The Cardinals Overpaid For James Ramsey (By A Lot)
Posted on June 28th, 2012 by Jeff in 2012 MLB Draft, James Ramsey, MLB DraftI’ve been writing a lot about the draft this year, but with the new rules and the Cardinals’ many picks, this has been a fascinating year with plenty of stories to write about. One that keeps jumping to the forefront again and again is James Ramsey. This is nothing against James Ramey the player (who will start in High-A Palm Beach this week) who can hit and will have to fight to stay in centerfield, but Ramsey the draft pick and the bonus that he received that was a massive overpay by the Cardinals. After the jump is the continuation of my rant/examination.
Keith Law of ESPN could not even provide a thought process for this pick yesterday:
No clue. Huge overpay. RT @B_Vorhies: Why did the Cardinals sign Ramsey for that much? Did they forget to apply Econ principles to seniors?
James Ramsey was a college senior with zero leverage. He was already 22 years old and was picked considerably ahead of where everyone thought he was going to be picked. The Cardinals seemingly had all of the leverage as they basically gifted James Ramsey the right to be a 1st round pick. “Congratulations, kid. You’ll have ‘1st rounder’ next to your name your whole life.” And as a result of that magnanimous gesture by the Cardinals, we all assumed Ramsey would sign for a below slot deal. Because, what are his options? He can’t go back to school and improve his draft stock. He could go to the Independent leagues for a year, but then he would return to the draft as a 23.5 year old with even less leverage and even less chance of a big time bonus. The Cardinals held all of the cards, or so we thought.
And you can fool me on a lot of things, but there is no way the Cardinals did not know James Ramsey’s “number” (the amount of bonus money required to get him to sign) before picking him. Almost every team knows the number of the player they are picking before they make the pick. There are certainly exceptions, but especially with the new draft rules, you have to know how each player fits in the puzzle that is your draft allocation pool. If you don’t know, then you are risking disaster.
If going into the draft, James Ramsey’s number was $1.6 million that in itself is insane. He was valued (as an example) by Baseball America as the 51st prospect. The 51st pick had a draft pool allotment of $984,700. So, if the Cardinals called before picking Ramsey and his camp said “We want $1.6 million, if you pick Ramsey in the supplement round, you’ll have to go over slot.” they should have only heard the dial tone after that. If Ramsey’s camp thought that he was going to get close to $1.6 million before the draft, someone would have to have a different idea of valuation than the rest of the baseball community.
Per Keith Law, “the senior discount has been 30% for at least a decade.”
That would have put Ramsey’s potential signing bonus at $1.2 million and some change at 23 overall and that would have saved the Cardinals an extra $400,000 to try to get Trey Williams for $500,000. $1.2 million would have been a tidy sum for Ramsey and better than the less than a million he would have taken down the line in the draft.
Let’s go to a quote quickly from ESPN’s “Nole Nation” from Ramsey himself:
“My representation has been great, and on the other side of the coin, the Cardinals, of all the teams, have definitely treated me fairly based on my ability as a player,” he said. “They didn’t treat me fairly because of the year in school I am or the ramifications of being a college player vs. a high school player. They treated me very fairly based on my abilities. That’s all I can ask for, and I’ve been very pleased.”
Since I love to parse quotes, let’s try this one on for size “…the Cardinals, of all the teams…” – this implies to me that Ramsey (obviously) had spoken to multiple teams who had gauged the number it would have taken to sign him. That is not uncommon. If you look at how Ramsey describes his treatment above, that implies that the Cardinals liked him more than any other team and simply ignored any and all advantages and leverage they would have had in signing Ramsey and gave him a $1.6 mil bonus “based on my abilities”. The other teams apparently were not looking at his abilities but at his age and college class. They were looking at the fact that he was a college senior and he would sign for considerably less because he had no leverage. The Cardinals were offering WAY more than any other team.
The way Ramsey describes the negotiation is more like charity than an actual business contract discussion. Ramsey was represented by CSE (which doesn’t appear to stand for anything) and was their only client in the first and supplemental rounds. They have major league clients like Mitchell Boggs, Mark DeRosa and Gerald Laird. This agency are not Boras or CAA or any of the major players and all of their major leaguers are of similar quality, so it is not like they have a history of demanding the moon for their top players.
So, there are a couple of things that could have happened here.
1 – The Cardinals liked James Ramsey a million dollars more than any other team in baseball. If this is true, it is just terrible business.
2 – Ramsey and CSE pulled a fast one on the Cardinals giving them one number around draft time and then holding the Cardinals hostage with a much higher number when it came around to the actual negotiations.
3 – The Cardinals did not get a number from Ramsey, instead assuming they could overdraft him and then sign him for an under slot deal. This is again terrible business.
4 – CSE and the Ramsey camp held the Cardinals draft allocation pool hostage and pulled the leverage to their size, threatening to not sign and the Cardinals would lose the right to use their $1.775 million on the draft this year, instead pushing it to next year.
With regards to number 1, this is terrible business, because if you saw something like this at an auction (which the draft is not, but bear with me.) The bidding doesn’t go something like this:
“Two hundred dollars”
“Three hundred dollars”
“ONE POINT SIX MILLION DOLLARS!”
That’s not how it works unless you are insane, billionaire who values that specific item way more than the rest of the world. The Cardinals had to know (had to!) what Ramsey was expected to happen going into the draft and where his price was with regards to where he thought he was going to get picked. If they valued Ramsey $600,000 dollars more than any other team they are throwing that money away because they could have had the same player for a much lower rate.
With regards to number 4 (which might go hand in hand with number 2) if I were the Cardinals (which I am most certainly am not) – I would have called the bluff and sent Ramsey to the Independent Leagues and gotten the 23rd overall selection in next year’s draft that is supposed to have more talent.
It is possible that Ramsey’s camp internally change their mind about what bonus they wanted after seeing how high Ramsey was selected. But, that would mean the Cardinals did not get their word on a verbal agreement before making the draft pick. (I understand this is against the rules, but every team does it. How do you think they logistically can negotiate and sign all those players within days of the draft?) Either way, someone is in the wrong there.
Aaron Schafer aka The Red Baron sums this whole mess better than I could in the Riverfront Times:
I would just like to say for the record this doesn’t mean I don’t still think Ramsey is a very good prospect. I still like him as a player, and I think he could be something very intriguing in professional ball. But his price tag was one of the best things about him. And when you take that away, I just don’t see how he belongs as the 23rd pick in the draft.
Not only did the Cardinals overdraft Ramsey, they overpaid him as well. They made one bad choice and tried to cover it by making another bad choice. Didn’t your parents tell you that two wrongs don’t make a right? If Ramsey makes the majors and becomes a good player, this still will not have been a good decision.
As Aaron says, they took the best thing about Ramsey as a draft pick and completely removed it.
Additionally, the Cardinals need to identify what made them lose their leverage so badly and eliminate that issue going forward, because if they continue to overpay relative to the market, it is going to be a long and expensive road ahead for the franchise.
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1. You left out another possibility, which is that after negotiating with Trey Williams’s camp,the Cards didn’t think William’s asking price was within their acceptable range (say, if it was close to $1M), so they decided to give their excess change to their first rounder to make him happy (which I would do if I felt he was a worthy 23rd overall pick based on talent).
2. You really have provided no evidence that the Cards prized Ramsey $1M more than any other team in baseball. Just because BA rated Ramsey 51st does not mean all other MLB teams rated Ramsey 51st or lower. You’d have a much more convincing arguement that the Cards prized Ramsey 400K more than any other club (given the senior discount).
Very well stated!!
Why would they just give away “excess change” – about $400,000? That makes no sense.
Goodwill can benefit 2 ways:
1. Directly; if Ramsey becomes productive and becomes an FA, having goodwill is good to have.
2. Indirectly: having a reputation as an FO that treats players well rather than one that tries to exploit any leverage it has on a player helps in getting FAs.
