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Stephen Strasburg Extension


chirorob

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49 minutes ago, JiF said:

The Nats are stupid but this is insane.  He's not even an Ace.

And to give a pitcher that long of a contract?  WHY???  

He's had health issues, he's never done... anything really.   He's a 15 game winner once.

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Honestly, it's really not that preposterous of a deal. We are in a power pitching era of baseball and Strasburg was already going to be the premier pitcher on the market. If the Nats didn't give this to him someone else would have. And even more importantly they have to do everything they can to keep that franchise competitive, because Bryce Harper is a baseball unicorn and if he bolts they are not going to recover from that for a long time.

Also worth noting he's having a great year. Strasburg's talent has never been a question, it's just been his health, and he looks pretty damn healthy right about now.

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40 minutes ago, RutgersJetFan said:

Honestly, it's really not that preposterous of a deal. We are in a power pitching era of baseball and Strasburg was already going to be the premier pitcher on the market. If the Nats didn't give this to him someone else would have. And even more importantly they have to do everything they can to keep that franchise competitive, because Bryce Harper is a baseball unicorn and if he bolts they are not going to recover from that for a long time.

Also worth noting he's having a great year. Strasburg's talent has never been a question, it's just been his health, and he looks pretty damn healthy right about now.

Yup, Yankees would have given him that contract in 2 seconds flat if he hit free agency, no doubt about it. 

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He knows them, they know him, they know his arm, he's one of the best power rotation arms in the league...Smart of them to get this done, the FA pitching looks horrendous this year and he was the best by miles and miles.

The past TJ surgery might have made FA a little tedious for him, they're set up to be very, very good through 2018, and they probably gave him damn close to what he'd get in FA. Throw in that top prospect Giolito has also had TJ surgery, reports were that his velocity is down, he's certainly not performing like they hoped, and this was an extremely easy decision for the Nats.

 

 

 

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Also worth noting if Strasburg bolted it would have been a really awful look on them. Zimmerman absolutely wrecking the AL right now looks bad. They are a team that has a legit window right now and I gotta believe Harper is not happy about that. I hate the Nats so much but this was a smart deal for them to get done. It sends a positive message to the clubhouse and in terms of market value it's absolutely on par with what he would have gotten over the winter. 

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1 hour ago, SenorGato said:

He knows them, they know him, they know his arm, he's one of the best power rotation arms in the league...Smart of them to get this done, the FA pitching looks horrendous this year and he was the best by miles and miles.

The past TJ surgery might have made FA a little tedious for him, they're set up to be very, very good through 2018, and they probably gave him damn close to what he'd get in FA. Throw in that top prospect Giolito has also had TJ surgery, reports were that his velocity is down, he's certainly not performing like they hoped, and this was an extremely easy decision for the Nats.

 

 

 

You think he was getting 7 years on the open market?  Idk about that.  

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1 minute ago, JiF said:

You think he was getting 7 years on the open market?  Idk about that.  

I'd guess maybe 5-6 without an optout, but as devoid of SP as this FA crop is it's hard to say. Anyone who is anyone would have been in on him except the Mets.

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Great. This mean the free agency market for pitching is going to suck. So it looks like everybody is going to save up for 2018. That's going to be a hell of a free agency class. It wouldn't surprise me if Harvey at least signs early though. Baseball teams are smart enough that they actually save money on players till they peak physically. Washington is going to make Harper the highest paid player in sports. Really shows you how useless the NFL Player's Association is.


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18 hours ago, RutgersJetFan said:

Honestly, it's really not that preposterous of a deal. We are in a power pitching era of baseball and Strasburg was already going to be the premier pitcher on the market. If the Nats didn't give this to him someone else would have. And even more importantly they have to do everything they can to keep that franchise competitive, because Bryce Harper is a baseball unicorn and if he bolts they are not going to recover from that for a long ttime.

Also worth noting he's having a great year. Strasburg's talent has never been a question, it's just been his health, and he looks pretty damn healthy right about now.

Harper is going to go to whoever gives him the most money.  He is going to want 400 million.

Strasburg has an amazing arm.  But that doesn't help when he only throws 160 innings a year, and now you are betting it will stay sound until he is 34.  Yes, he would have received that on the open market, it's just crazy. 

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2 hours ago, chirorob said:

Harper is going to go to whoever gives him the most money.  He is going to want 400 million.

