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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
6 years, $120-$150 million, for a pitcher. A great pitcher. A pitcher who is one injury away from mediocrity.
I know Twins fans want to see their team get a boatload of talent for their team’s best player. As great as Santana is, the reality of the situation is whichever team gets Santana also assumes a great deal of risk. That risk only increases as the amount of talent headed Minnesota’s way gets larger. So, as much as Twins fans want to see the Red Sox and Yankees include their very best prospects in the trade, the only way it happens is one of them does something stupid. But Santana and agent Peter Greenberg are said to seeking a six-year deal worth close to $25 million per season, bringing the total bill to $250 million. Tack on the $13.5 million Santana is due in the final year of his existing contract and to satisfy Santana, the Red Sox would be taking on more than $260 million in salary obligations.
That total would make Santana the second-highest paid-player in baseball history, behind only the two deals signed by Alex Rodriguez — the first with the Texas Rangers and the more recent extension inked with the Yankees.
...
But the Sox would want Santana at their own price. If they could get him to accept a contract worth $20 million annually or less, a resolution would be more feasible. Anything more might not bust their budget, but it would be at odds with their philosophy.
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1. Who is Karim Garcia? Posted: December 04, 2007 at 06:08 PM (#2633921)Wow! The Sox are already leaking their cop out of the deal, in case the Twins actually accept their offer.
Stay strong Yanks! No Kennedy! They're bluffing.
Awful weird reason for me to stop lurking.
Or they're negotiating in the press with a player currently under contract to another team. Isn't that blatant tampering? ;-)
BTW, the math is wrong in the snip, isn't it? 6 x 25 = 150, not 250. Or am I missing some random $100M somewhere?
for all this talk about which player package is better, aren't people forgetting that there's a second part to any deal for Santana - giving him the extension he wants? He's looking for something in the 6 years/$120 million plus territory - don't the Red Sox as a rule try to avoid those sorts of contracts, particularly with pitchers?
what I'm saying is, even if the Twins and the Sox "agree," that doesn't necessarily mean Santana is going anywhere.
[pats self on back]
I don't take this as spin to get out of the deal. If the Red Sox trade for Santana, they're going to sign him. This is the beginning of the contract hardball, as the Sox get ready to negotiate hard for 72 hours if the trade goes through.
I'm only beginning to become slightly confident - I still don't see how the Sox package beats the Yankee package, unless it's more than rumored, but hey, this article is a very positive sign - obviously a Red Sox leak in preparation for negotiations.
dad: so close... carry the one....
mom: kids, this is why you should stay in school.
dad: listen to your mother.
he's still the only one in town?
(must get awful lonely around Hannukah)
Durish? Funny, she doesn't look Druish [/end John Candy]
Nice to have you around, regardless.
ASSUME: J Santana signs six year $140 million contract extension, and is paid $13.5 million by BOS in 2007.
Would it be wise for the Sox to pull the trigger if these assumptions are correct?
I say no. Interesting observation about the Sox management by McAdam, despite his horrible math. Would the Sox ownership really double their largest contract to date (to J Drew) for a 29 YO pitcher? I doubt it. Once the Sox are out from under Manny's contract, with their revenue stream, they are going to be an absolute financial-efficiency animal.
P.S. If I'm wrong and they do sign Santana, then I observe that the Sox are reaching patriot-level of paranoia and secrecy. I'm not going to dredge up the quote, but somewhere this summer Theo was quoted as saying he would like to stay out of the big time free-agent pitching business. Just too risky. And then he turns around and signs the richest pitching contract in MLB history.
Depends on whether they want to go cheap or put together the best possible team. If money is not a concern then the deal you describe makes sense. If they prefer to be a financial-efficiency beast then trading for Santana doesn't help.
I doubt it. Who was the last player Carl Pohlad was willing to pay $20 million a year?
Mrs. Pohlad.
A good and oft-ignored point. Championships and playoff berths are not awarded to the teams with the best wins/dollars ratio. Financial efficiency is important -- wasting money always hurts to some degree, regardless of a team's resources -- and on an aesthetic level there's certain, I dunno, let's call it "elegance" about buying for 10M what others can't get for 30M, but that efficiency is only a means to an end, and should not be seen as an end to itself.
Another thing to remember is the inflation in major-league salaries. It's quite possible (some might say likely) that three or four years from now a $20M AAV will look like a 12M AAV today. Obviously such growth can't go on forever, but given all the ballyhoo about the six billion in revenue and whatnot, it's not easy to see a reason why that rate of growth is going to stop now.
Happy Base Ball
It is hard to say what owners "should" spend on payroll. After all, they need to invest more in the minors than do other sports like Football and Basketball where the colleges do the development gratis. However payroll as a percentage of revenues has fallen from ~60% in 1992 to ~40% today. There is a LOT of room for salaries to expand without squeezing profits, even if revenues were to stay flat.
Agreed that a 50% increase in the pay scale is likely over the next three years.
Seems slightly like tampering either depending upon where it originated.
Tampering? How could you POSSIBLY accuse an upright and honorable organization like the Red Sox of TAMPERING?!?
If it were an official quoted statement, it would definitely constitute tampering. Unofficial and unattributed leaks are much harder to track down. They are also 99% false, so I wouldn't rely on that report if I were an agent or club involved.
ASSUME: J Santana signs six year $140 million contract extension, and is paid $13.5 million by BOS in 2007.
Abso-frakking-lutely.
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