Why not split it up between the players that had not signed yet then (4th/6th rounders) to have goodwill towards more than just one player. There goes the goodwill argument.
Honestly I don’t think that this would build goodwill so much as weaken the Cards position in future drafts. This is a business. If I were an agent I would be begging for the Cardinals to draft my guy because I think I can browbeat them into paying my guy as much as possible no matter his actual worth.
What utter garbage. Do you honestly think getting say Zack Grienke is going to sign with Cardinals because they spent money on Ramsey like a rapper in a strip club?
Your unhealthy fixation with Ramsey is a borderline cry for help.
Not 100% certain this is directed at me, but assuming it is I think you are drastically misunderstanding my thinking. I am not saying that this signing means big time free agents would be more or less inclined to sign with the cards. I am only saying that with regards to the draft as it is currently set up an agent could use the cards generousity with their cap against them. If they cannot get a college senior sign for at least four or five hundred thousand under slot then how are they going to convince college juniors or high school guys to take anything less than slot.
Again not 100% your comment was at me, but assuming it was I do not have an “unhealthy fixation.” I actually really like Ramsey as a player and think he has a chance to be valuable down the road. I just have a problem with what this signing could signal for the Cardinals ability to negotiate deals under the new system. Hopefully I am wrong, but if this is truly a sign of their negotiating abilities I am more than a bit concerned because they need to be able to work favorable deals to optimize what they can do under the current system.
The comment wasn’t directed at you.
Comment definitely wasn’t in response to you. I think you made a very good point. ;-)
When you can’t think of a way to argue someone’s point, you can always suggest they’re mentally ill.
+1 Just deciding to give Ramsay $400k+ “to make him happy” like it’s a bag of donuts or some such is a poor argument IMHO. Ramsay fought for the $1.6mm. The question is whether the Cards knew this was his number when they drafted him? If they didn’t know Ramsay’s number before selecting him, shame on them. If they knew Ramsay was asking for $1.6mm but drafted him anyway with the 23rd selection, shame on them.
Simply and well put. Thank you.
Not just any bag of donuts … they had sprinkles!
Generally I enjoy your writings and I sincerely appreciate everything you do for this site. However I think this piece is the most slanted thing I have ever read on this site.
I read your entire piece, all of the comments as of now, including your various slanted comments, and NOT ONCE have you noted that the slot for Ramsey was $1,775,000 and they were able to sign him for 10% BELOW slot. Check the picks that follow Ramsey (IF YOU HAVE TIME) and note that they all have signed for slot or more…thus 10% below slot is not a bad deal. The couple of better deals occured at the top of the 1st round where the slot amounts were considerably higher (maybe overly high) giving more room for negotiations, while still getting a play a huge signing bonus.
While realize that is not the 30% below slot that the Almighty Keith Law said he should have gotten, I find fault with your simplistic reporting to NOT have researched and known that the next highest senior pick (2nd round) and signed, Peter O’Brien, has signed for only 9% below slot.
Why not take the time to research and maybe see that under the new rules that there is rational for college seniors to get more money than they have in the past per God Law. Could it be that agents for college seniors realized that any pick in the first ten rounds that is close to being picked in an appropriate round is going to get around his slot, because a team will not want to lose the money allocation and certainly will not want to lose the pick, vis-a-vis compensation in the next draft, if they haven’t at least offered the slot money amount. Thus the Cards getting Ramsey and the Yankees getting O’Brien for 9-10% slot for college seniors is maybe the new norm (despite what God Law says)……but you didn’t spend the time to research this.
If Ramsey was rated at #51, that would have made him a mid-round pick in the supplemental 1st round, and thus not that much of an over-draft. Thus if he was appropriate talent wise for where he was picked (unless you are smarter than the Cards scouting staff, then getting him for 10% under slot is a reasonable deal.
Your article comes across as agenda driven. I can only guess why.
10 percent below slot was too much for a player who no one projected to go before about 50.
Well, that’s your opinion. And that’s all it is.
Teams value players differently. It’s not crazy to think that BA could have a guy at 51 and the Cardinals could have him at 23. The Cardinals are using their own metrics. They aren’t just reading BA and making their choices…like most of us are. The draft is a crapshoot. Always. We don’t know whether it was a good pick. We don’t know how the negotiations went. We don’t know what they knew or didn’t know.
Yadier Molina was a 4th round pick. Albert Pujols was a 13th round pick. Allen Craig was an 8th round pick. Freese was a 9th round pick, and was later traded for the ghost of Jim Edmonds. Matt Holliday was a 7th rounder. Tyler Greene was a 1st round pick–and the type of toolsy upside pick that everyone always gets excited about.
More first rounders become good players than players picked anywhere else–but it’s hardly the be all end all. No matter how much any of us think we know from reading publications and watching youtube videos–unless you’ve worked in a major league front office…you’re basing a lot on speculation.
When you say something like “10% below slot was too much for a player no one projected to go before 50″, using your same Baseball America rankings please note the following:
their #48 ranked player went at 27 for 100% of slot
#49 ranked player went at 32 for 100% of slot
#50 is unsigned
#51 Ramsey went at 23 for 90% of slot
#52 went at 29 for 100% of slot
#53 is unsigned
#54 went at 85 for 120% of slot
A number of the players ranked around Ramsey at 50 went similarly early at Ramsey for 100% of slot, one went later for 120% of slot and two are unsigned and will either go for alot more than slot or go unsigned since they are high school players like Williams.
Ramsey is the only under slot signing in his ranking group.
I wish you had attempted to do some research as opposed to merely giving personal biases under the cover of God Law.
hear hear…
+1
Thanks for bringing up some points that needed to be made. The corollary to your point about the better deals occurring earlier in the first round is this: None of the players that were on the board when Ramsey was selected signed for as many dollars below slot as Ramsey.
Jeff-
First let me say that I sincerely respect your opinion and I truly appreciate all you do for this site. I love this site!!! BUT……with all due respect, you base your entire argument on BBA and a guy named Aaron Schafer AND a single line from a quote from James Ramsey. Don’t take this personal, but the quote can be used out of context to mean anything. If you were to interview Ramsey, I’m sure he would be surprised at the way you read into it. So I must discount it. But the most important issue in my opinion is giving the opinions of BBA and Schafer such a big edge over an entire organization of paid professional scouts that do this for a living. I have followed BBA since the early ’80s and they do a good job. But I can tell you this. They miss a lot more than the teams do. If you would go back and look at their top 100 pre draft lists from the last 20 years, you would see clearly that it is so easy to miss several times by 20-40 slots on their picks. It is completely normal for BBA to miss on a player by 28 slots! I know we all hoot and howl about where a guy is picked(and I used to do it too), but, go back and look at the past drafts and you will see tons of 1st round busts and 2nd to 10th round picks that turn out to be stars. Did you know that the only player we got from the 2000 Draft was a 4th round pick by the name of Molina.? I don’t want to bore you with tons of exmples so I will let you go back and look for yourself.
Bottom line- Ramsey could well have been coveted among several teams in the late first round. We don’t know. If he was….then he was worth the
$177,000 below slot. And as far as Schafer or BBA goes…..well I’m sure they are well versed and have solid knowledge, but if they knew as much or more than the pro scouts….I’m sure an organization would have hired them by now. Makes sense to me.
Couldn’t agree more. I want him to do well (especially now). But I can want that and still say the Cardinals overpaid. If I buy house for 150% of its value…I can still want the house to be a great place to live…but you should still be able to point out that I overpaid based on the market.
The cardinals just did the opposite of what a statistical based front office should do…which is find an undervalued asset and exploit it. What a shame.
I think I am more fearful for what this represents in the future. Our old scouting director in Houston seems to understand the new rules. The future does not look bright if the new scouting director does not.
