Tigers negotiate and extend Miggy 8 years at under $300M

[kalinecountry]

$32M a year for 8 years starting 2016...when he will be 33. Beyond stupid IMO.

Pecota and another futures type stats thingees have Miggy as what he's done the last 2/3 years through age 37, 6 plus WAR seasons, then he becomes less of a Beast. So he goes to DH.

but by all means put your shit on it print all over this like every other extension/signing.
Are you against raising the minimum wage too?

Another thing is the contracts are escalating higher and higher, Sanchez was considered an over pay and now his is a baseball contract bargain.

 

[kalinecountry]

http://www.blessyouboys.com/2014/3/...-cabrera-mega-deal-is-all-about-the-benjamins
Immediate reaction to Miguel Cabrera mega-deal is all about the Benjamins.
from bybtb

 

[tomdalton22]

Pecota and another futures type stats thingees have Miggy as what he's done the last 2/3 years through age 37, 6 plus WAR seasons, then he becomes less of a Beast. So he goes to DH.

but by all means put your shit on it print all over this like every other extension/signing.
Are you against raising the minimum wage too?

I'm a Tigers fan...not a player fan. I see the writing on the wall for this franchise. The days of PED / Roid induced players producing until the age of 40 are long gone! The Tigers had him locked up for 2 years at a reasonable wage. Why not let things play out a little bit? He will be an albatross around the neck of the Tigers a few years after his current contract expires.

Bottom line...everyone on here is entitled to their opinion. Mine happens to go against the grain. Personally, I would rather have a team that is competitive than root for an individual so he can go into the hall as a Tiger.

No hard feelings towards any fan on this board...especially KC as I really appreciate all of the hard work done in the Tigers Notes thread. My opinion is just different than most here and as far as I understand this is the place for opinions to be shared.

TD

 

[kalinecountry]

Tom, I understand what you're saying, it is just the way of all sports now.
really even $22M this year and next is alot of f'n money, but with ALL the monies coming in from tv revenues and tickets/foods/team+player stuff the teams and owners obviously have millions to play with even the teams that let players go before they get to FA.

I was expecting your stance on it, and even with what I said about your shit print on this, I understand your feelings.

Lots of money in sports, Iwas born 50/60 years to soon, even a utility infielder makes a few million a year, I could have enjoyed that, boos and all with a muffed play at 2B or SS.

 

[Mitchrapp]

$32M a year for 8 years starting 2016...when he will be 33. Beyond stupid IMO.

NFL I'm with you. No cap here I have no problem..the Tigers need a cap in the hall. They need a great player..

 

[Rebbiv]

I'm a Tigers fan...not a player fan. I see the writing on the wall for this franchise. The days of PED / Roid induced players producing until the age of 40 are long gone! The Tigers had him locked up for 2 years at a reasonable wage. Why not let things play out a little bit? He will be an albatross around the neck of the Tigers a few years after his current contract expires.

Bottom line...everyone on here is entitled to their opinion. Mine happens to go against the grain. Personally, I would rather have a team that is competitive than root for an individual so he can go into the hall as a Tiger.

No hard feelings towards any fan on this board...especially KC as I really appreciate all of the hard work done in the Tigers Notes thread. My opinion is just different than most here and as far as I understand this is the place for opinions to be shared.

TD

Tom your opinion is just as valid as others. I was dead set against Scherzer extension due to rewarding a player after a career year and no other repeat years. Cabrera is different. Unless something unforeseen happens, he should be worthy of the contract late into it. I believe, currently, at $22 Mil, he is grossly underpaid. And it really depends on the "option" years and bonus clauses.

 

[UMRules06]

I'm not exactly thrilled with the extension either. I'm happy I suppose that Miggy will probably retire a Tiger and get into the hall and all of that, but just like with Prince I worry about what Miggy the player will be like in his later years. Let's be honest he isn't in the best of shape, and although he has been durable for most of his career he had a bunch of nagging injuries last season. I would think that the odds are pretty good that he's going to have those types of issues resurface as he gets older and slower. I dunno, I'm happy and not happy all at once.

 

[manchild98]

I'm a Tigers fan...not a player fan. I see the writing on the wall for this franchise. The days of PED / Roid induced players producing until the age of 40 are long gone! The Tigers had him locked up for 2 years at a reasonable wage. Why not let things play out a little bit? He will be an albatross around the neck of the Tigers a few years after his current contract expires.

