2035.2 Early Free Agency

[bschr682]

So how should an expansion team approach the ramp up to its first season? Well after the expansion draft the team has enough players to make its way through the season. Does an expansion team dare spend big dollars in its first foray into free agency? Or should it take a cautious, slow build approach trying to strike in a few years time after several high draft picks have raised the talent level?

Screw it lets do both! The expansion draft was a smashing success. The team has players at all key positions that will not be dead weight. Sure it lacks true blue super stars but the unit as a whole is surprisingly strong. The starting pitching pool is deep and will keep the team in games late. The offense may not hit for average but everybody has power. A lot of it. The bullpen is clearly the weakest link but its also the easiest link to fix as the season goes along. So what to do with all that remaining budget?

Well lets splurge it all on one player and not even a superstar level player. Seems like a great idea. But is there perhaps a little method to this madness? Sure McQuade isn't worth what he is being paid when looking at raw numbers. But can the team afford him? Yes. Whether McQuade opts to leave after year 3 or stay the duration, the combination of his youth and his playing a premium defensive position at a high level makes it a very easy to swallow contract while the majority of the team spends its first 3 years making league minimum. After that initial 3 years where the majority of the team is cheap, the McQuade contract drops to reasonable levels. Does it forbid us from signing any other big names this season? Yea probably but there weren't any other game changers out there.

The massive intangible benefit that locking down that position early provides is the change to what we were planning to do with the number 2 overall pick. Post expansion draft the only position the team didn't feel pretty comfortable with long term was SS. We made sure to take a bunch of players who could at least hack the position but a true cornerstone SS was not to be found (without the development gods smiling on our lottery ticket types that is). That's not surprising because those players are rare and worth a ton. So going into the draft, the odds were that if there is a crazy good bat that can play SS he is going #1 and we will not get a shot at him. So if SS was a hole and we sit with pick number 2 do we play it safe and take less of a bat to lock down that position defensively longterm? Well now we don't have to make that decision.

Instead odds favor Boise being able to spend that number 2 overall pick on either a ready to contribute right now with slightly less potential type player or a super deep ace type SP potential guy. So yea we overpaid McQuade but that's an overpay im willing to make 100 times out of 100.

[agrudez]

If you paid him today to enjoy him 3 years from now, why'd you give him that opt out in '37? Just genuinely curious.

[bschr682]

If you paid him today to enjoy him 3 years from now, why'd you give him that opt out in '37? Just genuinely curious.

I didn’t want to. But I had to. He countered every offer and always put that opt out back in. I caved.