Few things I would love more for this upcoming season than for the Rangers to miss the playoffs. Prove just how flukey last year’s title was. Had unbelievably good numbers with RISP and 2 outs, like unsustainably good. That offense masked their legitimate bullpen and rotation issues that have only gotten much worse.
Apparently Baltimore's 100 win season last year is being declared flukey as well... they did win a lot of 1 run games.... but not exactly what you'd expect odds to be for a team that has nothing but youth/upside and just really needs "experience" to continue to ascend to the extended run everybody is expecting them to go on.
Matt Chapman's contract gives me hope of extending Bregman at a reasonable contract. 54 million over 3 years with opt outs.
Ideal contract length for a pitcher of his age/track record/mileage.... and the AAV was enough for him to take the shorter overall contract. If he's still good at the end, he'll get another one... and then maybe even another one (see JV). Hopefully this can mitigate future 8-10 year pitching deals that really don't work out well for either party with current inflation rates (Cole's AAV currently looks pretty great... but its also unlikely he'll provide plus value or stay healthy throughout the entire deal).
He said he doesn’t know if he wants to pitch beyond the length of this deal, so it worked out for both sides.
Yeah, makes sense. The hope is that players get a little more realistic and market savvy about being locked into 8-10 year deals. Yes, they do have security for the worst case scenario…. But now that we are starting to see some higher AAV’s favoring short-term deals, the owners are making it more and more clear that its not simply about the money but the locked in years, especially for pitchers (even if those contracts looks “better” after a few years thanks to higher rising salaries). If the players can somehow forgo the status symbol of being “locked in”…. Their career earnings over two 3-5 year contracts will far exceed what it will be with one 10 year fixed rate contract. Owners will gladly keep AAV high or even higher, for the trade off of financial flexibility beyond those short term deals.
