How much has the talent shift set the NL behind the AL? The NL was starting to show some progress and that seems to have been completely derailed.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Its ARam. His running gate gives it away.

At 45, Wakefield hangs em up.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/base ... id=1404331

FORT MYERS — Tim Wakefield [stats] has decided to retire.

After 19 seasons, including the past 17 with the Red Sox [team stats], the veteran knuckleballer will call it quits in a 5 p.m. press conference tonight at JetBlue [JBLU] Park. As recently as December, he had expressed a desire to play one more season, preferably with the Red Sox. But the team didn’t reciprocate with a major-league offer, and last week, agent Barry Meister told the Herald that Wakefield was mulling his options, including retirement.

Wakefield — at 45, the oldest player in the majors last season — finishes with a 200-180 record and 4.41 ERA in 627 appearances (463 starts) for the Pirates and Red Sox. With the Sox, he notched 186 wins, six shy of matching Roger Clemens and Cy Young for the all-time club record, a mark he admitted would have had great significance to him.

But over the past two seasons, he lost his grip on a permanent spot in the Red Sox’ rotation, serving mostly as a swingman and a spot starter when Daisuke Matsuzaka [stats] and Clay Buchholz were injured. His final victory, Sept. 13 against the Blue Jays, was the 200th of his career.

Jason Varitek, facing a similar predicament as Wakefield, is expected to make a decision within a few days about whether to accept a minor-league contract with an invitation to spring training from the Red Sox. If Varitek elects to retire, a job within the organization would be a “definite” if he wants to accept it, a major league source said last month.

Yadier Molina 5 years 75mil

Losing Albert and this horrible contract. Warms the cockles of my heart

_________________
Team Cutler.

Yeah, I thought that was insane.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Best Catcher in Baseball.

How much would you have paid?


I think its a little high but nothing crazy

So what you are saying is that the Cardinals have both the best and the worst catchers in baseball on their roster?

_________________
That's my purse! I don't know you!

Great defensive catcher, but not the greatest offensive force to command $15M per year. Maybe $12M for 4 years.

Edit: after further review, not worth more than $8M per year for four years. Never hit over 8 HR's in a season until last season.

No.

That might be your worst sports thought ever.

_________________
Team Cutler.

That's a lot of money for Yadi...but I'm not torn up about it.

_________________
"There is a high statistical probability of death by gunshot. A punch to the face is also likely."

Im sorry, now that Joe Mauer is a first baseman, who would you consider the best defensive (90% of the position) catcher in baseball?

Right, its Molina

And he has hit 290 or higher in 4 of 6 years.

Thats pretty solid

not for $15M a year. That's like saying Soriano would be worth the money if he was good defensively.

Catching carries a lot more defensive weight than LF


Its not Soriano like.

Maybe its a little high but its not some crippling deal on a guy on the way down.

He's 28, a gold glover, coming off his best offensive season

Oh and he's been the catcher on two WS winning teams with big hits in both series

Defense is not worth $15M. Especially when this guy is usually at #7/8 hitter for the Cards. Averaged 6 HR and 50 RBI until last year. Career .274/.331 hitter, which is good, but not $15M good.

I thought it would be 10 a year tops. That's a lot of jack for a catcher.

Well clearly you guys dont value the catcher position as much as I do.

Ill agree 15 is high, but its not crippling and he should be good for a while

It feels like this was just a bone to throw to their fans. They didn't get Albert, Oswalt rather sit and watch baseball than sign with them etc.

He's turning 30 in July playing catcher. Last season was the outlier in his career. It's an overpayment by like 7 or 8 per year for a time that is always tight on payroll.

_________________
Team Cutler.

Thats insane. He's been in the league 7 years and is a 3 time all star with 4 gold gloves


This article breaks it down a bit


Yadier Molina extension solid deal for Cards
February, 29, 2012
David Schoenfield


The St. Louis Cardinals have yet to confirm the reports that Yadier Molina will sign a five-year, $75 million contract extension, but official confirmation is expected by the end of the week.

The two big questions about the contract:

Molina
1. Is Molina worth $15 million per season?
2. What is the risk for a catcher who has played a lot of games at any early age?

Let's tackle the second question first.

I looked at the catchers who have played the most games since 1970 through their age-28 seasons (the one Molina just completed) and then checked their performance over their next six seasons (covering the final season of Molina's current contract plus the next five years). Molina has averaged 137 games caught the past three seasons and had four seasons prior to that where he caught at least 107 games. So we're trying to come up with a list of catchers who did a lot of squatting behind the plate at an early age to see if the wear and tear affected them as they hit their 30s.

The chart lists the player's OPS through age 28, his OPS from ages 29 through 34 and his total games played from 29 to 34 (at catcher or elsewhere).


