A 115 Million Payroll?

[HoopsCubs]

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-061015cubs,1,1039536.story?coll=cs-home-headlines

 

Another data point from Sullivan to confirm Barry's whispers:

 

"Hendry is expected to get a 15 to 20 percent budget increase in 2007 from higher revenue from the bleacher expansion and one of the highest-priced tickets in baseball. The Cubs will give Piniella all the resources he needs to win, because it's now or never for Hendry as well."

 

Based on the $95M payroll in 2006, that would put the 2007 payroll in the $109-114M range.

 

p.s. ESPN reporting 3 year deal for Piniella at $3M per season. Let the offseason begin!

[Neuby]

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-061015cubs,1,1039536.story?coll=cs-home-headlines

 

Another data point from Sullivan to confirm Barry's whispers:

 

"Hendry is expected to get a 15 to 20 percent budget increase in 2007 from higher revenue from the bleacher expansion and one of the highest-priced tickets in baseball. The Cubs will give Piniella all the resources he needs to win, because it's now or never for Hendry as well."

 

Based on the $95M payroll in 2006, that would put the 2007 payroll in the $109-114M range.

 

p.s. ESPN reporting 3 year deal for Piniella at $3M per season. Let the offseason begin!

 

 

$115M dollar payroll is a dream come true and should make for a fun offseason. Piniella might not be the boards choice for a manager but it shows there serious about winning. Hopefully Rusch will retire giving Hendry even more flexability. After Hendry gets Ramirez and Wood done let the free agent shopping begin!!!!!

[A New Era]

Soriano and Matsazuka san plz. Spend the rest wisely. Piniella kick Hendry's ass if he thinks of paying for Rusch and Neifi types.

[Guest]

A $115M payroll might make me bitch a little less about that $20M bullpen I keep hearing people asking for.

Not me. A $20M bullpen is inexcusable.

[CuseCubFan69]

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-061015cubs,1,1039536.story?coll=cs-home-headlines

 

Another data point from Sullivan to confirm Barry's whispers:

 

"Hendry is expected to get a 15 to 20 percent budget increase in 2007 from higher revenue from the bleacher expansion and one of the highest-priced tickets in baseball. The Cubs will give Piniella all the resources he needs to win, because it's now or never for Hendry as well."

 

Based on the $95M payroll in 2006, that would put the 2007 payroll in the $109-114M range.

 

p.s. ESPN reporting 3 year deal for Piniella at $3M per season. Let the offseason begin!

 

Hendry is "hustling" to the ATM to get the cash as we speak. Of course Ramirez's price just went up another 1.5 or 2 a year after hearing that.

[baseball7897]

I want: Zito, Soriano, A Rod, Matsazuka, Vernon Wells, some depth on the bench, and I want a Cubs championship in 07. Not that hard. :lol:

[Chocolate Milk]

This would be great news if it turns out to be true.

[frostwyrm]

A $115M payroll might make me bitch a little less about that $20M bullpen I keep hearing people asking for.

Not me. A $20M bullpen is inexcusable.

 

Hey, I said a little less. Trust me, I'll still bitch.

[Mephistopheles]

A 20 mil bullpen is excusable if it's a 4 inning 4 headed monster, but not when 1/4 of it goes to a guy like Dempster

[Neuby]

A 20 mil bullpen is excusable if it's a 4 inning 4 headed monster, but not when 1/4 of it goes to a guy like Dempster

 

i have a feeling there is going to be a lot of peolpe proven wrong next season by Dempster when excels again with regular work. He is a converted starter who rusted away last season after a good first run as a closer and doing well as a reliver.

 

Wuertz

Eyre

Howry

Wood

Dempster

 

crazy good.

[Guest]

A 20 mil bullpen is excusable if it's a 4 inning 4 headed monster, but not when 1/4 of it goes to a guy like Dempster

 

i have a feeling there is going to be a lot of peolpe proven wrong next season by Dempster when excels again with regular work. He is a converted starter who rusted away last season after a good first run as a closer and doing well as a reliver.