Strasburg has an amazing arm.  But that doesn't help when he only throws 160 innings a year, and now you are betting it will stay sound until he is 34.  Yes, he would have received that on the open market, it's just crazy. 

I hope the Cubs give Harper 10/500 when he hits FA at 26 and laugh all the way to the bank as he wrecks sh*t.

Actually they're betting on him doing it through age 31, at which point he can opt out and hit FA. There's nothing wrong with 160 dominant innings a year, and don't ignore how the contract is structured.

@pdxgreen - Yeah, the NFLPA is a ******* embarrassment and joke.

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18 minutes ago, SenorGato said:

I hope the Cubs give Harper 10/500 when he hits FA at 26 and laugh all the way to the bank as he wrecks sh*t.

Actually they're betting on him doing it through age 31, at which point he can opt out and hit FA. There's nothing wrong with 160 dominant innings a year, and don't ignore how the contract is structured.

@pdxgreen - Yeah, the NFLPA is a ******* embarrassment and joke.

He can opt out, but if he gets hurt, they can't opt out.  That's actually worse.

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2 hours ago, chirorob said:

Harper is going to go to whoever gives him the most money.  He is going to want 400 million.

Strasburg has an amazing arm.  But that doesn't help when he only throws 160 innings a year, and now you are betting it will stay sound until he is 34.  Yes, he would have received that on the open market, it's just crazy. 

I gotta believe Boras' starting point for Harper is going to be 500.

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26 minutes ago, chirorob said:

He can opt out, but if he gets hurt, they can't opt out.  That's actually worse.

Heavily mitigated by the structure of the contract, and they will give a total of zero ****s if there's a WS appearance in there.

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22 minutes ago, RutgersJetFan said:

^ Also 99% sure the Yankees and Dodgers will both be willing give him this.

Yeah, Harper seems destined to be a Yankee. I don't mind so much - the Cubs are going to own this century anyway and Harper seems a fair consolation prize for the organization they'll be deposing.

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3 hours ago, RutgersJetFan said:

^ Also 99% sure the Yankees and Dodgers will both be willing give him this.

I'm that cranky old guy.    "Ball Players today make too much money!!!   Blah!!!!!!"

I guess % wise of the team payroll, that will be about the same as when AROD got his money from the Rangers.  And that worked out well.

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3 hours ago, SenorGato said:

Yeah, Harper seems destined to be a Yankee. I don't mind so much - the Cubs are going to own this century anyway and Harper seems a fair consolation prize for the organization they'll be deposing.

Without PEDs, players age normally again.  So when guy become free agents, they aren't in their prime until they are 38.   Players don't hit career highs at 35, 36 years old.  Which means less impact from Free Agents, which means the best farm systems win. 

I've said it before.  If Theo beats the Cubs and the Red Sox curse.... wow.   And he could do them both before he's 45.   Kinda makes me feel like a waste.

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2 hours ago, chirorob said:

I'm that cranky old guy.    "Ball Players today make too much money!!!   Blah!!!!!!"

I guess % wise of the team payroll, that will be about the same as when AROD got his money from the Rangers.  And that worked out well.

 LA has $42-43 million per year tied up in Gonzalez and Crawford for the next few years. Ditto for the Yanks with Ellsbury and ARod. When you're working with the budgets of those franchises, is it worth increasing payroll an extra $7-8 million per year to tie up solely in a 25-year-old Harper instead? Absolutely.

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3 hours ago, chirorob said:

Without PEDs, players age normally again.  So when guy become free agents, they aren't in their prime until they are 38.   Players don't hit career highs at 35, 36 years old.  Which means less impact from Free Agents, which means the best farm systems win. 

I've said it before.  If Theo beats the Cubs and the Red Sox curse.... wow.   And he could do them both before he's 45.   Kinda makes me feel like a waste.

There's still plenty of PEDs. The guys who get caught nowadays are basically idiots or they made a careless mistake like the Mondesi kid. No different from how there's only a handful of NFL suspensions a year for PEDs, and extremely few among the game's better or more bankable players. Anyway, even then it was not *normal* for a 38 year old to be still be an awesome player - by and large those guys were among the handful best in the game when they were young, were extremely lucky/gifted genetically, and yeah probably got some timely assistance from PEDs. Harper works around all that by being all of 26 when he hits FA for the first time.

With the Cubs it's a matter of when rather than if. They're going to be to baseball in the 21st century what the Yankees were in the 20th century.

