Comments on: Daily Farm Report – 6/26/12

By: Oliver

Oliver — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 23:40:38 +0000

Sorry, Bob. Retract this. Obviously I misunderstood the numbers at BA badly. The Draft Pool Spending thread seems correct, at least as far as where we stand. The rosiest possible estimate of what Heyer and Mejia accept doesn’t get us to an offer for Williams as big as Foody’s.

As far as the catcher, I missed that discussion. We drafted a catcher named Ian Rice in the last round. I wouldn’t apologize for being so ignorant as to not know much about a 40th round selection.

By: tom s.

tom s. — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:59:20 +0000

i would think the most likely explanation is that either the internet commentariat or the cardinals misunderstood the market for ramsey’s services and the cardinals agreed to a close-to-slot signing bonus on the day of the draft. whether they accurately assessed the market for ramsey’s services is unknowable.

it seems like the order of the day in 2012 is prenegotiated bonuses that leave little room for discussion after the draft. it is possible that ramsey agreed to some lesser amount and then played hardball to get more, but our collective assumption that he agreed to a six-figure bonus was never more than speculation.

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:57:03 +0000

Cariocacardinal:

Yeah, that was my conclusion as well: that the Cards thought that Trey’s camp’s demands were too high for the Cards to sign him so they might as well give the extra money to their 1st rounder to make him happy.

By: cariocacardinal

cariocacardinal — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:27:37 +0000

I have thought long and hard about the Ramsey signing and how it could possibly be justified for that amount given the negotiating leverage the Cardinals had. I have only two possible scenarios in which it makes sense 1) (least likely) is that they can sign Ramsey for this amount and still sign Williams. 2) (most likley and the only one that really makes sense to me) is that they came to conclusion they would not be able to sign Williams for an amount they thought he was worth under any circumstances so in this case it wasn’t worth paying hardball with Ramsey. I guess #3 would be that BDW likes to give away money but that is out of the realm of possibility.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:03:52 +0000

It’s maybe a minor point, but BA’s calculation gives the Cardinals a little more room to sign Williams at no penalty than I did (presumably because they have better information on the exact total of the Ramsey and Foody signings). According to their calculation, they have $190,334 left to spend on Williams and avoid penalties (assuming Mejia/Heyer sign at slot). That moves the total to avoid sacrificing a pick up a notch to just under 647K.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:55:48 +0000

We still don’t know what Mejia and Heyer will sign for. What figure do you think Williams is worth? I anticipated roughly 800K before the Ramsey signing, so I share some of your skepticism. If we pick up a little wiggle room by signing the two CWS champs at about 80K below, we could possibly offer 700K. Does Williams really leave that kind of an offer on the table?

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:34:40 +0000

Thanks for the numbers, Oliver. Well done, sir. Kinda makes all the feverish hand-wringing over the Ramsey bonus look a bit silly. At least to me.

So the “extra money” will presumably go to either Trey Williams or, who was the guy discussed a few days ago? Was it “Rice?” A catcher, right? Sorry to show my ignorance, but could someone enlighten me on that guy?

Thanks!

By: jjray

jjray — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:31:50 +0000

I don’t think $600k+ is enough. If we could have save another few hundred K from Ramsey, we just might have pulled it off. Missed opportunity.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:26:35 +0000

My understanding is that their slot bonus would count against the Cardinals’ total. The only way for the team to save money relative to the slot total is to sign them. Of course, the team could still elect to save actual money by not signing them.

By: Cards Fan in Chitown #2

Cards Fan in Chitown #2 — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:11:05 +0000

Good observation, I sure hope that’s how it goes down….. I’d take him over Mejia and Heyer, if we don’t sign them at all do we lose their “pool money” or is it still there?