Phil Rogers tweeted out a Sulia link, which I normally avoid on principle, but Bleacher Nation Brett insisted was interesting, so I clicked it.
Brett was right.
Phil is claiming the Cubs don't really give a damn that they are over their allotted pool money already and that they aren't necessarily done signing international guys.
The three most attractive guys still out there Taiwanese right-hander Jen-Ho Tseng and two 15-year-olds — Dominican third baseman Luis Encarnacion and Dominican center fielder Leonardo Molina. Encarnacion and Molina aren’t eligible to sign until next month, when they turn 16. The Cubs figure to blow so far past their spending allotment that they will be pay a 100-percent tax and suffer the most serious sanction in the rules — being limited to a maximum of $250,000 on any signing in the 2014-15 international class. The Cubs believe that the top guys in this year's class are much better than those who will be available next year.
I was starting to wonder if this might be the case as they have already acted as though they don't care of they are over.
In the last thread, I saw some comments that the trade for extra pool money was a waste, but if I'm understanding the rules right, they'll have to pay 100% of the overage (assuming they stay above 15% over the cap), so by trading for an extra million or so in pool space, that is one million less they don't get taxed at 100%. It may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but it's still basically a million dollars in savings for a guy they obviously don't believe in very much.
Comments
I don’t know how many of these guys will ever make it to the big club, probably only 1 if that. But it is nice to see they have a long term plan and they don’t mind spending money if they have to.
BigSmokeJQuote Reply
I read this this morning, and it could be right, but Cubs fans should damn well hope that it isn’t. If it is, it means that the Cubs have altered their priorities in the trade market, making deals with an eye on tax savings rather than just talent. Those savings so far? ~$1.5 million. (assumes 100% tax savings on $963k plus $500k saved in Marmol deal). That’s less than a Dioner Navarro. If it’s true, that means they are more cash-strapped than any of us had guessed.
GWQuote Reply
Trading for pool space might make sense, but trading Marmol and pool space doesn’t. that’s what is odd and it’s why I still think they end up without a penalty.
dmick89Quote Reply
Cubs Spend Millions Luring 15 Year Old Boys, Don’t Care What You Think
GBTSQuote Reply
If they manage to add even one impact talent through this process, the overall cost is still so small I think that it will totally be worth it. If two of them turn into impact players, they’ll look like geniuses.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ GBTS:
(dying laughing)
(dying laughing)
(dying laughing)
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ GW:
Great point.
I also don’t like comments like this:
I’ve heard that a million times and by this time next year we’ll hear about how it’s a good class. Besides, the talent pool changes so much with this group of kids that there’s really no way to know what next year’s IFA class will be like. Some of these 14 year olds thought highly of right now will hit a wall.
I don’t like the idea of limiting your spending in future years. I bet we see a trade (Garza for a prospect and some pool space?) and then we’ll see Jimenez officially signed. After that I’d guess there are a handful of guys they could get for $10,000.
dmick89Quote Reply
Anyone think its possible we traded for Houston’s slots to take another team out of the Jimenez running? Obviously we get the tax benefits and if we’d soured on Torreyes, it’s good to get something out of it. But I think the main reasons could be eliminating one suitor and possibly the FO not tipping their hand that they were going to go all out. Thoughts?
JTSQuote Reply
Commence operation smokescreen.
shawndgoldmanQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
I think they just wanted Marmol out of there. They still haven’t traded anyone they are really going to miss. What would they have gotten instead of pool money for trading Feldman? That little cap space wasn’t worth any player we would ever give a damn about, so they saved on some tax money.
Just because they don’t care if they pay a fine and lose the ability to sign guys next year doesn’t mean they are just going to throw away money left and right.
Rumblings I’ve heard for months indicated the Cubs considered Marmol toxic because the media and fans wouldn’t leave him alone (and by extension his teammates), and he was pitching so bad nobody wanted him at almost any cost. The fact the Cubs found a trade partner to even take him at all was kind of shocking to me and the Cubs probably didn’t sweat the cap space hit to make it happen.
