http://www.springtraining09.com/features/t...cts-in-base.php

 

only Sox contract on the list is AJ (???)

God, I forget how bad that Soriano contract was, blah!

AJ's contract is one of the better ones of the "worst." I don't really understand the rationale for inclusion...because we added two years to his contract? Well, at his age, that's just about right, because at 33/34 that's when they will need to turn the position over to Flowers or someone else. It might happen before he finishes his contract in 2010. If anything KW was pretty smart to lock him in and ensure the stability of the position while trying to improve minor league depth behind AJ...he's a Top 5-7 catcher offensively and, even though he doesn't throw well, he manages the pitchers and game situations well, is a clubhouse leader and has the complete confidence of the staff (coaching and pitching), which has been especially important with Danks and Floyd.

 

They should have included Raul Ibanez on this list, and Dempster, too.

 

What struck me the most was the long list of Tigers....Bonderman, Inge, Robertson, Sheffield, Willis....and even Ordonez and Guillen aren't sure things at their age. Not to mention the fact that they wasted $3 million on Renteria's buyout, and were left with just a little for Everett.

 

If you wanted to include any White Sox players, it would have to be Contreras and Konerko...and maybe Thome, just because that's a huge amount of money to pay a DH in this day and age, as the market has reset and those hitters have become a dime a dozen, almost.

 

There's also a long list of players like Rowand, Fukudome, Hunter (not on the list), Michael Young, Vernon Wells, that we could easily have ended up with...and I'm also glad Carlos Lee is no longer our problem, especially at that crazy salary he's making for essentially being an NL DH/LF.

Edited March 4, 200917 yr by caulfield12

god knows why aj is on that list??? wtf??

 

 

Lyle overbay, LOL. There's some good ones in that list

Seriously though, A.J.? If his contract is bad, Konerko's is horrible.

how about that Kenji Johjima deal? They signed it when he was hitting about .200 in May. No way that gets signed if hes not a Japanese player in Seattle...

How many are Boras clients?

The entire cubs team should be on that list.

The entire cubs team should be on that list.

imo, carlos zambranos contract is a bad one. why is he worth almost 20mil? what has he really accomplished? isnt 16 games the most hes ever won? i dont know, buehrle has accomplished way more and while pitching in the a.l. its just that z gets the ks i guess.

Because Thome's contract expires after this year and he's still productive, the only bad contracts on this team are the ones given to Paulie and Mike MacDougal, but MacDougal is also done after this year and if Paulie rebounds then his contract is just above market value with one year left, but it's not an albatross. Contreras' contract may be a bad contract to some degree, but that also finishes after '09 and if he's healthy for a full year he can easily live up to his contract.

 

AJ is definitely at market value IMO, not a bad contract at all. The contracts OC, Hudson, Cruz, Abreu, et. all signed do not reflect actual market value in any way whatsoever. The problem was, the players went out looking for 2007/8 offseason market value or above that figure, and those pricetags frightened GM's. Baseball lost sponsors across the board and as a result ownership lowered budgets. When the FA's out there were asking for a ton, teams passed and went in other directions to meet their budgets. I guarantee that if at the start of the offseason the players mentioned above were asking for more reasonable salaries then they'd have been signed to much better contracts. Look at the money SF gave to Renteria and Howry, or the money KC gave to a bunch of UT players and Farnsworth, or the money the Cubs in their infinite stupidity gave to Dempster and Bradley. These are just three examples of teams who horribly misread the market and would have spent much wiser than they did (although on second thought maybe not the Cubs because they always make idiotic financial decisions when it comes to assembling a roster).

 

Next year IMO the market will have corrected itself. The economy in the US will be worse, but the market for players will be better because expiring contracts around baseball are going to free up a lot of money for good players seeking reasonable contracts. The sign-and-trade possibility will probably also become a permanent fixture until the compensation system is revised. In fact, we may even see compensation-probable players who play on s*** teams in '09 be extended and traded at the same time midseason in order to get around the comp issue over the offseason.

imo, carlos zambranos contract is a bad one. why is he worth almost 20mil? what has he really accomplished? isnt 16 games the most hes ever won? i dont know, buehrle has accomplished way more and while pitching in the a.l. its just that z gets the ks i guess.

Zambrano, Bradley, Dempster, Soriano, Fukudome, Miles to name a few. Howry and Eyre were some good recent ones for them as well.

I think they should add Manny Ramirez's new contract with the Dodgers on that list.

 

 

oops, double-post.

Edited March 4, 200917 yr by SouthsideDon48

Zambrano, Bradley, Dempster, Soriano, Fukudome, Miles to name a few. Howry and Eyre were some good recent ones for them as well.

gregg, over 4mil

The Best Free Agent Signings can the ones that you don't make.

 

Exhibit A:

 

Kosuke Fukudome, Cubs. Four years, $48MM ($12MM per year). Signed December of 2007. I can't lie - I liked this deal when it was signed. The Padres and White Sox offered similar amounts.

The Best Free Agent Signings can the ones that you don't make.

 

Exhibit A:

 

Kosuke Fukudome, Cubs. Four years, $48MM ($12MM per year). Signed December of 2007. I can't lie - I liked this deal when it was signed. The Padres and White Sox offered similar amounts.

 

From what I remember, we offered him a little more. But he wanted to play RF (Dye) and hoped to be the first Japanese guy for that franchise (Shingo & Iguchi) so we really, really lucked out.

Also, tht article was written by a Cubs fan I believe, so take everything with a grain of Old Style.

He's on the list because the Sox replaced the final year of his old deal ('08: $5.5M) giving him a $350K bump in salary for that season as incentive to sign on for 2 more years a year before he hit free agency. Apparently this is a bad thing? This offseason's top free agent catchers? Ivan Rodriguez (still without a job) and Henry Blanco. AJ would have easily been the most desirable catcher on the market, it was great foresight by KW locking him up a year early rather than getting into a bidding war with another club desperate for a starting catcher.

imo, carlos zambranos contract is a bad one. why is he worth almost 20mil? what has he really accomplished? isnt 16 games the most hes ever won? i dont know, buehrle has accomplished way more and while pitching in the a.l. its just that z gets the ks i guess.

It's actually probably because he has a 3.48 career ERA in a hitter's ballpark. I don't think he's worth the money he's making (especially since it's escalating as he gets older), but that's because I don't think anyone is worth the money they get in baseball. Zambrano's deal should probably be there ahead of some others (such as AJ's mention), but it's not Barry Zito level quite yet.

Alfonso Soriano, considering the economy right now and his skills, has to be one of the 5 worst contracts in all of sports.

It's actually probably because he has a 3.48 career ERA in a hitter's ballpark. I don't think he's worth the money he's making (especially since it's escalating as he gets older), but that's because I don't think anyone is worth the money they get in baseball. Zambrano's deal should probably be there ahead of some others (such as AJ's mention), but it's not Barry Zito level quite yet.

IN the NL however. Does Zambrano crack a 4 ERA in the AL?

IN the NL however. Does Zambrano crack a 4 ERA in the AL?

I know it doesn't mean much but his career numbers in interleague play suck. 101.2 IP, 4.96 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 1.49 K/BB

Jason Schmidt?

Jason Schmidt?

 

Jason Schmidt, Dodgers. Three years, $47MM ($15.66MM per year). Signed December of 2006. The Dodgers knew of Schmidt's partially torn rotator cuff before they signed him.

I didn't even look at the link, I was just stating him because I would have hoped he'd be on there.