weaver: a little birdie told me
by lboros on Jan 23, 2007 4:52 PM EST
in St. Louis Cardinals News
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Printword from a very reliable source is that boras has told jeff weaver not to worry, he's gonna get him that 4 yr /$40m deal. the agent is prepared to hold out for it, even if they have to wait into spring training, but weaver's getting cold feet --- and jocketty is playing that angle expertly. weaver really wants to return to st louis, but still isn't ready to settle for less than top dollar. not yet. quoting my source directly: "if money were no issue, weaver would move to st louis right now."
i'm also told that seattle and the dodgers have not made their last phone calls to boras; ie, they may still be competing for weaver's services.
all of this is consistent with everything we've seen / heard in the papers and on the radio. it's not really new information, just confirmation of what has already been reported or surmised. the only piece that doesn't fit: why the hell would the dodgers still be pursuing a pitcher?
Update [2007-1-24 9:50:30 by lboros]: more on weaver in this morning's post-dispatch
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My guess
And for the record, I'm completely ambivalent about Weaver @ 2 years (could be a good move, could suck), and I'm glad to hear Jocketty is holding firm.
AMBIVALENT
by jose smokeindo on Jan 23, 2007 5:48 PM EST up reply actions
Ummm
It may turn out that Weaver retains all of Duncan's tutelage and we need his innings due to injuries or some of the other "gambles" not paying off, in which case it would be good to have him on the staff as a horse. Or it may turn out that he reverts to his terrible Angels form and is an expensive waste of a roster space, blocking a good spring training or mid-season acquisition.
No need for the insulting sarcasm, dude.
I also
Mr. Clean, I've meant for some time to say that I love your "binary" tag line.
by dabirds on Jan 23, 2007 8:36 PM EST up reply actions
Really?
He used "I concur" as the subject of a previous comment, and this was his post three before that one:
"if only walt jocketty were a warcraft master."
Which proves that he knows to use the subjunctive mood with "if", and I seriously doubt that someone who knows that would be amazed by the revelation of the word "ambivalent". I think he was trying to yank my chain. I just don't understand why.
Maybe he had a really bad experience with cleaning products as a child, and he's lashing out at my handle... shrug
It's because
by Baseball addict on Jan 23, 2007 5:58 PM EST up reply actions
you could...
by ilillillli on Jan 23, 2007 6:20 PM EST up reply actions
Child psychology
Yet we have an agent who's convinced him he'll be making a career mistake and will be thought a {...ahem...} smaller fellow if he takes less...just so he can play where he wants to.
If Weaver has any brains he'll tell Boras to shove it.
If he doesn't, then he probably isn't worth having on the roster anyway.
Maybe
OR
Maybe Boras is full of shit
by fatbellyjefferson on Jan 23, 2007 5:10 PM EST reply actions
They played this game last year too...
I thought Walt might even be able to get him on another one year deal given the fact that they have waited until most of the likely suitors have filled up their rotations.
I agree with LBoros though, no idea why the Dodgers would be in on this. Nor could I figure out why Weav would want to go to Seattle? b/c he wants to win? b/c he has had so much success in the AL West?
I think this negotiation has been a bad play by Boras and is going to backfire. I don't think there is anyone out there left who will give Weav a four year deal unless it is for something like Marquis money. Walt has strong bargaining power here. Hopefully he makes a good deal.
no one is giving him $40 million
Am I the only one hoping that someone else signs him?
one of those inline advertisements
meh. Not so funny now that it's done. I still hate the cubs.
Yes it is
Uhhhh...
by 26thMan on Jan 24, 2007 10:17 AM EST up reply actions
I get it now
by 26thMan on Jan 24, 2007 10:19 AM EST up reply actions
I think the answer is "B"
"Which of these teams has won more than one
World Series in the last 85 years?"
