Will Tigers Pony up for Skubal

[4hzglory]

1 hour ago, AlaskanTigersFan said:

Only a matter of time I think until Skenes duplicates this. Those two are on another level right now. 

How soon until Painter does 

Edited Thursday at 10:03 PM by 4hzglory

[chasfh]

50 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

Considering the youth of our core both up and in the minors it does seem possible to pay one person 40 mil plus and still remain at or below 200 per year. 
Maybe Skubal was who Greenberg was referring when he said “we are concentrating on pitching “

I'm out of reactions today, but Like

[Jason_R]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't there are many players who don't have at least some reluctance to leave their first team, esp when it's the team that drafted them and brought them all the way to the majors. The question is always how 'some reluctance' does or doesn't translate into actually being willing to take any less than the highest bidder's offer!

I'm sure there are players who come up in bad franchises and are eager to move to good ones. I think this franchise generally treats players well (maybe not a third-of-a-billion-dollars well, but we will see). I suspect Skubal also knows he is not likely to find a better manager/pitching coach combo than Hinch/Fetter. He has good catching here too, and it seems generally that it is a good clubhouse. Maybe Skubal could find a better situation somewhere, but there are an awful lot of ways his situation could get worse. 

[AlaskanTigersFan]

4 hours ago, 4hzglory said:

How soon until Painter does 

I get the sarcasm, but I'll still go with 6 years. 🙂

[Sports_Freak]

Recent reports of Skubal wanting to stay in Detroit has my mind changing about the Tigers signing him. In the past, I thought there was no way the Tigers would offer him enough to avoid free agency. And no way would Boras allow him to not test the market for a max deal. But I think there is a possibility the Tigers pony up the money for him, he appears to want to stay here. Just...pay the man!!

[buddha]

Boras will go get all the potential offers. i'm sure he's already had conversations and knows what the market will be for skubal.  he'll let skubal know his options and then he can decide.

in other words, through backroom conversations he's probably already "taken skubal to market."

[chasfh]

I’m not sure anyone is signing or offering a thing long term until they have a really good idea what the landscape is going to look like under the new CBA. 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

I have absolutely no idea how it works to go from one CBA to a new one. But, wouldn't there be some transitional mechanism so that teams working under the old agreement aren't punished by the new agreement?

[Sports_Freak]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

Boras will go get all the potential offers. i'm sure he's already had conversations and knows what the market will be for skubal.  he'll let skubal know his options and then he can decide.

in other words, through backroom conversations he's probably already "taken skubal to market."

Being unethical is one thing but what you're saying is called tampering, highly illegal. At least, against every single rule. The consequences are severe. Boras would lose many, many millions of dollars. Once Skubal is a free agent, he can shop him around. But not until then.

[4hzglory]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

I’m not sure anyone is signing or offering a thing long term until they have a really good idea what the landscape is going to look like under the new CBA. 

I think there may be more willing to sign long term deals than there are those willing to offer them.  Especially if those long term deals are structured with large signing bonuses for the marque FA's/extensions to provide protection to the player during a lockout - could have defferred $ to protect the team - much like the Dodgers have done with their contracts.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, CaliforniaDreaming said:

I have absolutely no idea how it works to go from one CBA to a new one. But, wouldn't there be some transitional mechanism so that teams working under the old agreement aren't punished by the new agreement?

I was noodling this earlier: if they do go to some kind of salary cap, then teams that have significant long term deals on the books might get those deals grandfathered in and their caps adjusted to reflect that.

[CaliforniaDreaming]

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I was noodling this earlier: if they do go to some kind of salary cap, then teams that have significant long term deals on the books might get those deals grandfathered in and their caps adjusted to reflect that.

This seems like it could be good motivation to go ahead and give out a big contract now before the CBA changes. It could be a short term work around for the coming salary cap.

[buddha]

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

Being unethical is one thing but what you're saying is called tampering, highly illegal. At least, against every single rule. The consequences are severe. Boras would lose many, many millions of dollars. Once Skubal is a free agent, he can shop him around. But not until then.

ok.  its why you see free agents sign immediately the day free agency "opens".  those deals have been discussed through back channels long before then.

[4hzglory]

23 minutes ago, buddha said:

ok.  its why you see free agents sign immediately the day free agency "opens".  those deals have been discussed through back channels long before then.

I get what you're saying, and it clearly happens in other sports, but there have been no deals to speak of (if any FA deals) and free agency has been opened for over a week.  I do think baseball is different in that sense.  

Now, without a doubt, I think Boras has an idea of what certain teams have told him they would offer a hypothetical 2 time cy young pitcher if he came to market.

[RatkoVarda]

Boras to Cohen: Steve, next Winter I look forward to discussing Tarik's free agency with you and the Mets. Obviously, it would not be appropriate to discuss any terms while he is under control of the Tigers, but he did mention that he loves coming to NY for award season, and getting bagels at his favorite store at 440 10th Avenue. That's 440 and 10, Steve. If you are interested, go to 440 and 10, Steve.

