ltb

i love this deal for the cubs, that is

you miss charlie finley paying his players the absolute minimum? the game would be a lot worse without free agency.

i disagree. this is very different from an arbitration player, because matsuzaka has the option of not playing for the team and eventually playing in major league baseball for another team. an arbitration-eligible player does not. boston is using their massive bid for his rights to try to guilt matsuzaka/boras into accepting their lowball offer, which is way below what matsuzaka is actually worth. i do agree that the system is very, very broken. and it looks like boston is exploiting it to their advantage, just like every other "loophole" they can find. every day, this team finds more and more ways for me to think they are worse for baseball than the yankees An arbitration player can't say "no" and go play in an unaffilliated league? sure, they can go play in the northern league or something. good luck ever playing in major league baseball again, though. you're under the control of the team that signs you for six years unless they non-tender you. if you're tendered a contract (whether it be under the reserve clause during your first 3 seasons, or arbitration in your last 3), but then refuse to play, the team could put you on the suspended list (i'm not sure if it's the exact name, but soriano was threatened with being put on it last year before agreeing to play LF) and you would not accrue major league playing time. basically, last year, soriano was either going to play LF, or he would not play major league baseball in 2006 (and he would not accrue enough service time to become a free agent at the end of the season, either). also, j.d. drew has absolutely nothing to do with this. he played in the northern league because he held out and didn't sign a contract - he was not arbitration eligible.

I love how we are just going to assume he doesn't ever get any hits in those abs. um, what does that have to do with it? i thought this was surprisingly high. it's not saying something bad about soriano. if we were talking about how ridiculously low it was, you might have a reason to interject with what you did, but it's not necessary here.

great news didn't want him

just checked it, it's about .336 minus ibb's much higher than i thought - i must be thinking a previous year's stats.

Fun fact for the day: WilliSC48's arithmetic skills stink. care to give us your take on it then? i believe it's a bit above .320, but i don't think he's far off.

You keep saying that and you keep failing to provide anything other than your opinion. Do you have anything concrete or even anecdotal to back that up? If not, fire away, be my guest, but don't expect anyone with even half a head on their shoulders to agree with you. umm...my argument that hendry doesn't have a thing for hill is based on a lack of him saying or doing things to indicate support of hill. therefore, it's kinda hard for me to point to his non-existent quotes of support. since your claim is that he does support/like hill, you should be able to point to quotes or actions indicating such. but as you said, you're not a librarian. Didn't Hendry state last year that he wouldn't trade Hill for Dunn straight up? Nope. Who was it then that he said he wouldn't trade Hill for straight up? It was someone of that caliber. this is one of my pet peeves on this board. JIM HENDRY NEVER SAID HE WOULD NOT TRADE RICH HILL STRAIGHT UP FOR ADAM DUNN. this was a statement made by bruce miles, i believe, to demonstrate to everyone how highly hendry valued hill in 2005. it was never a quote directly from hendry. Crimeny...get off of the soap box. Bruce Miles has enough credibility that if he reports someone said something, they probably did. soap box? excuse me? perhaps you need to take your time while reading posts a little better, because bruce miles himself posted that hendry never made such a quote. that's what i'm trying to tell you. he used adam dunn as an example to show how highly hendry valued hill. nothing more. quit trying to start a fight with me.

It's not stupid to the team that gets the money for posting a player. pretty sure seibu is going to be upset if boston fails to reach a deal with matsuzaka. a revamped posting system would prevent something like this from happening. seibu would set a minimum bid, like a "reserve" on an auction. then, they're guaranteed to receive at least that much if a team reaches a deal with their player.

again, i disagree. matsuzaka has shown what he can do against major league-caliber talent in the WBC. when guys like gil meche are getting $11m/year, ted lilly $10m/year, and jason marquis $7m/year, offering matsuzaka money equivalent to marquis is lowballing him. hard.

no, the posting fee should not matter at all. you have to pay for those exclusive rights, and it should not factor in to your negotiations with the player. boston knew this going in, and they knew they were going to deal with boras. he's doing what's best for his client, who can probably make quite a bit more than boston's lowball offer next season.

You keep saying that and you keep failing to provide anything other than your opinion. Do you have anything concrete or even anecdotal to back that up? If not, fire away, be my guest, but don't expect anyone with even half a head on their shoulders to agree with you. umm...my argument that hendry doesn't have a thing for hill is based on a lack of him saying or doing things to indicate support of hill. therefore, it's kinda hard for me to point to his non-existent quotes of support. since your claim is that he does support/like hill, you should be able to point to quotes or actions indicating such. but as you said, you're not a librarian. Didn't Hendry state last year that he wouldn't trade Hill for Dunn straight up? Nope. Who was it then that he said he wouldn't trade Hill for straight up? It was someone of that caliber. this is one of my pet peeves on this board. JIM HENDRY NEVER SAID HE WOULD NOT TRADE RICH HILL STRAIGHT UP FOR ADAM DUNN. this was a statement made by bruce miles, i believe, to demonstrate to everyone how highly hendry valued hill in 2005. it was never a quote directly from hendry.

i disagree. this is very different from an arbitration player, because matsuzaka has the option of not playing for the team and eventually playing in major league baseball for another team. an arbitration-eligible player does not. boston is using their massive bid for his rights to try to guilt matsuzaka/boras into accepting their lowball offer, which is way below what matsuzaka is actually worth. i do agree that the system is very, very broken. and it looks like boston is exploiting it to their advantage, just like every other "loophole" they can find. every day, this team finds more and more ways for me to think they are worse for baseball than the yankees

sign-and-trades are forbidden in MLB. he could be signed and then traded after june (15th, i believe), but that wouldn't be something boston would be interested in, i'd think. i believe they can trade the rights to negotiate with him (which is pointless, now, considering the deadline is thursday), but they'd want a lot in return if they're spending $51.1 million.

matsuzaka goes back to japan, and from what i understand, can be posted again next year (but teams will not be that interested because they can have him as a free agent one year later).

this is boston's fault. they spent that massive amount on the posting fee, and then expected to get matsuzaka at a discount because they spent $51 million to negotiate with him. they knew from the start that not a cent of that went to matsuzaka and that boras was his agent, so they would not be getting any sort of discount on his contract. this smells even more like boston was just trying to block the yankees from getting his rights.

i don't recall him having to compete for a spot out of spring training.

yeah, i've read through a lot of this thread, and this sums up my thoughts very well.

yeah, this does not matter at all.

Yea, that kind of move did wonders for Sisco's development. :roll: that's the royals' fault. they should have put him in omaha this season, but decided not to. sisco had a hell of a 2005 and would have been better off as a starter in omaha in 2006.

i was horrified when i was looking at roto and saw this. that's because all i saw at first was "Jose Macias-3B-Cubs," and i thought hendry felt bad about getting rid of dusty's toys and thought he'd bring one back for old times sake.

good call. I'm pretty sure we don't have to since he's already signed. I was under the impression that we still had to, but I could be wrong. umm, no. we can't offer salary arbitration to a player that's under the control of another team. also, i am shocked by the klesko and park offers. like roto said, there must be a side deal here, because that would be ridiculous if there wasn't.

igawa's japanese team has until friday to decide whether or not to accept the bid. we're not waiting for them to determine who made the largest offer - that's already known by the commissioner's office and igawa's team.

you have to get to the playoffs first. westbrook gives you a better chance of doing that than meche.

yee.