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I never complained about Correa not being here, and I can’t speak for anyone who is. But I’m arguing beyond the idea that his market was going to be firmly, and finally, established in the offseason of 2021-2022. He doesn’t believe that, and his agreeing to a 3/105 with opt outs is his way of demonstrating that. BTW, was he demanding a one-year opt on whatever 10/340+ he would have signed? I missed that one.

I disagree that the mere signing of kids they drafted or scouted is a success for the organization.

I would not consider the cartel of Major League Baseball owners to be any kind of perfect market, especially since there is an established history of collusion among them. So I reject the idea that the single 10-year offer he received is the perfect representation of his worth. The Tigers made an offer that everyone knew he would never take, including them if they have any clue. There’s no due diligence in that as far as I can see.

Well, OK. I think you were lowballed on the house. 😁

No one beat the offer because there were—and really, still are—concerns about Correa’s health, and all totally fair concerns. No one wants to be on the hook for 10/341 for a guy who might miss 30 or 40 or 50 games a year. That’s why no one beat the Tigers offer that everyone knew Correa would never take. He has a big health question mark on his forehead. But you keep confusing the idea that he took 3/105 instead of 10/275 as a failure on Correa’s part of misunderstanding his own worth. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. A healthy Correa is clearly worth 10/341+. Now he has to demonstrate that he’s worth the 10/341+ through both tremendous production, which he is capable of achieving at his 50th percentile projection, and staying on the field practically every day, which he needs at least one year to demonstrate, and maybe more. The big risk is not that he won’t perform while on the field, but that he won’t stay on the field enough. He was in 148 games last year, and so far he’s been in 42 of 65, which isn’t great, but he could still end up with 130 or more games played by the end of this year. If he does that and gets a 6-win season, I would say he stands a decent chance of getting at least 10/360, particularly since he will be the only guy at his level and position in the market. And if he doesn’t get that offer, then I guess he’ll exercise his option in 2023 and try again.

I don’t think there was due diligence at all, if by that you mean the Tigers studied the market and made what they thought was a compelling offer at the top of that market. Because that clearly did not happen. Which is why I wonder whether they made the offer for a different reason, which would be to mollify their fans with the appearance of trying, however weak that might look. I don’t know whether that’s the case.

The bold part is exactly right, but I don’t think the risk is all that high. It’s not the same risk as you going to Vegas and putting your whole wad on 23 straight up. The risk to Correa is far less than that, he thinks there’s an excellent chance he wins this risk, and I’m inclined to agree with him. That has nothing to do with whether that means the Tigers lowballed him. They most definitely did. His minimum number for a ten-year contract was 340. We were the first team to bid, we offered 275, and that was three months before spring training was scheduled to start. There was no chance he was going to sign for that, especially at that time, and everybody with any clue knew that. That’s practically the platonic ideal of a lowball offer. OK, let’s talk about your house now. You wanna sell your house in Warren. Zillow says it’s worth $250K. You list it for $250K. You have a clear expectation that you will get at least $250K. You get a grand total of one offer, which is for $190K. You decide not to sell the house after all and wait for another day to do so. Are you going to maintain that you weren’t lowballed by that offer, and that you must have merely misread the market instead? Or would you take the $190K, because that’s clearly where the market is?

Then why are you offering them all up as examples of Avila drafting and signing successes?

I’m not even allowed to express a view that differs from yours? 😉 I don’t think there was even a 0.02% chance Correa was going to take a first offer of 10/275 from any team in November. If Avila thought Correa would take that, then he should be immediately banned from participating in free agent markets at all, because he has no idea how to read markets. I do think, however, that there’s a better than 2% chance that Avila knew there was zero chance that Correa would take the offer. How much better, I can’t say, but that possibility is certainly on the table.

I don’t know anything about your house, but I do know that Carlos Correa is worth more than $27.5 million a year, and he got a lot more than that for the next three years. I think signing the one-year deal with two player options for $35 million a year is a good gamble for him to take, because I believe there is a better than 50/50 chance he ends up making a lot more money over the next ten years than $275 million.

How long before he shows up at a rally as guest of Trump as being an example of the strength of our Second Amendment freedoms to arm against the tyranny of government? 😉

I’m out of Likes for the day, so … like.

I’ll put two bits on Stephen Miller. he’s been curiously absent from this whole deal so far …

So the whole dissembling about single mothers/fatherless homes at the same time he himself personally created four such homes … not enough for you?