 

Wuertz

Eyre

Howry

Wood

Dempster

 

crazy good.

Spending $20M on the bullpen is a serious misapplication of funds unless your overall budget looms around $200M.

 

Basically, I can't find any way to believe that a bullpen represents more than 15% of any good team's value. Take the standard breakdown of the contributions into offense, defense, starting pitching & bullpen. How many you score is roughly 50% of the game (I've read some decent arguments that it represents slightly less than that, though). That leaves 50% to split amongst the pitching and the defense (components of preventing runs, of course). Let's be generous and say that pitching accounts for 40% of the 50%.

 

The question that remains is the allocation of value between starting pitching and relief. Now, on a pure innings basis, starting pitching in baseball these days accounts for around 2/3 of the innings (a touch more than that, last I looked). So a straight division of the pitching value would put the relief core at 13%. Some would argue that number should be higher because dollars allocated to late inning relief can be used in higher leverage situations. But I would argue the opposite.

 

** warning -- gut feel, unsubstantiated claim alert **

 

My guess is that teams post a really good winning percentage in general if they 1) score first and 2) hold a two run or better lead coming out of the sixth inning. In other words, my claim is that more games are won and lost in the first six innings than in the last three.

 

I wish I had more time to delve into this claim to find whether it is true or if I'm off on my thinking here. But to get back to the original point, there's no way I'd spend more than 10-13% of my budget on relief unless I was getting a WHOLE bunch of really cheap, really good production somewhere else. But another reason I wouldn't blow that percentage on the pen is that I think that's one of the easiest areas of the team to get some quality, cheap production.

 

Oh yeah, and big money relievers are among the most unpredictable investments in the game.

[baseball7897]

A 20 mil bullpen is excusable if it's a 4 inning 4 headed monster, but not when 1/4 of it goes to a guy like Dempster

 

i have a feeling there is going to be a lot of peolpe proven wrong next season by Dempster when excels again with regular work. He is a converted starter who rusted away last season after a good first run as a closer and doing well as a reliver.

 

Wuertz

Eyre

Howry

Wood

Dempster

 

crazy good.

 

Ohman in your plans?

 

I dont know if the cubs plan on adding another arm to their pen, but a guy I think will excell in a middle relief role is Jason Grilli. I like his 98mph fastball, his cut fastball, and his sharp breaking curveball. I think he found a role he could excell in. If there was one thing I dont like about him, its the number of walk he gives up. If he can cut down his walk totals, I think he would be a risk Hendry should take.

[Neuby]

A 20 mil bullpen is excusable if it's a 4 inning 4 headed monster, but not when 1/4 of it goes to a guy like Dempster

 

i have a feeling there is going to be a lot of peolpe proven wrong next season by Dempster when excels again with regular work. He is a converted starter who rusted away last season after a good first run as a closer and doing well as a reliver.

 

Wuertz

Eyre

Howry

Wood

Dempster

 

crazy good.

Spending $20M on the bullpen is a serious misapplication of funds unless your overall budget looms around $200M.

 

Basically, I can't find any way to believe that a bullpen represents more than 15% of any good team's value. Take the standard breakdown of the contributions into offense, defense, starting pitching & bullpen. How many you score is roughly 50% of the game (I've read some decent arguments that it represents slightly less than that, though). That leaves 50% to split amongst the pitching and the defense (components of preventing runs, of course). Let's be generous and say that pitching accounts for 40% of the 50%.

 

The question that remains is the allocation of value between starting pitching and relief. Now, on a pure innings basis, starting pitching in baseball these days accounts for around 2/3 of the innings (a touch more than that, last I looked). So a straight division of the pitching value would put the relief core at 13%. Some would argue that number should be higher because dollars allocated to late inning relief can be used in higher leverage situations. But I would argue the opposite.

 

** warning -- gut feel, unsubstantiated claim alert **

 

My guess is that teams post a really good winning percentage in general if they 1) score first and 2) hold a two run or better lead coming out of the sixth inning. In other words, my claim is that more games are won and lost in the first six innings than in the last three.