Weaver
juicy stuff
by sjoshi on Jan 23, 2007 6:58 PM EST reply actions
agreed
by sherwood on Jan 23, 2007 7:33 PM EST up reply actions
Horry crap
by ryanisforever on Jan 23, 2007 9:57 PM EST up reply actions
Hey lboros --
Thought you all would like this - it looks like the Cards may repeat.
http://buccoblog.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/2007/01/early_nlcd_2007.html
Cheers!
Jake at Bucco Blog
by JolietJake on Jan 23, 2007 7:04 PM EST reply actions
Painful stat
Ouch.
weird...
my gut feeling is that Weaver won't be a Cardinal next year. i'm sort of fine with that, although we've learned the past few years that having depth is always a good thing. i would fully expect Bavasi to complete his retarded off-season by giving Weaver 3/27 or something like that.
I love mid day threads
by Jonathan23 on Jan 23, 2007 7:59 PM EST reply actions
Boras, Bore Us
This is a game every agent plays. Why do you think the Yankees and Mets are rumored to be after every free agent out there? Because they have tons of money and the agent is trying to increase the bidding on his player.
Bad sign for Boras and Weaver. Okha signed for peanuts today and his recent record is as good or better than Weaver's. The market has dried up.
boras isn't the source
would they gaurantee...
by ilillillli on Jan 24, 2007 10:41 AM EST up reply actions
exactly right
i asked the very same question somebody asked below ---- the dodgers already have 7 starting pitchers, couldn't they trade lowe or penny without signing weaver? and they could, but that would mean either mark hendrickson or brett tomko would have to join the rotation --- which already contains one guy (randy wolf) who's coming off TJ surgery, and another (billingsley) who's 22 years old and had a 1.67 whip and a 1:1 k/w ratio last season.
they must think they need another inning-eater feel to cover their backsides before they can afford to deal penny or lowe. and no, the cardinals would not be the trade partners --- stl doesn't have what the dodgers are looking for.
exactly right
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 12:25 PM EST up reply actions
mike g, i've asked you this question before
My response
I apologize for not responding to you previously. I was in California for much of this month, offline, and must have missed your challenge. This has been a busy day for me on VLB; some of my other comments today may suggest where I'm coming from on this matter, but I'll try to be more specific. What bothers me most about the Cardinal management and all too many of their fans is the unwillingness to compete realistically in today's market. They are the world champions, the franchise is a proven money maker, and by all accounts the owners' investment is doing well. Yet there is the constant litany that we can't really afford to pay the going rate for these overpriced players, we are just humble midwesterners who can't really compete financially with those Eastern sophisticates or that West Coast glamour. Phooey on that. I'm not rooting for the Cardinals as a business; I think the owners have a responsibility to give their fans the best possible team or turn the team over to someone who will. Now, that I've gotten that out my system, I will happily admit that Cardinal management has done quite well in recent years, and if they come up with a plausible solution to their pitching problems this year I will say well done. What I don't like is the pretense that that the starting staff as presently constituted is ready for the pennant race. Ideally I would have liked to see the Cardinals add that second ace they keep saying they need, but it seems pretty clear that Schmidt wanted to stay in California. Still, if they really wanted him they should have outbid the Dodgers since it should have been clear that an equivalent offer wasn't going to get the job done. I'm getting a bit fed up with the Cardinals big talk each fall about the free agents they claim to be targeting and the way in which their bid always falls conveniently short. If they aren't prepared to try to win a bidding war, then they should stop stringing their fans along.