Player Pre-29 OPS 29-34 OPS 29-34 G
Johnny Bench .821 .819 677
Ted Simmons .814 .759 790
Ivan Rodriguez .821 .834 763
Gary Carter .802 .773 854
Darrell Porter .762 .762 605
Butch Wynegar .703 .653 221
Jason Kendall .805 .711 878
Yadier Molina .707
Benito Santiago .700 .759 539
Joe Mauer .874
Lance Parrish .780 .747 741
Brian McCann .844
Jim Sundberg .671 .690 748

Ted Simmons was a DH by age 34 and Johnny Bench had moved to primarily third base. Butch Wynegar broke down. The others held up and produced to varying degrees. You never know, of course, but I don't think the Cardinals extended Molina too far into his 30s. He's such a good defensive catcher that even if he declines with the bat he should be able to hold a starting position.

And there's the rub: Molina hit a career-best .305/.349/.465 in 2011, an OPS 43 points higher than his 2010 figure. With 14 home runs, he cracked double digits for the first time, and also rapped a career-high 32 doubles. The $15 million annual figure would make Molina the second-highest paid catcher in the majors, behind Joe Mauer. FanGraphs rated Molina the fourth-best catcher in 2011 (behind Mike Napoli, Matt Wieters and Alex Avila) and Baseball-Reference.com ranked him fifth (also behind Miguel Montero).

So if he produces like he did in 2011, Molina should justify the contract when you also consider his popularity in St. Louis (he received the loudest ovations of any Cardinals player during the World Series) and what he means to the franchise in the absence of Albert Pujols. If he reverts back to being a durable .290/.350/.390 hitter with superb defense, the Cardinals will have slightly overpaid but not drastically so.

This is how most of the fans I know down here feel about the signing. They love Molina and are thrilled to have him locked up, but disappointed in what has happened overall this offseason. A lot of them are bracing themselves for a down year with a new manager and pitching coach.

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

RPB- Would you rather have Molina or Victor Martinez catching for you everyday?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

What league am I in?

What does the rest of my lineup look like?


Way too many variables. I'd take Martinez probably but he's not really a catcher. Id probably move him to 1B (where anyone can play) and bring in a defensive minded catcher.


If Im the Yankees, Ill take them both

So he got extra millions because of ovations. Which is my point. 10 a year doesn't look terrible. It's an extra 25 million they won't have to spend in a league with no DH.

He is obviously a good player. Probably the 4th or so best catcher in the game

_________________
Team Cutler.

I know he's not the catcher that Molina is. Hypothetically, I was asking if you had to have one or the other behind the plate. They're of a similar age and make similar money. I agree with you that catcher is an important defensive position. It's not like first or left field where you can hide a guy. He touches the ball on almost every play. But can even the best defense ever really make up the difference between a decent hitter like Molina and a premium guy like Martinez? In the heart of the steroid era it would be a no-brainer for me. I'm going with the stick. But the way the game has been headed the last few seasons with lower scores and closer games, defense clearly becomes a more important factor. It's much more difficult to slug past mistakes in a lower run environment.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Even in the steroid era, not too many Championship teams had Big hitting/marginal defensive catchers.

I think 10-12 million would be about right for Molina.

That's simply because there weren't too many. Piazza is arguably the best catcher of that era.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I thought he had a press conference denying that.


Why werent there that many, Joe? I think its because having a defensive catcher, who hits enough has proven to work?

Its hard to hit a ton when you catch 135 games. Unless you're on steroids like I-Rod and Piazza

I'm not sure why there was such a dearth of good catchers at that time. At various times there have been shortages of top players at different positions. I was playing in a big money fantasy league at that time and you had to make the call on how early you were going to take Piazza or I-Rod or get stuck with a guy like Matt Nokes. It's not that Nokes was a terrible hitter, but our league had very specific rules. Only Friday nights counted (Saturdays if a guy failed to play on Friday, but any appearance in a box score counted even if he had no at-bats) and the player had to play the position specified for his score to count. So if Nokes DHed and you listed him at catcher and he hit a grand slam, you got nothing. Interestingly enough, I-Rod never hit on Friday nights and he got a reputation for being a dog in our league. This continued over many years until he became a very low draft choice. Finally, one season he went wild on Friday nights.

Incidentally, I think Ivan Rodriguez is one of the most overrated defensive catchers ever. He threw a lot of guys out but he gained a bad reputation among pitchers for calling the game based on what would help him nail a guy at second rather than what would get the batter out.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

What? Calling fastballs on breaking ball counts in Texas had negative consequences?

When batters are sitting on it it does.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Why Friday nights only?