Article: Draft Board v.1.0 (2/17)

[cmb0252]

"My client wants Pi million dollars a year, or there's no deal."

/ sorry, I had to

Haha, I'm glad you did. Cracked me up.

Pit did take a chance on Appel and it didn't work out. It is the front offices job to gage signability. Just like it is Scott Boras' job to advise his client. No one forced Appel to hire Boras. Also, a huge risk for the player? Most players maybe but not Appel. Quoting John Sickles today; "With a Stanford education and his family background, Appel could walk away from baseball and it wouldn’t impact his quality of life. He’s never going to have to work at McDonald’s or wonder how he’s going to pay the rent."

While I'm not a huge Boras fan lets not act like the Billionaire, with a B, owners weren't the ones who pushed for a amateur spending cap into the CBA. Poor billionaire owners who tried to limit the amount of money 17-22 year old kids could make comes back to bite them in the butts. I feel so bad for them I might cry.

[FrodaddyG]

Quoting John Sickles today; "With a Stanford education and his family background, Appel could walk away from baseball and it wouldn’t impact his quality of life. He’s never going to have to work at McDonald’s or wonder how he’s going to pay the rent."

Obviously there's lots of non-baseball jobs that will offer him $5M before he works a day for them.

[nicksaviking]

While I'm not a huge Boras fan lets not act like the Billionaire, with a B, owners weren't the ones who pushed for a amateur spending cap into the CBA. Poor billionaire owners who tried to limit the amount of money 17-22 year old kids could make comes back to bite them in the butts. I feel so bad for them I might cry.

I don't feel bad for the owners either, I could care less if they make a dime, but the fact is they will and they aren't going to let signing baseball players cut into their profit margins. Can the owners afford these huge contracts that have come about the last 15 years because of agents like Scott Boras (mostly Scott Boras)? Of course but they're just passing the buck and marking up ticket/concession/memerobelia prices and rates they charge advertisers and broadcasting companies. The broadcasting companies of course won't take the hit so they pass the buck to the consumer too. Boras isn't bad for the owners because at the end of the day everyone just passes the check to the low man on the totem poll; us. Boras is bad for baseball.

[diehardtwinsfan]

let's not blame player salaries for high ticket prices. Those prices are going to be whatever people are willing to pay, regardless of what the players make... The only thing the CBA is doing is capping their expenses.

[ashburyjohn]

let's not blame player salaries for high ticket prices. Those prices are going to be whatever people are willing to pay, regardless of what the players make... The only thing the CBA is doing is capping their expenses.

This. I was on a riff the other day about scalpers pocketing the difference in street price versus face value, or the owners getting more via their new pricing policies. I could have made my post even longer by observing that the money is there for the taking, regardless of who ends up getting it. We're not being priced out of Twins tickets because of greedy owners or greedy players. We're being priced out by schmuck stock brokers and anyone else with large disposable income who can bid up the price regardless of what I'm willing to pay. Baseball is only the collective middleman.

[maxisagod]

Obviously there's lots of non-baseball jobs that will offer him $5M before he works a day for them.

cmb0252 is referring to the comment section of this link:
http://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/...raft-prospects
You right not many will offer you 5M or 100,000 dollars; that would set you up with a great windfall for the rest of your life. The point Sickels seems to be making is if you already have a large fiscal safety net in the form of a well off family,and a Sanford eduction, and then you turn down millions from the Pirates it may not just be because your agent is greedy, there may be an element of pride. What if all the questions and photos of him with Andrew Luck makes him feel his value is much higher than the team who drafts him? There are lots of professional athletes who after being offered a large payday might feel responisable or compelled to take it in order to support and give back to family and friends who have very little. Appel may not have that sense of responisablity knowing there a good chance he'll be able to provide for himself and others no matter what.

[Twins Twerp]

The point isn't that the money is not available from owners. The point is that it handcuffs the rest of your draft. Not only does it handcuff you, it sounds like it could be impossible to sign Appel. The Pirates shifted as much money around as they could and still could not pay the bonus demands without losing next years pick. I think most owners would ok with giving him his above slot bonus, but GM's would have to draft a bunch of college seniors with no upside to be able to sign him. Now the question will soon become, do you punt on the rest of your draft to sign this guy...

If you think Appel is a sure fire top of the rotation guy, maybe you do. How often do you actually get multiple major leaguers out of a draft? I think TR (or whomever signs off on draft day) would have to consider coming away from the draft with one top 25 prospect in all of the minors and no other players.