Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Honestly, if I'm the Cubs, I don't make this offer.
Left handed firstbaseman with a nice bat are pretty easy to find. I don't see anything special about Rizzo, or any need to commit any money toward him. I'd rather ride him during his cheap years, and if he becomes too expensive after that, I'd be confident I could find a suitable, affordable replacement.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Any halfway decent talent is worth paying $6MM/yr for.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mattfeet
Any halfway decent talent is worth paying $6MM/yr for.
Not when you don't have to. Rizzo would be around league minimum for the next few years.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Quote:
Originally Posted by
757690
Honestly, if I'm the Cubs, I don't make this offer.
Left handed firstbaseman with a nice bat are pretty easy to find. I don't see anything special about Rizzo, or any need to commit any money toward him. I'd rather ride him during his cheap years, and if he becomes too expensive after that, I'd be confident I could find a suitable, affordable replacement.
I think it's harder than you believe to find a bat worthy of playing 1B. If Votto went down today, it's not like we could pluck a nice bat out of thin air.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Quote:
Originally Posted by
757690
Not when you don't have to. Rizzo would be around league minimum for the next few years.
And then quite more than $7MM per after that. Not to mention there is a lot of intangibles when signing a young player. You show them you respect, appreciate, and want them for the long haul. If you find the right people to invest in, it'll pay dividends. By your logic, it's not smart to sign away a players pre-arb years, but what happens when a player vastly outproduces his pre-arb years and sets himself up for a healthy raise his first few arb years? Well, now you have to pay market rate when you could have locked him up years prior by showing that trust and making that investment.
It's a risk, but with this Rizzo signing, the risk is minimal.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kaldaniels
I think it's harder than you believe to find a bat worthy of playing 1B. If Votto went down today, it's not like we could pluck a nice bat out of thin air.
Well, the Reds did have Alonso and Votto in the majors at the same time just a few years ago.
A good MLB team should be able to produce a nice 1B bat like Rizzo every few years.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mattfeet
And then quite more than $7MM per after that. Not to mention there is a lot of intangibles when signing a young player. You show them you respect, appreciate, and want them for the long haul. If you find the right people to invest in, it'll pay dividends. By your logic, it's not smart to sign away a players pre-arb years, but what happens when a player vastly outproduces his pre-arb years and sets himself up for a healthy raise his first few arb years? Well, now you have to pay market rate when you could have locked him up years prior by showing that trust and making that investment.
It's a risk, but with this Rizzo signing, the risk is minimal.
When he gets to be too expensive, and is a 1B, a good MLB should have replacement ready from the minors.
If Rizzo played any other position, I'd like this deal. But 1B with a nice bat are easy to find and develop. No need to pay big for them, unless they are MVP types. Maybe the Cubs think Rizzo will be like Votto, but to me, he's more like Adam LaRoche.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
I just fail to see the logic in your thought process. It's not like the Cubs invested $100MM's into Rizzo. This is a CHEAP deal for them for an above-average young player. So you don't think the Reds should have signed Votto? Or Angels shouldn't have signed Pujols? Fielder? Etc.? Granted Rizzo isn't in the same camp as those guys, but this is a good deal.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
The Cubs are taking some risk in this. I'm not saying it was a bad deal at all but I think its a bit early to commit that much guaranteed money IMO. Drew Stubbs had pretty good stats after 2 years too.....actually a bit better. On the other hand this could certainly turn out to be a good deal. I just would have waited for another year or so and made a more informed judgement as they had him locked up thru 2017 anyways.
For comparison we got Jay Bruce for cheaper than $41 million during the same time period of his career, we will be paying Bruce a little over $38 million. And he was much safer bet at the point he signed (4+ full years) compared to Rizzo who barely has 1 full season under his belt. My point is they could have waited and still got him for the same price or less with much less uncertainty of him being a bust. It was an unnecessary risk IMO. Of course this whole argument changes if he hits 50 home runs this year ;)
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Quote:
Originally Posted by
757690
Well, the Reds did have Alonso and Votto in the majors at the same time just a few years ago.
A good MLB team should be able to produce a nice 1B bat like Rizzo every few years.
It's easier said than done though.
We've kind of gone through this argument about LF and relievers too.
Heck, even backup infielders..
Every club should be able to crank them out.
Reality is that there's a limited number of decent ML talent, and it's not so easy to find a decent 1b.
Before Votto, the Reds really didn't have a great 1b in quite some time.
Casey was decent (but we had to trade Burba for him)
Heck, we even traded for Hal Morris and Benzinger.
I'm trying to remember the last decent 1b before Votto that was homegrown. (I am excluding Alonso, since he was after Votto).. Maybe Esasky, if he counts?
I like this deal for the Cubs. This is the kind of deal they should be making.
Even if Rizzo doesn't produce, they aren't going to be hamstrung by this deal.
I agree that a deal like this for the Reds would be a bit riskier and require some thought.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.asp...ter=&players=0
They may be easy to find, but they won't necessarily be cheap. No one is saying the Cubs aren't taking a risk here, but assuming you can always find one for around the league minimum is asking for trouble.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Quote:
Originally Posted by
REDREAD
It's easier said than done though.
We've kind of gone through this argument about LF and relievers too.
Heck, even backup infielders..
Every club should be able to crank them out.
Reality is that there's a limited number of decent ML talent, and it's not so easy to find a decent 1b.
Before Votto, the Reds really didn't have a great 1b in quite some time.
Casey was decent (but we had to trade Burba for him)
Heck, we even traded for Hal Morris and Benzinger.
I'm trying to remember the last decent 1b before Votto that was homegrown. (I am excluding Alonso, since he was after Votto).. Maybe Esasky, if he counts?
I like this deal for the Cubs. This is the kind of deal they should be making.
Even if Rizzo doesn't produce, they aren't going to be hamstrung by this deal.
I agree that a deal like this for the Reds would be a bit riskier and require some thought.
Well the Reds during that period weren't producing any talent at any position.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
The Cubs absolutely fleeced the Padres in that trade. Cashner is a pretty good pitching prospect. He can throw hard. But his control isn't great, his secondary pitches aren't great and he already has a history with injuries. Score one for Theo.
However, Theo cancelled that out by making the boneheaded decision of giving Edwin Jackson $13 million per season for four years ($52 mil total). Theo is known for making bad free-agent decisions. Right, Carl Crawford? You hear me, John Lackey? Theo gets all the credit for the Red Sox winning 2 WS titles, but people tend to forget about all the horrible moves he's made.
He won this one though. Rizzo > Cashner and it's not even close. Course, the Padres had a surplus of first basemen and needed pitching once we traded them Alonso. But that still doesn't excuse not getting a good-enough return for Rizzo.
Re: Anthony Rizzo Signs 7 Year, $41 Million Deal
Baseball Ref and Cots both have his service time at 0.168 going into this year. That can't be right can it?
But anyway, he would have been arb-eligble in 2015 (Super 2).
So...trying to guess the savings (these are my guesses on what his salary would be if he is a solid 1B bat.)
2013 .5 MM
2014 .5 MM
2015 3 MM
2016 5 MM
2017 8 MM
2018 11 MM
2019 15 MM
Which totals 43 MM. So all in all, the extension really doesn't save that much...but it does give cost certainty. If I'm a Cubs fan, I like this deal. I like these type of deals for teams, so I'm biased, I will freely admit.
That doesn't change my above opinion a few posts back that you can easily find a plug in option for 1B cheaply on a consistent basis.
And if he does tank, this contract is just money lost in the couch cushions for the Cubs, which is important to note when evaluating this deal.