At any rate, having become disillusioned as usual with the Cardinals hunt for other teams' free agents, I've come to the conclusion that they should at least make a genuine effort to re-sign their own, at least those they claim to have an interest in retaining. Clearly, Marquis had burned his bridges with the organization and they were convinced that Suppan wasn't worth what he wanted, but, given the thin and largely unproven rotation that remains, I do think they should have signed Weaver by now. Granted, he is no sure thing and he is capable of pitching truly badly, but he is durable, has talent, and seemed to be really fitting into the Cardinal rotation down the stretch and in the postseason and regaining his confidence under Duncan. Given that they were apparently willing to offer three years to a 36-year old pitcher with far less upside than Weaver (the former Diamondback whose name escapes me at the moment), I find it hard to comprehend why they are lowballing Weaver. I can understand their reluctance to offer him four years, but why not three years or at least two with a third-year option? My bottom line is that a rotation consisting of Carpenter, Kip Wells, Anthony Reyes, and a bunch of relief pitchers, with the far from sure thing of of a midseason Mark Mulder doesn't exactly set my heart to racing. The re-signing of Weaver would at least give us a rotation comparable to last year's. I have long since given up hope that the Cardinals will actually effect a dramatic improvement in their rotation, but if they made more of an effort to do what the Dodgers are apparently trying to do, stockpile some additional arms, they would be in a better position to make a competive offer for pitchers that might wind up on the trading block, as Freddie Garcia did and as Buerhle might.
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 6:28 PM EST up reply actions
thanks, that is a thoughtful response
but i differ with you on a couple of points. first and foremost, i think the organization's future success depends more upon the development of their young pitchers than on any free agents they might sign. i think there's a good chance that the two young starters already at the big-league level --- wainwright and reyes --- will pitch better in 2007 than all but a few of the starters who signed pricey free-agent contracts. and over the 3 to 5 years that most of those free-agent deals run, it's possible that either reyes or wainwright (if not both) will outpitch every pitcher who signed this off-season --- including schmidt and zito.
second, while i accept your point that the cardinals could (if they so chose) afford to spend more than the $100m they've committed to payroll, we still can't reasonably expect the cardinals to spend as freely as bigger-market teams do. we might wish they'd put another $10m or $20M into payroll in a given season, but their purchasing power is still finite; if they blow $40m on year on a free agent and he's a bust, they can't go out and correct the mistake the next year by spending another $40m on another free agent. that's called "spending your way out of your mistakes"; the yankees can afford to operate on that basis, and to a lesser extent the red sox and dodgers and angels. but every other team has to weigh each acquisition very carefully, because a payroll dollar committed today is a payroll dollar that can't be spent tomorrow to acquire a better player.
this year's crop of free-agent pitchers is pretty bad; making a large $$$$ commitment to those guys doesn't really improve the team, because you can get a player who's almost as good for much less. the bigger likelihood is that a large $$$$ commitment will lock in mediocrity, because the dollars spent on those marginally valuable players are unavailable in subsequent years to acquire players who might actually make a difference in the won-loss column.
the cardinals are taking a long-range approach this year, looking beyond 2007 --- and those strike me as the correct priorities. first, they won a world title last year; we can't expect them to win every season. more to the point, this is no longer a 100-win team; it's an 83-win team that had 4 holes to fill in its rotation. seeking a quick fix in the free-agent market is a road to disaster, imho; it might get them to 90 wins this year, but it might prevent them from getting to 95 wins in subsequent years.
in short ---- in my opinion, the cards' dollar-conscious choices this off-season are correct from a baseball standpoint, not just from a profit-loss standpoint.
your response to mine
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 8:52 PM EST up reply actions
i agree with you
hopefully it will shake out just that way --- and then we can both feel good about the acquisition.
i'd even be satisifed with a 2-year / $18m guaranteed deal, with an optional 3d year for $15m that becomes guaranteed if weaver pitches 200 innings in each of the 1st two seasons. if weaver pitches well, the 3d year will vest and he'll make $33m over 3 years. if he bombs in either of the 1st two years, the cards can just dump him from the rotation and get themselves off the hook for the 3d year.
if they sign him, it'll prob'y be to a deal like that.
I agree
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 11:41 PM EST up reply actions
you may have noticed
At that cost I am out
your market
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 12:19 PM EST up reply actions
Weaver
2002 -- 121
2003 -- 73
2004 -- 103
2005 -- 96
2006 -- 76
meaning, of course, for 3 of the last 5 years he his ERA has been higher than the league average. The only time in that 5 years in which he was decidedly better than league average was 5 years ago. Kinda difficult to say his career is on an uptik!