 

I wish I had more time to delve into this claim to find whether it is true or if I'm off on my thinking here. But to get back to the original point, there's no way I'd spend more than 10-13% of my budget on relief unless I was getting a WHOLE bunch of really cheap, really good production somewhere else. But another reason I wouldn't blow that percentage on the pen is that I think that's one of the easiest areas of the team to get some quality, cheap production.

 

Oh yeah, and big money relievers are among the most unpredictable investments in the game.

 

Pitchers in general are the most unpredictable things in the game. If the Cubs payroll next season reaches 115 million which seems likely to happen next season they shouldn't have a problem filling holes with the money left. Murton and Hill most likely will be part of next seasons team and are good vaules. Barrett is also a steal at his current salary. The Cubs next season have a chance to have a dominating bullpen along with a very strong rotation.

 

Zambrano

Schimdt/Zito/DM

Hill

Miller

Prior

 

Too me it doesn't matter where you spend the money as long as you get results. Last year Howry and Eyre got results and thats why so many teams came calling July 31 looking to see if the Cubs where willing to deal. Dempster was almost perfect his first stint as a closer and has the stuff to rebound next year when he should be seeing regular work.

Wood is a huge luxury to have next year if he can prove he's healthy out of the pen.

[frostwyrm]

A 20 mil bullpen is excusable if it's a 4 inning 4 headed monster, but not when 1/4 of it goes to a guy like Dempster

 

i have a feeling there is going to be a lot of peolpe proven wrong next season by Dempster when excels again with regular work. He is a converted starter who rusted away last season after a good first run as a closer and doing well as a reliver.

 

Wuertz

Eyre

Howry

Wood

Dempster

 

crazy good.

Spending $20M on the bullpen is a serious misapplication of funds unless your overall budget looms around $200M.

 

Basically, I can't find any way to believe that a bullpen represents more than 15% of any good team's value. Take the standard breakdown of the contributions into offense, defense, starting pitching & bullpen. How many you score is roughly 50% of the game (I've read some decent arguments that it represents slightly less than that, though). That leaves 50% to split amongst the pitching and the defense (components of preventing runs, of course). Let's be generous and say that pitching accounts for 40% of the 50%.

 

The question that remains is the allocation of value between starting pitching and relief. Now, on a pure innings basis, starting pitching in baseball these days accounts for around 2/3 of the innings (a touch more than that, last I looked). So a straight division of the pitching value would put the relief core at 13%. Some would argue that number should be higher because dollars allocated to late inning relief can be used in higher leverage situations. But I would argue the opposite.

 

** warning -- gut feel, unsubstantiated claim alert **

 

My guess is that teams post a really good winning percentage in general if they 1) score first and 2) hold a two run or better lead coming out of the sixth inning. In other words, my claim is that more games are won and lost in the first six innings than in the last three.

 

I wish I had more time to delve into this claim to find whether it is true or if I'm off on my thinking here. But to get back to the original point, there's no way I'd spend more than 10-13% of my budget on relief unless I was getting a WHOLE bunch of really cheap, really good production somewhere else. But another reason I wouldn't blow that percentage on the pen is that I think that's one of the easiest areas of the team to get some quality, cheap production.

 

Oh yeah, and big money relievers are among the most unpredictable investments in the game.

 

I think you're understating the wastefulness of an overpriced bullpen because you didn't include a discussion of closers. The closer is the most expensive reliever, but the nonsensical nature of the closer concept guarantees that a team will never ever get its money's worth from an expensive closer. As much as I like baseball, I'm always embarrassed to explain how closers are used and how much they are paid for what they contribute. The bullpen is the only part of a baseball team that has such a stunningly stupid and overpriced role built into it.