Do we really think Trey Williams would have signed for 500k? IMO That doesn’t seem like enough, considering he has a good shot at earning possibly 3 times that much in 2015. Besides not signing Trey, what is really that bad about overpaying for a guy the Cards really liked? He obviously did have leverage becuase he knew they didnt want to let him go unsigned The cards did not want to chance him getting picked before 36. And wasting money doesnt count because I have a feeling Bill DeWitt will be fine over paying for one guy in the draft. I’m no expert by any means, but I just dont see the big deal in this.
Fair point about Trey Williams. We have no idea what he would have signed for (provided he does not sign). 500k may not have been enough.
So because you can’t get the riding lawnmower for $1000, you’re going to pay $800 for a walk behind mower that you could have got for $300?
That would show some goodwill towards Home Depot.
But why not show Lowe’s some love too? :-)
Wade-
No offense but, you are assuming that BBA, Law and a guy named Red Baron are right about the talent level of Ramsey. And the entire St. Louis Cardinal scouting organization is inept. Why have the former not hooked up with one of the 30 teams in MLB at some point? Hmmmmm!
Go back and check the track records of these guys pre-draft rankings through the years. Then come and tell me why I should take their word. I will be more than happy to admit I’m wrong if you can show me that they are even slightly better than the Cards scouts.
I’m assuming nothing based them. My assumptions are based on Ramsey being a college SR with no leverage. My other assumption is that he would have been available at a supp pick (reasonable assumption with him being a SR) and could have been drafted there where slots are lower. He would have no leverage to hold out for 1.6 in the supp round.
Okay. Then what if you found out today(which is possible) that the next 6 teams drafting behind the Cards were set to draft Ramsey. Then would the $175,000 under slot been a good deal? My point is, you have no idea how high Ramsey was valued among other teams. And without knowing that, we have absolutly no idea whether he was worth the bonus money. Fair?
Just so you know, I own and operate a small company with about 9 employees. As an employer, I would absolutly not treat any valued employee in a way that would cause attitude problems. Yes, they could have raped the guy. But that is not smart business. A good employee is a happy employee! And a happy employee is a good employee! If I want to be treated fair, I treat my employees fair.
I think you’re misunderstanding the argument. If some other team was willing to give him 1.6, that doesn’t mean it is smart. We know that the typical SR discount is 30%. 10% below slot is a reach for a college SR.
Baseball is not a small company. If Ramsey doesn’t like the way the contact negotiations went, he should want to do better than if they were “fair” because then he can get a bigger contract with a different team when no longer under STL control. Your employees (I’m guessing) are not under contract and if offered their dream job can leave you at any time. Ramsey could not. Ramsey is a guy that (as the draft goes) has a better shot at not becoming a productive MLB player than of becoming a productive MLB player.
If you think the ‘fair’ issue does not apply to players under contract….you must have missed Alberts pouting this past winter. As I recall, he thought $20 million a year til he was 42 was ‘unfair’. I’m not going to pretend that I understand all the workings that go on behind the scenes in these deals. The Cards may well have overspent somewhat for Ramsey. And they may have paid right. I don’t know. But the article we are all responding to is justifying the ‘overspend’ thing on ratings done by Keith Laws and BBAs. I think that is way off base unless someone can come up with some sort of evidence that the entire Cardinal scouting department is loaded with Dunces. And if we are disagreeing about the 20% difference in SR discounts….then I have to say it is much about nothing! The major league minimum yearly salary dwarfs that $350,000!
Weak draft. More than ever, the guys on the board at pick 1-23, including Stryker Trahan, are more likely to bust than reach the major leagues.
“My other assumption is that he would have been available at a supp pick (reasonable assumption with him being a SR)”
Actually, that’s not a reasonable assumptions, especially with the new draft rules.
In short, after all the sturm und drang over values, overpayment, etc., the end results are all that matter, and the end results are that the Cards signed everyone they wanted except for Trey Williams.
Thus, ultimately, if the Cards could have gotten Trey for 300K and they failed to sign him, they screwed up, but if Trey demanded close to $1M, then the Cards did not screw up as they weren’t going to be able to sign him anyway.
Are the end results really all that matter? I can buy a used car for it’s blue book value of $3k or I could pay $15k. Same end result…different path.
I am not trying to be a jerk…just trying to present an example.
You didn’t buy Ramsey, Bill DeWitt did. And trust me, he can afford it.
That’s not the point, Evan.
Actually, it is the point.
Ultimately, if the Cards could have gotten Trey for 300K and they failed to sign him, they screwed up, but if Trey demanded close to $1M, then the Cards did not screw up as they weren’t going to be able to sign him anyway.
Otherwise, as a fan, I’m not sure why you care whether whether Bill DeWitt gets 500K more and James Ramsey 500K less or James Ramsey 500K more and Bill DeWitt 500K less.
Bill Dewitt could have afforded Albert Pujols too, but it did not fit in the budget. I care about the Cardinals budget, not “DeWallet”.
The Cardinals do not have an unlimited budget.
I feel like they did not spend their money wisely in this case. That affects other aspects of the draft and other players that they may not sign which affects the player development pipeline, which affects the major league team.
A bad decision on Pujols could cripple the organization for years in to the future and has a big impact on the budget. Deciding whether to spend several hundred K on Ramsey has virtually no impact on the budget or effect on the future (independent of the signing of Trey Williams).
In the real world, the Pujols decision has about a 100-times more importance on the Cards than anything to do with Ramsey, so keep things in perspective, please.
I would have felt the same way you do if we had signed Pujols for the amount he was seeking. Money we saved on that deal we can sign several Ramsey’s.
Did they not spend their money wisely or were they not informed wisely?
This is very uncharacteristic of the cardinals. Very. They do not let draftees hold them hostage.
The deal with Ramsey had to have been done pre draft or right after. Way before the CWS ended. It was apparent that the negotiations were done as it took less tnan a week after he was done playing, these things usually take time.
However, I am usually on the side of the player, most only get ONE opportunity to negotiate what they feel they are worth and come out on top, and if he did and got what he wanted, good for him!
If a deal was done he would have signed the day after his team was eliminated.
Exactly! Lets not assume our scouting director doesn’t understand the new rules just because we overpaid on one guy. We don’t know the specifics of the negotiations between Ramsey and the Cards.
Derrick Goold reported this the other day:
“The Cardinals went into the past week believing they would sign either Foody or Williams, but not both. The Cardinals will not be able to pay their two remaining top 10-round picks the bonus slot and remain under the cap, but it is possible to stay within the range without losing a pick for next season.”
This is just my own speculation, but here is how I think it played out:
When the Cards drafted him, they did not expect to have to pay him 1.6M. But, while Ramsey was in the CWS, we signed all of our other high bonus guys, including Foody. This gave Ramsey much more leverage because he knew they were only going to need a small amount of money to sign Heyer and Mejia. That basically left him the opportunity to demand close to slot value.
If this happened, the Cardinals screwed up royally by giving the other side of the negotiations the leverage. Terrible business.
I agree, it is bad business. Last year, we only gave Wong $1.3 Mil and he was No. 22, plus he was a Junior. So we definately did over pay for Ramsey. But does it really matter? Looking at our draft as a whole, with who we signed and not losing any draft picks, I think the FO did well. Many people on this website said they were happy with the draft as long as we signed all the top 10 guys plus trey or foody.
And I too care about the Cardinals budget, but this is a lot different than spending on FA. The Cardinals don’t give out ridiculous free agent contracts, which i love. But this is different. If we happen to spend 300k more than we should have, but still execute our draft strategy, oh well.
There was essentially nothing they could do about that, since they weren’t able to sign a deal with Ramsey until he was done in the CWS. The only thing they could have done differently was to delay signing all these other guys, which simply changes the situation from having one guy with a lot of leverage to having lots of guys who all have leverage of their own (and doesn’t address the issue with Ramsey anyway). It also risks Foody, among others, saying “screw this, I’m just going to go to college,” and is in no way guaranteed to solve the perceived shortcoming, i.e., not being able to sign Williams.
