There may be a reason we are now.Originally Posted by harmony
There may be a reason that teams, armed with more inside information than most fans, shied away from J.D. Martinez.
Or not.
There may be a reason we are now.There may be a reason that teams, armed with more inside information than most fans, shied away from J.D. Martinez.
Or not.
Yes. Cap space.
A small fraction of the 30 MLB teams have cap space concerns:
http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/
Except the two biggest spenders other than the Sox.
The San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs handed two free agents larger contracts than the one J.D. Martinez landed despite those players' reported nine-figure offers from other teams.
Good for them.
If you really think cap space is all there is to determining who might be interested in any FA making JD's type money, then you're losing some of the respect I've always had for you.
There's no way 26 or 27 teams might have signed JD to anywhere near what the Sox paid had they not been worried about injuries.
Ok this is in Fonzi "Jump the Shark " weirdness now .....Sunday now ????? Wth happened
Huh?
I did not bring cap space into the discussion but responded when you did.
Martinez has his warts. He’s an Uber talented slugger. But he’s without a position, has lingering injury histories, and is not a spring chicken. I’m not surprised DD is doing what he needs to do to ensure the contract is vetted through all parties in the organization.
The funny thing in all of this is Boras’ misreading of JD’s market. Boras came into the FA freeze as if he had a transcendent talent. He didn’t realize he had an injury prone DH who, even though he hit 45 homers, did so after missing 40 games due to injury to start the year.
Players like JDM show why WAR can be a very meaningful number. If he has a big season he can deliver 4-4.5 WAR. Very worthwhile having, but not an elite player.
Boras really made a fool of himself with his talk about seeking 7 years and $210 million for JDM.
True, you didn't bring cap space into it. But you suggested that a lot of teams may have 'shied away' from JDM because of health issues.
I think you know that likely had much less to do with it than the fact that most teams simply weren't interested in forking out $110 million for any player this offseason.
Possible reasons for that:
-Cap space
-Legitimate lack of room in payroll budget
-Willing to put a low budget crap team on the field to make profits
-Tanking for high draft picks
When the Yankees, Dodgers and Cubs aren’t in the bidding and other larger markets like the White Sox, Giants, and Cardinals aren’t in it for a variety of reasons, your market will be limited. I think the CBA battle coming up will be epic. The way the cost of signing a QO FA went up plus the lux tax penalties accrue, it took a lot of teams out of the market that would have been in it, especially with a transcendent market coming up next year. The epic wave of FAs coming really screwed the market for this year and the union will want to prevent that from ever happening again.
We're only just starting Year 2 of 5 in the current CBA, so there's a long way to go and a lot of possible developments.
All the recent talk about rule changes highlights the fact that in spite of all the bloated revenue numbers, teams are seriously worried about fan interest being on the decline.
A larger fraction have budgets that acn in no way approach that limit...
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