When will Machado and Harper sign?

i figure once spring training is set to start one, or both will take the best deal on the table (Harper to Giants) (Machado, i dunno, fuck him).

Just barely skimmed this.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/we-put-bryce-harper-and-manny-machado-on-a-bunch-of-different-teams/

Rosenthal in The Athletic says neither wants to sign first and "set the market."

Just voted February 24-March 1.

Can't believe the Giants are in the running for Harper.

apparently not? he said he doesn't want a short term deal, which is what i think they were going for.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted February 11 (tomorrow)

i'm gonna be pessimistic and predict that at least one of them will sign after the season starts

i wish they'd just do it already i've been seeing articles linking them to teams for it feels like months & months now

you'd like the phillies to just sign them already?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

For what it’s worth, my source who is close to Bryce Harper tells me #Dodgers and #Cubs were 1st choices all along and he prefers not to sign with #Phillies. I’ve been hearing all winter that Harper does not want to play for Gabe Kapler due to analytics and quirky personality

— Randy Miller (@RandyJMiller) February 26, 2019

Harper is really going to have fun when he goes back to Philly after this one dodging all of the chucked batteries.

Harper does not want to play for Gabe Kapler due to analytics

makes sense..for Harper

hahaha

The Giants have a better shot at signing Harper if the Bums don't match the years. Stir see him as a Phillies when all is said and done

Breaking: Bryce to the Phillies

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 28, 2019

325 mil

Harper gets 330M

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 28, 2019

13 years, no opt-outs

yowza

13 years!!

full no-trade clause, no deferred money

the new pujols

I assume he won't decline in production immediately like Pujols

but yeah same effect in that the last (possibly several) years will be "agggggggggh

wow just brutal. why hasnt the league worked to put a cap on contract years?

13 years of Phillies fan heckling you is a direct path to Sainthood imo

good job thread! wish i could remember what i voted for, p sure i was one of the wrong ones. i wanna say i picked 19-23

I assume he won't decline in production immediately like Pujols

― brimstead, Thursday, February 28, 2019 2:15 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but yeah same effect in that the last (possibly several) years will be "agggggggggh

― brimstead, Thursday, February 28, 2019 2:17 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, for sure. i also expect that he'll be really good for at least a handful of years to come, hopefully more (i like watching him play).

but of course, at any point he could get a bad injury and immediately become an albatross. 13 years for anyone is ridiculous, even mike trout

the 13 years isn't really that important -- i imagine it's mostly to keep the average annual value down and avoid the luxury tax. if he ultimately turns into pujols they can cut him; the money's already been spent

AAV is only a little over $25m, which is nowhere near a record

He declined higher AAV, if I understand correctly. I think he cared a lot about the years and amount, to get the record contract.

such a waste

they could cut him yeah...but the angels haven't cut pujols. when old man harper is putting up -36.1 DEF and hitting 24 HRs with an OBP of .290, he'll also probably be nearing a big round number of HRs or hits

xp

Anyone, congrats to Harper, the third most valuable player on the Nationals, on becoming the third most valuable player on the Phillies.

phillies remain almost $50m under the luxury tax for this season

Also worth noting that #Mets took on Cano because they believe a DH is coming to the NL at some point soon. I am sure this is in the calculus for the #Phillies giving 13 yrs to Harper

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) February 28, 2019

The news of Harper's agreement has infiltrated the visitors clubhouse at Champion Stadium. "Why would you want to play that long?" one Tiger said. "This game sucks."

— Anthony Fenech (@anthonyfenech) February 28, 2019

If it's true that he turned down 10Y/300M from the Nats months ago, then this holdout only netted him an extra 3Y/30M. Either he was confident he'd get a $400M deal or he really wanted to leave Washington.

OTOH, having three sub-1.5 WAR seasons in the past five years is somehow worth $330M. Free agency is less dead than I thought.

Alex Rodriguez’s inflation-adjusted AAV on his 2001 deal equaled $59.2 mil. 2001 Derek Jeter deal was $44.4 mil. 2001 Manny Ramirez deal was $47.0 mil. 2002 Jason Giambi was $39.4 mil (per FanGraphs).

Major League Baseball’s inflation-adjusted revenue in 2001 was $5.09 billion. Major League Baseball’s revenue exceeded $10 billion in 2018.

Revenue has soared. The big-time players that play a big-time role in this revenue increase aren’t getting their fair share of pay for it. And the owners collectively are the ones responsible.

i can't believe he got a worse contract than stanton

OTOH, having three sub-1.5 WAR seasons in the past five years is somehow worth $330M.

fwiw, by fangraphs it's:

2014: 1.6 WAR (in 100 games)
2015: 9.3
2016: 3.0
2017: 4.8 (in 111 games)
2018: 3.5

Plus it's not only player values in WAR, it's also that Harper will sell more jersey than probably any player in the league.

but Mookie otm on the owners.

Alex Rodriguez’s inflation-adjusted AAV on his 2001 deal equaled $59.2 mil. 2001 Derek Jeter deal was $44.4 mil. 2001 Manny Ramirez deal was $47.0 mil. 2002 Jason Giambi was $39.4 mil (per FanGraphs).
Major League Baseball’s inflation-adjusted revenue in 2001 was $5.09 billion. Major League Baseball’s revenue exceeded $10 billion in 2018.

