140 replies to this topic

[dude]

Boras had the pitching contract record with Cole at 324M.

 

Yammamoto had a better offer than he took from the Dodgers (reported 10/300), but both him and Ohtani were looking to set standards.  He took 12/325M to set the new record.

 

Boras will want to beat that record and Burnes is is best shot before Skenes is a FA. If you go back to the Harper contract, they were talking 400M and even 500M but at the end of the day, Boras added years to the deal to get the record total that he wanted.  The AAV went down significantly, but they got the total.  A bunch of guys did this 2 years ago by adding backend years and deferring out the costs a little.

 

10/330 will be the answer, but they'll play with years and/or structure if they have to, to get there.

 

The Mets are the easy answer here.  They'll try and get the Dodgers involved.  Yankees only if Cole opts out to restructure and they let him walk and try to sign Burnes instead...not sure how playing 2 Boras clients against each other works there.

[dude]

...and not that it matters here, but same thing for Soto.  Want to get over the NPV of Ohtani at 465M.

[Mackus]

I think he'd have to defer half the contract to get 10/$330M.  That's fine, maybe he and Boras want that, but its silly to think of that as a 10/$330M contract just like it's silly to think of Ohtani's as 10/$700M.

 

I think he's gonna top out at about $250M paid straight.  I'd bet he falls short of that by a little, in fact.  7/$255.5M is almost exactly the same NPV as 10/$330M with half of it deferred each year, paid out over the ensuing 10 years.

[dude]

I think he'd have to defer half the contract to get 10/$330M.  That's fine, maybe he and Boras want that, but its silly to think of that as a 10/$330M contract just like it's silly to think of Ohtani's as 10/$700M.

 

I think he's gonna top out at about $250M paid straight.  I'd bet he falls short of that by a little, in fact.  7/$255.5M is almost exactly the same NPV as 10/$330M with half of it deferred each year, paid out over the ensuing 10 years.

 

Right.  I was going to add this comment into the Juan Soto comment above, but they'll (Team Boras) make different arguments for what constitutes "the record".  

 

For Soto's 14/500 contract, they'll argue NPV for the record.

For Burnes contract they'll argue total contract dollars for the record.

 

They will not allow consistency to get in the way of narrative.

 

I get that you can do the math and make a rationale argument and records aren't important to you, but their world view is different. 

[mikezpen]

I'd rather spend that on Gunnar if he'd take it. Not a pitcher whose next pitch could be his last.

[Mackus]

I'd rather spend that on Gunnar if he'd take it. Not a pitcher whose next pitch could be his last.

 

Think its best to assume that none of the Boras clients will be signing before free agency.  Gunnar, Rodriguez, Westburg, Holliday.

[Nigel Tufnel]

Not a Cy Young finalist.

[BaltBird 24]

Nor did he deserve to be.

[makoman]

Skubal should be unanimous, but I think Burnes should be in the next tier of SP, that tier is just pretty large. Lugo, Ragans, Blanco, Valdez, Miller, Gilbert, Burnes, you can almost just pick one at random, they are all fairly close.

 

Clase was amazing, but it's just tough when a guy has half to a third of the innings, RP should almost have their own award. The ERA was eye popping but that is probably partly luck, his FIP was worse than it was in 2021 and 2022 when he was also great but actually got zero votes. 

 

Whatever though, he shouldn't have won so I don't really care if he's 3rd rather than 7th.

[BaltBird 24]

Britton's 2016 was better than Clase's 2024.

[BSLRoseKatz]

5th in Cy Young voting

[Mackus]

If I did it right, then Dennis Martinez in '81 and Jim Palmer in '82 is the last time we've had someone top-5 in consecutive years.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Mussina had to have finished top 5 in consecutive years

[makoman]

Mussina had to have finished top 5 in consecutive years

Yep 94, 95, 96. 4, 5, 5.

[Mackus]

Mussina had to have finished top 5 in consecutive years

 

I thought so, too.

 

I went year-by-year in BB-ref and he was 4th in '92, 4th in '94, 6th in '95, 5th in '96, 6th  in '97, 2nd in '99 and 7th in '00.

[Mackus]

Yep 94, 95, 96. 4, 5, 5.

 

Hmmm...Mussina's page says that, wonder where I messed up.

[Mackus]

Hmmm...Mussina's page says that, wonder where I messed up.

 

Oh god dammit, they listed Cone twice in '95 because he was traded mid-year from Toronto to New York.  I just counted down the list without looking closely.

[Mackus]

First time since '81 and '82 they've had different guys top-5 in consecutive years!

[Pedro Cerrano]

Oh god dammit, they listed Cone twice in '95 because he was traded mid-year from Toronto to New York. I just counted down the list without looking closely.

I wonder if Cone got double contract bonuses or something for that

[dude]

Good article on Burnes from Mike Petriello HERE.