His PECOTA for '07 and beyond just isn't very good. He is, right now, a league average pitcher who is turning 31 this year. In his 3rd year of a new contract, he will turn 34, not exactly an age where most pitchers tend to get better. Will he be tradeable as a 34 year old, below average pitcher earning $10 M per year? Perhaps, but we would have to eat salary or get nothing in return (or both). But the real cost to giving any league average pitcher more than 3 years is who it prevents from being in our rotation. In 2 years, at least 1 of Hawksworth, Garcia, Ottavino and some others will be ready to provide Weaver-like production at 1/25th the salary. And they will improve, unlike Weaver who only stands to get worse.
So the question is not, "Do the owners have $10 M to spend on Weaver?" The question is, would we rather have Weaver at $10 M in our rotation in 3 years or Hawksworth, Garcia or Ottavino making the minimum? I can't see why anyone would select Weaver. And as for what other teams are paying their mediocre starters, I couldn't care less. They're the competition so if they want to weaken their team with the ridiculous salaries they pay people like Jason Marquis, Gil Meche, Miguel Batista, Adam Eaton, et al, more power to them.
Weaver
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 5:19 PM EST up reply actions
First of all
Are they all guaranteed to make it? Certainly not. But there are no guarantees that Weaver will pitch any better than he did for the Cardinals either. We'll never know until we play them and, with Weaver in the rotation, we wouldn't get the chance.
I guess I should also take issue with your dire predictions about the state of the Cards rotation. In my view, there are 4 solid starters set -- Carp, Reyes, Wainwright, and Wells. Wells will be OK, at best and Reyes and Wainwright are unproven but they'll be fine -- every bit as good as Weaver will be this year. I'm ok if we don't sign Weaver. We'll be able to patch together 1 more starter out of Franklin, Narveson, Mulder, Looper, or anyone Walt would be able to trade for. I'm for signing Weaver to a 2 year deal -- certainly this would give us a solid, if unspectacular, rotation. But my comparison, which is not false, is that one of those prospects will be better than Weaver in what would be his 3rd year of his contract. You can vote for Weaver if you want, but keeping Weaver at 33 and earning $10 M would be worse, much worse, than playing one of the other pitchers.
The point I made and am making again is that signing Weaver to a 3 or 4 year contract, which you said should be OK given the market that exists right now, would be a HUGE mistake. We would be better off, BY FAR, not signing Weaver at all than signing him to a guaranteed 3rd or 4th year.
The core of our disagreement
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 8:29 PM EST up reply actions
Hey Mike
The real question about Weaver is what constitutes a sensible investment in him, taking into account the usual balancing of risk, reward, and need.
All I'm saying is when you factor risk, reward, and need 4y 40m is out of line.
I think Weaver's fall and post season can be duplicated next year all season, but if not the Cards get stuck with a sucky pitcher and shitty contract.
A 2y deal with incentives that can get him to 20m and an option for a third is all I think the Cards should risk. I would be willing to let the third year vest if the incentives are met in the first two. He ends up with 3y/30m if he pans out.
The Cards need to keep the guaranted money as low as possible and no fourth year.
You may be right
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 5:25 PM EST up reply actions
It should be noted
not what I saw on tv,,,,
also, is anyone else royaly ticked off that MLB is totally screwing all of their fans and only going to allow direct tv offer MLB EXTRA INNINGS? nothing is sighed, but thats the word on the street. if it goes down, i dont know what i'll do. we have dish network and love it. we gotten EI since they started offering it 3 seasons ago. its the only way fans in ohio can watch the Cardinals. with my dad being sick we can't afford to add direct tv just for the extra innings. this is really said that bud is once again going to take the quick cash and screw so many fans. i dont know if this has been talked about before, so forgive me if it has. but i just read about it.