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11 hours ago, SenorGato said:

There's still plenty of PEDs. The guys who get caught nowadays are basically idiots or they made a careless mistake like the Mondesi kid. No different from how there's only a handful of NFL suspensions a year for PEDs, and extremely few among the game's better or more bankable players. Anyway, even then it was not *normal* for a 38 year old to be still be an awesome player - by and large those guys were among the handful best in the game when they were young, were extremely lucky/gifted genetically, and yeah probably got some timely assistance from PEDs. Harper works around all that by being all of 26 when he hits FA for the first time.

With the Cubs it's a matter of when rather than if. They're going to be to baseball in the 21st century what the Yankees were in the 20th century.

You had a lot of guys get better later.  Luis Gonzalez, Kevin Elster for Petes sake, Greg Vaughn, the list goes on and on. 

There's always something, but without the heavy juicing, players peak normally, and decline in their 30s.  Which means you need a good farm system.  Which the Cubs seem to have, which is good for you.  We shall see about your 100 year empire :), but they are set for now. 

Don't forget, the Yankees got rebuilt via a few good trades (O'Neil, Brossius, later Tino) and through the farm system.  Their payroll didn't go nuts until the started adding Giambi and the other FA, and they didn't have nearly the same success.

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On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 1:08 PM, JiF said:

The Nats are stupid but this is insane.  He's not even an Ace.

And to give a pitcher that long of a contract?  WHY???  

That is the going length.

King Felix, Kershaw, Price, Verlander and Scherzzer all signed for 7.  Hamels, Grienke and Lester signed for 6. 

While he does not have the pedigree of any of them, he has always been good (season totals).  The only concern is his health.

I would rather have him for seven years, then Price or Porcello for over 20+ million a pop.

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 1:58 PM, chirorob said:

He's had health issues, he's never done... anything really.   He's a 15 game winner once.

Go look at his numbers.  He has been good.  While health is a concern, I would rather gamble he will have more of his 2014 season over the next 7 years than go with a JAG like Porcello.

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I

7 minutes ago, PFSIKH said:

That is the going length.

King Felix, Kershaw, Price, Verlander and Scherzzer all signed for 7.  Hamels, Grienke and Lester signed for 6. 

While he does not have the pedigree of any of them, he has always been good (season totals).  The only concern is his health.

I would rather have him for seven years, then Price or Porcello for over 20+ million a pop.

Go look at his numbers.  He has been good.  While health is a concern, I would rather gamble he will have more of his 2014 season over the next 7 years than go with a JAG like Porcello.

Yep.  You're right.  At first I was shocked but this is the norm after looking at some recent contracts.

 

 

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2 hours ago, PFSIKH said:

That is the going length.

King Felix, Kershaw, Price, Verlander and Scherzzer all signed for 7.  Hamels, Grienke and Lester signed for 6. 

While he does not have the pedigree of any of them, he has always been good (season totals).  The only concern is his health.

I would rather have him for seven years, then Price or Porcello for over 20+ million a pop.

Go look at his numbers.  He has been good.  While health is a concern, I would rather gamble he will have more of his 2014 season over the next 7 years than go with a JAG like Porcello.

He is good. He is also a career 6 inning pitcher (5.9).  Real good strikeout numbers.   Low 3 ERA.  Threw 200 innings once.  Did lead the league in strikeouts once. 

He is not as good as Felix when he signed his deal.  The Verlander deal was awful, and I think the Price deal will also probably be pretty bad by the last 3 years of it.

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10 hours ago, chirorob said:

Don't forget, the Yankees got rebuilt via a few good trades (O'Neil, Brossius, later Tino) and through the farm system.  Their payroll didn't go nuts until the started adding Giambi and the other FA, and they didn't have nearly the same success.

The only time the Yankees didn't lead the league in payroll when they were winning was when the Orioles beat them by a million dollars in 1998. They rolled out a who's who of veterans pitchers - Key, Cone, Wettland, Wells, Hernandez, etc during those years bought with money. The 10/189 deal they gave Jeter was overshadowed by ARod's, but was among the handful largest deals in history at the time. People only started caring when they weren't piling up rings, which had nothing to do with their spending habits and way more to do with being passed in evaluation and development by the Red Sox, Cardinals, and others.

