What Happens When You Cannot Evaluate or Develop Talent

I was completely unaware of what Soriano’s contract was before this post. It’s really long and expensive!

And are you talking about that injury-risk pitcher with the 4.28 ERA when he pitches outside of the Grand Canyon?

is what 8 years of donating $50k annual equates to when divided by $136m

we suck at drafting talent. Also, I really don’t see why he couldn’t win a gold glove. He isn’t that bad for a Left fielder.

signed deal for 2007 season worth $12.4M on 2/20/07

he receives award bonuses:
$700K for Cy Young award win
$500K for 2nd place finish in Cy Young voting down to $100K for fifth in Cy Young voting

$500K for MVP, $300K for 2nd place MVP finish, $200K for 3rd place MVP finish

$500K for WS MVP
$350K for LCS MVP
$75K for All-Star selection

$100K each for Gold Glove and Silver Slugger

signed 5-year contract EXTENSION worth $91.5M thru 2012 season on 8/17/07

he receives a $5M signing bonus and salaries of
$15M in 2008
$17.75M in 2009
$17.875M in 2010
$17.875M in 2011
$18M in 2012

the deal includes a vesting option for 2013 worth $19.25M the option becomes guaranteed if he finishes in first or second place in Cy Young voting in 2011 or finishes first, second, third or fourth in Cy Young voting in 2012- + if the option becomes guaranteed, Zambrano has the right to void the option and elect free agency if the option becomes guaranteed, but Zambrano is unable to pass a physical following the 2012 season then the option is voided

he receives a complete NO-TRADE clause thru 2012

The world series drought. I really hate to bring it up, but in this post, it is mentioned that teams with money are good at developing players. Well, winning a world series would give you money.

Cot’s Contracts

where Ricky henderson wanted two dogs as part of his contract

Didn’t expect contract talk. Really couldn’t care less about who gets paid what.

Marlins won TWO WS by drafting smart and developing diamonds won a WS by good drafting and a little FA of old FAs

TB went to first WS with good draft and some FA

moral of story:

1. got to draft, develop and take chances on kids
2. make great drafts and develop big time
3. dont screw the kids up

That contract isn’t going anywhere and soriano is our most valuable player. His signing has gotten us two division titles.

Well maybe Soto, but he seems due for some regression. According to Fangraphs, ’riano has been worth 36.5 million over the last two years, while only being paid 24 million. He is projected to be around a 4 WAR player next year, which would make him worth 18 million. After that, he may start to decline, but the value of a win will go up as well. All in all, he should end up out-earning his contract.

And we got a power hitting, supremely athletic and surprisingly capable LFer out of it, and who cares if he gets 6 seats per game? Is that really something to be critical of?

No Soriano means no playoffs the past two years. Hendry may have bid against himself, but a team in the Cubs position can afford a guy like him, and dolling out a large contract on one guy is the least of the organizations problems.

Our real problem is embodied by no 47 for the Florida Marlins

…in the length and size of Soriano’s contract, the three most obvious being the Cubs were miserable in 2005, Soriano was coming off a 40-40-40 season, and more teams in MLB had money to spend. And Hendry was playing with Tribune funny money. If Soriano’s contract could be backloaded, the Trib would stick the new owners with those millions. Somewhat ironically it was last year’s WS Champion Phillies, they of great player development, that were in on Soriano that off-season.

So what are you saying? if the Cubs could have done a better job of developing Jason Dubois, they wouldn’t have needed to sign Soriano? And the Red Sox signed Manny Ramirez because they couldn’t develop a mega-star slugger?

Sometimes when the best player becomes available, you go for broke, especially when you are playing with someone else’s money. The headaches, if any, are all down the road on this contract so I’m just trying to enjoy the Soriano years while I can.

Goodness, Soriano is here and not going anywhere. “Z” is here and not going anywhere, they are owed a ton of money. The CUbs drafts have really been poor, and if the Cubs, and Hendry don’t know that, well, we are in trouble.
 I am more concerned about the bullpen right now.

in bitching about Soriano’s contract? EVERYONE is already aware of this.

The season hasn’t even started yet and we’ve already ready got people bitching about Soriano. Does it really matter if Soriano gets 6 tickets to games?!?! He’s our best player. Lay off him already!