Aisle424Quote Reply
I also wonder if the Cubs and Rangers think there will be an international draft by next year, making whatever rules/penalties that would apply moot or less significant. Even if they get all those penalties, they can just sign a bunch of dudes for $250,000 each to fill out rosters. Go all out for impact this year and all depth next near. I’m sure they have some kind of plan. I actually think there’s some momentum going on with what they’re doing since the beginning of this offseason. Several FA signings were good, I think the Feldman, Marshall, and Maholm trades were good. Both drafts seem as good as they could be considered so far, and now getting the top 2 Intl. FA. Plus what’s that other Intl. FA they got last year who is stuck in the Dominican? (dying laughing). Soler seems good so far. I like it better than what Hendry was doing.
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
Aisle424 wrote:
I know that, but the Cubs traded pool space to the Dodgers in the process. If you’re going over your pool space, you want as much as possible. The Cubs traded some away. It doesn’t even make sense.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
yep. it’s much harder to predict what 15 year olds will become good prospects than what college players will.
GWQuote Reply
@ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
There isn’t. The penalties would have been different this year if there was a draft for next year. Those penalties would have included a loss of a pick, like the MLB Draft.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ JTS:
I think the Eloy deal has been more or less complete for weeks.
GWQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
they could have just let marmol walk
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
Yeah, I’d hate to think the Cubs are so confident they can nail down the future talent level of a 14 or 15 year old.
I’ll believe the Cubs are going to go way past slot when I see it. The fact they traded away some slot money tells me that just isn’t happening.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ GW:
It would have cost them more overall, but it gets back to your earlier point: if the Cubs are doing this then they are more cash strapped than any of us guessed.
dmick89Quote Reply
Aisle424 wrote:
what we’ve seen from this front office is that they will fight you tooth and nail in trade negotiations to squeeze out the best prospects possible. they didn’t do that this year, they clearly wanted to get deals done on July 2nd to acquire pool space. if the purpose of that is to sign better international prospects, great, i completely understand that. if the purpose is to save a million dollars in the tax, i understand that too, but it makes me a lot less confident about their financial situation now and going forward.
GWQuote Reply
GW wrote:
Well, maybe not Eloy specifically then… Possibly just to lessen the Astros IFA budget, which was the only team that had more than the Cubs. Could remove them as suitors for other high priced IFA’s, which helps the Cubs if they’re looking to go all out.
Regardless, I think this is incredibly interesting and if true, I’m excited to see how it plays out.
JTSQuote Reply
I’m not saying the Cubs don’t care about this or that. I’m just saying that it doesn’t make sense to a) trade away pool space if you’re going to go over (you need all you can get), b) limit yourself to no bonuses higher than $250,000 next year (Thoyer have said repeatedly they need a consistent and constant pipeline of talent coming up) and c) feel confident you can estimate what the group of guys eligible next year will be like.
Theo and Jed are smarter than this.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ JTS:
well, the Astros were never in on the biggest names. It’s just not their style. And as the Rangers have shown, any team can be in on the biggest prospects if they are willing to pay the tax.
GWQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Well, technically the pool space they traded to the LAD was one of the 2 slots they acquired from Baltimore. Even without what they acquired from HOU, they came out with a net gain. Its like they went to the store to get beer, and went ahead and grabbed a second case for the neighbor who had mown the lawn. Yea, the Cubs technically traded cap space away, but I guess they must have thought they could fix Guerier or something that made it worth getting him in exchange for Marmol rather than just letting Marmol walk.
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
I would say that the Marmol trade is the biggest piece of evidence in favor of this theory, because while the Cubs traded away space, it was still a net gain in terms of dollars (about $300k). Again, this is not a good thing. I didn’t understand the Marmol trade at the time, but if this is the reason, then I am pretty bummed out.
GWQuote Reply
Recalcitrant Blogger Nate wrote:
this is what we should be hoping for, though I don’t know why they would think this.
Recalcitrant Blogger Nate wrote:
unless I misread it, this isn’t true. they traded one of their own slots (#92). not that it matters…
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
I think that and I really doubt the Cubs want to limit themselves to no bonuses higher than $250,000 next year. I get the impression from this FO they want to hit on guys every single year and this just makes it harder. There are too many things here that tell me they won’t go over slot.
That said, I won’t be shocked if they do, but probably disappointed.
