Re: Darvish

[JimSorgi]

assuming that baseball america hasn't changed its policy of considering every rookie-eligible player to be a prospect, where do you think they'd rank darvish? one would assume that these names will be among their top 10:

 

bryce harper

mike trout

matt moore

jurickson profar

julio teheran

 

then some other highly-rated guys: shelby miller, jesus montero, jameson taillon, manny machado, some of the guys drafted early in 2011 (bauer, bundy, cole, rendon)

Cespedes and Soler should be near there, right?

[KingCubsFan]

assuming that baseball america hasn't changed its policy of considering every rookie-eligible player to be a prospect, where do you think they'd rank darvish? one would assume that these names will be among their top 10:

 

bryce harper

mike trout

matt moore

jurickson profar

julio teheran

 

then some other highly-rated guys: shelby miller, jesus montero, jameson taillon, manny machado, some of the guys drafted early in 2011 (bauer, bundy, cole, rendon)

I would think Darvish would be the second best pitching prospect (doubt he'll be ahead of Moore, but possible). Dice-K was the #1 prospect in all of baseball, but there wasn't a bryce harper back then. I'd say Harper, Moore, and then Darvish.

[TruffleShuffle]

Trout will be on the cover of the BA handbook so I have to assume he will be in one of the top 3 spots. I'll guess that their consensus top 5 is harper, trout, moore, darvish, profar

[AI]

The Darvish contract details...

 

2012 -- $5.5 million

 

2013 -- $9.5 million

 

2014 -- $10 million

 

2015 -- $10 million

 

2016 -- $10 million

 

2017 -- $11 million

 

There are also roster bonuses for $800,000 per year for each year he is not on the disabled list for more than 30 days. If he's on the disabled list for more than 30 days, the bonus is "reduced by $5,228.75 per day starting on Day 31."

[Guest]

Yeah, #4 sounds right. 1) Harper, 2) Trout, 3) Moore, 4) Darvish.

[Guest]

Jim Callis said he has Bryce Harper #1 and would rate Darvish #4 in all of baseball.

[RammyFanny]

Source: Remember how the Jays were expected to be such big players in the Yu Darvish bidding? Well, one official said that Toronto actually finished third in the bidding, behind the Rangers and Cubs, and that no bid was within $35 million of what Texas tendered.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/olney_buster/id/8129358/previewing-trade-market-every-national-league-team-mlb

[Guest]

Source: Remember how the Jays were expected to be such big players in the Yu Darvish bidding? Well, one official said that Toronto actually finished third in the bidding, behind the Rangers and Cubs, and that no bid was within $35 million of what Texas tendered.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/olney_buster/id/8129358/previewing-trade-market-every-national-league-team-mlb

 

So that would put the Cubs at ~$16.7M. That seems to be where the rumors at the time had us, right?

[UMFan83]

Source: Remember how the Jays were expected to be such big players in the Yu Darvish bidding? Well, one official said that Toronto actually finished third in the bidding, behind the Rangers and Cubs, and that no bid was within $35 million of what Texas tendered.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/olney_buster/id/8129358/previewing-trade-market-every-national-league-team-mlb

 

wtf? The Rangers won with a ~$52 million bid....so that means the Cubs offered $17 million? The Dice K winning bid was $51.1m and this was expected to be as much or more. It's makes you wonder if the Texas was the only real serious bidder.

[mookie]

I really don't think there is any reason to wonder about it anymore.

[Sammy Sofa]

Christ, that's disheartening. They didn't even really try to get Darvish and in Cespedes you had a player wanting to come to the Cubs and they didn't get it done. If it weren't for Soler it would be time to look for the ol' forehead needle filled with heroin when evaluating their signings thus far.

[davell]

Cespedes wanted to be here?

[Sammy Sofa]

Reportedly.

[davell]

I knew we spent more time with him than anyone, but never heard this is where he actually wanted to be. Kind of thought you were trolling for a Boy Genius comment.

[El Duderino]

I thought the story was he got the offer from Oakland and didn't wait for the Cubs to counter.

[Sammy Sofa]

It's been posted here several times that apparently Cespedes' first pick was the Cubs but ultimately didn't sign with them because he didn't want a contract longer than the one he signed. Maybe that's not true.

[davell]

I thought both teams offered 36 mill, Oakland went go 4 years, FA immediately afterwards, and we didn't get a shot to match.

[Sammy Sofa]

Hopefully that's true.

