2063.5 Arby's

[ae37jr]

Arby's
Between a deep run into the playoffs and a series of roster shuffling trades, Twin Cities is a bit behind in their offseason planning. With Arby time right around the corner, the team still has a whopping 9 players awaiting a 2063 contract. Let's take a looksy at what promises to be a very controversial arbitration class.

Nontender
Jose Avila, Hector Hollaway, George McCoy

I'm not going to over analyze these guys. They are bums. Avila was fringe to begin with. He lumped and is not a nice person. Have fun in the GBC getting half your salary retained and being involved in a 45 person trade you worthless piece of garbage. McCoy? I talked you up last winter and you let me down. GTFOH. Hollaway? I barely even knew you. I think you can be a productive BBA player. But not here. Go find yourself a home somewhere in the Pacific where 40 rated corner outfielders look like "Solid Players".

Jorge Cano
When I acquired Cano, I thought it was probably going to be a one and done situation. He's been a quality player, but not the kind of guy I want to drop $10 to 12 million a year on. When I looked at his extension demands, I nearly spit out my coffee. Does this guy not know he averaged 3.5 WAR over the last 5 seasons at a position that isn't super easy to fill? Did we not turn up contract demands like we said we were? A two year contract worth a total of $8 million has been offered. The contract could go as high as $24 million over 6 seasons. Sure, Cano isn't the Silk winner he was in the past. But if accepted, this contract only pays him to be a 1.5-2 WAR player, which I feel is the floor of what he is capable of. Any production beyond that is just gravy.

Chao Yuan
Unlike Cano, I knew I wanted to lock up Yuan long term. I feel he has an untapped peak and his current contract/arb demands screamed high value. I believe I offered a contract of $5/4/3 million over 3 seasons. He is under 5 years BBA time so that was the max deal I could give at this time. Stay tuned though. Over the past several seasons, a lot of teams have copied some financial strategies that Twin Cities has been utilizing. Yuan, Randall Grey, Rueben Flores and possibly the trio listed later are rumored to be guinea pigs in a new way of handling arb age players. It is sure to be copied by some and confronted with tear pressure tactics by others, angry they didn't think of it first.

Randall Gray
Back in the good 'ole days of OOTP 25, I tried extending Gray several times. He wouldn't move off a 6 year deal worth about $12-15 million a year. Not only was that waaaay more than I wanted to pay him, I couldn't even offer him that length if I tried. And I couldn't offer him less years cause then he'd want even more money. To my suprise, in doing some new version exploration, Gray no longers seeks a 6 year deal, wanting a one year deal close to his arb $4.5 mil. So I took a shot at a 3 year deal worth $5/4/3 and he said he'll think about it. Another steal for a SS who has averaged 4.5 WAR over the last 4 seasons.

Now, I do feel I need to move Gray off of SS sooner rather than later. He is still a slightly plus defender range wise. While on the negative side he makes a ton of errors. I've been living with it because 4.5 WAR SS don't grow on trees. As someone who considers themselves a moneyball player.... you have to embrace the warts. At the same time, the realist in me needs to accept that at 28 years old, once his range goes... he will be unplayable at SS. So I feel the $5/4/3 contract is a great one here. He probably makes it through this season as a SS. So $5 mil is a solid number. If he moves into a super sub role after that, $4 and 3 mil is fair.

Jose Perez, Juan Serna, Darren Wearne
I put all three of these players in the same pile for a reason. I traded for too many players this winter. All three of these players look to be odd men out and should be traded or nontendered. But they do have options. So because we try to keep our wallet close to our chest, money isn't really a factor. We can drop $4-5 million on AAA depth and intend to do so here. But the question is... do we just take them year to year or lock them up to bargain deals with the intention of trading later. I really don't have that answer yet. Still mulling it.

[Dington]

Cano the GOAT

[BaseClogger]

Serna is the ultimate v25 experience.