The 2004-2005 Baseball Hot Stove Thread because I get to start one now

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Clemens has asked for $22 million in arbitration, the Astros countered with $13.5million...be interesting to see what happens if it goes that far.
I'm sure Rocket would eschew retirement if he won a $22mil arbitration award.
 
i think they do want him and sosa is plan b for the mets. whether it goes through or not, i dont know.

im mad the mets are getting better, now i won't be able to just go to shea stadium and buy box seats at face value in the parking lot the night of a game :mad:
 
haha, true.

when the cardinals came last year, i wound up front row behind home plate...well, ok, not the front front row, but front row unless you had the corporate seats or whatever they have there. you know what im talking about, the new seats behind home kinda.

actually when mcgwire hit his 400th homer before those seats were there, i had front row literally behind home plate, so you could see me jumping up like a little shithead when he hit it out.
 
haha, i thought it was going to be cancelled on the way down. such shit weather, drizzling throughout the night.

small world
 
Headache and/or Numb1075...any info on Ian Bladergroen?
I heard on the radio he was the #4 rated prospect in the Mets organization.

Also heard he played this past year for single A "Capital City"
Is the Goofball still their mascot?:wink:
 
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all i know about him is that when he comes to hit the PA guy plays baby elephant walk

dancin_homer.jpg



goofball.gif
 
Hewson - He is a left-handed hitting first baseman/DH with big-time power potential from the left side. His plate discipline is only adequate (25 walks, 52 strikeouts in 261 at-bats), and there are some concerns about his ability to make contact and work the count effectively against more advanced pitching. He hit .285/.354/.416 last year in the New York-Penn League, so his '04 numbers represent significant improvement.


Bladergroen was a 44th round draft-and-follow guy, out of a junior college in Colorado, picked in 2002 but not signed until the spring of 2003. He's a big guy at 6-foot-5, 210 pounds, and at age 21 is neither young nor old for the Sally League. He doesn't have a great glove, but if he hits they will find a spot for him. We need to see how he holds up against pitchers who know what they are doing, but so far his career is off to a fine start.
 
Thanks for the info, hopefully he'll blossom.
Good luck with Mientkewicz, great glove, not so great bat, but with the rest of the Mets lineup you should be OK with him hitting around 7th.
 
a pretty interesting articly from the new yourk times

January 30, 2005 -- THE Yankees have a $200 million payroll, not $200 million in talent. Players such as Kevin Brown, Jason Giambi and Steve Karsay, for example, would have a hard time getting paid if they were on the free-agent market now. That trio will cost the Yankees $38 million on the luxury tax payroll in 2005.
One American League team attempted to tackle the difference between what players are paid and what they deserve. Executives from this team came to a consensus on what each player should earn, designing this exercise as a way to identify underpaid assets on other rosters.

But their results were fascinating. The Cardinals, at $182 million, ended up with the largest payroll value, a reflection of having so many superb players and almost no useless ones. The Yankees, at $162 million, had the second largest payroll value, but that also gave them the sixth-worst differential (minus-$21 million) to their actual payroll of $183 million. The Mets had the fourth-worst differential, getting $55 million worth of talent for $100.7 million in actual payout.

An executive who participated in this exercise, who asked his team not be revealed, conceded the fallibilities. Salaries were based exclusively on last year's performance and not on any kind of projections, and they used modern metrics such as Win Shares as a guide and very little actual scouting of ability. Still, what emerged is just how few established players earn their actual paychecks.

This is mainly because by the time players reach free agency, they already have had their best seasons in their prime years. Clubs end up paying for what a player has done with the hope he will extend that performance further or only diminish incrementally. Let's look at the New York teams by splitting players who began last year with the clubs and earned at least a million dollars, and assign them to a category of underpaid, justly paid, overpaid, grossly overpaid (in my opinion worth less than half of his actual contract). Remember these reflect my personal biases:

For the Yankees, Kevin Brown, Jose Contreras, Jason Giambi, Felix Heredia, Steve Karsay, Travis Lee, Bubba Trammell, Javier Vazquez and Gabe White were grossly overpaid. The overpaid were Derek Jeter, Kenny Lofton, Mike Mussina, Paul Quantrill and Bernie Williams. The justly paid were Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez. And the underpaid were Tom Gordon, Jon Lieber, Hideki Matsui, Gary Sheffield and Ruben Sierra.

So 14 of the Yankees' 22 million-dollar players were overpaid in some fashion and the Yanks could only claim five bargains. A-Rod falls into the right pay because as a Yankee he is earning $16 million annually with the Rangers paying the rest. Jeter, at $19 million, is overpaid even if you take into account his value in marketing and intangibles as a captain.



For the Mets, Braden Looper was the lone underpaid player among 14 millionaires. Mike Cameron, Al Leiter and Steve Trachsel were justly paid. Cliff Floyd, John Franco, Tom Glavine, Kaz Matsui, Mike Stanton and Todd Zeile were overpaid. The grossly overpaid were Roger Cedeno, Mike Piazza, Mo Vaughn and David Weathers.

The New York teams can only hope to get better production for their buck in 2005.

i wish they would have listed the value payroll for every team
 
Chizip said:
For the Mets, Braden Looper was the lone underpaid player among 14 millionaires. Mike Cameron, Al Leiter and Steve Trachsel were justly paid. Cliff Floyd, John Franco, Tom Glavine, Kaz Matsui, Mike Stanton and Todd Zeile were overpaid. The grossly overpaid were Roger Cedeno, Mike Piazza, Mo Vaughn and David Weathers.

:eyebrow:

how old is this article? mo vaughn's salary is paid by the insurance company... the mets don't spend a penny on it anymore. haven't in two years.
 
its a couple days old

im sure it doesnt take into account insurance policies, just how much the gm's decided to pay these guys for last year

and at one point, the mets GM had mo vaughn slated to make whatever it is he made last year

probably another flaw of this "value formula," but its still kind of interestitng
 
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