[dew1679666265]

I thought both teams offered 36 mill, Oakland went go 4 years, FA immediately afterwards, and we didn't get a shot to match.

 

I think the reports have conflicted over it. Initially, I remember it the way you do - that both teams made their offers, Cespedes took the shorter years and the Cubs didn't/couldn't respond. I think it was a bit later, though, that a story came about with comments from Cespedes where he really wanted to play in Chicago, but the Theo regime wouldn't shorten the years.

 

I think it was all documented in the Cespedes signing thread, I'll take a look later and see what I can find.

[dew1679666265]

Here we go - first report was from ABTY7 on PSD posted Feb. 14, second was from Wittenmeyer on March 18.

 

It's simple guys: They wanted him- Bad. 6/40 is a big contract for an IFA- the largest ever offered to a non Japanese IFA. A's offer was 6/36 for the better part of a week- Katz and Cespedes went back to Oakland and said we'll sign for 36 over 4 and Beane pulled the trigger. The Cubs, Marlins and everyone else wasn't even really given a chance to counter. Whatever reason, Cespedes decided Oakland was the best fit for him and made it happen... but please don't twist this: the Cubs wanted him very, very badly.

 

Outfielder Yoenis Cespedes was willing to sign with the Cubs and had reason to believe that he might wind up in Chicago, writes Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. Ultimately, the Cubs offered six years for $36MM while the Athletics offered that same number for four years. The Cuban star also said that he was seeking either a four-year deal or one that was for eight years or more. Through a translator, Cespedes said that he probably would have wound up in Chicago had the Cubs offered him the same deal before the A's did.

[RammyFanny]

So Brett from BN seemed to take us finishing in second as this was a serious bid.

 

At the time of the bidding, I reported that the Cubs had made a serious bid, one strong enough that they felt they had a chance of winning. Obviously the Cubs did not win the bidding, and, since then, we haven’t heard much about whether they were putting in a token bid, or whether they really wanted to land Darvish.

 

It turns out it was definitely the latter.

 

According to Buster Olney, the Cubs finished in second place in the bidding behind the Rangers, who won the post. Olney notes that the Cubs, like every other team, were more than $35 million behind the Rangers’ winning bid of $51.7 million, but it turns out that the Cubs actually out-bid the Blue Jays, who were everyone’s favorite to go nuts on Darvish at the time.

http://www.bleachernation.com/2012/07/05/the-cubs-were-the-runners-up-for-yu-darvish/

 

I'm saying it's a token bid considering it was around 15 million; he says it wasn't because we were tops in the second tier and that nobody expected him to get around Dice-K's number because he might decide not to sign if a team did that. While I vaguely remember a rumor about that, I think it was well-expected that he would get around Dice-K's s posting fee or more, even when the bidding was over and we were waiting. I mean, if you told us the 15 million number around that time I think we would all say that would be a token bid. I think we knew it would take around Dice-K posting bid money to win, and that's exactly what it did take.

 

Thoughts on whether or not you think it was a token bid or serious, if you had to pick one or the other?

 

PS - not trying to discredit Brett or anything, the site is awesome. Just playing devil's advocate since he made it seem like the answer was obvious, and I thought it was pretty obvious that it was the exact opposite.

[Guest]

It sounds like Brett is saying bidding ahead of the Blue Jays makes it a serious bid. I think I agree with you, Rammy. Just getting second highest doesn't mean it was a serious bid, I think you can start making a case that it was a serious bid if it was over $30M.

[tgkimmel]

It sounds like Brett is saying bidding ahead of the Blue Jays makes it a serious bid. I think I agree with you, Rammy. Just getting second highest doesn't mean it was a serious bid, I think you can start making a case that it was a serious bid if it was over $30M.

 

Or that the Rangers seriously misread the market and wasted more than $30 million.

[Clem Fandango]

I think the whole thing is being taken out of context just because the Rangers were the only team dumb enough to break the bank for him. The Cubs obviously made a serious bid based on their evaluation of the market for Darvish. Just because one team stupidly outbid someone by $35 million doesn't make the Cubs offer a joke, it just makes the Rangers look foolish for not doing a better job of evaluating the rest of the league's stance on posting fees for foreign players.

[Tracer Bullet]

Maybe I missed it but do we know who else bid (beyond Texas, Toronto, and us) and what those other bids were? If there were several teams around $15m and one that more than tripled the market, I think one team just didn't know the market well. That or the other teams colluded to make there appear to be a bunch of interest in the top available Japanese pitcher, which seems unlikely.