And between all this and talk of being required to be armed in the classroom, there’s a good chance all this is going to cost those states a lot of good teachers, and then who’s left to take those jobs?

It was lowballing because it was way lower than his publicly stated number, and he did not take it because he was being lowballed. Also, there’s a difference between apples and oranges.

And they both got hired by other teams after winning that ring. Because owners and GMs respect rings. That’s what I meant to say.

My question would be, why was Avila bidding at all, when it was well understood that Correa was never going to take an offer 65 million below his asking price, and in November to boot? What was he trying to accomplish? If Avila was trying to accomplish a signing of Correa, then you’re right, he completely misunderstands the free agent market. Because who among those who know what they’re doing would honestly believe that lowballing the top guy on the market by 20% months before a soft signing deadline would get that job done?

Or maybe it’s a gamble that will end up being a genius move. Correa and Boras are gambling on the idea that instead of taking a guarantee of far less than he wanted, simply because it was the best offered at that particular time, he can reset the market for himself this season so that next winter they can meet or or exceed the Lindor contract, which is still the 10-year benchmark they pinned themselves to. Correa was never going to sign a long-term deal for 275 because he was on record saying Linder money or else, which was 340. So the Tigers must have known he was not going to accept it when they offered it, right? Especially since this was back in November when the market was still wide open. What would have been the compelling reason for him to cave then? I don’t think there was any. So I gotta believe the Tigers knew what they were doing and what would happen. And you’re right that at the end, no one offered him three-anything this winter, let alone Linder money, and that 275 was the highest guaranteed money he was offered. But that doesn’t mean that would have been the best contract situation he could have signed for. Correa has that goal—Lindor money for the next ten years—and he wasn’t going to go down defeated just yet. So he signs with the Twins for the 3/105, which sets the AAV for his next contract if he does well. If Correa is a 6 win player this year, I think he will get his 10/360 this winter (which would make it all end up as a de facto 11/395, BTW). If Correa falls short this year but is a 6-win player in 2023, he’ll probably get something like 9/330 the following winter. If he’s hurt or falters the next two years but puts up 6 wins in 2024, he’ll may well get 8/300 after all. The gamble here is that Correa is so good that as long as he can stay healthy at least one of the next three years and performs to his capability, he’ll get the money he’s been coveting, instead of having to settle early for a lowball 10/275. This could all totally backfire on Correa. That’s why it’s a gamble. But the reasonable worst case I can envision is that he’s gimpy for three years with Minnesota, signs with someone taking a flyer on him for a few years after that, he never gets back fully on the horse, he retires in his early 30s because he’s hurt all the time, and he ends up making something like 150, maybe 200 million for six or seven years. Or maybe he hangs around to play out the string for ten more gimpy, underwhelming (in Correa terms) years and nets 200 to 250 million for that. That’s not a total of 275 million, but would be a hell of a consolation prize for a failed gamble. And instead of kicking himself for taking the lowball money early and then killing it for cheap, he can blame the stars for preventing him from reaching his full playing and earning potential.

Which is perfect for a marketplace.

I have come to believe that having to deal with the market for things like trades is the job Al likes the least. The guy is a scout, not a businessman. The trades have all the earmarks of someone procrastinating this unpleasant thing they have to do until the last minute, and then accepting the failure so they can just block out the experience and get past it.

I agree with you, Correa would have done the same deal with the Tigers if we'd come to him with it first. Correa didn't want the guaranteed money if it was going to be only 275, or whatever it was, for basically the rest of his career. It was well-known months in advance he was expecting way into the threes, at least, and he would never have gotten that with the Tigers. The Tigers not only lowballed him—I bet the Tigers knew they were lowballing him and were hoping to either luck into a yes, or hoping he'd say no so they could be seen as making an effort without spending a penny. I honestly don't know which. The Twins deal is great for Correa because he has now established a baseline of $35 million a year. That means, if he has a good year—and he is having a good year, on his way to 6+ WAR—a team is going to have to come at him with $36MM AAV, minimum. Since he's going into his age 28 season, I think his fair minimum asking will be 10/360. And if he has an uncharacteristically healthy year, he could exceed that pretty handily.

On the other hand, Moreno hired Brad Ausmus, who led the Tigers from the playoffs to a 98-loss season. Hinch has a ring. Owners and GMs respect that.

Good call. The need to stockpile pitching practically at the expense of everything else, as thought everything else would basically take care of themselves, strikes me as pathological.