John_Havok

Has Delmon Young been taken yet? DEM ARRR BEE EYEZ!

If Seattle lands Cano, it will be a colossal mistake. the amount of money they'd have to pay him to go there instead of the Yankees would be obscene and would practically cripple their ability to sign anyone for the next 8-9 years. Jack Z is retarded but there's no way he's that retarded. JayZ and company are just using the Seattle rumours to put pressure on the Yankees to up their offer.

hell... even 3 is pushing it for a guy who hits lighter than johnny mac and only plays 2b.

Yup, definitely not on of AA's strong suits, no doubt about it.

It's hard to hold back when there's actually people out there in favour of keeping JPA based on flawed arguments and nothing more than pie in the sky hopes.

I know that was one of the rumoured features of the new deal a few days ago, could be completely off the table by now.

Pretty silly isn't it? LIke if the Jays had Trout and he was going into his arb years and they wanted to extend him, but wouldn't go past 5 years.... it's ridiculous to have a hard rule of "nothing past X years." It really is. as long as it's planned out the right way and not completely horrendous value on the back end, a 6 or 7 year deal isn't a franchise crippler. For hitters alone though, anyone who would guarantee more than 5 years to a pitcher is f***ing retarded.

I agree, keeping them all healthy and performing will be the trick, along with a pitching staff that doesn't absolutely stink.

f***. Now my life has no meaning...

If you're xxFIP doesn't include gravity, the earth's rotation and solar winds in it's calculations, I will have lost all faith in you

the blame for this thread lies squarely on the mods for not closing after the first post.

Oh don't get your panties in a bunch. You're as much an "armchair expert" as anyone here. I think the point that people have in their approval; of JPA hitting the bricks is that he just put up one of the worst season's in the history of the game. Do you know how many qualified seasons have been played so far in the history of MLB? Tens of thousands. JPA was one of the worst... in the tens of thousands of qualified seasons of baseball. It was his 3rd full year, and he's not a "youngster." going into next year he will be 28, that's typically not an age where a guy suddenly changes everything about his game and becomes good. And even if it were the case where a team wants to take a chance and work with him, you sure as hell don't do it in a year where your team believes(rightly or wrongly) that they are trying to make a push for the playoffs. You also don't want a guy around who shoots his mouth off to the media just because they criticize his play and tell everyone in the world that you are speaking on behalf of the whole team especially when he's in the middle of, just in case you missed it earlier, one of the worst seasons in the history of major league baseball. Can he be better? Sure. It's practically impossible to be worse... and whatever team that might pick him up, I say good luck.

Ill reserve judgement until the whole agreement is finalized, but a few million dollar fine to prevent another team from picking up elite talent would be money well spent. We're just talking hypothetically at this point of course, I really doubt MLB would go this way.

He must be afraid of another Wells-like situation happening and therefore won't even approach a contract that even has a chance of becoming a sinkhole via FA. Hell, signing Garza to a four year deal worth 15 per season wouldn't be a bad contract and I highly doubt he gets something better than that this year. The problem is, we honestly don't know what kind of a premium TO would have to pay to land those guys. We can sit here and think all we want that money talks and players go where the money is every time, but there is just no way that a player, right now, would choose TO as a destination over a better team if the money and years are similar. There's all kinds of perceived problems and real problems that TO has to deal with in every pro sport that isn't hockey when it comes to attracting premier talent through free agency. TO would have to add multiple guaranteed years or a higher AAV, and there comes a point where that doesn't make sense.

There's no guarantee though the guy would sign though. I think that's the main issue with lottery or just choosing 1 team from say 10 teams who all put up the same bid. Either let the guy negotiate with every team who max bids, or don't meddle at all. THe goal here is to try to get more guys from Japan over to the MLB, giving Houston sole negotiating right because of their s***** record doesn't strike me as a way to lure players from Japan. If they want to cap the posting fee, at least make the fee high enough that only teams who are serious about wanting to sign him step up. Remember just because a team wins the right to negotiate, doesn't mean the guy has to sign with them and then the posting fee is refunded. So if the posting fee is low enough, gutter teams could just always throw in a bid, win the rights, not even try to sign to the player, get their posting fee back and would have effectively blocked other teams ahead of them from landing a player without it costing them a cent. That's certainly not what MLB wants to happen.

I think that was one of the proposals yes, though nothing has been finalized. They wanted the lower budget teams to at least be able to put bids forward with the hope of getting a chance to negotiate even by having made the same bid as the big spenders.

That sucks Ken. Me and my fiancée rescued a pit bull and after we had him for about a year, we were out in a friends pasture picking rocks for her rock garden and the dog just took off running and wouldn't stop, something spooked him I guess because he wouldn't stop. He was lost for about 3 days but luckily a farmer spotted him in a yard with other dogs after we went out and dropped off pictures of him to every yard within a 10 mile radius....we were lucky and got him back. Those 3 days were hell not knowing if he was ok or not.

Pipe dreams. Cano will get his 8 or 9 year deal from someone, but it won't be the Jays.

It would appear both Rasmussen and Kratz have options, so no danger of losing either of them.

You kidding, they'll probably both be DFA'd tomorrow as AA tries to sneak them through waivers, he does this every year pretty effectively

It's just another way of expressing one thing being like another... For example, if you were comparing one player to another similar player you might say that a guy who strikes out a ton, never walks, is s***** at defense and has a massive inflated ego is Arencibia-esque

Do I foresee a Hurl-esque guarantee here ?

Yankees casting a wide net.

I actually don't think anyone wants that...

Who needs 10 guys? Just give Spanky a hat full of players names and tell him to draw one for every beer consumed