Bottom line...everyone on here is entitled to their opinion. Mine happens to go against the grain. Personally, I would rather have a team that is competitive than root for an individual so he can go into the hall as a Tiger.

No hard feelings towards any fan on this board...especially KC as I really appreciate all of the hard work done in the Tigers Notes thread. My opinion is just different than most here and as far as I understand this is the place for opinions to be shared.

TD

There is a fantastic chance he is still going to look like this current version of Miggy this year and next (and a few seasons after that)...which means it would cost you even more money to sign him. He's a HOF'er and arguably a top 5 hitter in baseball history. It's a good spot and a tough spot for a team to be in. You have a great player and you want to keep him in your uniform for his career....and he wants to be here. If you get rid of him you piss off a shitload of fans.

I do think Miggy will be more like a Big Papi. Miggy is such a natural, talented hitter that I still think he'll be a hell of a DH well into his late 30's. You never know about anyone's health so that's always the chance you take.

 

[tomdalton22]

Tom, I understand what you're saying, it is just the way of all sports now.
really even $22M this year and next is alot of f'n money, but with ALL the monies coming in from tv revenues and tickets/foods/team+player stuff the teams and owners obviously have millions to play with even the teams that let players go before they get to FA.

I was expecting your stance on it, and even with what I said about your shit print on this, I understand your feelings.

Lots of money in sports, Iwas born 50/60 years to soon, even a utility infielder makes a few million a year, I could have enjoyed that, boos and all with a muffed play at 2B or SS.

I just have a different perspective. I was lucky enough to be at the final game of the 1984 WS so I already experienced that. I also went through 1989-2005. 16 years of shitty baseball....nothing to look forward to...no entertainment value IMO. I just think that with the uncertainty of ownership, forking over all of this money to a few player is a recipe for another decade of shitty baseball. I hope I am wrong....I just don't think I am

 

[SpartyNash]

I know almost everyone here will rip on me but most of you knew this was coming. I am 100% against this extension. Albert Pujolis contract 2.0

I could not agree more. I love Miggy and have bought a jersey since he's the best hitter I will ever see in a Tigers jersey but There is nothing I hate more than long contracts for guys already 30 years and up. The last couple years of that deal will be horrendous most likely.

 

[Mitchrapp]

Good think Max didn't sign..very few things get me excited about the Tigers. Miggy is one so I'll take it. Without him those shitty years are back Tom, sooner. Just get better at the draft so we can get some cheapie's in here.

 

[Thumb]

By the time Cabrera's contract is in the later years, the amount he's making won't seem like so much with the way salaries are inflating.

I'm against overpaying for players. I don't believe you can put a price on a player like Cabrera though. I never thought another Tiger player could mean so much to me and seem to synonymous with our franchise as Alan Trammell was when I was a kid, but the whole world stops what it's doing and watches when #24 steps to the plate, we may never see a player like him in Detroit again in our lifetimes.

 

[spockmaster]

Sports contracts are getting absolutely obscene. Miggy will be making more for each AB than I've made total in the last several years, which is fucking ridiculous.


On the other hand, theres nothing I can do about baseball contracts, so FUCK YEAH MIGGY'S A TIGER FOR LIFE

 

[biggunsbob]

I guess it is ok... I would feel better if we had 2 more titles locked up instead of losses... I guess it had to be done and it is not my money but the price tag seems freaking obscene to me...Maybe this year is our year...

 

[UMRules06]

According to Buster Olney, other executives around the league are "appalled" at the deal Cabrera got. In essence we are giving a soon to be DH twice as much money as David Ortiz, who is considered one of the best DHs in the game. Here's Keith Law's insider article about the contract, which unsurprisingly he is critical of:

In analyzing Miguel Cabrera's enormous contract extension with the Detroit Tigers, I might as well just rerun my column on the Ryan Howard contract from April 2010: Teams just do not need to extend veteran players who are two years from free agency out into their late 30s (or beyond).

The Tigers might as well just light much of the $292 million they're giving to Cabrera on fire or invest it in downtown Detroit real estate.

Cabrera is one of the best hitters in the game but not the best player even in his own league, because being the best player involves more than just hitting -- defense matters, position matters, baserunning matters, and Miggy, although preternaturally gifted at hitting, isn't very good at those other things. He's been worth about seven WAR (wins above replacement) per season over the past few, and paying $30 million per year for that kind of production is probably reasonable, even if it implies that a free-agent version of Mike Trout would be worth the GDP of a small island nation.

