Quick reaction is that the team got a steal, but at the same time Strasburg would have been crazy to turn it down.
There's no cheaper source of premium talent than the draft. Even if he gets hurt tomorrow, this was a tremendous bargain to bring in a talent of this caliber. The Nationals seem to have driven a hard bargain, and they probably saved money today by walking away from Aaron Crow a year ago.
From Strasburg's perspective, his stock will never be higher. Fifteen million is plenty to make a young man smile. It's not close to the market value of his talent, but again, if he gets hurt tomorrow he will have cashed in on his talent handsomely.
Congratulations to everyone involved.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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8 comments:
I think the biggest story is that Boras was willing to come down almost 50%. Are the projections as to how long it will take him to reach the big league club? Any chance of seeing him in the 40 man roster expansion?
Here's another story, not yet being mentioned: Aaron Crow still hasn't signed with KC, and apparently has until a week before next year's draft to work out a deal, according to MLB.com. I wish the Nats had signed Crow last year, but the Strasburg signing and Crow's handlers' inability to get anything done when KC is offering close to the same money that the Nats offered when he was the 9th pick makes that episode a little easier to consign to the past. Now, time to bring on Rizzo full time for the good of the franchise.
How do you think Crow effected these negotiations? I don't think the Nats changed their strategy from last year. I believe if Crow signed last year, the Nats would still have gotten SS for close to the same amount. The difference is we could be looking at a SS, Crow, JZimm, Lannan [back-of-the-rotation guy] rotation in 2011, and that sounds a lot better than SS, JZimm, Lannan, [filler arm] [filler arm].
That said, I'm really excited and relieved we have SS now!
I was shocked at the $15.7 million figure until I saw that it was a 4 year major league contract. Basically year 1 is almost over. He then has 3 years left which buys out his years of league minimum prior to arbitration. Great job getting him signed, but in the back of my mind I still think a 6 year, $22-25 million deal would have saved the team money in the long run and avoided arbitration. At this point, beggers cant't be choosers.
Time to lock up Rizzo!!!
"There's no cheaper source of premium talent than the draft."
Is Boras guest blogging for you today?
How can you possibly say that $15 million is cheap to bring in the talent if he gets hurt tomorrow? That's idiotic. That's part of the risk you take, but if you get burned you get burned and it wasn't worth it. It defies common logic to say that a record signing bonus is a steal. I would expect more out of you FJB man, you should know this. Boras' outlandish claim of 30-50 million in the beginning is a tainted figure, which has scewed your perception. STRASBURG IS AN UNPROVEN COMMODITY. He's never been stretched out the way they want him to be, throwing 200 innings a year, its always an injury risk, and he's never faced a professional batter.
I agree with you, I like the move but I would never react to it as a slam dunk. I'm very very excited, but please, proceed with caution here. He wouldn't be the first, absolute stud prospect to not pan out, if in case he didn't. Just ask Cubs fans. How's Mark Prior working out for them now?
I can't tell you how excited I am. I know the game has changed and you have to go about your business in this way in top level talent. I'm just not convinced that a first overall pick has any better chance to succeed than any other pick in the first round. Its just not that simple, and when you have to give a lot more money to the first pick, in a bad economy, it makes the fallout potentially fatal to this organization if strasburg is a bust.
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