ewen21

I want to know what it is about THIS PLAYER that makes the reaction to passing on him so over the top? He was given an offer not seen EVER by this franchise. The offer was more than fair given his body of work. I think signing him would have been a horrible decision. Within a couple of years that would be readily apparent.

My God, I just cannot see where Darvish is that much far and away better than Lynn or Cobb. I think Darvish has some illusory cache as an "international signing" Wash away that and pay attention to what has done. The guy labors through games throwing lots of pitches. His pitch counts have long been a problem. Not sure what his deal is with the six pitches either. There is something very quirky about his makeup as a pitcher and for his ability to throw gas and strike out a lot of guys I simply do not trust him. He is going to be yanked from games in the 5th and 6th inning plenty because he nitpicks so damn much. This is going to work against him as time advances. Mark my words Six years for Darvish for a lot more money is a bigger risk and the chance a reward that much greater than either of those two might give simply isn't worth it. This whole Darvish thing has been absolutely nuts. Now there's going to be a thread screaming about not signing him? Come on.....really?

Over not signing Yu Darvish to a moronic contract? OK, have a nice summer

No one made him an offer because he was talking Strasburg money. Not sure where he commands anything in nine figures guaranteed. Makes no sense.

Darvish is not in a position of strength and he doesn't even realize it. The publicized offer he turned down is about as good as he is going to get now. I would not be surprised that if this carries out into next week the offers get pulled off the table. This is a case of a player who thinks he should get a lot more than the market values him.

I wonder if he's gotten an offer from a Japanese organization and is just going to say CYA!

Oh absolutely. This is an excellent point. I think minor league players should make more money for sure. https://www.reference.com/business-finance/average-minor-league-aaa-baseball-salary-5c5db71342a3765 The average monthly salary for a triple-A minor league baseball player in 2014 is $2,150 per month. Players receive this pay for the five months of the baseball season, for a yearly average salary of just over $12,000. That is shameful if you ask me. You have Yu Darvish thinking he should get 150 million dollars in guaranteed money and yet most guys in AAA are making just enough to get by. People are going to blame the owners, but where is the union in this?

Players get paid WAY too much and cable packages are ridiculous. The money from those TV contracts helps enable players to be paid ridiculous amounts of money. Sports in general is coming upon a salary bubble. You seem to be unwilling to concede on this one. Interesting.

Don't need to defend something I never said. I said paying the players a lot more correlates to very nicely with the rise in ticket prices, concessions, and cable packages. The Houston Astros lived off a lucrative TV contract and was able to do what they did in 2013. It was reported that the TV ratings for one home game was ZERO. The teams with the most lucrative TV contracts pay out the most to player salaries. That is what I am saying. Do you disagree with that?

Agreed. This is the only circumstance I would pull for the owners that I can recall. The last strike I saw so much of Donald Fehr it just made me totally ambivalent to the game and the process. There seems to be an almost cite-wide defense of the players here and that is what I am quizzical about. To me, there is no justifying the player salaries. The players union is unlike any other in the world. Why are they so entitled?

You are mischaracterizing my statements if this is what you believe. I have never once said I want the owners to earn more. I could care less about them. I think what they are doing now is completely justified. The unscrupulousness of owners isn't a matter I care to discuss. I don't view them, study them, care much about them. What I do care about is the player. They get more than enough and the fans pay for it. At some point there needs to be a correction. And it isn't entirely true to say the game is popular because of the players. Baseball is a great game and it became more popular because of a number of different factors beyond what goes down on the field. This would include the Internet, Fantasy sports, gambling, an improved fan experience, MLB.TV and on and on. Baseball player has benefitted enormously from these things. They get paid a ridiculous amount of money, are given pensions and many of them get money from other side interests. Not where you detect anger from me. Maybe you don't like my opinion and saying I am "angry" marginalizes me in some way. Not sure I get that. Just discussing a viewpoint that is a little different from the prevailing viewpoint here. Not that big a deal

