chasfh

That’s true, and the market for Jeimer was very small—basically us, who didn’t want him around anymore, and Washington.

OK, I see. Since the incentives are definitely a part of his equation, though, wouldn’t that make the difference between the two examples much smaller in this real case?

If your third base options are struggling and you need a guy to push you over the top for this season, getting a guy on an expiring contract who’s arguably the best at that position and plays there only should not be a barrier to making a move.

No, you’re not crazy for saying that. To the degree that healthy pitching is always more valuable than hitting in the trade market, I would agree with this. Lorenzen and Jeimer together in the trade market would have fetched the most in the trade market. Maybe even together. Mets, Brewers, Yankees could all use both a good third baseman and another starter right now. That’s a competitive market right there.

Well, to be fair, you did preface this with “wild ass” … 😉

Exactly what I have implied before. I get your point about the money and its effect on the rest of the budget, but it also wouldn’t surprise me to learn that personal reasons were involved in the decision not to retain him—whether it was the personal distaste of the owner for the bad press Jeimer’s lack of performance generated, or the personal desire of Jeimer to get the hell out of this organization, or the personal distaste the other guys might have had for Jeimer as a teammate. I know nothing about any of that—I’m just speculating based on my calculation about the actual dollars involved, i.e., I have trouble believing the amount of money was the one nonstarter that was completely responsible for preventing the re-sign.

That’s because your hypothetical wife is a bitch.

Just so I have this straight, is CBT based only on base salary, and achieved incentives are not part of that? If Candelario is traded at the exact midpoint on a $7MM straight contract, that’s $3.5MM. Easy peasy. If he’s traded on his current contract and he hits the remaining three incentive benchmarks, that’s $2.5MM in base plus $600K in incentives he’ll paid, which makes $3.1MM. But does the latter example still count as only $2.5MM against the CBT, as in your example, because only the base counts against it?

I might be the only person here who thought that $7 million would not have been an overpay for Jeimer, because I was thinking of it in terms of paying him for the season he was projected to have coming up, which was more than one win by the lowest estimates, rather than paying him for the season he just had, for which he should have been paying us. I also may have been the only person who thought that the low end projections of slightly more than a single win was really low, that he would probably exceed that that at least half a win, and that even if not, the cost of being wrong would have been pretty minimal, and not close to being ruinous of our plans to rebuild the organization. IOW, I thought it would have been a low risk/high reward sign. But then, I see how other folks could look at his 2022 and think he was done done, too.

OK, I thought maybe you were sad at the idea of his going to the All-Star Game, which I couldn't figure out.

I was worried he'd get imaging showing a sprain and time off from gettign hit on the inside of the knee. My MCL got sprained last year when I got hit on the outside of my knee and it's been dodgy ever since. But they must think he's not showing any signs of ligament damage. Thank goodness for that. Bones can heal; some ligaments can't.

I don’t think I’m clear on your point, then. I thought you were talking about the return on trade based on what a team would have to pay the player for the remainder of the year.

The way Jeimer's contract is structured, there might end up being practically no difference. If Jeimer had been paid $7 million here and we traded him with two months left in the six-month season, the new team would be on the hook for a third of that, meaning $2.33MM. Jeimer is being paid $5 million base, so the hook for the team trading for him would be $1.67MM. However, there is a clause in his contract stipulating bonuses of $200K for five plate-appearance thresholds: 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600. He is at 325 PAs now, and he will be likely over 400 at trade time. When he hits 500 and 600, it will be the responsibility of the new team to pay that remaining $400K, which will bring the new team's total nut up to $2.07MM. The difference between $2.33MM and $2.07MM is basically a rounding error on a big league financial sheet, so I wouldn't think that the trade value of the lower number is more favorable as to affect what would come back in return.

This was definitely not a case of Candelario projected to be just a half-win player in 2023. This whole sidebar was predicated on my assertion that he was going to be much more! Either way, a billionaire owner of a capital-appreciating major league baseball team could have found their way to signing both Lorenzen and Candelario—doing so would not have even moved them from 19th to 18th on the MLB payroll rankings. But, like a I say, I think there was more than just we need to pocket the seven Ms.

FYI, this is the chart from last month's year-over-year inflation report: The bottom line number came in at 4%, and as we can see, almost a third of that is tied up in last June alone, which is now 12 months ago. Once that month falls off the year-over-year period with next month's report, there's a good chance the overall number is going to come in at two-point-something, which is gonna make everyone throw their hats up into the air and shout "huzzah!" Well, at least those of us over sixty. 😁 I might increase my positions in some stock indexes before then.

What, is it April 2022 already? I need to go back in time and get good and mad.

What a concept ...

No, just a possibility I raised. Players are occasionally the agents of their own career direction.

Maybe that was part of it, too, who knows, although, who knows whether he is actually that hubristic. I'm a nobody, but even I could see there wasn't anyone on the market, or in the system, who projected to be as good as Jeimer was. My best guess is that Harris was led by outside circumstances to not sign Jeimer, either by the boss or by the talent.

Would he turn it down? Maybe. Would the Tigers strongly advise him to not accept? Strikes me as more plausible. I'm not saying anything like 100% he's gonna be selected to be our rep, but I do think it is comfortably within the range of outcomes.

That might have been part of the calculation, although of bounceback season of this type, being a very good bet, should have been able to unlock some very good return in trade, the value of which could have far exceeded the extra couple Ms. I think the truth is probably closer to some combination of there being too much media pressure on Baby Doc was too great to dump Jeimer, and Jeimer himself not wanting to play here anymore under any circumstances.

The thinly-coded language, too, since "suburbs" is a clear stand-in for "white people". Not that he's alone on that, though—lots of people, including some liberal-minded people who simply don't consider it too deeply, and there are still a lot of them, do the same.

To be clear, my intention is not to respond to or engage with him, but to rib-nudge everyone else with the joke ...

Also: