Crying Over Spilled Hudson
by jackie ballgame on Feb 19, 2009 4:21 PM EST
36 comments
I’ll start off by cutting Dayton Moore some slack. No one knew, except (supposedly) a few smug I-told-you-so’s on Wall Street, just how far the economy would dive. Blaming Moore now for not predicting that Orlando Hudson—who rejected a 3 year, $24 million deal just a short time ago in hopes that he’d find something in the neighborhood of 5 years, $50 million—would be available for 1 year, $5 million, is the ultimate unfair second guess.
Dutton reports Hudson would take 1 year at $4.4 million + incentives that would raise it to $8 million. Where the hell did Dutton get such precise info? Was he drinking playing miniature golf and drinking Old Crowe with Hudson’s agent? “Alright, alright, alright. I get a hole in one in the Hippo’s mouth, you give me the exact details of Hudson’t demand... to the penny...”
If that’s the case, then 2 years, $10 million guaranteed gets it done. That’s a time capsule of a contract; you’re getting a 31-year-old Grudzielanek who walks more and hits for more power for the exact same price we paid the grizzled version. Shocking, isn’t it? Not Bobby-Abreu-for-$5-million shocking, but shocking. Still, I refuse to say Moore should have known he could afford Hudson. No one knew any of this would happen, and no one knows just how bad this economic train wreck is going to be. Greinke’s contract is looking smarter and smarter (for Greinke) every day.
Prediction: free agent classes are going to get worse because even more players are going to lock themselves into long-term,“discounted” deals. Fear of the unknown is a powerful force. Maybe we should offer Moustakas a ten year deal right now.
Kyle Farnsworth was one of the first, if not the first, free agent signed this offseason. Moore has to be cursing fate for that contract at the moment, and not for any of the reasons TDERRC (The Discerning Eye of the Royals Review Community) is criticizing it. Moore basically bought stock in Citigroup circa September 2008. A lot of it. TDERRC and the rest of the baseball loving nation never would have believed at the Farnsworth signing, even with the foreshadowing of an eerily quiet Winter Meetings, that there was about to be the ultimate blue light special on top shelf offensive players.
Let’s call December of ’08 ‘normal economic times’ just for fun. Even in normal economic times, Royals Nation gasped at the size of the Farnsworth contract. I looked around on the internet for a list of the largest non-closer relief contracts (and because of inflation, we can probably assume this to be a list of the largest non-closer relief contracts ever—IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL!!).
Finding no such list, I started looking team-by-team in USA Today’s online baseball salary database. Then I realized it was around 11:00 am and, being that I was at work and all, I umm, felt I should probably put away my salary calculator before my job’s equivalent of Dayton Moore rounded the corner of my cube. I got through around nine teams and found that a lot of teams have one highly paid middle reliever. The big market teams have two. In 2008, the Cubs, who have a lot of highly paid everything, have Scott Eyre at 3.8 mil, and Bobby Howry at 4.5. The Southsiders (yeah, I’m calling them big market, mainly because they’re in a big market) have Dotel at 5 mil, and Scott Linebrink at 4. The Red Sox have Julian Tavarez at 3.8 mil and Mike Timlin at 3. And now the Royals have Ron Mahay at 4 and Professor Farsworth, PhD., at 4.5. That’s rolling with the Cubs and Red Sox. When the hitters go out to party, the Sox and Cubs (and Jose Guillen) hang out at Scores in Las Vegas, while the Royals hang out at a dive called Scoreboard’s in Los Alamos. While the big market starting pitchers (and Gil Meche) hit Plaza III, the Royals rotation hits Chubby’s on Broadway. But when the middle relievers go out, the Royals are crowding the limo.
Actually, the Royals and Orioles have their own limo. Danys Baez received $6,166,666 last year for his services. Dollars, that is. It’s not really fair to put Baez in the middle reliever category, since he was signed originally as a closer. But...
Alright let’s talk about Danys Baez and the Orioles for a second. Baez apparently “studied physics in Cuba. He loves animals and has a boxer named Lennox in honor of professional boxer Lennox Lewis.” Okay that’s something. He started off okay with the Indians and wasn’t quite what they thought he’d be as a starter. And so they turned him into a closer. Makes sense. As a closer he had 25 saves, not bad...and 10 blown saves which tied for the league lead. Hey, he was young. He then went to Tampa where he converted 30 of 33 saves. Now we’re talking. Then he was traded to the Dodgers where he was demoted from the closer role after blowing four straight games. L.A. traded him to the Braves, where he threw a 5.4 ERA and 82 ERA+ for the remainder of the season as a setup guy to Bob Wickman. That offseason, the Orioles signed him for 3 years, $19 million.
Wooooooow. (There’s this cable commercial where I live, wherein a family is watching a new flatscreen TV that has, apparently, an incredible image because everyone is saying ‘Wooooow,’ including a flea that is sitting on the cat’s back. I’m now channeling the flea).
The whole point of this digression was to show how ludicrous the Farnsworth contract really is. But I don’t think it holds a candle to the Baez contract. The Orioles also pay Chad Bradford 3.6 mil, who might well be worth it. Regardless, the dinner tab is definitely on the Orioles’ middle relievers.
So the Royals are rolling with the big dogs when it comes to their bullpen, while the O-dog will work for food at second base. Now, I don’t want to go too crazy over O-dog here; he’s a good player, no doubt. Above average offensively, well above average defensively. He has roughly a 3:2 strikeout to walk ratio, an OPS+ that has been consistently over a hundred, roughly a .350 obp. He’ll hit you around 10 homers, 30 doubles, and he recently had two seasons in a row where he hit 9 triples. Wait a minute, maybe I should gush over him. 30 doubles (at second base)? 9 triples? Throw in around 10 stolen bases? What are the Royals thinking here?
Alright, deep breath. We didn’t know he’d be this affordable. But that’s not why I brought up Kyle Farnsworth. With the Farnsworth contract, and the Hoagy contract before him, the Royals painted themselves into a corner. Good fortune is when preparedness meets opportunity, someone’s dad likes to say. Well, we met our opportunity. And we weren’t prepared.
We might not have known Hudson would be available to us. But we did know, TDERRC knew, that that Farnsworth contract was going to come back and bite us in the *ss. It already has, and the season hasn’t even started yet.
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I dig the Posterisks
I like that the best thing you can say about the Farnsworth contract is “it isn’t as bad as the Danys Baez contract.”
Honestly though, I’m not sure the problem is that DM signed Farnsworth. I mean, it is a terrible contract.
But I think a more troubling concern is that he grossly overpays for bench players. All of the following players look like they’ll be on the bench or buried in the pen:
Mark Teahen $3.5 mill
John Buck $3 mill
Willie Bloomquist $1.5 mill
Esteban German $1.2 mill
Jimmy Gobble $1.1 mill
That’s $10.2 million, more than enough to sign Orlando Hudson. DM keeps stressing depth, depth, depth, which is fine, but he doesn’t get the you can find depth for much, much cheaper. Today’s pickup of Tug Hulett is a perfect illustration. What does Bloomie do that Tug Hulett cannot do? And guys like this are available every spring, Exhibit B is Ramon Ramirez. We picked him up for a song last spring. And yet Dayton has not learned from this.
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
I think Teahen was money well spent
Not just based on his talent, but based on a role that could/should get him 400+ AB’s. $3M each on two below average catchers was pretty stupid. I don’t have a problem with German at that price, in this market or any other.
The immoderate moderator
My thoughts
I’ll start off by cutting Dayton Moore some slack. No one knew, except (supposedly) a few smug I-told-you-so’s on Wall Street, just how far the economy would dive.
By the time the FA signing period started, the economy was already in shitter and everyone recognized that it was going to get worse before it got better. Now, no one quite knew how much this economy would affect the FA market. Professional sports have been relatively recession-proof historically and MLB just brought in record high revenues. So no one had any idea how much various owners would see their revenues decreasing over the next year or two, or how much risk they were willing to take. But, given this uncertainty, Moore erred in running out and spending the vast majority of his available FA budget very early on low ceiling players. He needed to wait to see how the market shook out, and he didn’t.
If that’s the case, then 2 years, $10 million guaranteed gets it done.
No, I don’t think that’s right at all. Hudson is wiling to take so little ($4M guaranteed plus $4M in incentives) for one year so that he can prove that he’s healthy and valuable and then re-enter the FA market which hopefully will have more of a willingness to spend. Usually players want as many guaranteed years as possible. But when the market has tanked and there’s little money to go around, and you aren’t going to get much, then you want fewer years so you can get into a different FA market in a year. I think Hudson is available to the Royals for one year and one year only, unless it is one year guaranteed and then a big option for the second year.
The immoderate moderator
YOU OBVIOUSLY DON’T REALIZE HOW HARD IT IS FOR THE ROYALS TO GET REPLACEMENT LEVEL STUDS READ YOUR MELLINGER/ROYALS NATOIN
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If only we'd just stood pat
I’m not sure for all the “work” Dayton put in this offseason that we wouldn’t have been better off just staying with who we had and waiting out the FA market. We’ve basically:
- Traded Shealy for Jacobs
- Farnsworth for Ramirez
- Gained Crisp.
- Spent an extra, what, $15M?
For 15M now, we could have Dunn at 1st, Hudson at 2nd and still have RamRam and Nunez handing off to Soria. I’m going to go vomit.
I apologize for rehashing this here, but I haven’t had an opportunity to mourn the Royals offseason yet, what with it being KU basketball and Chiefs coaching change season. Now that I’ve done that, i can try to get optimistic about what the Royals might do.
BTW- all of that is water under the bridge in regards to signing Hudson. There is no reason not to sign him, even if it displaces a sacred bench cow.
I almost wish
We had done nothing. Literally nothing. We’d have Shealy at 1B with Kila ready to come up if he hits well, we’d get to see what Callaspo can do at 2B, I can live with Teahen for another year in LF. I think that might be a better team than what we have now.
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
I would have preferred that myself
Of the two options, I’d go with that one. And then there are the many affordable options which involved doing something which would have been better than what they actually did.
The immoderate moderator
i would not take that option
since ‘doing nothing’ would seem to imply no extension for ZG. but otherwise, yes, doing nothing is probably better. the only other move Moore has made that deserves praise is the Ramirez/Crisp trade.
I think both Retro and I were talking about "doing nothing" with regard to player acquisitions
But your point is well taken. This offseason had one high point.
The immoderate moderator
you think the ramirez/coco trade was praiseworthy?
TPJ...you're dead to me
by billybeingbilly on Feb 19, 2009 8:07 PM EST up reply actions
Personally I don’t know that I would call it praiseworthy, but I do think that the numbers show that it is a net improvement to the team (both in a Crisp vs. RamRam sense, and in that it improves the OF over what it would have been otherwise — considering total offense and defense). So I think the trade was a mild positive for the team, but wrong headed in that Moore shouldn’t have been trading for a CFer which the Royals didn’t need. Other areas of genuine need could and should have been addressed.
The immoderate moderator
the only way i'd really see the trade being a win...
was if Crisp was costing us something close to the minimum. Getting him for $5.75 million in the current market isnt any sort of bargain
TPJ...you're dead to me
by billybeingbilly on Feb 19, 2009 8:44 PM EST up reply actions
If Crisp were making something close to the minimum, it wouldn't have been close
It would have been a massively uneven trade. As it is, both teams got value out of the trade and the Royals improved themselves. Did they improve themselves by one win above replacement by acquiring Crisp? Perhaps. Hard to say. We’ll see how healthy he is. If so, then the net increase in payroll was essentially paid for by the increase in of a win.
The immoderate moderator
part of me agrees,
on the other hand, there’s the opportunity cost,, although that’s an unknown
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 19, 2009 9:40 PM EST up reply actions
That's fair
While the move, overall, is a plus, it isn’t the best thing they could have done with that talent and money. It helps the team but it wasn’t the best way to go. This all goes into the “we would have been better off doing nothing” argument. I would have preferred that the Royals keep RamRam, not trade for Crisp, not sign some other shitty players and then use that money on any one of several FA’s who would have genuinely improved the team.
The immoderate moderator
But with Farnsy?
Since they essentially signed Farnsworth to be next year’s RamRam, the whole deal is just a mess. Is Farnsworth an incremental upgrade at his position commensurate with the increase in salary? I think a lot of people see him as a downgrade from RamRam for 7-8 times the money. That doesn’t make up for the incremental improvement in CF between Coco and DDJ.
Hudson is still attainable
Even @ $5-8 M for ’09 (after incentives).
Keep in mind, we are moving into 90% of a new ball-park (Royals terminology, not mine), which leads to 90% of a new-ball parks revenue.
KC CAN support an $80 M payroll or more!!!!!
BOOM! ROASTED!
If Glass is willing to spend more this year
He and Moore have been pretty clear that they are not. But perhaps this is a negotiating smoke screen, acting like they aren’t willing to spend much more to drive someone’s price down. It’s possible. But I actually think Glass is honest when he says the Royals are at the top of what he’s willing to spend and that he wants to save some money for a mid-season acquisition if the Royals are in contention. Of course, I think that’s pretty stupid.
The immoderate moderator
I think he is at the top of what...
He is willing to spend, but I think that is skewed (a moderately idiotic analogy follows)…
He’s been riding the Kiddie Roller Coaster for years. The biggest drop on the Kiddie coaster was from about 20 feet, and even that scared the shit out of him. This offseason, he’s ramped it up & is riding the Junior Roller Coaster. It has a highest drop of about 40 feet and he is scared shitless. What he doesn’t realize, is that with the Junior Roller Coaster, he gets a larger, better cushioned seat, which makes that 20 extra feet on the fall seem like nothing, so he is basically still on the Kiddie Coaster, with the ability to go much, much higher because he is safe to, he’s just scared shitless
BOOM! ROASTED!
I think he’s spending a greater percentage of the Royals gross revenues than many large market teams. So, in reality, he isn’t and in recent seasons hasn’t been going cheap. He’s been doing what professional sports owners do: investing a reasonable percentage of team revenues into the operating budget, including the MLB payroll.
I don’t see where you get all of the “scared shitless” references from. As revenues have gone up (both Royals-created revenues and the money the Royals are getting from MLB), spending has gone up. That’s not bold, that’s safe. It doesn’t have anything to do with fear. It’s just a standard, run of the mill business practice.
The immoderate moderator
I mean
That he is looking at that $74 M thinking ‘whoa, whoa, that’s high enough. Geez that number is damn near 25% more than I spent last year!"
Almost like he has gotten in the habit of spending roughly $50M, and anything more than that is uncharted water, therefor somewhat scary. Didn’t somebody say something smart long ago that was something like; the only thing man fears is that which is unknown?
That is what I meant. Not that he was literally in fear about it
BOOM! ROASTED!
ergo
He KNOWS that he can spend about $50M and get by, hell make a profit.
Now he is sitting in a renovated stadium, which was renovated on the promise to the tax-payers that it would generate 90% of the revenue of a Brand New facility for 60% of the cost, and he is (like any of us would) wondering if those numbers that they promised his tax/fan base are going to hold up.
He’s putting his toe in the water, instead of diving in head first, which I understand. I’d just like to see him at least get up to the waist before he stops.
BOOM! ROASTED!
I think his spending is just following the revenues
Greater revenues have given him a greater ability to spend. Now you might think that greater spending should come before increased revenues, which would be nice, but for the most part that isn’t the kind of businessman Glass is. I think Glass is like the vast majority of pro sports owners in that he’s willing to spend a certain percentage of his revenues, period. Occasionally he’ll deviate from that, up or down, due to changing circumstances, but for the most part a certain level of revenues in year X leads to a certain operating budget in year X+1.
As far as the “new stadium” argument goes, it’s hard to say how much that will affect revenues. First, as we both know, it isn’t a new stadium. It is a renovated stadium which enhances revenues in some ways (like more high revenue luxury boxes), but won’t do much of what a really new stadium would do (like sell the place out for multiple years. Second, this “new stadium” is hitting at the same time the economy is as bad as it has been since the Great Depression, which will put something of a damper on demand. So I don’t think anyone should expect the Royals revenues from the stadium to be going up much in 2009. Given the economy, I think there’s a real chance that they’ll go down, which is quite possible MLB-wide. So, from a business standpoint, I can’t really blame Glass for not diving in head first and assuming that big revenue increases will follow.
