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Post by Derek _ Red Sox on Nov 17, 2016 13:06:52 GMT -5
The Paramount Baseball League has become much more careful with the money being thrown around as payroll is down $78,712,635 amongst all teams from last season alone. Is this a result of owners demanding more frugality from their General Managers or is this a result of General Managers showing more patience or understanding of their team goals, needs and where they are in that process.
It's interesting at the top of the biggest decreased budgets are such big markets like New York, both Mets, and Yankees. Seattle and the Chicago Cubs are amongst the leaders as well. The teams with the biggest increases all make some sort of sense but it's very curious to see what Detroit is doing and the direction it is taking. There was one rather curious occurrence in the list of total team salaries, and that’s at the very top. The Los Angeles Dodgers led all of baseball with $230,352,402 in player salaries in 2015, though interestingly that was a drop of nearly $11 million from their total salaries in 2014.
Overall, there were 18 teams with a drop in payroll, compared to just 14 teams that increased their payroll from the previous year.
The BIG Spenders! 1. Detroit Tigers What an interesting team to see with a dramatic increase of over $60m. When you look at the roster only 3 players are making over $4.5 million this season. Coming off a 78 win season, the Tigers bring in a new GM and spend $65.1 million to bring in castoffs Chris Thornton from Seattle ($29m), Manny Cabrera ($22m) and Tony Shelton ($14.1m). So far this trio is projected to combine for a 6.0 WAR with Cabrera projected for 3.6 WAR himself. The Tigers are on pace to win 59 games this year so this is money economizing owner Cesar Rivera Jr. must be very angry about. 2. Oakland Athletics The A’s are a distant second in payroll increase with a total of $21.5 million. Coming off a 98 win season, the Athletics looked to improve a roster to make a deeper run in the playoffs and spent $12.5 million on former Royals outfielder, Jorge Garcia as well as trading with the Nationals to land veteran starting pitcher, Keith Parks ($9.5m) and re-signing closer Rinaldo Boccanera to a 4-year, $31.5m deal. David Harmon was brought back to the starting rotation at a very modest $5m price tag for a player of his caliber after not getting much attention in the off-season from around the league. Also PBL legend, Roberto Vasti was in a similar situation where teams did not feel comfortable giving a 44-year old designated hitter a deal that would require compensatory picks so he returned to the Bay Area on a $5.5m deal. All very shrewd moves which are why Oakland is continuing to get better year after year. 3. Tampa Bay Rays The Rays saw an increase of $21.4m this off-season. but are the perfect of a solid team getting better while being financially responsible and knowing it didn’t need to make a big splash to get better but just needed to add some depth to the roster. The big signing was first baseman, Denilde Vizela ($5.4m) and then smaller moves like Jorge Sanchez ($1.6m per), Joe Pope ($1.6m per) and Lanny Thomas ($1.5m per) added depth to the rotation and bullpen. This was more quantity over quality, a few solid, low-risk guys to fill out an already solid roster. 4. Philadelphia Phillies The Phillies increased by $15.3 million with the signing of second baseman, Dominic Pearson (3yr, $24.9m), pitchers Jose Cruz from Arizona (2-yr, $6.9m), Tom Oglethorpe ($13m over 4 years) from Detroit and Tse-tung Ang ($3m) from the Indians as their two biggest additions to help with the pitching and the late off-season signing of 41- year old Jimmy McIntosh to a $5.9 million dollar deal. So far “Goose” McIntosh is on pace for a 6.4 WAR so this signing could be one of the best of the off-season and money well invested. Ang is pitching lights out (33 IP, 1.89 ERA) in a setup role. 5. Minnesota Twins An increase of $13 million from last season was spread out pretty efficiently with Jerry Roberts signing a 3-year deal in the $4m AAV range. Roberts started off solid before breaking his kneecap and now is set to miss 5-months. Another big addition for the Twins was veteran pitcher Jim Lacy who won 11 games last season between the Cubs and Indians. Lacy signed a 3-year, $23.3m deal ($7.7m AAV) and is currently the #2 starter and on pace for about 180 innings with mediocre results.
