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Yanks Offer Gerrit Cole $245 Million For 7 Years

LuteHawk

HR Legend
Nov 30, 2011
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The NY Yankees have put an offer on the
table for $245 million for 7 yrs. to Cole.
Now the LA Dodgers and LA Angels are
expected to make an offer to Cole to match
or beat the $245 million of the Yankees

Bottom Line: Good pitching is expensive at
$35 million per year.
 
Baseball contracts are insane.

Get it if you can, I guess. At some point the gravy train is going to stop flowing.
 
The Yankees are coming into a much stronger cash flow position now...they have been pretty quiet the past couple of years....they aren't done by a long shot. They need pitching....they will find some, I bet.
 
The last World Series Championship
of the Yankees was in 2009. They
need to win a World Series and they
are willing to pay for it.

Bottom Line: No MLB player is worth $35
million a year.
 
Pitching is the one thing Champions have in common. For the past 50 years, pitching has been judged to be worth its weight in gold. Pitching wins championships.
I don't disagree. Need an elite #1 and 2 to win it all once you reach the playoffs. But you also need a roster that can get you there which is tough to do when 15- 20% of your payroll is going to one guy. Unless you're the Yankees and don't mind the luxury tax.
 
35 mill a year for a gut who impacts one in every 5 games. Craziness.

But, if you break it down further, their impact is probably greater.

Cole faced 817 batters in 2019. Bryce Harper has 682 plate appearances and was involved in maybe 300 defensive plays. Over the course of a season, a starting pitcher and a position player likely have similar opportunity to impact wins and losses despite the pitcher only playing every five games.

Pitcher value is likely increased in the playoffs where their two starts in a seven game series can allow for more opportunity to impact outcomes than a hitter with 28-30 plate appearances.
 
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I don't disagree. Need an elite #1 and 2 to win it all once you reach the playoffs. But you also need a roster that can get you there which is tough to do when 15- 20% of your payroll is going to one guy. Unless you're the Yankees and don't mind the luxury tax.
The Yanks are a unique team. Dodgers, Red Sox and a couple of others understand the luxury tax as well as the Yankees.
The Yanks are gonna spend money as they are now out of their severe cash flow issues of the past 2-3years. Last couple of years the Yankees discovered all the “home grown” talent their organization had in the minors...they can buy and trade for their pitching needs.
 
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The last World Series Championship
of the Yankees was in 2009. They
need to win a World Series and they
are willing to pay for it.

Bottom Line: No MLB player is worth $35
million a year.
That is the oddest non sequitur I've seen in a some time.
 
But, if you break it down further, their impact is probably greater.

Cole faced 817 batters in 2019. Bryce Harper has 682 plate appearances and was involved in maybe 300 defensive plays. Over the course of a season, a starting pitcher and a position player likely have similar opportunity to impact wins and losses despite the pitcher only playing every five games.

Pitcher value is likely increased in the playoffs where their two starts in a seven game series can allow for more opportunity to impact outcomes than a hitter with 28-30 plate appearances.
Fair point and interesting way to break it down. I'll share I'm not a big fan of any single player making up 15-20% of a teams roster. History shows it's tough to win long term doing so.
 
Fair point and interesting way to break it down. I'll share I'm not a big fan of any single player making up 15-20% of a teams roster. History shows it's tough to win long term doing so.

I don't disagree. If you're committing 50+% of payroll to 2-3 players, it makes it hard to weather the storm if they don't produce up to contract.

Just as a point of reference, based on FanGraphs, Cole's value was $47.7 million in 2018 and $59.4 million in 2019. If he continues to pitch as he has pitched, getting him for $35 million per season would be good value.

With Machado as an example, he is getting $30 million per season. Even with a down year, he was still worth about $24 million in production. So, even though he will get cited as what's "wrong" with the Padres, his contract relative to production isn't nearly as harmful as Wil Myers ($13 million --> $4 million value) or Eric Hosmer ($18 million --> $-0.6 million value). They overpaid for both without accounting for any possible regression. With Machado, they got a guy in his prime with three $50 million seasons under his belt already for $30 million per season... and his "down" year is still relatively valuable.

If a team like the White Sox, for example, ended up with Cole, it likely would not impact them negatively even with some regression as they have a ton of productive players on team friendly contracts (with more on the way) that will add a huge amount of value to the club the next 5-7 years.
 
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Couple things... A starting pitcher like Cole... who can go 7-8 innings on a regular basis, also lessens the strain on a bullpen. That's a big factor for a manager in how he can save arms thru a 162 game schedule.

I'm a Yankee fan, but I don't think there's a big difference for a player between $25-30-35M/year. It's more money than anyone needs. Any player in that scenario can pick a club based on the city he wants to live in. And any player that wants to be known as the highest paid guy realizes someone will get more in a couple years down the road.

Cole ends up an LAA, imo. I think if Rendon leaves the Nats, Strasburg stays in D.C. Yanks probably add SP thru a trade rather than free agency.
 
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