Cubs swept

[Bill Swerski]

Actually, I agreed with you before you put up his career #'s. But, if you want to hear a "you win", you win.

 

You need to learn how to analyze data.

 

Surprisingly, that's all he's done in this thread, along with ignoring basic facts and making fun of us for thinking Knoblauch juiced when he was in the Mitchell report.

 

WOW. Yankee colored glasses sure are ugly.

 

And Mets-colored glasses apparently render one blind and unable to read.

[SheikYerbuti]

And now the White Sox get bounced out of the playoffs by who? The Tampa Bay Rays, who only exist AT ALL because teams like the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox paid them millions upon millions of dollars of Luxury Tax. . .oh, excuse me: Competitive Balance Tax for years.

 

So, if you kinda look at it through the aforementioned glasses, the White Sox really lost to the Yankees, the Mets and the Red Sox. Strange isn't it?

Edited October 7, 2008 by SheikYerbuti

[Bill Swerski]

And now the White Sox get bounced out of the playoffs by who? The Tampa Bay Rays, who only exist AT ALL because teams like the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox paid them millions upon millions of dollars of Luxury Tax. . .oh, excuse me: Competitive Balance Tax for years.

 

The Rays only had a $43.8 million payroll this year. I'm not sure if that includes Longoria's big contract but, if not, that would only make it about $53 million, which is well below the league average. (And since Longoria is a rookie, they didn't even need to pay him that money right now, as he's under team control and is not even arbitration eligible for, IIRC, another three years.) So whatever luxury tax money they got, it's clearly not a difference-maker. Nice try, though.

 

The truth is that the Rays developed and traded for some excellent young players and it's finally playing dividends. They're building a solid team from the ground-up, the right way. The Twins, another cash-strapped organization, have been doing the same thing for years.

 

So, if you kinda look at it through the aforementioned glasses, the White Sox really lost to the Yankees, the Mets and the Red Sox. Strange isn't it?

 

Since I'm not into hating on other teams, I don't really see it that way.

Edited October 7, 2008 by Bill Swerski

[SheikYerbuti]

The Rays only had a $43.8 million payroll this year. So whatever luxury tax money they got, it's clearly not a difference-maker. Nice try, though.

 

 

 

After receiving $20 million in luxury tax payouts

 

And that was in 2005. I can only assume they get more now. 50% of their payroll isn't a difference-maker? Nice try, though.

[Bill Swerski]

 

 

 

And that was in 2005. I can only assume they get more now. 50% of their payroll isn't a difference-maker? Nice try, though.

 

LOL, your sophomoric analysis cracks me up.

 

The luxury tax income is like a welfare check for poorly-run organizations that can't attract flies. All it does is ensure that the franchise is marginally profitable and able to exist. And that's all. The Rays existed on a payroll of $19.6 million in 2003 and $29.6 million in '05 and '06. Are you suggesting that they couldn't exist if they only had $23 million to spend this year? The article you linked cited them making $27 million in 2005.

 

The luxury tax didn't help the Rays at all this year. This is because they gave Longoria a whopping $17.5 million guaranteed in April (and that's not including the $44 million in options that they'll probably end up paying). That ate up just about all of their welfare check from Bud Selig with that signing. They didn't need to give Longoria millions two weeks into his rookie year... he would've made the league minimum for the first four years of his contract, as outlined in the CBA. A move like that is probably smart over the long-term (assuming that he stays relatively healthy), but it actually worked AGAINST them in the short-term by handcuffing them in the free-agent market. Unlike the Royals, who improved their team by giving Gil Meche a $50 million deal last year, the Rays didn't improve their team at all in the short-term by signing Longoria.

 

The benefit of having a high payroll is that it allows organizations to spend on high-priced, talented free agents. But the Rays don't do this. They give relatively small contracts to their own players before they hit the FA market (Longoria, Crawford, Pena) and ignore the FA market in general. Going into this season, they had a whole FOUR players who made over $2 million/year. Only two of these player made over $5 million, and NONE of them made over $6 million. The luxury tax money that they get isn't being spent in the FA market. It's being spent on retaining a few good-but-not-great players and an occasional young superstar on the cheap.