[soapy]

A 20 mil bullpen is excusable if it's a 4 inning 4 headed monster, but not when 1/4 of it goes to a guy like Dempster

 

i have a feeling there is going to be a lot of peolpe proven wrong next season by Dempster when excels again with regular work. He is a converted starter who rusted away last season after a good first run as a closer and doing well as a reliver.

 

Wuertz

Eyre

Howry

Wood

Dempster

 

crazy good.

The more I think about it, the less interested I am in bringing back Wood IF it's to work exclusively out of the bullpen. If the Cubs feel he can be a starter again at some point, fine. I'm just not interested in pumping even more money into an already over-priced pen. If one of Dempster/Howry are traded, then I might do it.

 

I'm really not buying into the "let's make Wood a dominant closer" thing. The Cubs already have three "in-house" candiates for that job in Dempster, Howry and Wuertz. I'm really against spending more money on this pen.

[frostwyrm]

The more I think about it, the less interested I am in bringing back Wood IF it's to work exclusively out of the bullpen. If the Cubs feel he can be a starter again at some point, fine. I'm just not interested in pumping even more money into an already over-priced pen. If one of Dempster/Howry are traded, then I might do it.

 

I'm really not buying into the "let's make Wood a dominant closer" thing. The Cubs already have three "in-house" candiates for that job in Dempster, Howry and Wuertz. I'm really against spending more money on this pen.

 

I've been saying for some time now that someone above Hendry should forbid him from signing any more multimillion dollar relievers. Not only would signing another expensive reliever be a misallocation of funds, but Hendry has a truly hideous track record with big-money relief contracts. And how many closing candidates does one team need? We have Dempster/Howry/Eyre/Wuertz, and people still want to spend a few mil more on Kerry Wood. Enough already.

[Mark Priors Calves]

the remainder of the bullpen outside of Dempster, Howry, Eyre should be made up of minimum salary making youngsters.

[goonys evil twin]

The more I think about it, the less interested I am in bringing back Wood IF it's to work exclusively out of the bullpen. If the Cubs feel he can be a starter again at some point, fine. I'm just not interested in pumping even more money into an already over-priced pen. If one of Dempster/Howry are traded, then I might do it.

 

I'm really not buying into the "let's make Wood a dominant closer" thing. The Cubs already have three "in-house" candiates for that job in Dempster, Howry and Wuertz. I'm really against spending more money on this pen.

 

I've been saying for some time now that someone above Hendry should forbid him from signing any more multimillion dollar relievers. Not only would signing another expensive reliever be a misallocation of funds, but Hendry has a truly hideous track record with big-money relief contracts. And how many closing candidates does one team need? We have Dempster/Howry/Eyre/Wuertz, and people still want to spend a few mil more on Kerry Wood. Enough already.

 

I want to trade one of the current relievers and sign Wood. And part of the reason I want to sign Wood is he's quite possibly going to be the best of that batch, it won't be a longterm deal, and there's still hope for him starting in the future.

 

Holdings fast on a specific bullpen allocation is not wise, not when there are other factors to consider.

[frostwyrm]

The more I think about it, the less interested I am in bringing back Wood IF it's to work exclusively out of the bullpen. If the Cubs feel he can be a starter again at some point, fine. I'm just not interested in pumping even more money into an already over-priced pen. If one of Dempster/Howry are traded, then I might do it.

 

I'm really not buying into the "let's make Wood a dominant closer" thing. The Cubs already have three "in-house" candiates for that job in Dempster, Howry and Wuertz. I'm really against spending more money on this pen.

 

I've been saying for some time now that someone above Hendry should forbid him from signing any more multimillion dollar relievers. Not only would signing another expensive reliever be a misallocation of funds, but Hendry has a truly hideous track record with big-money relief contracts. And how many closing candidates does one team need? We have Dempster/Howry/Eyre/Wuertz, and people still want to spend a few mil more on Kerry Wood. Enough already.

 

I want to trade one of the current relievers and sign Wood. And part of the reason I want to sign Wood is he's quite possibly going to be the best of that batch, it won't be a longterm deal, and there's still hope for him starting in the future.

