Brian McCann

Even before the Heyward tweet, there were already rumblings he would not be willing to accept a discounted extension, and was looking to go to free agency.

Our best bet is to try and lock up players like Freeman/Simmons. We should be looking to structure our contracts like the Rays did with Longoria. They have him locked up until he turns 37 and the rates are pretty reasonable.

None of them will take a discount, Mac didn't take a discount, but you can often lock those players down at potential savings by giving them the financial security of a guaranteed contract. Sometimes it works (Longoria, Wright, Mac, Reyes) sometimes it may not (imagine if Francoeur signed?)

This is the year we have to go for Heyward though, if we sign him to an arb2 deal our potential savings almost goes away with any certainty as our risk on our end is then 0.
 
Its really going to be hard to be a fan (I still will obviously) if Heyward or Freeman aren't locked up within the year. We can't just let all of our great players (non-closers) go and expect to have a chance to ever win a world series.

If you have to overpay then just ****ING do it!
 
Thrifty in the sense that they spend their money carefully. But that doesn't mean it isn't there for spending.

Yes, Wren has overpaid, but not exorbitantly relative to market value. The Phillies offered 5/55 for Upton with no-trade and escalation clauses. The Mets reportedly offered 3/36 for Lowe. The Uggla extension had the potential to be decent (and even in its current state isn't exactly blunting us into oblivion.)

Compared to how other teams are spending their money these days, I'm pretty content.

We'll have to agree to disagree here. We bid against ourselves with Upton. I was a proponent of trading for a guy like Span (and was largely alone on that). I didn't have that much of a problem with the Lowe deal, but Wren did add an extra year to the Mets' offer, which turned out to be the bigger problem than the annual cost.

And I realize that I was all by myself (with Eric Carmen singing in the background) concerning Uggla. You just don't give a guy with marginal athletic skills that kind of contract. I understood obtaining him as a rental, but I thought the extension was pretty ridiculous. I get that he's a three-outcome guy and those guys can be valuable, but tools still matter. You have to have the requisite physical ability to apply baseball skills and I always thought that Uggla would fall apart. He was sub-.800 OPS in both his Braves' seasons before this past year's debacle, so this year cannot be used as an excuse. He's been trending down since he got to Atlanta. If you're going to be a successful mid-market team, you can't tie yourself down with contracts like the one we doled out to Uggla.
 
Its really going to be hard to be a fan (I still will obviously) if Heyward or Freeman aren't locked up within the year. We can't just let all of our great players (non-closers) go and expect to have a chance to ever win a world series.

If you have to overpay then just ****ING do it!

There will be no reason not to pony up for those 2. We can afford to keep 2 very expensive players. 3 even with some thrifty use of salary.
 
There will be no reason not to pony up for those 2. We can afford to keep 2 very expensive players. 3 even with some thrifty use of salary.

The thing is we do not know what Heyward and Freeman are asking for. It might be that they are determined to test the free agent market.
 
I don't see how these two can't be signed long term especially considering the new ball park.
 
I don't see how these two can't be signed long term especially considering the new ball park.

We don't know what they are asking for or whether they have decided they want to test the free agent market.

In the case of McCann, we do have information about what he signed for with the Yankees. And most of us would agree the team made the right move not to match that.
 
They won't go that high. I don't see any market breakers hitting FA to bump their value that high.

As it is the there are only 4 contracts in the history of baseball that average over 25 million, A-Rod twice, Verlander and one of Clemens's 1 year deals with Houston. Only 28 players in baseball make 20 million or more annually. The payroll boost will lead to some inflation, but not that much. I highly doubt that Freeman or Heyward get more money than Pujols. I do think they'll sign giant contracts worth probably nearly 200M but it will be very long deals to reach that point.

Jason is great, Freddie is great but I don't think they sign for much over 20 million on average but I think they'll be close to 50 or so towards the end. But you don't know. We have to work on them now though. I'd offer Jason and Freddie both 10/150 deals rightnow. Or 9/140 if they don't bite on the first.
 
They won't go that high. I don't see any market breakers hitting FA to bump their value that high.

As it is the there are only 4 contracts in the history of baseball that average over 25 million, A-Rod twice, Verlander and one of Clemens's 1 year deals with Houston. Only 28 players in baseball make 20 million or more annually. The payroll boost will lead to some inflation, but not that much. I highly doubt that Freeman or Heyward get more money than Pujols. I do think they'll sign giant contracts worth probably nearly 200M but it will be very long deals to reach that point.

Jason is great, Freddie is great but I don't think they sign for much over 20 million on average but I think they'll be close to 50 or so towards the end. But you don't know. We have to work on them now though. I'd offer Jason and Freddie both 10/150 deals rightnow. Or 9/140 if they don't bite on the first.

I think the market would value both 25-30M/year. Closer to 30 for Jason, closer to 25 for Freddie. Trout would break 40 imo.
 
I think the market would value both 25-30M/year. Closer to 30 for Jason, closer to 25 for Freddie. Trout would break 40 imo.

You're expecting the market to nearly double in that short of a time?

Just so you know there are in baseball's history there are only 46 100million or more contracts. Only 28 contracts with an annual value at 20M or more. 2 of those contracts are repeats with A-Rod and Clemens showing up twice.

That number will for sure go up, but not every player is gonna make an insane amount of money. Trout's only hope to go over 40M is to sign for a short period.

Jason and Freddie will both be 100M+ players and how high depends on length of agreement, only way they make that much is if they only sign for like 5 years.
 
I think the market would value both 25-30M/year. Closer to 30 for Jason, closer to 25 for Freddie. Trout would break 40 imo.

You are becoming more like Murph3 in your adulation of anyone wearing a Braves uni. Freeie has only bounced the needle as of now and Heyward has tons to prove bofore he will even sniff 20M.
 
Fielder got 24M/year for 9 years.

He hit free agency after his age 27 season. Freeman will hit free agency after his age 26 season.

Fielder hit free agency after the 2011 season. Freeman is scheduled to hit free agency after the 2016 season. Let's say conservatively inflation of 5% per year for player salaries. Inflation alone gets him an extra 25% over Fielder.

So assuming Freeman after age 26 is viewed as identical to Fielder after age 27 he would get 25% more than 24M/year or 30M/year.

Of course he could be viewed as inferior or superior to Fielder. I would lean toward the view that Freeman after age 26 will be viewed as more desirable than Fielder after age 27. But we'll see. It could go either way.

For comparison, WAR numbers for the two by age:

21 Fiedler 0.1 Freeman 0.7
22 Fielder 1.0 Freeman 1.8
23 Fielder 4.6 Freeman 4.8
24 Fielder 1.4 Freeman ?
25 Fielder 6.0 Freeman ?
26 Fielder 2.7 Freeman ?
27 Fielder 4.9 Freeman ?
 
Here's another one to ponder:

If Jayson Werth after his age 31 season (2010) gets 18M year for 7 years, what will Jason Heyward get if he hits free agency after his age 25 season (2015).
 
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