I, too, have Dish
And as for the comments about people being screwed, I feel screwed as well. But Joe Sheehan wrote an article for Baseball Prospectus about how this is really best for baseball, even though many won't like it. Check it out if you get a chance. But I'm switching to Direct TV.
clearification
houston, you are missing my point. i should not have to pay to switch to anything. EI should be available to everyone, no matter who their cable or satellite provider is. i read only the first part of that colum because i dont have a membership to baseball prospectus. i think thats a dumb argument. how can it be good for baseball to have LESS people able to watch their product? with all the bad PR baseball has had, you would think they wouldnt do somthing so stupid like this to alienate more of their core fan base. but thats just what they are doing. going for the quick cash, that in the long run will cost them far more than they will be gaining in the short term.
there is a reason we choose dish over direct tv. we think it's a far better product,and its cheeper. what they are doing is building a monopoly. and i hope that someone, anyone breaks it up before the season starts, or the FCC does not let the deal get done. because this is flat wrong. normaly i am aginst the govt getting involved in private matters. but someone has to do something to stop direct tv from buying up all the sports packages so no one else but them can offer it to the public. if this happens, you just watch, EI price will triple within two years. just like the sunday ticket did for football. its almost $300 dollars a season for that. now baseballs season is 6 months, how much do you think direct tv will be charging for EI, when they are suckering 2 million people to pay $300 dollars for 15 weeks of sunday ticket?
besides with my dads illness, we are on a fixed budget and i cant come up with $240 to switch even if i wanted to. this is flat wrong.
maybe i am missing something here
now on the other hand, as u said, i love dish, and i have had both, with dish u get more of each movie channel, and i just prefer the lineup better
i do agree that baseball is alienating an awful lot of dish customers with this decision, i dont personally care one way or the other as i get the st louis stations and fox midwest, so i dont need the extra innings package
by bigcardsfan5 on Jan 24, 2007 12:45 PM EST up reply actions
His premise
depends...
it is a shame that some fans will get hosed (although many others with DirecTV might feel differently), but they have other options: switch to the other service, buy MLB Radio or MLB TV, or go to a bar or a friend's house whenever they want to watch a game. of course, i'd prefer that everyone got to watch every game for free, but it just doesn't work that way. added revenues are good for the game, and competitive markets are good for the country, so i just can't get too worked up about this, even though i have DISH.
It's not about competitive markets..
by Hardcore Legend on Jan 24, 2007 1:58 PM EST up reply actions
well...
but this isn't a utility. it isn't a public good. this is a luxury good. there is no standard of "fairness" that applies. some people are unhappy that their personal preferences aren't being met in this particular instance. they have options other than DirecTV: MLB TV, MLB Radio, etc. like i said, it sucks for you, but removing MLB's right to sell broadcast rights to whoever they please for whatever amount of money they can get - simply to appease a very small fraction of the population - would be much more "unfair".
Dodgers
Check out a new blog:
http://whiteyball.wordpress.com/
Why?
by ilillillli on Jan 24, 2007 10:52 AM EST up reply actions
Sorry....
by CardinalsfanIraq on Jan 25, 2007 12:24 AM EST up reply actions
I really doubt
The Cardinals wouldn't do a trade for Weaver, either. As they've said all along, they're set whether or not they sign him.
by Red in Chicago on Jan 24, 2007 11:18 AM EST reply actions
If the Dodgers sign him...
Schmidt
Lowe
Penny
Weaver
Wolf
Hendrickson
Billingsley
Schmidt, Weaver, and Wolf would all be out of play. I'm not sure why they would trade Billingsley, unless they were to somehow acquire an impact bat, but I'm not sure where they really have room to upgrade apart from perhaps 3rd base (Ensberg trade?) or Catcher (Posada?)