 

Holdings fast on a specific bullpen allocation is not wise, not when there are other factors to consider.

 

Okay, depending on Kerry's salary I could agree to re-signing him ONLY if one of the other expensive relief contracts is completely removed from the payroll. That would be difficult in Dempster's case.

[goonys evil twin]

Okay, depending on Kerry's salary I could agree to re-signing him ONLY if one of the other expensive relief contracts is completely removed from the payroll. That would be difficult in Dempster's case.

 

I don't see the justification for putting such a strong constraint in place. If a $20 million bullpen is good enough for the Mets, it's good enough for the Cubs. How is it $20m anyway? You have $12.5 decicated to the three current guys, give $500,000 or less to the remaining three, and that puts you at $14m. I doubt Wood is getting a $6m guarantee next year. I'm guessing more like $3m with incentives.

[Vinestal]

Im not entirely sure a 115 million dollar payroll is going to fix this team, I realize that the division is weak but this team has a ton of holes. Im sure Hendry doesn't see as many of them as I do though.

[frostwyrm]

Okay, depending on Kerry's salary I could agree to re-signing him ONLY if one of the other expensive relief contracts is completely removed from the payroll. That would be difficult in Dempster's case.

 

I don't see the justification for putting such a strong constraint in place. If a $20 million bullpen is good enough for the Mets, it's good enough for the Cubs. How is it $20m anyway? You have $12.5 decicated to the three current guys, give $500,000 or less to the remaining three, and that puts you at $14m. I doubt Wood is getting a $6m guarantee next year. I'm guessing more like $3m with incentives.

 

I've been lumping Glendon's $3.25M into the total, although I admit I'm not sure about his status.

[MPrior]

 

I want to trade one of the current relievers and sign Wood. And part of the reason I want to sign Wood is he's quite possibly going to be the best of that batch, it won't be a longterm deal, and there's still hope for him starting in the future.

 

Holdings fast on a specific bullpen allocation is not wise, not when there are other factors to consider.

 

I'm with Goony on this one. The potential upside to Wood is greater than any of the others, because there is a significant chance that he can become a great starter again. Also, I think it would be great to trade Eyre; his numbers this year make him look a lot better than he is:

 

The good:

 

Lefty

61.1 IP

3.38 ERA

10.71 K/9

 

The bad:

 

1.48 WHIP

.345 OBP Against

.457 SLG Against (for an .802 OPS against)

4.40 BB/9

 

All this considered, and considering his 2005 season, which was a career year for him, he might be significantly overvalued on the market, and could help net something real nice in a trade.

[baseball7897]

 

I want to trade one of the current relievers and sign Wood. And part of the reason I want to sign Wood is he's quite possibly going to be the best of that batch, it won't be a longterm deal, and there's still hope for him starting in the future.

 

Holdings fast on a specific bullpen allocation is not wise, not when there are other factors to consider.

 

I'm with Goony on this one. The potential upside to Wood is greater than any of the others, because there is a significant chance that he can become a great starter again. Also, I think it would be great to trade Eyre; his numbers this year make him look a lot better than he is:

 

The good:

 

Lefty

61.1 IP

3.38 ERA

10.71 K/9

 

The bad:

 

1.48 WHIP

.345 OBP Against

.457 SLG Against (for an .802 OPS against)

4.40 BB/9

 

All this considered, and considering his 2005 season, which was a career year for him, he might be significantly overvalued on the market, and could help net something real nice in a trade.

 

By trading one of the relievers, you're taking a risk of Kerry Wood being healthy the whole year. I dont think you should count on him bring healthy anymore. You need some insurance incase he is back on the DL.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

By trading one of the relievers, you're taking a risk of Kerry Wood being healthy the whole year. I dont think you should count on him bring healthy anymore. You need some insurance incase he is back on the DL.

 

Eyre was mediocre last year. Keeping him for insurance purposes when you can call up Novoa to strike out a bunch of guys and put up a 1.5 WHIP doesn't make sense.