River District on South Vancouver – Avalon 3

Experience elevated living in River District Vancouver. Imagine lounging at your rooftop pool and hot tub with a backdrop of stunning waterfront views. Retreat to your own suite where you’ll enjoy quality features such as a fully integrated fridge and dishwasher, wall oven and gas cooktop, all which come standard at Avalon 3. Come see the lifestyle you could be living, still a Vancouver’s best value.

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The Plot Thickens

The Marlins hold deals from the Cardinals and Giants for Giancarlo Stanton:

The context behind those meetings became clearer on Sunday: Multiple sources said the Marlins have agreed upon the general framework of a Stanton trade with both San Francisco and St. Louis. Of course, those deals are on hold while Stanton considers whether he’d accept a deal to either team.

…

Stanton has been aware of the possibility of a trade for months. But he’s taken a deliberate approach in considering his options, in part because he wanted to make sure the Dodgers — his preferred destination — have every opportunity to get involved.

So this will put pressure on the Dodgers to make a decision. If Stanton says no to both teams, the Marlins could pull him off the table and trade the rest of the team.

It’s tough to tell which party holds the most leverage right now. It’s tough to see any situation in which Stanton is the loser, however. He makes enough money that he should find a way to endure playing on a non-competitive team. He also may be wrong about a rebuild. With the right trades, and a good signing or two, the Marlins could be a wild card before Stanton’s opt-out clause comes into play.

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Quote of the Day

A friend of Aaron Boone on Boone’s strength:

“He handles noise well.”

That, of course, is one of the great problems of information theory, sending a signal with the least entropy so that little is lost in the noise. Many people need computer algorithms to help, but some come by this naturally. (Pat Gillick didn’t care for the use of analytics in assembling a team. He understood how to do this intrinsically, so analytics were redundant to him.)

People often talk about how the game moves quickly, and someone who is good at filtering out the noise should be able to react faster and with greater accuracy.

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Grabbing Castillo

The White Sox made a very good deal on Saturday, giving Wellington Castillo a home for $15 million over two years:

“Adding Welington benefits us both in the short and long term,” general manager Rick Hahn said in a statement. “He has been one of the more productive catchers over the last several seasons, and we believe his presence will have a lasting positive effect on our younger pitchers and catchers as they continue their development at the major league level.”

Castillo played for White Sox manager Rick Renteria when he skippered the Cubs in 2014.

Castillo’s production fell off after Renteria left the Cubs, but bounced back last season in Baltimore. The White Sox are paying a 1.5-2.0 WAR player for a one WAR seasons.

On top of that, Hahn may be right that Castillo will help the pitching staff be more successful. A few blocked pitches and a few runners removed can go a long way toward lowering an ERA.

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Stop Adding Rules

Travis Sawchik notes that MLB players share of revenue fell greatly over the last 15 years. Front offices became more efficient, and the free agency rules that served players well for a quarter of a century suddenly worked against them.

At one point, the prospect of a salary cap was bad for players. But teams are operating differently now; they’re seeking efficiency. They’re often operating more rationally given the rules in place, with a better understanding of aging curves and performance value. (Though one could argue some teams have cost themselves modestly priced wins in preference for greater efficiency.) Free agency has largely been de-emphasized. In a perfect world, a team would have a roster full of homegrown, pre-arb stars. There is no mechanism in place forcing owners to spend. Grow found that players’ share of revenue had peaked at 56% in 2002 and declined to 38% in 2015.

Ironically, a cap (with a floor) system, against which the MLBPA has fought in the past (see: the 1994 strike), would perhaps now best serve players.

Management has shown itself adept at exploiting the rules of how to pay players, so let’s add another rule! That will get them!

MLB teams do not put rules in place to benefit the players. They put rules in place to benefit the low revenue teams. Back in the 1950s, when amateur players were free agents, bonus baby rules were put into place to hamper the Yankees ability to sign the best young players. Of course, the Yankees cheated and got teams like Kansas City to sign these players. The expectation was that they would be traded to the Yankees when they were ready to contribute. So teams instituted a new rule, taking away amateur free agency to institute a draft so teams no longer had to compete for talent with dollars.

Of course, amateurs could still refuse to sign if they didn’t get top dollar, so some of these poorer teams started looking for cheap talent elsewhere. Out of that search sprang the Dominican Republic baseball academy. This was a great conduit of talent, and allowed teams like the Blue Jays to develop into formidable franchises. Eventually, the richer teams discovered that they could get cheap talent that way, and started competing for these players, driving up the price. Hence the cap on international signings, and cheating by the Braves and the Red Sox.

Maybe, instead of adding rules, it’s time to step back and re-evaluate the whole system. Something that worked in 1976, or 1986, or 1996, may not be the right system for today. Make a system with as few rules as possible, so that teams can’t get in trouble by breaking rules. I would like to see something like, “All players are free agents as amateurs, and whenever their contract runs out. There is a minimum MLB salary of $1 million dollars. Teams are limited to a 40-man major league roster, and a 120-man minor league roster. Note that teams would have a tough time stockpiling players, since a talented minor league player whose path was blocked to the majors could move on to another team when his contract was up.

Of course, the current system will tough to undo. Management learned to use the system the players desired to their advantage. They will not give up that advantage easily. It may take a number of CBAs to change things, but the MLBPA should fight for zero compensation for free agency, a shorter time period for free agency (with a year of arbitration eliminated for each year cut), and seasons played instead of service time to determine free agency. Let players capture their value as early as possible, and don’t give teams reasons to game the system.

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Concussion Protocol

I have not posted much over the last few days due to a concussion. I was in a low speed collision, but it was enough to jostle my brain to put me into sensory deprivation for a few days. Luckily, not much is happening in baseball right now. I’m feeling much better today.

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Boone to the Yankees

Although the team has not confirmed the hire, multiple outlets are reporting that Aaron Boone won the job as manager of the Yankees:

Boone will replace Joe Girardi, who went 910-710 in 10 years as Yankees manager and led the team to its most recent championship, in 2009. Girardi had already been a major league coach and manager when he replaced Joe Torre a decade ago. Boone has not been in uniform since retiring as a player eight years ago, but his hiring continues a trend around the majors.

More and more, managers are hired with little to no experience in the job. The role has evolved to become a more direct conduit to the front office, with increasing emphasis on tying decisions about lineups and strategies decisions to analytics.

I am quite surprised. Boone stay in the game through broadcasting, but frankly, I didn’t have a strong opinion of him either way on Sunday Night Baseball. In his first season, he seemed to fill the role of comic relief, with his imitation of other players batting stances and pitching motions.

There were times, however, during Sunday Night broadcasts, that I wished Boone would speak more. I thought he was correct in this exchange with Jessica Mendoza this season, but the debate was shut down.

I thought one of the strengths of Joe Torre was his ability to talk to the press. Torre managed, then served as a broadcaster, then went back to the field. The broadcast days served him well, as he understood the media side of things. That’s a much bigger part of the job than most people realize.

“Look, obviously, experience is very valuable and should be a check mark for somebody,” Boone told reporters in a conference call after his interview with the Yankees. “In a way, I’ve been preparing for this job my entire life. I’ve been going to the ballpark since I was 3 or 4 years old.”

His grandfather, father, and brother were all good major league players, so his whole life has been baseball. I have no idea how good or bad he will be as a manager. He should be able to handle the press heat. He goes into a situation where he takes over a good team on the rise. Boone is being put into a situation where he has a good chance of success. We’ll see if he can capitalize on that.

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