The Penny Pinchers!
1. Seattle Mariners Where the Twins were the biggest spenders this off-season, the Mariners chopped their payroll the most by a whopping $43m from last year. $14.5m the team trading Thornton and agreeing to pay only half his salary. Despite the massive payroll cut the M’s are winning at a .461 clip this year as opposed to the .364 of a season ago. The Mariners already have 35 wins in 76 games compared to going 59-103 last season. Safe to say there has been some addition by subtraction in Seattle! 2. New York Yankees The glory days of 2032-37 are in the rear view mirror now and the reality of a rebuild has set into the Bronx. Coming off a 70 win and 85 win season the Yankees seen a budget decrease as well but most of their decrease in payroll has been in part to trading Stu Lane last season and not resigning a few depth players such as 1B, Doug Dennis who signed a $4m deal with the Dodgers and reliever, Marv Harvey who signed a $3.14m deal with the Red Sox. With the current pace, the Yankees are in trouble of more budget cuts as they are projected to win about 70 games this year. 3. Kansas City Royals Coming off an 88- win season, the Royals decided to alienate the fan base and let solid players leave via free agency instead of making a player to resign them. A payroll drop of $31m is substantial especially when guys Jorge Garcia made $22m for KC last season and walked away signing a $12.5m deal with the Athletics. Conner Clark, a very solid starting pitcher who made $3m for the Royals last year decided to take the Giants $7m year offer and bolt for the West Coast. This team could of locked up these guys and still had money to burn. Its a shame to see a team so close to competing now struggling to win 40% of their games. On the bright side, they are sitting on about $72 million in budget room and last in the AL South so it looks like owner, David Glass Jr. will be shopping for a new yacht this off-season. 4. Chicago Cubs Oh, the Cubbies on their quest to find themselves an identity have dropped payroll by $28 million this year but this is not the fault of the GM who is working his ass off to restore pride to the city after an 8-year stretch of poor baseball and worse management. Sometimes the payroll decrease is not the result of a plan by the GM but rather due to the restrictions of an owner. Peter Cacciamani was very vocal about his owner's decision to slash the budget $20 million this year and handcuffing him from doing anything this off-season. Joe Mullen, a back of the rotation pitcher making $750k was the big signing this offseason. 5. New York Mets After four sub-.500 seasons its time for a rebuild in the big city and General Manager Finlay Bennie is all in deciding to slash payroll by $25 million from a season ago. A sound strategy in place, the Mets did not lose too much to lower their payroll. They traded injury prone outfielder Jorge Ramos to the Colorado Rockies which slashed $12m and let veteran pitcher Keith Kent walk in free agency. Kent made $14m last year but was on a 3-year decline so a wise move for a team not in position to win now.
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Post by RandyP on Nov 17, 2016 17:34:03 GMT -5
Commish, Great write up....That was Awesome information
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2016 17:59:19 GMT -5
Well with so little salary commitments, I thought id have a last ditch effort at contention by acquiring Cabrera and Thornton, and I will probably go into rebuild mode. Almost all of that $60 million is coming off the books within two years, so its all good.
Loved the writeup though!
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Post by earlweaver on Nov 17, 2016 20:52:54 GMT -5
wow. Great write up. I feel like ive been at odds with my owner for years over payroll. He gives us enough to compete, but i sacrifice player development and scouting every year in order to do that. The league, at least in my opinion, was running out of money to spend. I'm guessing it will be cyclical.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2016 21:45:00 GMT -5
Never thought I'd see the Twins on a list of biggest spenders.
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Post by Peter - Boston Red Sox on Nov 21, 2016 13:45:52 GMT -5
I have several high-priced guys who will be free agents after this season and I am drawing 30k people a game, getting those butts in seats. If my owner doesn't give me some $$ next off season...although I have heard of GMs getting burned by spending big money on free agents only to have them struggle with the new team. Perhaps a better solution is to draft wisely, make trades for young prospects to build up the farm system, and sign a couple of key guys to fill gaps (see IRL 2016 World Champion Chicago Cubs). Hmmmm.....
