She has a definite and distinct personality, respectful of others (whether that comes through or not); a welcome addition to any board.

The Angels, adding to one of the game’s top bullpens, have agreed with Speier on a four-year, $18 million free-agent contract, FOXSports.com has learned.

Shame they have enough of a budget to eat something like this, but wow.

The length of the contract, first reported by ESPN.com, is a surprise, considering that Speier, a right-hander, recently turned 33.

You’re not supposed to say that. The Mariners still have to make their similar mistake for 3x the cash.

“Everyone did everything they possibly could to get this guy,” Arnold said. “Nobody dropped the ball here — nobody.”

Clearly, ‘cuz he’s so good, everyone just has to have him.

Meh.

so what would the value of Soriano as a 39-year old outfielder be to the Cubs? Fox & ESPN are reporting a possible 8/$135M deal in place …

Heck, Dave did a post discussing the implications of that for the Mariners a couple days ago.

Isn’t there a clear added benefit in doing the best that you possibly can for the following year rather than holding off. So obviously you don’t want to cripple yourself for the future, but might it not be to the teams benefit to overpay a large ammount on a player if they think that the difference that player makes will put them over the hump into playoff contention and if there aren’t any other players out there who can provide the same improvement at that price?
So, if i’ve got a team that is 3-4 wins from contention and I have a huge hole in my rotation, I might pay a starting pitcher much more than they are worth if they are the best available option. Now, I know the Mariners aren’t any of these things and that the have several holes, and so of course it’s in their interest to not overpay in filling any one of them. That said, why isn’t it appropriate to think that the value of players could vary fairly substantially between teams based upon how much disposable cash a team has and how close they are to the playoffs?

2 things can happen with that EXTRA 20 MILL (added to whatever you have left over from last years payroll)

so which one do yall want?

I’d rather they spend it on JD Drew, or Matsuzaka. Honestly, if the choice was between the owner pocketing $20M and commiting that money every year for the next half decade on Carlos Lee, more power to ownerdom.

what is the use of complaining how expensive the FA are who would sell for less money in some year before? the past is over and done with and the agents KNOW the teams got all them extra mill and they think the players should get a good chunk of it. a player is worth whatever a team will pay for him right NOW.

Because they suck, and they’re not worth it. Free agency is not a vacuum, and some years are more talented than others. You’re going to have to be dealing with mistakes (hello Mr. Washburn) for years to come, which leaves you with less money to sign the actual stars when they appear. Spending money on mediocrity is why bad teams are bad.

so suppose your owner decides to keep all that extra dough for himself, not spend on FA, come out and say the team is “rebuilding” and wait for the 07 FA class. so you are gambling that you won’t lose fans/money in a rebuilding year and that the media don’t notice that you kept all that 20 mill for your own self, AND that FA are not even MORE expensive next year. FA salaries are going up by, what, 10% a year, something like that?

FA salary fluctuates. This market will crash when everyone realises that the best players are playing for major league minimums while they’re paying $9M/year for Gil Meche, and the teams that have been developing home grown talent will be laughing for at least a few dozen years. I’d also say that being consistantly bad is a better way to lose fans and such than actually making an effort to compete in the near future.

1 – because even if he is overpaid in your opinion, he is STILL bettern what you already got and the owner is spending money on the players instead of putting it in his pocket (this is assuming they are not doing the signing jim thome for 6 years instead of signing someone for 1 year when you got ryan howard who is ready to come up in a year)

No. This is a silly argument. Even if you somehow convinced me that, say, Lee > Snelling & Ibanez, you aren’t going to be able to tell me that he’s worth spending ridiculous amounts of money on for a marginal upgrade. That cash would be better off not being spent at all, or at least deployed somewhere you can do something useful with it. Free agent salaries should not be linear with actual run value, they should be based on the amount of comparable talent to that player is floating around the league. This is why A-Rod’s crazy deal wasn’t so bad at all, and why Adam Eaton’s will have me swearing for days. You pay millions to the elite and I won’t bat an eyelid. The only such player on this market is JD Drew.

Ah, and the Ryan Howard thing… people really need to give it a rest. For every Hafner there are 5 AJ Zapps.

2 – after having a lousy “rebuilding” team where all the agents and FA see you are getting emil brown type guys instead of FA, how much bonus money you think you gonna have to pay to top FA to come there? it’s gonna be like ivan rodroguez and detroit. no WAY is ivan rodriguez worth 10 mill a year for 4 years at his age. (and before yall think i am “happy” just remember that we are most likely gonna sign carlos “slug” lee for probably as much as lance berkman makes and yes i know that lee is worth maybe 60% of berkman on a good day and we are gonna hafta eat a lot of that when he can’t even waddle out there in left and we trade him to the AL so as he can DH – he’s gonna end up being manny money for the 2, maybe 3 years we’ll have him.)

We didn’t have a problem with this in 2004, when we were close to the worst team in baseball, why should the M’s (with a roster core at about .500 assuming you just throw out replacement level talent in whatever holes are on the team) be worried now?