People are ratcheted up way too tight about this.
While true, this is a business. Why would anyone in their right mind, especially a renowned businessman like BDJ, pay over market value for an asset? Market history shows that Ramsey is worth 30% less than slot. I understand the feel good aspect of the bonus and the bonus demands of Trey Williams, but I do not understand paying above market value. Assuming Williams could not be signed, that money should have been saved and allocated elsewhere.
Assuming it would have been allocated elsewhere.
1. What if Bill DeWitt had pocketed the money? Would that make you feel better?
2. What if the Cards deemed James Ramsey’s goodwill to be worth more than other ways they can spend the several hundred K (which is pocket change for an MLB club)?
BTW, as a businessman, I imagine Bill DeWitt understands the value of good will.
This goodwill argument I am seeing here is complete nonsense.
Secondly, if the Cardinals (as a team, not “DeWallet”) saved money here, they would be able to spend more of their money elsewhere to improve the team!
The concept of just giving Ramsey money for “goodwill” is completely unnecessary to explain why the Cards drafted Ramsey at 23 and paid him almost full slot.
Goodwill to a minor leaguer that will start in High A ball? Why would he show goodwill to him? WHy not spend the 500k in 1000 dollar bonuses to each player in the minors as a thank you for hte committement to the organization?
“Why would he show goodwill to him?”
How old are you? When you get older, you will (hopefully) realize that people are not machines and do not (usually) react like psychopathic machines.
“WHy not spend the 500k in 1000 dollar bonuses to each player in the minors as a thank you for hte committement to the organization?”
MLB rules actually prohibit that. The owners have colluded to put in place strict rules on spending on minor leaguers.
If the team is starting to think about the goodwill of guys they just drafted they they are in for a world of hurt. Feelings will be hurt in the minors and when guys are drafted and cut. Paying a half a mil extra for goodwill is bad business.
I don’t care of DeWitt would have pocketed it. That extra money could have paid for things with the MLB team. They paid 750k for Romero a very bad investment. That half mil could have made up for that and allowed the team to get another player that they may not have before.
You had my exact argument one minute ahead of me, thank you.
I may be wrong but I believe that they budget costs for things (milb draft, international draft, raises, FA signings, etc) so money spent or not spent has nothing to do with adding or subtracting from another place.
We really have no way verifying whether that is true or not. If it is true, it is not the best business sense.
Apparently I’m a little late to the argument, but goodwill to a draft pick? I understand the value of goodwill, but does a draft pick need to be told he means alot to the franchise and then incentivized? The organization demonstrated his value by drafting him early, and his incentive is reaching the show. Personally, I’m rooting for Ramsey and I think everyone who frequents this site wants him to be a good player. That said, the issue is whether the money paid to Ramsey was wise. The consensus of people on this site and media commentators say “no.” When Ramsey was drafted, he was billed as a cheap sign. Accounting for all of the moving parts that go into a draft budget, the amount of money given to Ramsey does not accord with the market (as defined by commentators and past practices). I agree w/ Jeff that there is some unknown variable that we can only speculate on. The bonus does not make business sense. I hope Ramsey lives up to his bonus.
I think his deal has something to do with C. Kelly getting $1.6 mil. Is there a rule that says a 1st rounder has to be paid as much as lower round picks? If not, then maybe they thought it would look bad on them and their first rounder if they paid a lower-round pick more money. Not like it would be a clubhouse issue though if Ramsey starts at PB while Kelly is at JC. I don’t see their paths ever crossing until they both play for the Cardinals, if that ever happens.
No, no such rule exists. And Kelly’s deal was still more than the 1st Supp. Rd picks before him — Piscotty, Wisdom and Bean.
This is probably going to sound a bit harsh, but this is pretty dumb.
You list “a couple of things that could have happened here” but leave out the most obvious answer and the answer that best fits with all of the available evidence -
– The Cards valued Ramsey’s talent as being worth the 23rd pick, did not want to risk losing him to another organization before the 36th pick, and were prepared to pay him an almost-slot amount at 23 to bring him into the organization because of this. –
Given this explanation, which fully comports with all of the available evidence, one is left with one or both of the following points against Ramsey’s selection:
1. In one’s opinion, Ramsey would still have been available at 36. Okay, but that’s speculation and the Cards obviously disagreed. It would not have been surprising for a player rated #51 by BA or #40 by MLB to be drafted before 36.
2. In one’s opinion, Ramsey is a worse player than some other players one wishes that the Cards had drafted at 23 instead of him. That’s fine. I probably agree; I certainly liked other players better than Ramsey at 23. But the Cards scouts and FO disagreed and liked Ramsey better. Whether Ramsey does in fact end up being a better prospect than some other hypothetical player will not be known right now.
We don’t know that the Cardinals liked him best at 23 on a talent basis. Mo talked about drafting and a strategy that allowed us to go overslot for Kelly. If the Cardinals didn’t have a pre arranged deal for Ramsey at 23 then they weren’t doing do diligence as he wasn’t projected to go until probably after our 3rd pick.
If they overdrafted scared they should have at least got a an agreed deal. I.e We didn’t think Kozma would make it to our next pick so we drafted him too early.
Given that I don’t think the Cardinals are a dumb organization that leaves Ramsey walking back from a predraft deal. Ramsey couldn’t sign until his team lost in the CWS. That still left about 3 weeks for negotiations. Why would that last over a week after he was eliminated? It should have been done. His agent probably saw the leverage that the Cardinals would be overbudget if Ramsey didn’t sign and decided to hold his our feet to the fire. Good representation but immoral and nto the way to start off a relationship with an organization. Send him to DSL for the year.
There is absolutely no evidence of walking back from a pre-draft deal, “immoral” or otherwise. You’re just making conspiracy theories up to explain stuff you don’t know anything about or have any insight about and that all the existing evidence rebuts.
And Ramsey clearly wasn’t a part, and wasn’t a necessary part, of any “strategy” that allowed them to “to go overslot for Kelly.” why is this obviously so? Because the Cards did draft and sign Kelly for an overslot amount and they did NOT need money saved from Ramsey to do so.
Well reason would state that there was a deal. Most players have deals. The Cardinals are smart enough to know it’s an overdraft where they could approach him about a deal.
Second the fact that it took him a week to sign after it was legal to sign him shows me that there was some waffling.
Put the numbers together. Player should get a deal, gets what most believe to be overpayed, it takes longer to sign him that expected.
The Cardinals were able to sign Kelly without the savings but they could have allocated the Ramsey money for Kelly and then whatever was left over could have gone to Williams.
Reason would state that there was a deal for around 1.6mm and that that was acceptable to the Cards when they drafted him.
BC – And THAT is bad business if true.
Sure, fine. But at that point you’re just disagreeing with the talent evaluation of the Cards’ FO. They liked Ramsey at 23 for 1.6MM. You didn’t. Perhaps you only liked Ramsey at 52 for $970,000. There is a range of opinion there but the argument is then “I liked ‘X’ player better than Ramsey and the Cards should have drafted X instead.”
That’s valid. There are plenty of guys I liked better than Ramsey at 23. But the rest of this stuff is nonsense — immorally backing out of pre-draft “deals,” BDW just giving Ramsey extra dough for “goodwill,” etc.
I think it’s foolish to think the Cardinals didn’t have a deal with Ramsey and the amount of time taken to sign him was an indication of shenanigians along with the back stepping on Foody. Wacha signed almost immediately, Piscotty signed almost immediately as did Wisdom and Bean.