 

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http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/stephen-strasburg-is-the-ace-we-always-wanted/
 

Quote

 

That last night’s performance was Strasburg’s least impressive of the season is impressive in and of itself. He’s been baseball’s third-most valuable pitcher by FIP-WAR, eighth-most valuable pitcher by RA9-WAR, and fifth-most valuable pitcher by an even mix of the two. And while what he’s done this seasons is an elevated level of performance relative to previous seasons, Strasburg’s been on this run for a while now. You could make the case that this is the best we’ve ever seen him.

This time last year, Strasburg had an ERA above 6.00, and we ran a “What’s Wrong With Stephen Strasburg” post on this very website. What was wrong with Strasburg, it turned out, was that he was hurt. He was removed from a game the night that post was published with a nagging shoulder injury, and just a couple weeks later hit the disabled list on account of some side and neck problems. Strasburg missed a few weeks, came back in late June, and since then, he’s made 20 starts, he’s struck out seven batters for every walk, he’s ran a 2.13 ERA and a 2.19 FIP. Since then, he’s been as close to peak Strasburg as we’ve seen...

 

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/stephen-strasburgs-extension-is-a-win-win/

 

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15 hours ago, SenorGato said:

The only time the Yankees didn't lead the league in payroll when they were winning was when the Orioles beat them by a million dollars in 1998. They rolled out a who's who of veterans pitchers - Key, Cone, Wettland, Wells, Hernandez, etc during those years bought with money. The 10/189 deal they gave Jeter was overshadowed by ARod's, but was among the handful largest deals in history at the time. People only started caring when they weren't piling up rings, which had nothing to do with their spending habits and way more to do with being passed in evaluation and development by the Red Sox, Cardinals, and others.

 

They were usually #1 in payroll, but not by 40-50 million like they were later. 

Hey, I'm agreeing with you.  You can't buy your way, you have to have development.  When George got kicked out of baseball, Stick Michael was able to turn things around, with some good trades and some good players coming up.   Cone and Wettland were trades.   Key was a FA.   He was let go to bring in Wells. 

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53 minutes ago, chirorob said:

They were usually #1 in payroll, but not by 40-50 million like they were later. 

Hey, I'm agreeing with you.  You can't buy your way, you have to have development.  When George got kicked out of baseball, Stick Michael was able to turn things around, with some good trades and some good players coming up.   Cone and Wettland were trades.   Key was a FA.   He was let go to bring in Wells. 

We clearly don't agree in principle - can't with your focus and disdain for players getting paid and high payrolls. All it took was a whole lot of losing, top of the draft picks, and redirected spending for Michael to do it.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont-be-fooled-by-baseballs-small-budget-success-stories/

 

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48 minutes ago, SenorGato said:

We clearly don't agree in principle - can't with your focus and disdain for players getting paid and high payrolls. All it took was a whole lot of losing, top of the draft picks, and redirected spending for Michael to do it.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont-be-fooled-by-baseballs-small-budget-success-stories/

I don't hate people getting paid.  I think giving a guy that contract when he has never shown he can be "the guy" for more than one healthy year at a time is a huge risk.  It's not my money though.  He's pitching great right now, and he's only 27 (I think), it's just a massive risk.  Now, if he goes FA, he'll get even more, so it saves some money signing him now rther than later.

At the end of the day, they money is there.  Give it to the players.  If 50,000 people would pay to watch me work, I'd charge more too.

ANd the other part, I agree with you.  It comes down to producing your own talent.  My biggest point is you can't build a team via free agents, as most of them are 28, 29, and if you sign them to a long term deal you aren't getting value for the whole thing.

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3 minutes ago, chirorob said:

I don't hate people getting paid.  I think giving a guy that contract when he has never shown he can be "the guy" for more than one healthy year at a time is a huge risk.  It's not my money though.  He's pitching great right now, and he's only 27 (I think), it's just a massive risk.  Now, if he goes FA, he'll get even more, so it saves some money signing him now rther than later.

At the end of the day, they money is there.  Give it to the players.  If 50,000 people would pay to watch me work, I'd charge more too.

ANd the other part, I agree with you.  It comes down to producing your own talent.  My biggest point is you can't build a team via free agents, as most of them are 28, 29, and if you sign them to a long term deal you aren't getting value for the whole thing.

The bold doesn't actually mean anything. Nobody is paying him to be "the guy," they're paying him to pitch for the Nationals. He's long proven to be a high caliber pitcher, hence the seemingly hefty commit.

Most FAs are older than 28/29, teams would love it if the typical FA was that age (and we might be getting there for a stretch soon). IIRC the average age of a FA is 30-32, but I guess I should check that somewhere somehow.

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