3 – the owners kinda got to sign some name FA because if they do not sign some big FA to “show they serious about winning” they gonna lose a LOT of fans (like in houston especially since roger and andy are not coming back.)

Names just aren’t worth that kind of money and years. Sorry.

p.s. i understand how yall mariners fans not real too happy after seeing how “good” beltre and sexon turned out to be. so i understand yall kinda snakebit about FA these days…

What the heck are you talking about? If I was a GM, I sign that Beltre deal every time it comes to the table, and Sexson’s had a grand total of two bad months as a Mariner. They aren’t the problems with the franchise.

I wasn’t saying to bank the money because I don’t think any FO is willing to work like Cingular. What I was saying is not to spend money in 06 on guys who aren’t worth looking at for the money or time they’ll be given because:

A: The FA class looks horrible in comparison to next years potential class (even if you take out the top LH and RH name at every position from next years list) and is a joke in comparison to 2008’s potential FA’s.

B: The players you’re talking about signing to $10 million plus money are going to be yours for 4+ years (hamstringing your ability to acquire GOOD talent in upcoming free agent years)

C: I’d rather see a lower overall payroll than twice the money spent on the wrong people.

I have previously said that I advocate acquiring Manny Ramirez via trade if a couple other moves can be pulled off to make it work. If the M’s wouldn’t need to move payroll at that point then so be it, but the belief I’m going on is they’d haveto trade Sexson (without paying a dime) and bring in a 1B. This would be spending that “$20 million” in a way likely to be positive.

I have also advocated in previous posts acquiring Bonds in a 1+option deal this offseason as a smokescreen to keep the fans occupied and beleiving in the product being put on the field, while potentially freeing up that money after the season to sign someone in thier prime who’s worth a premium (regardless what that premium may be). If Zambrano and Carpenter were both signed to extensions, you don’t like any of the other options for SP (highly unlikely IMO) and you miss out on the 2-5 (depending on your opinion) Good FA LH power hitters of 07 you could resign Bonds, save face and shuffle a few things…08 doesn’t look quite as promising as 07 SP wise, but potential FA bats are like a steakhouse menu. The All-Stars missing from this years Free Agents come up after 2007 and 2008, don’t spend those years budgets on a longterm smokescreen!

I did not mean that the team shouldn’t spend it, just that it shouldn’t spend it longterm on these FA’s. There are many possible trade scenarios that could be beneficial.

I don’t think the free agents available are worth chasing and locking into your payroll for 3,4,5 years. If the 2 SP slots are both filled via FA this offseason for 3+ years and the M’s also bring in a FA fielder signed for 3+ years out of this class, I will truly beleive that the present FO has no foresight. That belief could be changed in the future by performance of said players, but with these names I doubt it.

1) Of course they shouldn’t pocket the money (unless there is a clear plan to add it to the following years’ payrolls). But with such inflated prices, they should overpay for either elite talent(which is unavailable) or overpay for just one or two year contracts. It is stupid to tie up money in a long term deal paying mediocre players exhorbitant salaries when there will be better uses for that money in the future. If there is one roster spot, and 10 million left in the payroll, and the owners have a policy of not saving money from one year and adding it to their payroll the next year, go ahead and pay 10 million for a utility guy who will get 150 at bats (Ha! Imagine that! A Mariners utility guy who only gets 150 at bats! In our dreams!). Just do it on a one year deal. (Or, better yet, make a trade to get better talent for your remaining 10 mil).

2) As Dave has pointed out many times, there are expensive players who could be traded for who are better than the guys on the free agent market. There is no problem paying for huge contracts, but free agency is not the only way to exhaust your payroll.

3) Beltre has worked out fine. Washburn is the real doozy.

every single team out there got that much more to spend than they did last year.

That point (which I mostly disagree with) is completely irrelevant to the argument at hand.

You are correct to say that there is no benefit to the team or its fans for the owners to pocket the excess profits. What Dave is counseling, however, is not a scheme to make M’s owners more cash. Instead, he’s suggesting that instead of paying, say, Carlos Lee the going “market” rate of the inflated market (whatever it happens to be), a savvy GM should instead focus on the strategy of paying inflated FA money ONLY for those elite talents who are worth overpaying. (In large part because of the effects on the roster in 2008, 2009, etc.)

In Seattle, we have not been blessed with a savvy GM, uh…ever. Pat Gillick? No. Woody Woodward? Please. So this entire discussion is a pipe dream. I’m more or less convinced that Bill Bavasi will, for the reasons that you suggest, go out and sign the wrong players (because they’re “bettern what you already got,” but not suitable for a contending team) to the wrong deals, preventing the useful pieces of the current team from being turned into a contender for several additional seasons.

But maybe that’s just me being a curmudgeon.

Incidentally, Lisa, I like the Astros as about my fourth-favorite team, residue of when I lived in Austin just as the beloved “Disastros” were rebuilding…it was 1990, and they had just traded Larry Andersen for Jeff Bagwell. Brilliant.