The only top guys that didn’t are Kelly and Ramsey. Kelly we knew there was negotiation going on. Ramsey we would have to expect negotitation going on based on the time frame. Thus. The Cardinals didn’t get a predraft deal like they did for every other 1st rounder OR he backed out of it.
Like I said YOUR “bad business” at 10% below slot (better than most signings around him) versus only 9% below slot for the next highest pick college senior is MY “reasonable deal”.
If 1.6 was acceptable to the Cardinals when they drafted him why did it take him a week to sign after he was able to be signed? Why did they report Foody signed then unreport it? Reason said that Ramsey was moving his number and we didn’t know if we could afford Foody without Ramsey being offically signed.
Great point on the Foody report/unreport. Points to shenanigans.
Wasn’t Foody originally reported at a lower amount and then signed for more…which would be contrary to (speculative)shenanigans.
Then there are three scenarios:
1. The Cards had agreed/understood that a deal could be reached for somewhere around 1.6mm pre-draft and took Ramsey with that knowledge. It took about a week to negotiate and agree to the deal – a common, unexceptional timeframe to agree to and execute a contract for more than $1mm.
2. There was no pre-draft agreement/understanding of what it would take to sign Ramsey and the Cards still drafted him, knowing that they could sign him for around slot or under it. it took about a week to negotiate and agree to the deal – a common, unexceptional timeframe to agree to and execute a contract for more than $1mm.
3. There was a pre-draft against-the-rules deal, only Ramsey and his agent backed out of it immorally once they realized they could chisel the Cards out of a few hundred grand more. The week long “delay” after the CWS is evidence of the shenanigans.
Two of these are plausible and the other one is for people who think Obama was born in Africa and the CIA brought the twin towers down. (I’m joking….mostly.)
Exactly. So, 1 or 2 is a bad job by the Cardinals and number 3 is a terrible move by the agent/player. Someone is in the wrong here and the Cardinals ended up with the short end of the stick!
Yes, if you want to argue that 1 and 2 are a bad job by the Cards, fine. Again, that’s just an argument that Ramsey, as a player, wasn’t worth the 23rd pick. That’s an underlying assumption of the original post, but not the argument of the post.
You really think it’s a conspiracy if a player backs out of a predraft deal when they find they have more leverage than they thought?
There’s a simple reason why it took a week to get him signed — for him to take a team-administered physical. There’s no need to make any further assumptions here.
Were you stalking Ramsey for the past week? What is your evidence to substantiate this claim?
Andrew-
What if you found out tomorrow that any of the next, say 6 teams picking behind the Cards were set to pick Ramsey if the Cards passed? Would he not have been a good sign at $175,000 below slot? This could have easily been a scenario. Just because Law, BBA, etc. think he should have gone 15-25 picks lower, does not make it true.
I still side with the pro scouts over the “wannabes”!
Reason would state that the number that they thought he’d found acceptable was acceptable to the team as well when they drafted him. It does NOT state that Ramsey stuck with that number after both seeing the way the draft worked out, and probably, improving his case for being an impact player via his performance in the CWS. We do not know what was going on inside his head between the initial exchange of “acceptable” numbers and the final negotiation, and it is presumptuous to pretend we do.
If Ramsey backed out of a deal, sure, that’s immoral (and we don’t know if that is even what actually happened; maybe the Cards just gave him extra to make him feel happier), but you could argue that the whole MLB draft is immoral collusion by MLB owners to bring down the market price of amateurs. In a free market environment, Ramsey almost certainly would have gotten more than he did, and in a free market envionment, there is no reason for a college senior to have less value than a college junior. Think about it. Ballplayers in their early 20′s are not depreciating assets.
That’s a fair point, Richard. But, we don’t have a free market for baseball players and all drafted players are underpaid against what they would be in a free market. That’s not the point with regards to Ramsey.
To piggyback on what you said, the Cards may not have even thought other teams valued him between picks 24 and 36 purely for his skills, but they may have had good inside information or belief that he would be picked before their next pick based on Ramsey being the top college senior, knowing that other teams were looking to draft a senior in order to save money.
In other words, the Cards may have valued his skills highly enough to pay a premium with the 23rd pick, so as not to lose him to a team that was about to do what we thought the Cards were doing all along — draft Ramsey for the college senior discount and as a safe play to at least contribute at the Major League level.
I agree the BA rankings just don’t provide much help considering the nuances the new draft rules provide; teams were out to game the system, and it looked like Ramsey was a great way to do some gaming. His value parameters were much more undefined than a simple BA ranking.
It did look like Ramsey was a great pick to do some gaming and get overslot players but obviously we ended up being the team that got “gamed”. In my mind Trey Williams won’t be a Cardinal because they overpayed on Ramsey.
No, they underpaid on Ramsey (10% under slot), but elected to greatly overpay on Kelly. That is why there may not be money to pay for Williams.
By the way I have NO problem with either the Ramsey or Kelly signing.
I think they gave themselves an alternative between Foody and Williams, and Foody took the money. Simple as that.
The Cardinal’s didn’t HAVE to spend the allotted amount for the first 10 rounds. This wasn’t money given to them by MLB it was their own money. They spent almost as much in this draft as they did in the last 2 combined. No need to spend the allocated amount if it wasn’t in good value.
Yup.
And the obvious counterpoint is that the Cards thought Ramsey was “good value” at the 23rd pick and at almost-full-slot money.
If that was the case why didn’t they draft him in the first, say, 10 rounds last year if his talent is so prestigious?
Pretty certain I replied to this argument somewhere, but Ramsey had said he was going back for his senior year, which is why no team drafted him in the first 20 rounds. He was offered 2nd round money last year, though.
Yes, they had to spend the slot allocation if they either wanted the pick or a compensation pick for next year. They actually signed Ramsey for 10% BELOW slot (sorry not the 30% decreed by God Law), which is better than the Yankees did with the next highest picked college senior, Peter Obrien in the second round. Sorry that wasn’t reported in this thread.
Armitage:
The end result is all that matters because I am a fan of the Cardinals; I am not an owner of the Cardinals. If my friend allows me to drive his BMW for a week, free of charge, do I care if he paid 30K for it or 40K or do I not give a f*ck (especially if said friend makes $2M a year)?
Richard, settle down. This not about your friends car. This is about whether or not the Cardinals overpayed for this player. With your logic, the Cardinals should sign every free agent, because “they have the money” and “what do I care”.
The Cardinals are a budget limited team and they have to do what they can within their budget. So, acquiring good players within that budget is part of being a fan of this team.
“This not about your friends car. This is about whether or not the Cardinals overpayed for this player.”
Explain to me how they are different. How is the Cards overpaying different from my friend overpaying?
“With your logic, the Cardinals should sign every free agent, because “they have the money” and “what do I care”.”
Indeed, they should sign as much as they possibly can. Do I care if Bill DeWitt gets $20M in profit or $10M? Not really.
“The Cardinals are a budget limited team and they have to do what they can within their budget. So, acquiring good players within that budget is part of being a fan of this team.”
To the extent that it matters, that is very true. Now, do you believe that the extra several hundred K the Cards could have squeezed from Ramsey (assuming that the question of being able to sign Trey Williams would not have been affected either way) would have mattered one iota to the Card’s competitiveness?
Yes, because that money does not go back into someone’s wallet, it is used elsewhere to improve the team.
Jeff: You know that because you’ve spoken with people in the front office? I mean, I would appreciate extra knowledge on the workings of the Cardinals FO, but if that is just pure conjecture and you’re stating that as a certainty, you just come across as an asshat.
Ok, Richard. Last warning.
I haven’t spoken with the Cardinals FO and neither have any of us here. So, no one knows where exactly the money goes unless they see the accounting database.
Previously the Cardinals have saved money on the draft and spent more in the International market speaking of having a budget to acquire prospects that is flexible but has a “cap” on it per se, so I assume they are working within the same framework.