The immoderate moderator
I agree with NY
in this market the money that KC has spent is almost the equivalent of KC upping their payroll to 90+M.
I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
LA Times on Hudson/Dodgers
Possible addition
The Dodgers don’t appear to be close to a deal with Orlando Hudson but have enough interest in the free-agent second baseman to have worked him out recently, according to baseball sources. General Manager Ned Colletti confirmed on Wednesday that he has been in contact with Hudson’s representatives.
I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
This is from CNN yesterday:
Sports leagues today are more dependent on economically vulnerable sources of revenue such as corporate sponsorships, luxury suites, and other premium seating. Even if attendance doesn’t nosedive, teams could still find themselves swimming in red ink.
Not even pro sports’ richest franchise, the Yankees, seems immune. General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) – once baseball’s biggest corporate sponsor – has canceled its sponsorship deal with the team. And even before superstar third baseman Alex Rodriguez was caught up in a steroid scandal, the Yanks were having trouble selling premium seats in their new stadium – so much so that they hired a Manhattan realty firm to market unsold club seats and luxury boxes.
The Pittsburgh Pirates, another team that recently lost GM as a sponsor, have resorted to selling some season tickets at a 25% discount to 2008 prices. In Arizona the Diamondbacks’ season ticket renewal rate has fallen to 83% – still respectable, but down from 94% heading into the 2008 season. Hall says he knows of other MLB teams – though he won’t name them – with renewal rates as low as 60%. And as bad as 2009 looks, Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf thinks 2010 could be worse if corporations keep cutting back. “Virtually every team is losing sponsors,” Reinsdorf says.
The impact of all this is most visible in baseball’s free-agent market. In early February there were still nearly 100 unsigned players, including stars like Manny Ramirez and Orlando Hudson. Others, such as Andy Pettitte and Jason Varitek, had to take big pay cuts.
“I used to think that we were pretty recession-proof, and now I’m not so sure,” Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig tells Fortune. “This is the most significant downturn I’ve seen in my 40 years in baseball.” In years past, such a soft free-agent market might have sparked collusion charges from the MLB Players Association, but so far union boss Donald Fehr is holding his tongue. “Right now I’m not prepared to make any accusation or suggestion of improper activity,” Fehr says.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/18/magazines/fortune/birger_baseball.fortune/
The Royals need an economist in the front office
I'm about to change my username to DannyDuffyfan
by jackie ballgame on Feb 20, 2009 10:54 AM EST reply actions
The Royals need an economist in the front office
Or failling that, a computer with an internet connection.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 20, 2009 11:00 AM EST up reply actions
Whoa
Arbucke! Wong! Piccolo! Check this out! There is an internet site that calculates OBA! Baseball….reference? What will they think of next, a site that can predict OBA for the future?
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on Feb 20, 2009 11:35 AM EST up reply actions
Good post
The only offseason moves I liked were getting Crisp and signing Prozack. Picking up Wright cheap was nice, since I bet he throws a few innings and does OK, but that’s small stuff. Other than that Moore wasted a lot of money.
It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.
We outbid LA...sort of
“• The Royals actually had a higher offer in a base salary for Orlando Hudson than the Dodgers’ winning offer — $4.6 million, more than a million more than L.A.‘s winning offer of $3.38 million. But Hudson can make more with the Dodgers if he realizes all of the incentive clauses, and there was a feeling all along within the Royals organization that Hudson’s preference was to sign with L.A. and remain in the NL West as he tries to position himself for another run at free agency.” – Olney
BOOM! ROASTED!
Hudson's contract
Looking over the details of Hudson’s contract, as spelled out on MLBTR, it looks to me as though Hudson, unless he is injured or flops so bad he is benched, is going to earn more than $7M next year. I think he hits that $7M mark around 500ish plate apperances. This takes a bit of the sting out of the whole mess. It’s not like KC lost a chance to have him for one year for $4M, they probably would have offered about twice that amount.
www.rockchalktalk.com for pretty good KU baseball coverage
by James Quinn on Feb 25, 2009 11:12 AM EST up reply actions
that's still a great deal
one that KC or any other team in need would have jumped on i 0.5 seconds in December
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 25, 2009 11:42 PM EST up reply actions
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