In what has been a fairly quiet tenure so far under GM Spencer he made an unexpected aggressive move. 16 year old SS Mahine Karetu from Koror, Korea was signed. He was offered and accepted a 6.1 million bonus which is 610% of the IFA cap. Montreal will be under strict penalty going forward in International spending.
When we sat back and looked how everything was lining up for us, this just felt like the right time to strike said GM Spencer. We worked really hard to clear the books up and position ourselves to make a bold move. Is this type of move our strategy going forward? probably not but this made a lot of sense this year. We learned last year in the IFA bidding wars if you want to strike you have to come out ready to fight.
Karetu will have plenty time to properly develop and we have no intentions of rushing him. We spent money on someone we believed in and we want to give him adequate time to be the best player he can be. We certainly don't intend to put any pressure on him but we believe one day he can become an elite shortstop for us. His bat is extremely raw but is popping with potential and having a SS who is a threat at the plate is extremely valuable. Its no secret defensively is a little further behind the bat but we believe its good enough to play the position. If necessary we are confident he could slide over to 2nd to take the pressure of him.
Does GM Spencer have anymore bold moves up his sleeve this off-season? I think you will continue to see a conservative plan going forward in FA but you might find some aggressiveness in the draft. We have a payroll currently at 71.5 million with our 120 mill budget. We want to get the best player available in the draft at the time we pick regardless of bonus demands. We want to maintain that luxury and if we have to limit payroll we are prepared to do that. If we have stay under budget in the draft we might shift gears a bit and add some to the payroll at that time. We must remain profitable but we do want to utilize our budget the best we can.
39.5 Montreal spends big in IFA
- handaspencer
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Re: 39.5 Montreal spends big in IFA
One expects Karetu to have to move off SS, but that was still a pretty good buy, I think. Cheap on the whole.
- handaspencer
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Re: 39.5 Montreal spends big in IFA
At 16 years of age it’s hard to project much of anything. The glove could improve and the bat decline it’s anyones guess. If that error don’t improve it could be an issue for sure.
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Re: 39.5 Montreal spends big in IFA
Not a bad buy. I would imagine he is probably going to end up at 2B as some have eluded to. I am sure if his bat develops, you will find a spot for him to play.
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