This is an interesting point. From a certain perspective (one that you seem to hold), the specifics of the business side of baseball is just a lot of noise that doesn’t matter as long as the team on the field keeps winning. I respect that.
However, there are others of us that enjoy breaking down all of the details of the business side and want the Cardinals to “win” the business side just as much as we want them to win on the field. In the end, is “wasting” $400k on Ramsay going to change personnel decision making for the Cardinals? Probably not. That amount won’t change who they trade for or who they sign in the offseason. But I want the team to be run the way that I want my company to be run: efficiently. The ultimate goal of a baseball front office is to get the best talent at the best value and the difference between the best run organization and the worst run organization is often just the little bits of margin that can be picked up here and there. In isolation this $400k doesn’t mean that much, but if you consolidate the little advantages picked up along the way, it can make a difference.
Moreover, for all we know, having that $400K available this year could have been the difference between signing Williams or not (or another prospect).
And if signing Ramsey to this bonus meant forgoing signing Trey, then I agree that the Cardinals screwed up. If it did not, however, this whole discussion is silly.
“In isolation this $400k doesn’t mean that much, but if you consolidate the little advantages picked up along the way, it can make a difference.”
Indeed, however, you can’t extrapolate that giving up 1 small advantage means the Cardinals FO is giving up a bunch of small advantages (assuming that getting the goodwill of your 1st round pick is giving up anything).
To bring in another example, the correct decision on whether to overpay for Pujols or not has a 100-times greater effect on the Card’s future competitiveness than a few hundred K on Ramsey. If you actually ran a business, you’ll soon realize that sweating over the big stuff is much more important than sweating over the small stuff.
I have and do run a business. Obviously the big things are the most important, but in today’s economy you can’t overlook any efficiency that can be gained around the margins. If you ignore the little things your competitors will kick your ass in the long run.
Richard, you just got served.
Hey, I appreciate Roarke’s maturity & response. I can’t say the same about some other posters on this thread, though.
Fair enough Richard. I suppose I will counter with this. I care because the Cardinals just made a bad/suspect financial/economic decision. They paid more than they had to for a player.
That matters to me because I am a fan of the team and I am less confident of the decisions they will make in the future. So end results or not…I am now hoping they are more often lucky than good.
Thanks for the writeup, Jeff! Nice overview of the whole situation.
I just have a few idle thoughts. One, where BA ranked Ramsey is irrelevent to me, as they ranked Ramsey the #26 prospect in the Cape, after he dominated the league last summer, leading it in OPS, Isolated Slugging, and walk rate.
For whatever non-baseball reason, scouts/BA don’t like Ramsey. Maybe it’s the magna cum laude Finance major thing, I dunno. Maybe it’s the fact that Ramsey had the affrontary to turn down $500,000 from the Twins last year. Perhaps it’s the extravagantly public religiosity. (Nauseates *me* a little, but it’s got nothing to do with his baseball abilities.)
I look at the whole thing this way: If the Cards thought there was a decent chance (say, 20-30%) Ramsey wouldn’t be available at #36, they did the right thing picking him at 23. And if they decided that “overpaying” Ramsey would generate goodwill, a lot of goodwill, going forward, maybe that was the right move, too. (At first blush, everybody thought Yadi’s extension was a “goodwill overpay,” but I’m not sure anyone feels that way now.)
Anyway, I’m guessing that when the Cards made their 11th & 12th round picks, they knew right then they’d only get one of them. And Foody blinked first, so to speak.
I think we have to consider the possibility that, as a magna cum laude Finance major with a Boy-Scouty community leadership personal background, Ramsey may well have actually turned down a meaningfully lower bonus. He *could* be positioned to make a very fine wage without baseball, maybe even six figures within a few years. Just sayin’.
The #26 prospect in the Cape is not a very good prospect, because that does not even include all the high school kids.
Goodwill is bad business any way you slice it. The Molina extension has nothing to do with it.
“Goodwill is bad business any way you slice it.”
Let me guess: You’ve never run a business.
You run a business to make money or you run a business to make money and win baseball games. You don’t do much of either by just giving away money to acquire assets.
Richard – at the business that you own, when the shipment of office furniture comes, do you overpay by 30% to generate goodwill with the office furniture company?
Jeff, in case you haven’t realized, Ramsey will be an employee of the Cardinals & isn’t a piece of furniture. Squeezing every ounce of leverage you have over your employees is generally not a good plan for long-term success.
Richard, looking forward to working as your employee and my 30% raise!
You should work for a living Richard. You might even gain new perspective.
I do, actually. I don’t like to get in to dick-waving contests, so I’ll refrain from saying what first popped in to my mind.
OK, change that to “d***-waving” (just read the comments guidelines).
He willl be an employee just as 500 other Cardinal minor leaguers will be. Again if you are feeling festive give each player in the system a 1k Christmas bonus. Why is Ramsey more special than any other player in the system?
Cardinals give yearly raises above and beyond level pay….did you not know that? They also spend much more money on players needs than other teams.
Actually they underpaid by 10% over what MLB said was an appropriate price for his pick. Only God Law and you disagree and say they “overpaid by 30%”. They Cards at 10% and the Yankees at 9% disagree. I would guess they are more likely to know the market that you and God Law who also writes about baseball.
Jeff-
Tickets to the Opera are completely worthless to me. I would not take them for free. There are people that pay thousands of dollars for them. Tickets to game #7 of the World Series I would probably pay a lot more than most. If the Cards scouts and FO are that high on Ramsey, maybe he is worth every penny. We will find out if they were right in a couple of years.
My bad, Jeff; I should have fully clarified my point about BA’s #26 ranking of Ramsey — it was incompetent of them, regardless of what any scout or scouts told them.
The manifestly best player in any league, at any time, is never, ever, ever the 26th-best prospect in said league. (When I say “best player,” I’m including not just having the highest OPS, or RC+, or wOBA, or what have you, but also the plate discipline markers [excellent in Ramsey's case] and defense + baserunning.
If he turns it down let him go do whatever else he wants to do with his life. I don’t necessarily want someone in the system as a 23rd pick who isn’t totally committed to becoming a great baseball player.
Andrew, I hear what you’re saying, but Bill DeWitt ending up with 500K more rather than James Ramsey doesn’t make me feel any happier, and James Ramsey ending up with 500K more rather than Bill DeWitt doesn’t make me feel any worse.
Now, granted, you could argue that the 500K could be spent elsewhere in the organization (which may or may not have happened; we know it wouldn’t have gone to international FAs, though, as there’s a cap there as well, and 500K gets you nothing in the MLB FA market), but the goodwill of your 1st round pick is worth something as well.
International Free agents can be signed before July 2 when that cap comes in. We could have signed Ian Rice with that extra money. Or Trey Williams.
Look. If that kind of money was going to be sufficient to sign Trey Williams after drafting him in the 12 round, he wouldn’t have LASTED until the 12th round. Someone else would have taken a shot at him.
The proper comparison to Williams is Austin Wilson from the 2010 draft, also a 12th rounder whom it would have been nice to have, but it just wasn’t happening. Failure to sign these guys isn’t a sign of gross overspending in the high rounds. It’s just acknowledging that a choice recognized as a real long shot from the time it was made wasn’t going to come in.
Note that I will be quite delighted if they manage to sign Williams anyway and prove me wrong (as long as doing so doesn’t cost them a high choice next year).
I wish you had told the Cards that you KNEW that before they spent near that max about there slot budget.
Seriously, do you think you KNOW things that the front office doesn’t and hasn’t considered?
Why did Ramsey HAVE to be there guy? If there is a chance we won’t be there at 36 why not pick someone who would be a better value for 23?
The real question is Ramsey didn’t improve himself THAT much from last year to this year? Why didn’t we take him last year during any of our Top 20 round picks?
Personally, I don’t think his rah-rah antics will work with Minor Leaguers fighting to stay in the system. Minor league games aren’t win at all costs. I can see teammates being annoyed with him.
