Philadelphia 1, San Francisco 0
Kevin Millwood just threw a no-hitter. Against the Giants. Yeah, nice work, Scheurholz.
Philadelphia 1, San Francisco 0
Kevin Millwood just threw a no-hitter. Against the Giants. Yeah, nice work, Scheurholz.
Oh come on Mac, didn’t you get the memo? The reason the Braves don’t have Millwood is that the _economics_ of baseball stink! Poor Johnny Schuerholz feels pinched struggling by on a $92/$98m payroll.
I feel like a Red Sox fan.
(Actually they’re my 2nd favorite team but that’s beside the point).
I think we all saw this coming. Not the no hitter, but KM having a wonderful season for the Phillies after the horrible trade. I do not know of anyone who believes it was a good thing. JS is the whipping boy for alot of us for good reason. This is just the most obvious example to date.
Combined ERA of Ortiz, Hampton, Reynolds, and Byrd–4.36 (64 IP)
Combined ERA of Millwood, Glavine, and Moss–3.17 (99 1/3 IP)
Combined K/BB ratio of O/H/R/B–32/32
Combined K/BB ratio of M/G/M–68/47
Of course the salaries the Braves are paying for those 4 are about half of what Millwood and Glavine are getting, which was the whole point of making the moves. Anyway, I think those combined stats will be much closer by the end of the year. And don’t forget Ramirez – cheap and at least as good as Moss.
FYI,
The combined record of Millwood, Glavine and Moss this season is 11-3.
The combined record of Ortiz, Hampton, Byrd and Reynolds this year is 4-4.
Good thing the Braves didn’t stand pat…
I realize pitcher records don’t really mean that much, but I thought it was interesting (plus, I was too lazy to calculate the combined ERAs)…
No one has been able to explain to me why a multi-million dollar business would offer arbitration to a player if they didn’t want him to accept it. They were utterly unprepared for Maddux to accept arbitration, and the result was a panicked liquidation of a prime asset at an absurdly low price.
Show me a CEO in a real business* who could do that and not be ridden out on a rail.
A bush league management move by a major league team. It’s embarrassing and Schuerholz doesn’t deserve the kid glove treatment he has been getting from suck-ups like Jayson Stark.
*By “real business” I mean one that doesn’t openly cook the books and one whose business model doesn’t count on extorting money from taxpayers and municipalities for stadiums.
Matt,
Teams offer arbitration to players they don’t want all the time. That’s how you get extra draft picks. Oakland offered arbitration to Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen a few years ago, made no move to resign them and then collected the draft picks from the Yanks, BoSox, and Cards. No arbitration offer, no draft picks. This is how Oakland keeps the farm system cranking out top notch prospects.
The trick is that you only offer arbitration to players that other teams want or that you are prepared to cut if they accept arbitration. Schuerholz figured someone would make Maddux an offer and then he would let Greg walk, collect the draft pick, and resign Millwood. At the time, it seemed like a pretty good plan. The problem came when not one other team showed any interest in Maddux and he was forced to accept arbitration. From there the downward spiral began.
I know that Schuerholz has and should get a lot of blame for what happened. But on the list of things he screwed up, I just can’t believe offering Maddux arbitration is high on that list. I don’t see how he could have forseen the complete lack of interest in Maddux on the free agent market.
The problem came when not one other team showed any interest in Maddux and he was forced to accept arbitration.
The problem came when he went and brought in a truckload of mediocrity when it had been obvious for a month that Maddux would be accepting.
My problem is with the apparent complete lack of a backup plan. I know they thought he wouldn’t accept it. But they clearly weren’t prepared for the possibility that he might. And to me that’s a base you have to cover when the stakes are that high.
The problem I have is that the money Scheurholz has wasted over the past couple of seasons could have been used to keep Millwood AND Maddux if he accepted. That was the backup plan. A $7M player option on Javy, $10M for a closer that pitches 70 innings a year, $4M for Vinny and another $4M for Byrd. Hell, if you don’t give Javy that player option and go with Estrada and Blanco you’re not losing that much offensively; combined with not signing Byrd, that’s 10M right there.
Obviously we’ve all been over this before, but nothing brings a team down faster than overspending on crap players. When financial flexibility is needed, you’re hands end up tied and the result isn’t pretty.
Exactly, the problem wasn’t giving Maddux arbitration, but signing those guys 2 years ago. I was going to say exactly what Louise said but he beat me to it. Scheurholtz isn’t as big an idiot as.. is it Chuck LaMar? THe Devil Ray’s GM? Atleast Scheurholtz didn’t give Castilla more than $4M…
Does anyone else enjoy the fact that Travis Lee turned down a $1 million offer from the Braves and ended up playing for Tampa Bay for $500,000 instead?
You don’t even need to go back as far as last year to understand the mess Schuerholz made of this mammoth payroll he has. A Turner exec said in the AJC that they are budgeting Hampton’s salary at its average value of $8m a year – said it would be irresponsible of the team not to do that. Now, i have my doubts – I can easily see AOL taking the cheap route now and dumping the fat amount on the next buyer. BUT, if that’s true, then you have Hampton+Byrd = $11m this year. Or, put another way, about $500k less than it would have taken to keep Moss and Millwood.
Which two would you rather have, either now or 6 months ago? What a mess. And that’s before you consider the Lopez and Vinny deals (though, to be honest, I thought the Javy deal was reasonable when made). And, lest I forget one of my own past points, having $10m wrapped up in a closer, even if he is as dominant as Smoltz is now, seems to me a tremendous squandering of resources. That $10m could be buying 200+ innings of Glavine.
Why even go back to the albatross contracts for Lopez or SVOD? Hampton + Byrd + Ortiz, using AAV for each contract = $18,150,000.
Millwood + Moss = $11,500,000.
So we got older, more injury prone, and more expensive. Nice set of moves there JS!
Yeah, Average Annual Value may not be appropriate for all calculations, but it does reveal that the Braves aren’t exactly saving the bucks here.