospect may have a better chance of making it to the big leagues faster on a team where there's better chance of a vacancy existing. The problem of some teams having the advantage is certainly the counterpoint to this kind of system though. Maybe give all teams a weighted draft cap bonus based on lack of playoff appearances over the last 10 years or something, along with a bonus for extending their own players into FA years or losing a prime player to FA.

I actually think they SHOULD. Honestly, the haul they could get would likely help their team overall far more than Trout would alone, especially if you consider the money it would also free up in the last few years of the contract he'd get.

It might do that year to year, but overall the big deals signed for free agents by teams like the Yankees would probably funnel more money to the mid market teams than it cost them. It would also mean that their own players might be more likely to sign extensions with the mid market teams since they wouldn't be "taxed". Based on years played for their old team (up to 20%), so 1.6M for each of the 3 years. It doesn't matter though, since as I realized after the players union would never go for it anyway. It wouldn't add complexity though for bonuses or option years, since it would be paid out after each year is completed and those totals were known. This is really the point though. The QO system sucks (no matter how you manipulate it it's going to be unfair for someone), adding millions of extra picks sucks (even though we gamed it well). Giving teams the extra slot bonus to apply to the IFA's and the draft (I think I mentioned that the draft would move to a similar format as IFA rather than people getting picks) would seem to strike a good balance. Teams who can't retain their stars should have an increased opportunity to draft new ones since they could offer more money if they chose to. Teams also wouldn't be rewarded for sucking to the degree they are now. The players shouldn't be hurt at all under the system too. You could also perhaps modify the system so that the calculated bonus was the difference in AAV that the player received. IE, under that system an aging star who switched teams probably wouldn't net the team that lost them anything (and they shouldn't), but the type of key player that a rebuilding team might lose certainly would.

Yeah, I suspect Davidi may have tried to get too cute in his wording and flubbed that up. Really though, I think machine learning techniques are the future of sports analytics.

For all we know, the outputs may have suggested not to go after those other guys, and could ultimately prove correct. We'll just have to wait and see.

Small to mid market teams generally don't sign much in the way of FA's away from big clubs anyway (at least major ones, with the apparent exception of Seattle). The net effect would still be positive for most if not all of those clubs. All players are affected equally by it, so it wouldn't retard any player over any other player. It would simply factor in to the contract they received - which actually brings up the more serious problem that it would never pass the player's union anyway since it would in effect be taking money out of the players pockets and giving it to the owners. The second part of the suggestion probably has a better chance of success, where teams gain extra draft and IFA cap space based on the contract the player signs with a new team (or an extension with their current team). Since the larger FA contracts are usually signed by the larger market teams / teams not rebuilding, it should cause small market and rebuilding teams to have a shot at adding better talent in a free-ish market environment. Boras would love it at any rate, and it would certainly make the draft period a heck of a lot more entertaining when moved away from it's current slot format. Offer any player any amount you wish within your budget.

How many unique visitors a day?

Melky's tumor: http://assets1.sportsnet.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/melky_tumour.jpg http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/cabrera-tumour-free-and-primed-for-big-year/

People should love this quote (re Goins)! http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/goins-gives-jays-optimism-at-second-base/

It hurts all players equally regardless of how they play, really. It just seems like a more fair system of still compensating teams for losing players. The Miami situation needs to be dealt with separately. I guess an alternative would be to abolish the current draft system entirely and treat it more like they do with IFA's, with teams who lose players gaining extra cap space to allow them a better chance at scoring top players. With so many players being available it would be a bit of a drawn out nightmare, but would certainly be interesting. What it would also do though is make teams less likely to want to resign their top players, so there'd need to be some kind of incentive for that too.

They really need to fix the QO and compensation. Get rid of losing draft picks, and do something like the following: 1. The team that loses a player gets monetary compensation from the new team at a rate of 5% of the yearly salary (including incentives and signing bonus) per year the old team had the player, up to 20% total. (ie, if a team signed Price at 20M / year, they'd have to pay Tampa an average of 4M / year for the life of the contract). This should also apply rather than the Japan posting system imo. 2. The team that loses the player receives a special "slush fund" equal to 1% of the new contract per year the old team had the player (up to 5%) which they can apply as extra cap space for the draft or for IFA's. (In the above case of Price, Tampa would get an extra 1M / year that they could use to increase their cap space).

Analysts seems to think that 150M / 6 years would mean that the two free agent years the Angels would be buying out would cost about 35M to 45M / year, taking into account the other years would still be arbitration years. A deal like this is probably fair for both sides.

The depth behind them is interesting, but that listed rotation is a disaster (imo).

8M for a full season or the possibility of 8M for a half season and stats that don't look as nice... Does he seriously think he's going to massively improve on multiyear offers later in the season?

Man would it be sweet if he DID land Gardner and Aoki though. Perfect fits imo. He's going to have to address outfield somehow next year, because I can't see him actually running with Gose AND Sierra.

I hate that Vasquez runner. He needs to abandon that shot.

They probably got an early look at their 2nd and 3rd base options the last few days and decided they didn't need him.

Apparently he does.

Yeah, Hendriks at least has a chance to be useful, so this is a good move (even if it is pretty meh). I could actually see Hendriks be converted to relief. The few extra ticks on the fastball combined with a good curve could be pretty effective.

I'd agree that Sanchez would be about right. Maybe we could have some fun and extend it to Sanchez + Happ + Gose + Thole + Santos for Franklin + Zunino + Saunders Yeah, I doubt they'd do it, but ...

Funny that an agent who is breaking the rules is getting bent out of shape over a team calling someone out over it (even though it's a really low move by the Phillies). They need to get rid of that rule now regardless, and let the prospects select an agent if they wish to.

This is actually an interesting suggestion, especially if the Cards were to sign Diaz and move him to 2nd.

At least it's working on someone

If this were football, we'd be seeing flags flying everywhere lol