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Post by Luc_AZdbacks on Nov 21, 2016 14:44:32 GMT -5
In my experience (being a contender in the mid 2030's, and now being a rebuilding team), it is much harder making trades to acquire top prospects than it is to trade for veteran players.
When I was building my team last decade, it was very easy to trade my prospects for ML-ready talent, much easier than I think it would be IRL. In contrast, right now I'm finding it very hard to trade away my star ML players for any sort of decent prospects in return.
I think due to the fact that we sim ~5 seasons in a single year, GM's have a much stronger desire to keep prospects, since their appearance in the big leagues is that far away in absolute time. I actually think that in the PBL, it isn't necessary to build through the farm system to get a contending team. It is also possible to be smart with free agent signings and trade away young talent to start winning.
There was a GM (Sam) when I joined the league who I believe was famous for never having a farm system. To an extent, that's also how I tried to operate my team. The big risk of this approach is that when your budget gets slashed (as mine did), and you have big contracts, you end up with a 3-player team like I have right now, and it can be a disaster...
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Post by Commish_Ron on Nov 21, 2016 15:20:17 GMT -5
I've heard Red Sox say "Let someone else develop them. I'll pay them." or something similar. Derek has certainly had plenty of success. I actually really enjoy micromanaging my minor leagues and building a team that way. That's why San Diego is such a great fit for me. No matter how much success the team has that market and that owner will never allow for a budget up there with the big boys. I think even at the Padres peak of 5 strait 100 win seasons the budget only got up to $150MM or so.
That being said. I think overall PBL tends towards more conservative GMs that like to hold prospects and build from within. There are just a handful of teams that maintain that "reload, not rebuild" mind set and are consistently in the hunt.
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Post by Derek _ Red Sox on Nov 21, 2016 16:35:23 GMT -5
Ron is right, I am a believer in the reload not rebuild mindset and I once said something along the lines of Boston is for winning titles not building farm systems. Has it worked? I mean I won 5 so far with no system sooo you tell me. <FLASHES HAND UP WITH ALL MY RINGS>
LMAO!
I'm kidding but Luc is right as well. Sam was notorious for trading away every prospect he had for Major League talent and if you saw he had built up 2-3 big prospects that just meant a blockbuster trade was about to go down.
Then there are guys like Ron, David, and others who believe in micromanaging and building the farm and developing, signing the guys they think fit their team the best and win that one.
But there is one similarity between all teams who win... THEY ARE CONSISTENT AND KEEP TO THEIR PLAN..... PATIENCE is so important. If you don't sign the big FA you want, you don't go trading away your stars to rebuild. If your big prospect is a bust, you don't sell the rest of the farm to win now.
The ABSOLUTE WORST place to be is stuck in the middle.
I think Montreal is a perfect example in this case as well. They were new to the league, a bit snake bit by the skill it takes to win in the PBL and literally changed plans almost weekly. I remember one time they preached its time to stop the games and focus on building a team through the farm and within 72 hours of that post they traded their top-5 pick for a veteran.