I worry about the “rah rah” intense stuff too, especially in the minors as some players (and coaches) are dog tired from all that travel and games.
Because he said he was coming back for his senior year of college (which is why he wasn’t taken early by any team, though he did purportedly get second-round money).
Actually, Ramsey said he was going to sign with Twins and changed his mind over the summer.
Teammates don’t get annoyed with first round picks unless they act like prima donas. How about Cox’s deal, no one blames him for sitting on a 40 man roster spot when it could be them. When it comes down to it, they all live in the same place and eat the same food and work for the same organization that owns you until you become a FA.
There is a common bond between mil players.
I read that Kirk Gibson had that football player mentality as well. As long as Ramsey produces, I think no one will mind. If he doesn’t, it might get on others nerves.
Not even dog tired. I’m just thinking would a player who had been in Palm Beach for 3 years fighting for his career take well to Ramsey’s rah-rah. Think Mike Swinson when he gets back from suspension on his last leg in the organization and Ramsey is all gun ho on whatever.
I imagine he is going to be receiving some purposeful HBPs before his career is done. And that will be great for his OBP.
I don’t think the Cards are worried, one way or another, about what “a player who had been in Palm Beach for 3 years” thinks about Ramsey’s “rah-rah”, but I do think that this thread is NOW getting to what people don’t like about Ramsey. It’s a shame it took this long.
I like this entire discussion except the part knocking him for being rah-rah.
Chipper Jones is probably the most intense competitor I’m aware of the past 20 years. A friend of mine who was in the Atlanta clubhouse for a magazine article told me Jones was wired up like it was a football game. I remember a few years back, at an All Star game, when they introduced the starters, Jones ran out there yelling “come on!” to his teammates — at a freakin’ all-star game!
And in 19 years in MLB Jones has been hit 17 times.
Nobody has anything bad to say about Ramsey. He’s still close to guys he played with on the Cape last summer, including Piscotty. He’s not an a**hole.
I don’t know why the Cards paid $1.6 million for his services, but I don’t have a problem with him being well liked and a vocal leader in the dugout.
Fair enough, Lou. That was complete conjecture on my part. My bad. We’ll see how he does in the minors.
Lou I like your points made. If anyone thinks that Ramsey isn’t dog tired you are sadly mistaken. He’s probably put in just about as much time as those in milb maybe more, plus he went to school at the same time.
Why make him out to be a bad kid. Anyone ever in this situation would know that teams always come out ahead, if Ramsey did (though I think most likely not) than good for him!
It might just well be that the cards paid for his leadership, you guys don’t know how badly that is needed on the milb level.
My opinion guys like swinson should be banished for good. Someone needs to get in his face for sure!
So anyone who has ever got caught with PED’s in the s ystem should be banished? Does that include Cody Stanley Pitch?
Includes everyone,every player and at every level. If you cheat and stupid enough to get caught you deserve to be banished.
I guess you are saying it’s ok to cheat.
At this point, haven’t we vented enough? Everyone agrees that the Ramsey selection has been a little disappointing. You may think it is disappointing because you reasonably think we overpaid and squandered opportunity. You may think it is disappointing because you wanted a prospect that you thought was better. You may just be disappointed because you think the team botched the draft in whole.
The thing is, it is time to move on. I am sure the team officials who monitor fan opinion and engagement through the major blogs have noted our reactions. Let’s stop the bickering….
and start talking about our minor leages that have never been in such a good spot. For instance, someone could have been crushing my dreams of a Longmire recovery. He had been in a lot of DFRs lately, but when I ran the numbers on his last month, it appears he is still not good. I was forced to crush my own hopes. (I’m a funny guy!)
Anyway, I’ve appreciated the discussion, and it is interesting to see everyone’s perspecitives. It just seems to be very redundant now. If this was VEB, then I’d never think about saying anything. However, this is FR, and is usually very good about moving on. There is so much energy that could be used on such better topics.
If Carson Kelly was signed after Ramsey, the Cards might have had more leverage. I’m not sure on the math, but if the Cards dont sign Ramsey and try to get the pick back next year, you remove the slot value for the Ramsey pick from the alloted amount for the draft. If this is the case, the draft pool is reduced to something in the range of $7.4 million instead of $9.1 million. Then, factor in Kelly’s $$ to the $7.4 cap without signing #23, and maybe they would have been over by 5% and might have been penalized a draft pick next year. Again not sure on the math. But its a possibility.
Your analysis is correct (although the part about the risk of breaking cap by more than 5% is speculation until we know what Mejia and Heyer sign for, you’re right that the 5% barrier would have been a smaller number if Ramsey hadn’t signed at all), and it raises a highly ironic point: if Ramsey’s team had been knocked out of the CWS earlier, i.e., before the Kelly signing, this all could have played out very differently. Here’s a weird thought: this experience may make teams gun-shy about drafting college players in their senior year if their teams are still alive in the college post season, on the grounds that they acquire more leverage, the more other players sign before they can be negotiated with. Somehow that doesn’t exactly seem like an intended outcome of the new draft rules…
this sounds reasonable as well
Actually your right with the Foody signing. It seems odd that the Foody signing was announced weeks ago then denied. It was then announced the day after Ramsey signed for the amount announced earlier. If you take Ramsey’s slot value and the slot value of Mejia and Heyer then the Cards would have been more than 5% over their draft budget and would have forfeited next years 1st pick and I believe have to pay a 1 million dollar fine. If Foody had indeed been signed earlier then the Cards had to sign Ramsey, if not they would run a huge risk of going over 5%. If the Cards sign Heyer and Mejia for slot now or if both fail to sign they will fall @$75,000 below the 5% cap.
Very good analysis. The Cards could have screwed themselves over.
If I may jump in a bit….. where is the outrage when we throw away picks at lower levels to make a son of an employee smile when no chance of a signing? see Matheny Tate, also as far as ramsey goes I have to say maybe bad dealings but I cannot and do not believe they got out manuevered and forced to 1.6 which I might add is not confirmed yet.
Teams do the son-of-an-employee thing with later-round choices all the time. Remarkably, sometimes they even work; Chuckie Fick, son of a Cardinals scout, was such a choice (15th round, 2007), and even managed to make it to the majors — something only one other fifteenth-rounder from his class has done so far. More commonly they disappear without a trace, of course, but it’s hardly a “waste” of a choice since (1) there is the improbable Fick example and (2) many others do at least become the minor-league filler that is the lot of most 20th-round choices.
Nor is Tate Matheny by any means the most improbable of these. Lots of teams have drafted guys in the late rounds that they knew had zero chance of ever playing, because of disabling injuries or illness (at least one paraplegic got a gift draft IIRC). One scout’s DAUGHTER got drafted late one year. This just isn’t something to get enraged about.
Yes I am aware it is done every year, the point being in Matheny’s case it was never going to happen and they were told as much ,yet some kid that might have signed gets no play from that draft spot….it is at least as concerning as the amount we paid to mr. ramsey in a back wards sort of ideal. 23rd round sure could have been something more than a dead wood pick.
Point being why worry over 1 issue if not all issues. I personally question the stratedgy as well with Ramsey as Jeff has I am just not as concerned about it as Jeff , more trying to understand it which may never Happen.
All In All I think we did well in the Draft with My Limited Knowledge.
Part of that “goodwill” thing. Likely doesn’t hurt the organization any (the expected surplus value of such picks is probably in the tens of thousands of dollars).
After reading all the posts I am very concerned about the black helicopters.
I don’t buy the black helicopter stuff; I think it’s likely the Cards fr whatever reason actually valued him as a 1.6M player and were willing to get a small senior discount for the guarantee of getting him before any other team did. It doesn’t have to be y more complicated than that.
