Message #1923663

[mitlen]

Absolutely he isn't alone. I don't think any agent could have predicted what this offseason has brought. The number of players with over 20 homers last season has devalued home runs considerably, mostly because it is generally thought that there will be a big correction next season. Even with the trend of higher launch angles, the possibility of a juiced ball, and ballparks pulling in their fences, it is expected that homers will return to more "normal" trends. That would make the likes of the guys with crap BABIPs or who had spikes in BABIP due to said previous conditions but with balls hit in the gaps (more elevated balls due to the juiced ball theory and/or the launch angle approach) way less valuable, but compared to similar players in years previous, those guys get screwed. Also, relief pitching is really becoming a huge investment to teams, who would rather stack their bullpens with two or three inning guys and a closer than invest in starting pitching. Hell, the Rays are going to a "bullpen game" because of the ability of young flamethrowers who can only pitch 3 innings max.

That is just the perception on the field, then comes the CBA luxury tax and teams wanting to get underneath it so they don't have to get fined. I honestly didn't see the escalator in the calculation until it was pointed out to me here, but an additional 12 percent of tax gets added on top of whatever the team is paying if they exceed 217 Million in tax. The Red Sox are there, and other teams have shown that they aren't going to take a hit that could be paying essentially another middle reliever on the open market one year of salary.

Add into this the teams that are essentially saying they don't want to spend any money to compete (Marlins, Pirates, Rays, Braves) and want to basically tank the season for best draft pick and it's easy to see why players are talking about a possible strike. I mean, the Nats are likely going to trot out Cole every 5th day. Sure, the hope is that Fedde steps up and/or Ross comes back healthy and strong, but teams usually wouldn't take those gambles if it wasn't for such a perfect storm of events. Front offices being reluctant to offer mediocre and/or declining players big contracts that put them over a financial line with large financial penalties.

I appreciate your posts.