Athletes, baseball players in particular, have had pay increases that have gone through the troposphere. This is not some boom industry that produces something for the benefit of humankind. This is entertainment. The owners are giving the players some necessary pushback. For anyone who wants to counter with, "but the owners....." save it. I have no interest in defending them. Fact is, this insanity has to stop. If it did not then by 2025 we'd have players making 100,000,000 a year. The only thing moving that fast is the National Debt. These contracts are getting more and more ridiculous. Lorenzo Cain is a nice player, but going into his 32 year old season he is given 75 million in guaranteed money. Absolute insanity if you ask me. Again. Baseball is entertainment. These men play a child's game. We all love it, but the players are getting to be so cushioned from reality it is hard to take. Watching baseball for me has been a passion for almost 40 years. One might say an addiction. If these players begin to counter with some kind of sit-out thing I don't know if I can stand it. I walked away for several years after the last strike and hockey was my #1 sport. These players need to read the fan base. It costs so much more to attend a ballgame now and as Laloesch pointed out, cable companies continue to raise rates largely because these sports franchises play with Monopoly money and the players are more than just complicit in this. I would love to see a hard salary cap in baseball. I would love to see owners be able to take back money for the team from underperforming players. As it is, the system is set up where players have been able to hold up the owners with ridiculous guaranteed contracts that almost always contain several years where the team takes it on the chin at the end, This is going to be like the housing market, I hope. I want to see the players eat some humble pie

The owners take the risks and the players just play the game. They get compensated for very nicely for it being employees. They make guaranteed money like no other. Average baseball salaries have increased by over 20,000% since the first collective bargaining agreement in 1968. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2016/04/07/average-baseball-salary-up-20700-since-first-cba-in-1968/#1d7d48403e48 THis site is way too sympathetic toward the players, in my opinion. There is no such career in the world that sustains just a ridiculous upward trend in salaries for that many years. A correction is happening. Why is this so hard for the players to grasp?

DARVISH is to blame for that. Last year he was: 20th in WAR among pitchers 17th in WHIP 35th in ERA In 2016: 54th in WAR among pitchers 19th in WHIP 36th in ERA 2015: Injured reserve 2014: 38th in WAR among pitchers 74th in WHIP 34th in ERA Honestly. The guy is not that good. Yet here he is holding out for a contract he in no way has earned. A player like Darvish makes me side with the owners. I can understand trying to get the most money you can for yourself, but this guy is delusional. It isn't like he has established a trademark of consistency. He is heading toward his declining years, too. He should be absolutely thrilled to get anything over 100 million. I think he is greedy even by baseball players standards.

I'd sign Alex Cobb for A LOT less. THat would improve the staff as well.

So then if that is the case why are we signing him "regardless of the price"??

I am using historical data for all starting pitchers. This does the same thing: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/pitcher-aging-curves-starters-and-relievers/ Seeing what I have seen of Darvish and knowing his career trajectory thus far, I don't see him as being "an ace" We don't agree. Worse things can happen. It is actually good timbre for a discussion.

Had we signed Darvish to the Strasburg-like contract he is holding out for it would have been a colossal mistake. He's lucky if he gets 5 years 135 at this point. If he doesn't have anything sew up by the time full team workouts begin for Spring Training he will be in a tough spot with his new team.

Read the Moss article and he is dead right and the players are apparently simmering over the situation. My feeling on it is screw them. They get guaranteed money and they should be thrilled they have that. I have been a baseball fan since 1972 and I have stopped watching a couple of times. I love the sport and as a teacher I have all summer to get fully into it. If the players decide to band together and present some kind of statement against what is going on then I don't know how I will react. Life is not a given. I bought a home for 358,000 in 2005 and sold it for 285,000 earlier this year. These things happen. Do these players think they deserve to have salaries to increase as they have over the last 20 years FOREVER? Are they really that stupid? This is most definitely a market correction and these players need to wise up and learn how to deal with it. It has been a long time coming and it is here now. I would not be surprised if Darvish is forced to settle for way WAY less sometime in April. Would not shock me at all. If you ask me, he and his agent are being ridiculous. I am not interested in him at all.

Wainwright isn't anything near what he was and had TJ at about the same time in his life as Darvish. His career is far more impressive as well. Lackey is one of those rare cases of a guy who stays relevant in his mid to late 30s. For the life of me, I do not understand the argument about "not knowing the future" when it comes to the age of a pitcher. CORRECT. I cannot see the future, nor can all the others who pasted up sabermetric projections. One thing I have on my side of the argument is the fact that age wins out and that there are very few pitchers who maintain their ability level past 32 years of age. It happens, but it is pretty uncommon. If you can't admit that or refuse to see it then that really isn't a ME thing. That's you trying to go "glass-half full" on this one. Hope is nice, but it doesn't work. I prefer to be more pragmatic

Just has contract terms have to adjust, no?