[Tigermojo]

5 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

Boras to Cohen: Steve, next Winter I look forward to discussing Tarik's free agency with you and the Mets. Obviously, it would not be appropriate to discuss any terms while he is under control of the Tigers, but he did mention that he loves coming to NY for award season, and getting bagels at his favorite store at 440 10th Avenue. That's 440 and 10, Steve. If you are interested, go to 440 and 10, Steve.

Skubal's pre game ritual is donuts though. j/k

[chasfh]

8 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

Boras to Cohen: Steve, next Winter I look forward to discussing Tarik's free agency with you and the Mets. Obviously, it would not be appropriate to discuss any terms while he is under control of the Tigers, but he did mention that he loves coming to NY for award season, and getting bagels at his favorite store at 440 10th Avenue. That's 440 and 10, Steve. If you are interested, go to 440 and 10, Steve.

lol good one!

The conversation wouldn't even have to be that opaque. It just has to occur in relative secret and not be on the record.

[Jason_R]

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

I’m not sure anyone is signing or offering a thing long term until they have a really good idea what the landscape is going to look like under the new CBA. 

Important point. This is a massive unknown when it comes to evaluating the possibility of offering a contract for a third of a billion dollars.  

[Sports_Freak]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

ok.  its why you see free agents sign immediately the day free agency "opens".  those deals have been discussed through back channels long before then.

No, they don't. Agents would lose everything if they were caught. And they would be caught. All it takes is one disgruntled GM to let league offices know. Agents like Boras wouldn't risk hundreds of millions of dollars by breaking tampering rules. That an extremely serious charge 

[buddha]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

lol good one!

The conversation wouldn't even have to be that opaque. It just has to occur in relative secret and not be on the record.

which it does.  all the time.

people who dont think this is happening are really naive. 

it happens in other sports all the time.  heck, you see it happening in COLLEGE sports now with portal deals announced the day the portal opens.  and teams do sometimes get "busted."  guess what?  they keep doing it because this is millions and billions of dollars were talking about and lots of planning that goes into making these budgets.  it aint pennies and chump change anymore.

and they do it in baseball too.

[Sports_Freak]

22 minutes ago, buddha said:

which it does.  all the time.

people who dont think this is happening are really naive. 

it happens in other sports all the time.  heck, you see it happening in COLLEGE sports now with portal deals announced the day the portal opens.  and teams do sometimes get "busted."  guess what?  they keep doing it because this is millions and billions of dollars were talking about and lots of planning that goes into making these budgets.  it aint pennies and chump change anymore.

and they do it in baseball too.

No, they don't. Every single GM in baseball will eventually quit or be fired. Scott Boras is not going to jeopardize $100 million dollars a year by shopping players around, who aren't even free agents? Are you even aware of the penalty? He would lose his ability to represent any players, as well as a hefty fine. All it would take is a bitter fired GM to open his mouth. If there's even a 1% chance of that happening, it's not worth it. Everybody in baseball already knows how much it would cost to sign Skubal. Heck, he even threw a number out there on a podcast. Scott Boras would never put his wealth in direct line of accusations. He's really unethical, IMO, but even that would be crossing the line.

[buddha]

3 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

No, they don't. Every single GM in baseball will eventually quit or be fired. Scott Boras is not going to jeopardize $100 million dollars a year by shopping players around, who aren't even free agents? Are you even aware of the penalty? He would lose his ability to represent any players, as well as a hefty fine. All it would take is a bitter fired GM to open his mouth. If there's even a 1% chance of that happening, it's not worth it. Everybody in baseball already knows how much it would cost to sign Skubal. Heck, he even threw a number out there on a podcast. Scott Boras would never put his wealth in direct line of accusations. He's really unethical, IMO, but even that would be crossing the line.

then why do they do it in the nba and nhl?

[chasfh]

13 hours ago, buddha said:

which it does.  all the time.

people who dont think this is happening are really naive. 

it happens in other sports all the time.  heck, you see it happening in COLLEGE sports now with portal deals announced the day the portal opens.  and teams do sometimes get "busted."  guess what?  they keep doing it because this is millions and billions of dollars were talking about and lots of planning that goes into making these budgets.  it aint pennies and chump change anymore.

and they do it in baseball too.

Which basically tells us that the rate of success of getting away with it is super high, because even with the potential cost of getting caught, they all do it anyway, since they all deem the risk to be worth it. High rate of success multiplied by the benefit of succeeding usually explains behavior other people find inexplicable or even impossible due to the draconian penalties attached to it.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Which basically tells us that the rate of success of getting away with it is super high, because even with the potential cost of getting caught, they all do it anyway, since they all deem the risk to be worth it. High rate of success multiplied by the benefit of succeeding usually explains behavior other people find inexplicable or even impossible due to the draconian penalties attached to it.

As far as I have always been given to understand, increasing the probability of getting caught deters prohibited behavior much more effectively than increasing the severity of the penalty being caught.

But I would guess there is another thing at work here - which is that within the MLB administrative law system, 'tampering' has a formal definition as well as a set of precedents on past rulings - i.e. it's part of a typical English system of jurisprudence. So GMs and agents know pretty well where the lines not to cross are, and there are still going to be many modes of communication available that don't formally cross those lines or that might but are too difficult to prosecute, but still get a lot of signaling done.