Way too many years

The issues with the deal are the timing and the length. The timing makes no sense -- Cabrera had two seasons to go to free agency, and the Tigers could just as easily have taken care of this next winter, perhaps after making sure Miggy stays healthy through the whole season. The leverage wouldn't have shifted; Cabrera would have been a year closer to free agency but a year older and perhaps a year heavier, too. He might even have declined offensively in the interim, although I wouldn't have bet on it. They could have waited even into 2015.

Any number of variables could have changed in the meantime that allowed them to strike a better deal; it is inconceivable that Cabrera's price would have gone up in that same span of time.

As for the length, we just went through this with Albert Pujols, who signed a heavily backloaded 10-year deal with the Los Angeles Angels before 2012, only to enter his decline phase on the flight to Anaheim, Calif. His body has begun to break down, too, as we often see with bigger players in their 30s. Cabrera is now signed through an age-40 season that, as likely as not, won't happen.

History not on Miggy's side

Cabrera is peaking now, but hitters of his type -- bat-only corner guys -- no matter how good, decline into their 30s and do so, in general, more precipitously than more athletic or up-the-middle players. Many corner players who were nearly as productive in their 20s as Cabrera didn't even make it to age 40, guys such as Ron Santo, Vladimir Guerrero, Bobby Bonds, Buddy Bell and Dick Allen, none of whom played past age 37.

The history of players like Miggy in their 30s and early 40s isn't promising for Detroit. Only seven corner position players (first base, third base, left field, right field or designated hitter) have generated 40-plus WAR past age 30 since 1961. All but Roberto Clemente played at least through age 39. No pure first baseman has done it; Edgar Martinez, who played through age 41, is the only DH to do so. The top first basemen on the list were Willie Stargell at 36.2 and Rafael Palmeiro, whose career ended in disgrace after a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs, at 35.8.

None of the players on the list of 35-plus WAR has a listed weight higher than Chipper Jones' 210 pounds, although I think we can safely say Barry Bonds weighed north of that in his late 30s; Miggy is listed, somewhat conservatively, at 240. Jim Thome, listed at 250 pounds, had the highest WAR after age 30 of any player listed at 240 or above, with 32.9, followed by Frank Thomas at 23.3 and David Ortiz at 23.0.

Ortiz might be the best comparison for what the Tigers can reasonably hope to get from Cabrera. Papi has stayed healthy and productive into his late 30s, averaging 132 games and 4.1 WAR over the past seven seasons. He earned $28.5 million over the past two seasons and will make $31 million over the next two, or just a little more than what Miggy will make per season under the new deal. And the Boston Red Sox have kept his contracts limited in duration rather than committing to him a decade in advance -- with no evidence at all that this has cost them any kind of significant premium.

Cabrera most likely will be a $30 million-per-year player in 2014 and 2015, but the Tigers already had those years under control at salaries well below that mark. The problem is that, even with increasing revenues across MLB driving salaries up, he's unlikely to be a $30 million-per-year player in 2016 or 2017, and the odds of him being that in 2023 are infinitesimal.

He and Justin Verlander are set to make about $58 million combined in 2019, playing in a market that is shedding population. It's not any better a formula from a business perspective than it is from a baseball one.

Source: http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/post/_/id/2124/miguel-cabrera-deal-a-disaster-for-detroit

 

[Mitchrapp]

Everyone knows the deal is too long for too much money..but it is what it is. If the Ilitch family wants to spend it who am I to argue..

 

[jdeb]

He makes some good points. However, Miggy is better than the players mentioned. If he remains healthy, he will put up good numbers until the end. He is in league of his own at the plate, special. Hopefully, we build it around him.

 

[tomdalton22]

He makes some good points. However, Miggy is better than the players mentioned. If he remains healthy, he will put up good numbers until the end. He is in league of his own at the plate, special. Hopefully, we build it around him.

He isn't better than Pujols was.

 

[UMRules06]

Everyone knows the deal is too long for too much money..but it is what it is. If the Ilitch family wants to spend it who am I to argue..

If we as fans believe it will be a deterrent in the long run to keeping the team competing for championships, then we should argue shouldn't we?

 

[tomdalton22]

This is what scares me.

"The Tigers' 2014 payroll is estimated to be approximately $161 million, the fifth-highest in baseball and highest in franchise history. They now employ the highest-paid position player in baseball (Cabrera) and the second-highest paid pitcher in baseball (Justin Verlander). And they are now committed to paying $60 million to just those two players in 2016, '17, '18 and '19."