Revenue has soared. The big-time players that play a big-time role in this revenue increase aren’t getting their fair share of pay for it. And the owners collectively are the ones responsible.

― mookieproof, Thursday, February 28, 2019 4:24 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is this a bad thing? is this true for the average player as wel, or just the “1%”? give how disastrous most of these mega-deals been, I’m not sure that giving guys deals that pay them 30-35% of their teams payroll is in anyone’s best interest except those players

i'm not particularly bothered by harper's AAV being (adjusted) half that of a-rod's first deal. (and a-rod was totally worth that money!) he'll be more than fine, obviously.

the difference just points out that the players are making less and the owners are keeping ever more while simultaneously crying that they're too poor to compete

I honestly don’t know, so I’m asking: are the owners keeping a larger share, or is the player money just more evenly distributed? I mean these things are set by th me CBA, right?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/01/11/economic-data-shows-mlb-spent-less-on-player-salaries-compared-to-revenues-in-2018/#656b269039d7

adjusting dollars to 2019

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/what-alex-rodriguezs-contract-would-look-like-today/

extremely rude of bryce to stay in the NL east regardless

thx for the link mookie

I don’t know enough about the MLB’s CBA...in the NBA for example the way the revenues are split are defined by the CBA, is that not the case with the MLB? another interesting thing is that the league as a whole has been trending younger lately, and given how poorly young players are paid relative to veterans, plus the recent reluctance to give out big money deals to older guys, it makes sense I guess that player share of revenue would be declining. seems like this is something the players will be interested in addressing when the new CBA is negotiated in a few years

this is definitely a contract signed by someone who believes he's going to play baseball for the phillies for the next 13 years.

They said on the radio that Philadelphia's park is a good for left-handed hitters. Looked up Harper, and in a 208-AB sample he's done well there: 14 HR, .564 SLG. Which I'm sure counted for absolutely nothing, but I naively believe players should be more attentive to such things than they are--at the very least, avoid somewhere that's going to hurt you.

oh, i definitely think that counted for something. he's the ballpark's all-time slugging leader (min. 200 PA); everyone wants to be in a position to succeed

They said on the radio that Philadelphia's park is a good for left-handed hitters.

This seems to suggest otherwise?

https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=2556390

yeah, that's some good sleuthing, albert. not just 2018, either - it's been one of the lowest ranked for LHB for several years running now

It was the other day on the call-in show--not sure who they had on there, somebody from ESPN or something. I feel violated; I expect my experts to supply me with solid, factual information that I can then pass off as my own.

At least the information's out there nowadays if the players want to use it. I remember in an early Abstract, James ridiculing Fred Lynn for explaining how he was going to hit better in California than he'd hit in Fenway for this, that, and the other reason. (For his career, Lynn was .347/.420/.601 in Fenway--I expect that was even better limited to when he played for the Red Sox). He sincerely believed that.

I expect my experts to supply me with solid, factual information

this is why we have Jersey Al

If Lindor posts an MVP-type season this year, is he going to replace Harper, Machado, and Arenado at the top of the money list? He'll be 26. (Recovering from a muscle strain right now, so will miss part of April.)

(Until Mike Trout signs for his own country, that is.)

Maybe Machado deserves his own thread, I don't know...He just passed 50 bWAR. He's 64 days past his 30th birthday, so he may have gotten there before turning 30; that must be a fairly select group. In his career box, this counts as his age-29 season.

At the end of age-29 season:

A-Rod - 80.6
Trout - 76.1
Pujols - 73.8
Aaron - 73.8
Mays - 68.1
Bonds - 66.5

So he's not up there. But:

Ripken - 57.8
Brett - 54.9
Yount - 52.5
Schmidt - 50.3
Reggie - 48.4
Jeter - 40.4
Clemente - 37.3

So he's in the mix with some pretty great players.

harper turns 30 next month; he's at 42.6

Cabrera was at 47.3

Andruw Jones 58

is there another player, other than Jones, who did more to build a hall of fame case in his 20s before falling off completely in his 30s and not making it?

Just picked a few names for context--many paths ahead there.

Mattingly and Nomar can't match Jones in WAR, and their downfall was injuries, but in terms of public perception, those two come to mind.

Correa will be close to 40 after this season (age 27), so, even with the injuries and interruptions, he should be over 50 in two more years.

fangraphs and baseball reference seem to value correa very differently. by fWAR he's at 30.1 right now.

dunno. at any rate, i think assuming that he'll put up 5+ WAR for both 2023 and 2024 is a lot to assume. maybe for Trout. Correa's great when he's on the field, but the biggest contributor to hall of fame / WAR stuff is longevity and staying on the field.

the JAWS average for shortstops is 55.4. a couple modern SS's that topped that were jeter and larkin, a couple who didn't quite make it were garciaparra and jimmy rollins. this is switching to fWAR, but here are a couple comparisons of these players:

https://i.imgur.com/Uty9rff.png

https://i.imgur.com/Y6mVheX.png

larkin and jeter made it because they kept going strong through their early to mid thirties. that's the gauntlet

never even remotely though of Correa as a HOF'or before.

I definitely did early on, then he hit some bumps. Getting hurt in 2017 may have cost him an MVP. I think he's on track, though--with the unknown of how the sign-stealing story will be viewed down the road.

This is Mookie Betts' age-29 season: 56.1 and counting.