ThePuck

We might care because if the team actually decides to spend the percentage on payroll they normally would, as explained by Jim Pohlad, and the posting fee gets spread out on payroll over the next 5 years, it means less talent to be able to get.

It's my understanding that the money for the posting fee doesn't go towards payroll in regards to luxury tax (read that in an article about Yankees pursuing Tanaka and how it isn't included) New York Yankees begin organizational meetings | yankees.com: News 'The Yankees' interest in Tanaka is helped by the fact that the posting fee, which is likely to surpass the $51.7 million that Texas paid to negotiate with Darvish in January 2012, would not count against the luxury tax. ' So, knowing that, not not sure why we'd include it as part of payroll for the next five years either. Seems we have some money left over from payroll this year to at least help the fee needed if we were going to go that route.

Why would we consider Tanaka's posting fee as part of payroll from 2014-18?

In fairness, they pitched in two different eras. Bert's ERA+ as a Twins was 118, Radke's was 113 and Radke pitched in the steroid era. Not saying Radke was as good as Bert, but a 113 ERA+ for a career is a bit better than league average. Jack Morris only had an ERA+ of 105.

Wasn't it Correia Ryan was talking about when he said he left money on the table? If we believe that, and someone else was willing to pay him even more, doesn't that mean Correia wasn't overpaid? :-)

If talking about the 30 teams, not just the White Sox, MLB Puig and Cespedes have been pretty darn good as well.

You think Boston's 154M team is lacking star power and highly paid players?

No one is saying it isn't...or at least I'm not, but with the run support he got in those games, he was gonna win a huge chunk anyway. He did his part, for sure, in 18 of those wins. In 2005, Santana had 10 no decision. 8 of those were quality starts. The other two, he gave up 4. With run support like Radke got when he won 20, Santana very likely gets at least 20 instead of being stuck at 16.

I'm not sure I get what you're saying here...so, maybe :-)

and he would have won those games anyway with ALL the run support he got. Again, no one is saying he didn't pitch well, but he got huge run support. Now, pointing to the stats you're pointing to NOW, in this post, those are some numbers to sink your teeth into.

No one is saying he didn't pitch very well that year...what we're saying is win/losses is a bad barometer to judge pitching. Wins should just be a team stat.

Santana never won the CY Young while having only 16 wins.

The games Radke started that year when we won the Twins scored at least least 11 runs 5 times, at least 8 runs 13 times, at least 6 runs 16 times. As far as his wins specifically, 16 times at least 5 runs scored. Compare that to someone like King Felix who went 13-12 one season, while having 30 quality starts out of his 34 start. His team only scored more than 6 runs 3 times. In his 13 wins specifically, they only scored at least 5 runs 4 times.

There's nothing to digest there cause it's not true. In any event, the win/loss stat is a horrible way to judge pitchers...as evidence by the fact Santana finished 3rd in 2005 while Colon won...likely finishing 3rd because he only won 16 games. He had an ERA of 2.87, over 230 IP, while leading the league in ERA+, Ks, WHIP, H/9, K/9. The only thing Colon had him beat in was the win-loss record. Radke finshed 3rd in the year he won 20 and an argument could be made he shouldn't have finished that high, but he definitely shouldn't have finished higher.

Exactly! We have enough legitimate reasons to be 'negative' (or, more precisely, realistic in our views) after enduring 3 seasons in a row of at least 96 losses, we don't need to make up things to be negative about. and I wouldn't count out Pujols either...