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| Courtesy Above Average |
Cooperstown Cashman - aka, The Brian that Would Not Die -recently offered Snell $150 million over 6 years. Do the math. That's, um, $25 million per season.
Snell's agent, Scott Boras - aka, baseball's P.T. Barnum - responded with a demand of $270 million over 9 years: That's $30 million per season, a ridiculous sum for a guy who barely threw 400 innings over the entire four years before 2023. In other words, his Cy Young season in 2023 was an outlier, not the norm.
After Boras' rejection, the Yankees quickly pulled their offer and signed Matt Gage. (So there!) Nothing has happened since. In the old days, some might suggest collusion. But that was when collusion was illegal. Today, all bets are off.
At age 31, there's no way Snell should snag a 9-year deal from any team, unless it is owned by a mad, runaway hedge-fund billionaire. Snell might deliver for three or four years, but he certainly won't last nine, which means he'll end up rotting like a corpse on some team's phantom injury list, being ridiculed on talk radio and blamed for everything that's wrong with America.
You have to wonder if it's worth the money, spending the end of your career being pissed on by Boomer Esiason.
So, what if... the Yankees offered Snell, say, $30 million for one year? Make it conditional. If he delivers 30 starts, another $5 million. If he pitches in a world series, another $5 million. He can prove his value once and for all. If the Yankees win a championship, they'd face enormous fan pressure to re-sign him. (And if they balked, it would be because he received better offers from the likes of Los Angeles or Philadelphia - the big-spending teams.)
A one-year deal to prove himself and bank $40 million. A moonshot.
I know what you're thinking: It'll never happen. And, yeah, you're right, it probably won't. But the Dodgers just shook the world by signing Shohei Ohtani to a long-term deal that cooked their financial books so they could then spend another $35 million on Yoshi Yamamoto. If they can play games with luxury taxes, why can't we?
The Yankees are facing an all-or-nothing season. By this time next year, we could be losing Juan Soto, Alex Verdugo, Gleyber Torres, Tommy Kahnle and Gerrit Cole, through his opt-out clause.
Our big chance is now: 2024. It's time for a moonshot and some creative bookkeeping.
Asking Cashman and Hal to be creative is like asking the moon for a handjob. It's ridiculous, a bizarre notion, an impossibility. Besides, the moon is cold, rough, and rocky. You could get really bad abrasions. And that's what we'd metaphorically get if Pinky and the Brain tried to be clever.
ReplyDeleteBoros is not going for any conditional bullshit offer...
ReplyDeleteIn line with what JM said, asking Brian to handle a moon shot is like putting a pack of monkeys at the old Mission Control consoles. That rocket's not leaving the ground.
ReplyDeleteCarefull…you’re skating awfully close to advocating that players be paid according to their actual performance!
ReplyDeleteI believe ALL future contract offers should be discussed in the terms of dollars per quatloom.
ReplyDelete"...he certainly won't last nine, which means he'll end up rotting like a corpse on some team's phantom injury list, being ridiculed on talk radio and blamed for everything that's wrong with America..."
ReplyDeleteThat makes him perfect for the Yankees! Think about the money they'll save each year by not holding an Old-Timers Day. They won't need to because all the former players will still be under contract.
And then they can have a patch on the other sleeve promoting burial plots at Woodlawn Cemetery.
Great idea, Duque! Boras might well be FORCED to go for it.
ReplyDeleteAnd...it'll never happen. HAL would always rather spend too much money to lose right now, than spend even more money to risk winning a few years in the future.
Loathsome as his father was, Mad George at least understood that this is an entertainment business. HAL thinks he's still at a desk in Cleveland in 1955, running a shipping business. "Say, the estimates for that new tanker look way too high!..."
Whattah world whattah world
ReplyDeleteAA - Nice graphic.
ReplyDeleteThe Deal
As to the deal... I think that the Yankees are close to the "Steve Cohen" level of Salary Ca.. uh Luxury Tax which comes in at 110%. Math is not my forte but a quick calculation makes that one year 30M into 63M.
110% of 30 = 33 + 30 = 63M right?
That's a lot for a guy who pitches 5 innings a game.
Also
ReplyDeleteI keep reading that the Yankees are thinking of batting Soto first or second when he has stated that he is most comfortable batting third. Why screw with him? Especially since it's the Yankees doing the audition - not the other way around.
They did this with Joey Gallo as well when he first got here. He said where he wasn't comfortable in the order and that's where they put him because, analytically it was a good fit.
Obviously Soto ain't Gallo. (He'd better not be!) but why add to a player's adjustment to a new team and force him to do something different than why they got him in the first place?
It's like telling Sonny Gray to abandon his "out" pitch. How stupid are these people?
For the record - I liked batting 5th.
Nothing! As long as Genius Cashman is in charge, nothing!
ReplyDeleteranger nailed it
ReplyDeleteCorbin Burnes to the Orioles. We are fucked.
ReplyDelete