I'd think that Lowe or Penny would be the ones to go, likely in an effort to add more stock to the Dodgers' farm. Like I said before, if the Jason Jennings bounty is the new standard for what a young, known-quantity vet is worth... this could actually make a lot of sense for LA.
by ilillillli on Jan 24, 2007 11:25 AM EST up reply actions
Ensberg or Crede...
by ilillillli on Jan 24, 2007 11:30 AM EST up reply actions
not for the Dodgers, it doesn't
I would agree, but...
by ilillillli on Jan 24, 2007 1:41 PM EST up reply actions
LA Pitching Possiblity
Would they go for A. Jones??? The Braves know the value of Pitching.
Just speculation...
by El Birdo Rojo on Jan 24, 2007 11:36 AM EST up reply actions
Weaver
by MikeG on Jan 24, 2007 11:59 AM EST up reply actions
What are the ethical/unwritten rules
Weaver is a free agent
One thing interesting I have noticed
Every time a quality pitcher is discussed, the consensus is the Cardinals should try to sign him only if it doesn't cost too much. Maybe this is what happens when you finally win a World Series.
Whatever the reason, it seems to me that management has done a good job explaining what they are trying to do, and Jocketty has enough credibility in doing mid-season deals that people are sitting tight. Instead of cringing in horror at hearing, "Warming up the bullpen, today's starting pitcher for the Cardinals: Braden Looper."
by Red in Chicago on Jan 24, 2007 12:45 PM EST reply actions
couple of factors
by contrast, i did criticize them last year when they allowed themselves to get outbid for the player they most wanted, aj burnett. he wanted to come to stl, but the owners were unwilling to match the jays' best offer, or even to come close to matching it. that hasn't happened this off-season.
as for the lesser pitchers who signed elsewhere, the guys like suppan and lilly and meche and eaton, etc. --- many fans think those pitchers aren't much better than reyes and wainwright, or are actually worse than our two young arms. therefore it doens't bother anyone when those pitchers end up with some other team on an overpriced multiyear deal.
Schmidt
As for the other moves and non-moves, I'm just fine with them.
by themang on Jan 24, 2007 1:43 PM EST up reply actions
your point on schmidt is fair
the cardinals would then have to go even higher --- 3 yr / $57m, or 3 / $60m . . . . at some point you're paying so much money to one guy that it wrecks the rest of the payroll.
i agree, they would have needed to outbid the dodgers to bring schmidt to st louis. but that doesn't necessarily mean it would have been a good thing to do. instead of spending $54m over three years to schmidt, they might end up with both weaver and mulder for $30m over two years. which is a better use of the money? opinions will vary . . .
Agreed
by themang on Jan 24, 2007 2:26 PM EST up reply actions
Schmidt
That's probably true
by themang on Jan 25, 2007 10:09 AM EST up reply actions
And...
One of these days the Cards might have to take some risks in the free agent market.
by themang on Jan 24, 2007 2:29 PM EST up reply actions
we don't disagree
in the end, it's difficult to land a free agent who wants to be playing somewhere else. it was well established from the outset that schmidt preferred to stay on the west coast; his agent was very effective at drawing midwestern teams into the bidding to drive up the price, but i think it would have taken a very large overbid to lure him away from the coast.
which, to get back on my own hobby horse, is why the failure to sign burnett last year was a mistake. he wanted to be in st louis; they didn't have to match the top offer dollar for dollar, they only had to approximate it. they could have signed him for 5 / $50m, in which case he'd be under contract for the next 4 years at $44m or so . . . . a steal. a bargain.
Agreed again
by themang on Jan 24, 2007 2:49 PM EST up reply actions
might be a dumb question, but...
by ilillillli on Jan 24, 2007 1:43 PM EST up reply actions
Yeah, but
To a certain extent, the rightness of their refusal to go longer/higher on Burnett was affirmed by his injury last season.
i disagree
for that matter, aj is only slightly more of an injury risk than carpenter, who has been on the DL twice in 3 years with the cardinals --- and in the 2 seasons prior to that made a total of 13 starts.
weaver
by Tegan on Jan 24, 2007 8:01 PM EST reply actions
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