Question, the $250,000 in scholarship money that Jimenez is to get counts against the slot, right? Wouldn’t it have to? Otherwise, teams would be offering all kinds of crazy incentives like this.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ GW:
Even if they traded away a slot they already got in another trade, it still doesn’t make sense to me. It’s still money the cubs could have spent and paid less in taxes if they really plan to just go way over.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
me too.
dmick89 wrote:
jesse sanchez says no and I think that’s right. that’s the way it works for high school draftees, at least.
GWQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
well, assuming 100% taxes, then the $209,700 slot was worth $209,700 in taxes if they were going way over. the money they saved dumping Marmol’s contract was ~$500k, so their real savings is ~$300k.
GWQuote Reply
The Cubs are likely to have one of the highest IFA budgets again next year. Maybe they blow through the limit this year and then use next years money to buy AA guys from other teams like the reverse of the Torreyes deal. They arent going to be serious contenders next year or maybe even 2015. So buy young and cheap now then a little older next year and in 2015 see where you are as kids come up. None of this year’s IFAs will be ready in 2015 but their true talent might be easier to project.
SVBQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
It’s strange all around. Though if the Cubs were more cash strapped than we thought, they wouldn’t be spending all this extra money on international players anyway.
BerseliusQuote Reply
This has been a strange couple of days.
BerseliusQuote Reply
I don’t care too much if they blow through their ifa budget. The limits for farm system development are so strict now that probably only Loria and Glass are happy. I’d rather the Cubs think out of the box and push the system as hard as possible. Assuming their money situation isn’t too horrible from the purchase they should use the cash leverage they have.
SVBQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
Not necessarily. This is a small amount of money that has potential to change a farm system. The Cubs can cut back in a number of ways that most fans wouldn’t even notice to make this money up.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
right, we’re talking about the organization shifting their priorities in the trade market away from “maximum talent addition” for the sake of $1.5 million dollars. It could be more, if they acquire more slots, but it won’t be any larger than $2.5 million.
i’m still expecting a big trade soon, and i haven’t heard Cub connections to any of the players Phil Rogers aside from wild guess on the Cubs and Tseng from BA.
GWQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Like one less Crane Kenney
SVBQuote Reply
@ SVB:
If it was as simple as just blowing through IFA money and only paying taxes, no complaints here. It isn’t. It will affect what they can do next year and they will end up with a significantly worse IFA class because of it.
Does one great class make up for it? I don’t know. It’s possible it does and it’s equally possible it makes it worse, but I’d much rather have 2 good to great ones, which they can still easily do (if there’s a trade coming up).
dmick89Quote Reply
Isn’t the simplest theory here that the Rogers piece was based on a leak to get the Cubs more leverage in their ongoing trade negotiations? “No, we don’t really care about going over the limit. We’re going to do that anyways. We just want to limit the amount we go over by.”
Not saying it will work. Just saying that makes as much sense as anything.
shawndgoldmanQuote Reply
Brad Stevens to coach Celtics. That’s out of the box.
Manny to Rangers AAA team. Yes. That Manny.
Guerrier to Cubs. (Included for context)
SVBQuote Reply
GW wrote:
As you said earlier, everything this FO has done with regards to trades has been to maximize their return. If this is the new direction they’re going, it deserves to be looked at with some skepticism IMO. It’s a very questionable direction. Get the most actual MiLB talent you can in a trade or get the most 15 and 16 year old talent possible? I’d like to do both, but if I can only do one, it’s a pretty simple option for me.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ shawndgoldman:
Good point
BerseliusQuote Reply
SVB wrote:
Just up the road from me….I might be going to some RR Express games in the next week or so
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ shawndgoldman:
great point, Shawn.
GWQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
I think Soria is still there, too. Not for much longer, though.
GWQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
agreed
GWQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
But of the argument that Torreyes is more valuable than slot money and/or that 16 yr olds are a crap shoot no matter how much $ they get, then why not next year sign the best 250k players you can on IFA and then auction off your other slot money for more projectable 20-yr old minor leaguers? You’d build upper levels faster then.
SVBQuote Reply
@ GW:
He’s been pitching in AA
BerseliusQuote Reply
New shit
http://obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/diving-into-starlin-castros-2013-numbers.html
BerseliusQuote Reply