Bootstrapping at it's finest
The great Brooklyn fire sale of 2037 will be talked about and picked a part for many seasons to come. The Robins did not follow typical blueprints for a rebuild. There were several fundamental moves they made along the way that are the polar opposite of the norm. Most seemed to involve the philosophy of using their team payroll as a trade chip.
I heard a podcast host laugh at the fact that Brooklyn is over budget still. This made me laugh. Are other GM's so closed minded that they don't even see what we are doing? I constantly talk about moneyball 2.0. It's about recognizing trends before others do. It's about gaining value out of things that others don't value. Yes we are over budget. Actually that isn't even true, we are under budget now. But we will probably go back over it soon. It's all part of our plan.
Money is one of the most undervalued commodities in this game. We were able to get out of a $70 million debt, max out on cash, and fill up half our bonus funds within a matter of a few sims. The top teams generate more money then they know what to do with. But what do they value more then anything? Cap space.
For a rebuilding team like Brooklyn, it was never our intent to go out and sign a bunch of free agents this off season. What's the point? We're more committed to finding ways to get young talent on our team. So our operating payroll was going to be low regardless. As we noted from retaining salary to move our own overpaid players, there is a huge stigma in over paid players. They can be great players, but if they make more then the perceived value, they are absolutely worthless. So why not use our cap room to bring in high priced players(along with prospects of course), retain half their salary and flip them for even more prospects. Well the first flip is in the books and here is how it played out....
Brooklyn Trades
$1
Ken Bates (8/5/7 Talents)
Flip
Sean Maguire(7/7/5/7/6 Talents)
Brooklyn Gets
C ]Mzee Kiango (5/8/6/5/6 Talents)
1B Cisco Martinez(7/7/5/3/8 Talents)
3B Neil Brickell (5/4/6/3/7 Talents)
LF Desiderius Kirshbaum (7/5/3/5/10 Talents)
LF Jose Gallegos(6/6/7/4/6 Talents)
CF Antonio Cordero (5/7/5/6/5 Talents)
SP Claudio Delgado (7/6/7 Talents)
SP Douglas Wils (7/5/6 Talents)
SP Xavier Marot (10/2/5 Talents)
SP Felix Garcia(9/3/5 Talents)
Not bad. But Brooklyn absorbed a ton of cash in the process right?
Salary Implications
Brooklyn Pays
Kirshbaum $16.57 mil($5 mil buyout)= $21.575
Maguire $8.875*
Delgado $1,450,450
Total=$31.9 mil
*=assuming Maguire opts out
Brooklyn Saves
Ken Bates $6 mil
So Brooklyn essentially paid a little more then a dollar. More like $25.9 mil. So what did they actually get all that money for?
Years of Team Control Expected
C ]Mzee Kiango 6
1B Cisco Martinez 6
3B Neil Brickell 6
LF Desiderius Kirshbaum 1
LF Jose Gallegos 3
CF Antonio Cordero 6
SP Claudio Delgado 2
SP Douglas Wils 6
SP Xavier Marot 6
SP Felix Garcia 6
That's 48 years of team control acquired. In MLB they say 1 WAR equal $7 mil. Obviously that will be less in our economic 1990's vacuumed world. But for arguments sake. Let's say one BBA WAR = $3 million. I specifically made that lower then I think it is to avoid that one contrarian that will come on here and say.. well technically one war x.364758 dollars. If one WAR = $3 million then this group of 10 players only needs to amass a total of 7 WAR in 48 seasons of effort. That is just .15 WAR a season if they all pull their weight.
It's more likely that some will bump and some will lump. And it isn't the greatest collection of players to begin with. But I think its fair to say that looking back on this series of events that we are going to get our value. Whether it's to play for Brooklyn or package in another trade down the line, there should be $25.9 million of value in these players. I mean other teams spend that in free agency or the international pool like it's nothing.
So in closing, I'd say this was a success. The true verdict will come out after we see these 10 players come and go. Puting a real value as opposed to predictions.