 

I'm not quite sure why I'm supposed to be angry at the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets for supplying luxury tax dolars that "enabled" the Rays to beat the White Sox, especially when the White Sox have had a payroll in excess of $100 million for the past three years and are paying into the system as well. And let's not forget that much of this money goes to other hapless glorified Triple A teams like the Royals and Pirates, who can't do a damn thing with it. No, I'm HAPPY that the Rays were able to dig themselves out of the crapper via smart scouting, smart drafting, and excellent player development. That's the way it SHOULD be. They won the ALDS this year because their organization is (finally) well-run from top to bottom, not because of the luxury tax money that they never spend on the FA market.

 

Your anger towards the White Sox is misplaced. If I were you, I'd be directing it at Omar Minaya for the over-paid crapfest that the Mets have become. I'd be pretty pissed at the $53 million that he stupidly gave a declining and injury-riddled Pedro. And I'd be especially pissed at the way that he dangled Willie Randolph in front of the media earlier this year, solely for the purpose of deflecting blame away from him. And let's not forget the disgraceful way that he fired Randolph via a freaking press release in the wee hours of the morning, while Randolph was on a road trip.

Edited October 7, 2008 by Bill Swerski

[SheikYerbuti]

Your anger towards the White Sox is misplaced. If I were you, I'd be directing it at Omar Minaya for the over-paid crapfest that the Mets have become. I'd be pretty pissed at the $53 million that he stupidly gave a declining and injury-riddled Pedro. And I'd be especially pissed at the way that he dangled Willie Randolph in front of the media earlier this year, solely for the purpose of deflecting blame away from him. And let's not forget the disgraceful way that he fired Randolph via a freaking press release in the wee hours of the morning, while Randolph was on a road trip.

 

89 wins with a little league bullpen is a crapfest? OK.

Hey, the man just got a contract extension. Ownership thinks he's doing a good job, and that's good enough for me (and yes, this is sarcasm). Personally, I think they should have Minaya pitch the 7th and 8th innings until he can get some talent in the pen.

 

I do think the Longoria signing is interesting. Had they kept him in the minors for, what was it, 3 more weeks he would have made league minimum. I guess the two questions are:

 

1. Would they still have made the playoffs if he had stayed in the minors for those 15-20 games? and

2. Is this playoff berth worth the extra money they've invested in him over the next 5 seasons?

[Bill Swerski]

I do think the Longoria signing is interesting. Had they kept him in the minors for, what was it, 3 more weeks he would have made league minimum. I guess the two questions are:

 

1. Would they still have made the playoffs if he had stayed in the minors for those 15-20 games? and

2. Is this playoff berth worth the extra money they've invested in him over the next 5 seasons?

 

I'm not privy to the details of Longoria's deal, but what I know from the CBA tells me that they were under no obligation to pay him any more than the league minimum (or something very close to that), regardless of when they brought him up. He had zero days of ML service coming into this season. And since the Rays were in full "building for the future" mode back in April, I doubt that they would've kept him in the minors. You want to get your future franchise player as many ML at-bats as possible.

 

I'd say that the answer to your second question is a definite "yes." It's a pretty low-risk contact. Even if they didn't make the playoffs, I'm pretty sure that it'll be well worth it in the end. I probably would've chickened out and not signed him to a long-term deal until after he played a full season. And I'm sure that I would've ended up paying a lot more (like how it took the Marlins $70 million to extend Hanley Ramirez after two full seasons in the bigs).

[SheikYerbuti]

I'm not privy to the details of Longoria's deal, but what I know from the CBA tells me that they were under no obligation to pay him any more than the league minimum (or something very close to that), regardless of when they brought him up.

 

Oh, I had read several places that they were trying to keep him in the minors for the first 2 months of the season because bringing him up early would force them to change his salary or at least when his salary was up for arbitration, and that the Aybar injury forced them to make a decision.

[Bill Swerski]

Oh, I had read several places that they were trying to keep him in the minors for the first 2 months of the season because bringing him up early would force them to change his salary or at least when his salary was up for arbitration, and that the Aybar injury forced them to make a decision.

 

Keeping him in the minors longer may have moved back the year in which he may have been arbitration-eligible (which would've been like four years down the road). Maybe that's what they were talking about. Then again, I find it odd that they'd make a big deal out of that, and then went ahead and committed $17.5 million to him later that month. Maybe Longoria's agent threatened some sort of holdout or something.