I have a ton of respect for teams like the Padres and Angels who will develop from within to win but my attention span doesn't allow me to do that and so I play to win.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2016 21:11:22 GMT -5
Ron is right, I am a believer in the reload not rebuild mindset and I once said something along the lines of Boston is for winning titles not building farm systems. Has it worked? I mean I won 5 so far with no system sooo you tell me. <FLASHES HAND UP WITH ALL MY RINGS> LMAO! I'm kidding but Luc is right as well. Sam was notorious for trading away every prospect he had for Major League talent and if you saw he had built up 2-3 big prospects that just meant a blockbuster trade was about to go down. Then there are guys like Ron, David, and others who believe in micromanaging and building the farm and developing, signing the guys they think fit their team the best and win that one. But there is one similarity between all teams who win... THEY ARE CONSISTENT AND KEEP TO THEIR PLAN..... PATIENCE is so important. If you don't sign the big FA you want, you don't go trading away your stars to rebuild. If your big prospect is a bust, you don't sell the rest of the farm to win now. The ABSOLUTE WORST place to be is stuck in the middle. I think Montreal is a perfect example in this case as well. They were new to the league, a bit snake bit by the skill it takes to win in the PBL and literally changed plans almost weekly. I remember one time they preached its time to stop the games and focus on building a team through the farm and within 72 hours of that post they traded their top-5 pick for a veteran. I have a ton of respect for teams like the Padres and Angels who will develop from within to win but my attention span doesn't allow me to do that and so I play to win. Coming from being a Minnesota fan IRL, it's very easy to learn to be patient with your team. I know Milwaukee has been average in the past 5 years but last year we had 59 wins and we already have 50 this year and we are definitely in contention for a division title. Everyone has been asking for Chew and I'm sure I could get some good talent that would MAYBE help me out. My starting lineup has 1-2 people over 30 and just 1-2 more above 26 depending on the day. I'm going to hope the last GM drafted the right people but just gave up before they matured. Not to mention, my payroll is 36 million and I just resigned my player with the best BA for 3 more years at $1,000,000 which is a $5million pay cut. Hopefully I can reload with a couple of veterans since I have the money but I still want to go with my youth core.
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Post by Texas Rangers on Nov 28, 2016 23:28:59 GMT -5
Ron is right, I am a believer in the reload not rebuild mindset and I once said something along the lines of Boston is for winning titles not building farm systems. Has it worked? I mean I won 5 so far with no system sooo you tell me. <FLASHES HAND UP WITH ALL MY RINGS> LMAO! I'm kidding but Luc is right as well. Sam was notorious for trading away every prospect he had for Major League talent and if you saw he had built up 2-3 big prospects that just meant a blockbuster trade was about to go down. Then there are guys like Ron, David, and others who believe in micromanaging and building the farm and developing, signing the guys they think fit their team the best and win that one. But there is one similarity between all teams who win... THEY ARE CONSISTENT AND KEEP TO THEIR PLAN..... PATIENCE is so important. If you don't sign the big FA you want, you don't go trading away your stars to rebuild. If your big prospect is a bust, you don't sell the rest of the farm to win now. The ABSOLUTE WORST place to be is stuck in the middle. I think Montreal is a perfect example in this case as well. They were new to the league, a bit snake bit by the skill it takes to win in the PBL and literally changed plans almost weekly. I remember one time they preached its time to stop the games and focus on building a team through the farm and within 72 hours of that post they traded their top-5 pick for a veteran. I have a ton of respect for teams like the Padres and Angels who will develop from within to win but my attention span doesn't allow me to do that and so I play to win. Coming from being a Minnesota fan IRL, it's very easy to learn to be patient with your team. I know Milwaukee has been average in the past 5 years but last year we had 59 wins and we already have 50 this year and we are definitely in contention for a division title. Everyone has been asking for Chew and I'm sure I could get some good talent that would MAYBE help me out. My starting lineup has 1-2 people over 30 and just 1-2 more above 26 depending on the day. I'm going to hope the last GM drafted the right people but just gave up before they matured. Not to mention, my payroll is 36 million and I just resigned my player with the best BA for 3 more years at $1,000,000 which is a $5million pay cut. Hopefully I can reload with a couple of veterans since I have the money but I still want to go with my youth core. The previous GM was Ron, who built the listless Padres into a juggernaut, left to take the Brewers, then missed his Padres and returned. He was enticed by the other 3 masochists in the NL West calling him back to re-join their blood ritual where they all have really good teams and just beat the shit out of each other all year long. I think he was only there a few seasons, but he cleared the books and stacked up some prospects. You should be in good shape, Josh, and you know what you're doing, so the Brewers should be a team on the rise.
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