PS Change your headline, it’s misleading and has nothing to do with the content of the post.

You learn to make good FA signings, make good trades and try to fleece another GM into taking your minor league’s trash heap.

Who wouldn’t take TWO WORLD SERIES TITLES in a SEVEN SEASON span compared to going full speed into a SECOND CENTURY without one?!

Look, the Cubs have a built-in revenue generator at Clark and Addison. Yes, winning will put them into the 98-100% of seating capacity, but a crappy team will do over 80%. Even in this economy. Ask some other teams if they’d take 80% of capacity right now, today.

I could care less if they sold off players after the 1997 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP, then re-built – amazingly again – to do it all over again to win the 2003 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP.

Isn’t this what every Cubs fan dream? WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIPS (yes plural)…!

Doesn’t every one want to see the Anno Catuli sign to read “AC0000000”?! I know I do.

…for LCS and WS MVP. Oh, wait…maybe he isn’t laughing about that…At least they agreed to donate a specified amount of cash to charities rather than the LCS and WS bonuses.

I always like seeing the perk stuff to get an idea of what people perceive as risk/reward, and what is humorous and gratuitous…

was the first building block in erasing the stench of 06 and building street cred for the Cubs. It established that they are serious about winning it all.

We’ve won back to back division championships and Soriano was an integral part of both. In these days of inflated baseball salaries, he’s worth his contract.

It’s a ridiculous contract. The Cubs did it to make a splash in the free agent market and to announce that they intended to be a serious player in that market. (Soriano was the top free agent that offseason.) That was an important thing to do.

I also said that if the Cubs win it all in the first 2-3 years of the deal, I wouldn’t care how much they had to pay for the last 5-6 years.

They’ve got one year left to fulfill that.

who really cares? Soriano is a good player, and while he might not be exactly worth his contract .. he still can play at a high level.

Their are way more expensive contracts out there that are worse than Soriano.

Hell, Fukudome’s contract has been more of a rip-off than Soriano’s, IMO.

But, in my humble opinion, player development isnt everything given how the league runs its finances. MLB is still a very unbalanced league in terms of financial resources. All 30 teams scout, draft and develop prospects, but maybe 10 regularly sign the superstars who hit the FA market. The Cubs, mercifully, are one of the “haves” in this system, and can afford to go out and sign $18mm/year players who someone else first discovered playing in college or the DR or wherever.

Its not realistic to think they could be as good on a consistent basis as they have been the past few years with only home grown talent. There are one or two teams each year that put together a great roster that way, but most of them regress into periods of mediocrity when those players reach free agency. For example, the Royals developed some great talent in the recent past, in part because of all the high draft picks. But if you can’t keep Damon, Beltran and Dye long term, it doesn’t help you win a WS. The A’s came very close on that model, but lost or traded Tejada, Giambi and their great pitching without any WS titles to show for it. And for each of those teams you had 10 others who were trying to win on the same model but couldnt because their prospects didnt quite pan out to the same level, e.g. the Pirates, Reds, Rays (before last year), etc.

I’d much rather have a team that has the resources to compete every year than one that only competes in the years where their talent all comes together. The Rays are good now, but it won’t last. At some point Upton will be an Angel, Kazmir will be a Yankee, and they’ll be starting over. Meanwhile the Cubs will be paying for someone else’s developed players and will still have a shot at competing.

Now, if they ever came up with salary/revenue parity like in the NFL, we’d be screwed.

You write a post like this- obviously.

Arrogance befitting a talk radio call in show.

If that was your intention- bravo!

San Diego is looking for baseball players in the Frontier League. Those fans would kill to have an overpaid player or two. The only one they have will eventually be traded.

So much time and space wasted on a rant that amounts to — zip.

I’d rather have the problems of the Cubs and Yankees and have the flexibility to make a mistake…that’s with your assumption that Soriano is a ‘mistake.’

I’d continue to wait to see what happens.

This is like the media talking heads who have proclaimed both the Bears and the Broncos to each have “won” in the Jay Cutler deal. It’s going to be a few years before any intellegent evaluation can be made.

But, let’s just shoot from the hip. It’s more fun. Just like sports talk radio.