Bu the way, he wasn’t a top 100 prospect last year either, according to Baseball America, but at least one other team evaluated him as a second-round talent (based on Minnesota’s offer). And then he went out and had his amazing Cape and an even better year at FSU. I’m not worried about hs low ranking by Baseball America. They might be way off on this guy.
What if the Cardinals just loved Ramsey and other teams also loved him (or the Cardinals thought that, at least)? The interest from a multitude of teams would allow Ramsey to say, predraft, that he wasn’t going to give much with respect to slot, and the Cardinals’ interest would lead them to still take him. I think it was more about supply and demand than rankings and age.
It’s entirely evident, I think, that the Cardinals valued Ramsey much, much higher than BA and they were willing to pay to ensure he’s in their system.
1. I am much more inclined to believe that the Cards had a pre-draft deal with Ramsey for near $1.6 or even that they are just stupid than i believe Ramsey backed out of a pre-draft deal.
2. Piscotty took a similar time to Ramsey to sign after his season was over – should we assume he backed out of a pre draft agreement as well?
3. Ramsey is not an irreplaceable commodity with no substitute. You dont overpay for substitutable goods.
4. If there was no pre-draft agreement, I play hardball all the way with Ramsey. He has much more to lose. If I know a guy is going to lose his house if I don’t pay him 500K for it, I’m not going to offer him $2 million for it if I know I’m the only guy who wants it. I don’t care if I think it is worth $3 million.
5. I think we overpaid for Kelly as much or more than for Ramsey (talent wise).
6. In the end, we are only talking about possibly the inefficient use of $500K. the Cards waste way more than that every year at the major league level. I’m not going to sweat it. It does make me question their judgement though.
Just on point 6…
Kelly and Ramsey were very different in terms of negotiating power
That depends on whether not signing Ramsey would have meant not signing Foody (due to losing the bonus allocation and Ramsey’s slot + Foody’s bonus + the UA players’ slots putting the Cards over 5% of their bonus pool).
Piscotty signed immediately I believe but his signing was held up by MLB processing. I believe he was signed a day or so after.
Why is it so out of question that Ramsey broke a pre draft deal? I believe Callis right around the wait time on Ramsey talked about it seemed an agent as stepping back on a deal.
I agree I do think that Kelly got overpayed. He’s not clearly a hitter or pitcher.
Not sure why you would need a predraft deal for a senior at 23 in order to draft him if it’s only 10 percent under slot? Trahan only got 100k more.
Best I can tell Piscotty signed 6 days after his team was eliminated and Ramsey 5 days. The hold up for Piscotty at MLB came after the signing was announced.
Piscotty reneged on his deal too!?! 6 days = immoral reneging on a pre-agreed deal. Also, I’m getting worried about Mejia and Heyer – I haven’t heard that they signed immediately…..
Mejia has signed according to Strauss: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/carpenter-s-future-still-muddled/article_e0cff64a-89ae-5c14-9116-37ac4bd42d97.html
Apologies if this has already been posited, but if Ramsey backed away from a predraft deal, he wouldn’t be signed yet. They most likely would still be negotiating as the deadline isn’t up yet. Whether we agree with the valuation or not, I think it’s more likely than not that $1.6 million represents the value the team placed on him.
I find it incomprehensible that the Cards FO was forced into a corner to pay Ramsey 1.6M. If they wanted him badly enough to select him #23, they had to think he was worth something close to the amount they paid for him. Whether the kid was overpaid will depend on his performance on the field and not Monday morning QB’ing by a bunch of prospect hounds.
The Cards may well have overvalued the kid… but the conjecture that he somehow hoodwinked this organization is laughable to me. Good grief. Stop acting like it’s your money. The Cardinal FO surprised most of you with how much they were willing to pay Molina. Nobody is grousing about it now. Nobody with any sense, anyway….
No, Ramsey isn’t Molina…. and 1.6M isn’t 85M either.
I agree, Huge. Why aren’t Jeff and Andrew et al happy with the fact that the Cards have currently spent $350000 of their $450000 possible they could spend ABOVE their allocated budget without losing a draft choice. By doing so they have set themselves up to spend another 75% penalty on the ultimate overage.
Why aren’t we congratulating them for extending themselves. I doubt that any teams (with the possible exception of Pittsburgh with Appel/Boras driving their ultimate spending) will be as far above their allocated budget as the Cards at the end of the signing deadline.
I think there is a prejudice against Ramsey, and the fact that the Cards got him signed for 10% below slot, when virtually none (other than the Astros with a “too high” slot allocation for Correa) of the teams accomplished under slot first round signings, and are spending over allocated budget and that the Cards got players like Kelly and Foody signed for well over allocated slot, are ALL being blindly overlooked by that prejudice.
Exactly and a bit irresponsible of Cardinal fans to throw Ramsey and his agent under the bus with no proof whatsoever. There is nothing but circumstantial trivia. Of course the Cards may have overpaid, but when you’re dealing with a #23 draft pick, it’s a crapshoot. Ramsey could be a diamond in the rough, a dud, or anything in between. It’s all idle speculation.
Spending as much as we did on Ramsey guaranteed we didn’t get Williams. Since Ramsey was signed AFTER Kelly and we already had the money saved on on Kelly from the other underslot deals in the 1st 10 rounds.
“Since Ramsey was signed AFTER Kelly”
I believe that is the key point. If the Cards had just cut bait on Ramsey, they wouldn’t have been able to sign Foody. That’s because if Ramsey, Heyer, and Mejia had been signed at slot (or unsigned), Foody’s bonus would have put the Cards over the 105% limit.
Looks like signing Kelly first gave Ramsey’s camp a ton of leverage.
I’m gonna bet that what really guaranteed that we weren’t gonna get Williams was what Williams was asking for.
I agree.
Could Ramsey become the new Pete Kozma in terms of scrutiny?
I don’t think so, and I hope he doesn’t.
if Ramsey and his agent really did back out of a pre-draft deal, we should have heard about it already. Mo and company have lots of reason to leak that info (saving face?/burning Ramsey’s agent/etc.) and almost no reason not to leak it. I think this type of speculation is a way for some to try to understand something that seems not understandable. Nothing wrong with it as idle speculation but seems a little over the top to practically insist that it must have happened with not a shred of proof.
Good point about burning Ramsey’s agent. It’s hard to think of a reason why the Cards would _not_ retaliate in public if they felt that they were screwed over.
It’s saving face to leak that they got gamed by an agent and still accepted the terms rather than let him walk?
Yes, we got outmanuevered AND folded. Not something the organization would want to admit.
would we rather every agent and other GM in the world think we have no idea of player value and will pay whatever price they ask? No, better to admit you had a pre-draft deal the was reneged on and because of the other commitments you made based on that deal your hand got forced.
They can also choose to just not deal with that agent.
I didn’t like the pick at 23- absolutely hated the 1.6 million, but loved the draft over all– so I’m going to give this franchise the benefit of my doubt with this investment, because if they are right– he does create a lot of needed value for this franchise and fast. I’m rooting for them to be right.
I think that some of you way underestimate the cardinals. No way would they allow any player and his agent to hose them. They hold the cards…literally all of them. While the scouting director is new, Mo is not and neither is ownership. They did what they did for a reason.
I think everyone is up in arms because he has been compared to a high-average overachieving centerfielder with average skills and excellent makeup. (Shumaker). Maybe the Cardinals see him as the next McGee, John Jay, or Lenny Dykstra. Maybe Rex Hudler with more talent? I could not find a link I saw in another site, but apparently, like Kolten Wong, he led the NCAA in park adjusted OBA. Perhaps one of you who are far better at stats can help with that. Regardless, it is obvious that the Cards value established collegiate hitters who should not take long to develop. (Wallace, Cox, Wong, etc) My guess is they have a system in place, and it certainly appears to be working better than the previous regime.
Thanks for the interesting reads!!