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Jon Heyman: Teixeira the rare young player a team can't retain

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by BYH, May 7, 2008.

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  1. This is more fun than arguing about politics!
    Pistols or swords, gents?
     
  2. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    Here's an idea: The Braves should trade him for what the team really needs -- a front of the rotation starter. Sure, that'd kill Chipper Jones' chance to hit .400, but if you're going to lose him anyway ...
     
  3. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    So, the guy is a mouthpiece for Boras, but his column is the basis for a good argument?

    Once again, proof that a certain acronym is a blatant lie.
     

  4. I'm sorry.
    Better that he be a mouthpiece for the greedy bastards who own teams and believe in committing consumer fraud 162 days a year, or a cheerleader for a phony "economic crisis."
    The idea that taking information from Boras is mutually exclusive from framing a good argument in a column is just, well, dumb.
     
  5. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Mark Teixeira will make a boatload of money in his next contract, probably from one of the NY clubs, because he's skilled, smart and confident enough to have gotten himself to this point in his career. You need all three qualities. Confidence is key because you need to know you can repeat your performance year-to-year, stay healthy and keep driving your value up in arbitration. Some guys just don't have the stomach for this game, but those that do are the same guys you want pitching or hitting for your team when there's a lot at stake.
     
  6. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    You're right. The Yankees never would have chosen to keep Andy Van Slyke over Barry Bonds. I forget, were the Giants a big market or small market team when they signed Bonds? Oh, and maybe they could have kept that free talent Tim Wakefield, who hasn't make more than $5 mil a season in Boston while pitching for the last 13 years.

    Dummies have run the Pirates for the last 17 years, and if you gave them the Yankees' cash they would just be dummies with ooodles of money.

    BTW, who has more wins right now -- Yankees, Twins, or Mets?
     
  7. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    Admitting that he is acting as a mouthpiece for EITHER side calls it in to question. To me, being a mouthpiece means he is simply pushing their agenda rather than just using their information.

    Try thinking things through before you call them dumb next time.
     
  8. broadway joe

    broadway joe Guest

    Who's going to trade a front of the rotation starter for a guy who's dead set on free agency at the end of the year?
     
  9. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    Oh, the Yankees have never made a bad decision? Are you so desperate to disagree here that you are really going to shovel that load of crap out there?

    The Yankees would not only have kept both Bonds and Van Slyke, they would have also kept Doug Drabek, Bobby Bonilla and John Smiley. Laugh about Bonilla all you like, but he was effective in Pittsburgh. So was Smiley. And Drabek was one of the top pitchers in the National League when he left as a free agent the same year as Bonds.

    It was not just Van Slyke or Bonds, but reducing it to that ridiculous argument suits you, so you're happy to toss that shit out there.

    Yes, they should have found a way to keep Bonds, even if it meant losing Van Slyke, Jay Bell and Jeff King (which is a more accurate representation of the choice the Pirates made). But they had to make a choice. The Yankees would not have had to make a choice. They would have just kept everybody they wanted.

    And if your reading comprehension wasn't failing you, you would have noticed that I did say that awful front office decisions are a major part of why the Pirates have been consistently awful. Even in a small market, you don't maintain that level of horrible play for so long without ownership and management fucking things up.

    But when the Pirates were good, when Syd Thrift had put together a strong team in the late '80s and the beginning of the '90s, the team was ripped apart by free agency departures and salary-dumping trades. At a time when the Yankees, with same talent, would have been spending for a big free agent to put a good team over the top, the Pirates were bleeding talent. That is the reality, no matter how much you wish it was otherwise.
     
  10. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    I wish nothing but failure on Mark Teixeira. I'd love to see him uncork a .250, 18-HR contract year. That is all.
     
  11. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    details, details ...
     
  12. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Sorry, but a franchise that can't recognize that Bonds was more talented than all those guys put together deserves what it gets. Andy Van Slyke made $4.35 mil in 1992, $4.9 mil in 1993, and $3.55 mil in 1994. Then he left Pittsburgh, washed out in Baltimore, and was out of baseball.

    Bonds made $4.51 mil in 1993, $5.16 mil in 1994, then jumped up to around $8-9 mil the next few years. He was worth it. Bonds + Bonilla + Jay Bell + Jeff King + whatever other average baseball players the Pirates thought were great were all washed up within five years.

    It's not that the Pirates got caught up in financial problems. It's that they had no plan. No foresight. They might have tried to lock up these guys long-term while they were still young and a couple years away from free agency. They might have tried to plow the savings into their minor league system so they could have replacements on the horizon.

    But no, their plan was to let the thing die on the vine, then sucker the taxpayers into giving them a new stadium by telling them that it would equal a good team. Then they put all the revenue sharing money they receive into the owners' pockets.

    Pirate ownership (i.e., cheapskate newspaper publisher Ogden Nutting) has no interest in doing anything other than squeezing every last cent of profit out of the team. If they implemented a $50 million salary cap tomorrow, the Pirates payroll would still drop next year.
     
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