Yes or no?
I think, and hope, no. The Nats suck WAY too bad to really benefit from signing him. He would just sink with the ship. I also hope know because Boras is a greedy fucking prick who is destroying the game by being so ugly and smelly.
If the kid doesn’t sign, he’s a dumbass. Umpteen million today is better than nothing for the next year and and probably being offered less next year. Assuming he doesn’t flame out in Japan or wherever.
I agree. I don’t at all mind Strasburg hitting it rich; who can begrudge him a payday? But to turn down a massive offer would just be sheer insanity. He’s one twinge in his shoulder away from a minimum wage job and eternal immortality as the idiot who turned down a lottery win to hold out for a bigger lottery win.
Doesn’t he literally have less than an hour now to sign or else ?
Yup, though these sometimes don’t get announced until later. Sometimes they even get done after midnight too. Boras got extra money out of the Pirates for Pedro Alvarez after they signed him past the deadline.
I expect he will sign, because he has little leverage. But there has to be a point in which he would have to turn him down. What if they only offered 5 million? 1 million?
This goes back to why I think the amateur draft is fundamentally unfair to amateurs. You have to sign for whatever the team drafted you feels like offering you or sit out a year and potentially screw up your development. if the Nats don’t sign him they get the 2nd pick next year as compensation. Strasburg gets 50+ million easy on the open market. The system will cost him tens of millions.
Word is a lot of team are not confident on being able to sign their players. It could finally be the year in which a bunch of players don’t sign at the deadline.
Strasburg reportedly signed for four years and $15 million.
Hawkeyeop:
No way. A guy who never threw a pitch above college level? No way at all.
If there was an open market, Washington would happily pay $5M apiece to 3 mid-first round talents, or $3M apiece to 5 late-first/second-round talents rather than $15M for one very demanding guy. But the draft puts constraints on the team as well as on the player. They have to pick one, put all their eggs in one basket, and let all the others (until their next pick) get drafted by other teams.
At best, teams would offer him an incentive-laden contract with less guaranteed money up front. Baseball history is littered with highly-paid, high-drafted busts, an open market would totally hurt the draftee at that level.
go nats! 
Scott Boras is a cancer killing baseball.
Bollocks. Blame the draft system. Blame the owners. But Boras is responsible for one thing only - getting the best deal for the players he represents. No one forces owners to pay salaries.
And not all the players signing with him?
Yes, baseball is a business. For the owners and players both. Deal with it.
Scott Boras is an asshole. The Alex Rodriguez flap during the 2007 World Series is a shining example of this.
That’s a little different to being a “cancer killing baseball.”
If I had the talent to play a sport professionally, you bet your life I would rather have an asshole as an agent than a nice guy who got me less money. Unless you are one of the people who think the players should be grateful for the opportunity to line the pockets of the owners.
He is an asshole and he is a cancer. The terms are not mutually exclusive. I am not saying the owners are not assholes either, they are. The players, too.
I am actually one of the people who used to enjoy going to a baseball game (several per year, actually) but frankly $16 for nosebleed seats, $5 for a hot dog and $8 for a 24 oz cup of warm beer just doesn’t have the same appeal when it was $6 for the ticket, $3 for the hot dog and $4 for the beer.
I am also actually one of those people who think that the owners are to blame as well. But that doesn’t make Boras less of a cancer.
I am looking forward to the negotiations between the NFL and the NFLPA.
Player salaries have nothing to do with the cost of going to a game. Owners will pay players as little as they can get away with. Owners will charge customers whatever amount optimizes revenue. You know like any other business, this is economics 101. Boras doesn’t make you spend more money to go to a baseball game. He just makes sure his clients get a bit less screwed, especially the amateur ones.
For as talented as Strausberg is 15 million is chump change. For that money they get to control him in the majors for 6 years, pay him the minimum for the first 3 and a reduced number under arbitration the next three. What does that money get you on the open market? A back-end starter maybe?
So what if he has never thrown a major league pitch. You are paying for future performance. How much value did the Mariners get from Arod and Griffey before they hit free agency? Both of those were can’t miss #1 prospects. Generally speaking can’t miss prospects are can’t miss for a reason. Yeah, there is a chance Strasberg isn’t going to be an ace. That is why he would only get 50 million on the open market and not Sabathia money. If he becomes a #3 starter 15 million is a steal for the Nats. If he has 2 great years and then flames out, 15 million is a steal for the Nats.
Free Agency has proven the very opposite of your claim. The best get exponentially more, while mediocre players get less. Arod, Sabathia get huge salaries even though you could get 3 very good players at the same cost. Strasburg would get much, much, more money if everyone could bid on his services, and I would suspect the difference between him and lesser prospects would increase as well. I would also think that in an open market 5 million doesn’t get you a top 30 prospect period. That is less than a million a year. Do you think teams would rather have a quality 5th outfielder than a top prospect?
So you are telling me that the steady increase in the cost of going to the game increasing steadily, just as the players’ salaries have been increasing, are completely unrelated? The owners are paying out more money to the players, but they are not increasing ticket prices to cover the greater expense? It’s just a coincidence?
Are you also suggesting the salaries, which eat up anywhere from 50-60% of gross revenues, are unrelated to the revenues from ticket sales, which make up 35-50% of a teams gross revenues?
And you think I am unclear on Economics 101?
:rolleyes:
Deleted because it might have helped if I read your post…
Yes. Let’s try a simple exercise.
Your company has expenses of $100
Each Widget cost you $1 to make
If you charge $2 you can sell 200
Your profit would be (200*$2)-(200*$1)-($100) or $100
If you charge $3 you can sell 150
Your profit would be (150*$3)-(150*$1)-($100) or $200
If you charge $4 you can sell 75
Your profit would be (75*$4)-(75*$1)-($100) or $125
With me thus far? I think we can agree that would $3 would be the ideal price to charge. Now lets say your expenses increased 50% to $150. What would you charge then?
Hawkeyeop:
Arod, Sabathia, etc get huge salaries from the few very rich teams that can afford a pretty-much umlimited amount of payroll. Mediocre players get less, and less-rich teams - which mostly make up the top of the draft order - hire more of them for the price of one of those.
I don’t think so. Within the current system, he got almost as much money as the Yankess paid A. J. Burnett, a 10-year MAJOR LEAGUE veteran with a career MAJOR LEAGUE ERA under 4. You really think that the free market would get more for a college pitcher? After the experience of any number of hyped-up amateurs who failed to develop into Major League stars? (and never mind the fact that you suggested he could have gone for $50M, a much higher figure.)
It’s not an either-or proposition. The fact is that major league teams need to put major league talent/skill/experience on the field. A team can shell out for prospects as much as it wants, but they still need to pay major league going rates for the game they’re going to play that night.