The Yankees are earnestly trying to stay under the luxury tax threshold. I live in NY state and heard this refrain on WFAN not long after I moved in July and it has been a theme. Then they signed Stanton. I don't think the Yankees are going to go too far going for Darvish. This harkens back to the "bidding war" between the Red Sox and Yankees for Johan. There was no real bidding war. The difficulty in that case was trying to convince the Twins. Here Darvish has the veto power. I think Darvish and his people are being even more foolish than Bill Smith was during the Johan situation. I think Darvish missed the boat. I think that if he is expecting/holding out for Strasburg money then he will be not only be sitting on the sidelines through the open of training camp (not a good look for him), but also losing out on money and years.

I want to apologize for the lack of a space bar in the last two posts. Something with this new keyboard.

Why would we all do the same? Not everyone has an unrealistic view of their worth. It was reported by Yankee reporter Michael Kay that Darvish received a 7 year 160 offer after Darvish said he got no offer. Then Darvish took to Twitter to say he got an offer, but those terms were not right. There is a lot of weirdness around this guy. Tough to reach, tough to communicate with effectively and I am unsure he is being truthful as far as the Yankees offer. If the offer was anything close to what Kay reported then Darvish is delusional.

Thanks for your response and question. Let me first say that I do not like the practice of signing free agent starting pitching in almost every single case. Seems to me you pay for what the guy has done and not for what he is going to do. Very counter-intuitive mindset, but not the right mindset. One of the only times I can justify the outrageous terms pitchers have gotten is if it is to obtain someone that is a final piece to the puzzle on a team in serious contention. Also, if we are going to consider Darvish as being a guy who will get us over the hump we must consider his post-season meltdown. A "get us over the hump" guy is the kind of guy with some post-season/big game pedigree. Tell me it is a small sample size, but can we not glean ANYTHING from that? Was he not uncomfortable to watch? Given the extra motivation of putting it to the Astros and Guerriel the guy really retreated horribly. He did not look like he wanted to be there. We can talk of "tipping pitches" and that being "fixable", but under those circumstances, and on that stage, I want better than that. Tipping pitches in that situation really isn't an acceptable excuse. He is a veteran pitcher in a big game and that is not a valid explanation. It shows a lack of professionalism and a lack of poise, in my opinion. As far as his age is concerned, a decline is inevitable. That isn't a claim or an opinion. That is a fact. Given where he has been these last four seasons and how little he has pitched, the kind of decline is even harder to predict. I see WAR projections being pasted up here and I shake my head. It is not like he is a Verlander, Wainwright or a Sabathia. All of these guys were workhorse pitchers and showed a decline from 32 to 33. Darvish is not projectable, in my opinion. Many pitchers are way too hard to project and a guy with Darvish's track record isn't even worth projecting. Take a look at the horses before him: Verlander hit a deep valley and now he has come back, which is an anomaly. Adam Wainwright had TJ like Darvish has and the timeline is very similar. He had strong seasons at 31 and 32 and has been middle of the road since. Sabathia cratered at 32. John Lackey had TJ and is still going at 38, but he has not been a number one starter in almost ten years. And finally....and sadly....Johan Santana. Gone at 32. I am not making stuff up and I am not trying to be a naysayer. I am just sticking with the facts history presents. Since all this Darvish talk began I have been scanning my mind to find guys who came to a team as a free agent (at age 31) and assumed the role of ace after not pitching 200 innings for a number of years. I can't find one. In short, I cannot understand why we should take a "let's get THIS PLAYER at any cost" mentality. What is so exceptional about him that makes him any different from other guys before him? With that performance during the World Series and this performance during the off season he is starting to remind me more of Daisuke Matsuzaka than Verlander, Wainwright, or Grienke. Darvish to me seems like a guy who wants to make a killing and then get out. I don't trust him at all. Personal biases I might have aside, as a practice, I do not throw money at FA starting pitching unless my team is a world series contender. This team is not that. Not sure what is so radical about what I have said.