Peralta To St Louis for Four Years and 52 Mil

[BigJonEmpire]

From ESPN:

Free-agent shortstop Jhonny Peralta and the St. Louis Cardinals have agreed on a four-year deal worth around $52 million, a source told ESPN.com's Jim Bowden on Sunday.
Peralta, 31, is a two-time All-Star and .268 career hitter with 156 home runs in 11 seasons with Cleveland and Detroit. He missed 50 games late last season in conjunction with his involvement in Major League Baseball's Biogenesis scandal.
Peralta's signing will be the second significant move this week for Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak, who acquired outfielder Peter Bourjos from the Angels on Friday in a four-player trade that sent third baseman David Freese to Los Angeles.
The Cardinals expect to slot Peralta in at shortstop in place of Pete Kozma next season. Matt Carpenter will move from second base to third and rookie Kolten Wong will play second in a reconfigured infield for the National League champions.
Since Peralta did not receive a qualifying offer from Detroit, the Cardinals will not have to surrender a draft pick in exchange for signing him.

[Hornsby]

Yeah, PED use NEVER pays off...right.

My suggestion to MLB and the players union would be to slash players who are guilty of PED use down to the MLB minimum for the next 2 seasons. Dinging them hard in the pocketbook is the only way to actually stem the tide of PED use...

[BigJonEmpire]

Yeah, PED use NEVER pays off...right.

My suggestion to MLB and the players union would be to slash players who are guilty of PED use down to the MLB minimum for the next 2 seasons. Dinging them hard in the pocketbook is the only way to actually stem the tide of PED use...

I actually like that idea. Most guys would only take them to pump up their next paychecks anyway, and this would be a far more powerful incentive to stay clean than the embarrassment factor MLB seems to rely on.

[rhd]

Yeah, PED use NEVER pays off...right.

My suggestion to MLB and the players union would be to slash players who are guilty of PED use down to the MLB minimum for the next 2 seasons. Dinging them hard in the pocketbook is the only way to actually stem the tide of PED use...

Would have to be collectively bargained and the players would never agree to that.

Even if this change was somehow possible, I dont think I'd be in favor of it. There's just so much arbitrariness and inconsistency re: PEDs and baseball, and they'll still never stop it no matter what they do anyway. Kind of like the war on drugs - you can control it to a certain degree but you can only do so much. The main focus should be on the public health issues, not on who should or should not be in the HOF, or banned from baseball for life or have their records and awards stripped from them.

[Don Quixote]

Would have to be collectively bargained and the players would never agree to that.

Even if this change was somehow possible, I dont think I'd be in favor of it. There's just so much arbitrariness and inconsistency re: PEDs and baseball, and they'll still never stop it no matter what they do anyway. Kind of like the war on drugs - you can control it to a certain degree but you can only do so much. The main focus should be on the public health issues, not on who should or should not be in the HOF, or banned from baseball for life or have their records and awards stripped from them.

How about escrowing the player's pay for the amount over the minimum for two years? If he stays "clean" for five years or the length of his contract, whichever is greater, he gets the money back with interest; if he doesn't, it's forfeited to local charities. He loses more than just current pay if he cheats again, MLB has no incentive to lie.

As for the deal itself, well, he was the best "shortstop" available, and the Cardinals have the money to overpay him. As with most deals over three years, they'll probably regret it in the third and fourth years, but heck, when you're as close to winning it all as the Cards are, you don't think of it as a loss, you think of it as an investment, a deferred payoff if the team gets over the top. One thing we know is how well St. Louis runs its operation. Their moves are usually well thought out and logical, their execution according to plan.

[Grinch]

Yeah, PED use NEVER pays off...right.

Apparently Player-union rep Brad Ziegler agrees...
https://twitter.com/BradZiegler/stat...75121719148544

[revo]

Apparently Player-union rep Brad Ziegler agrees...
https://twitter.com/BradZiegler/stat...75121719148544

Just wait for Nelson Cruz's contract!

[Moonlight J]

Love Brad Ziegler

[Don Quixote]

Just wait for Nelson Cruz's contract!

No matter what anyone says, we'll never know how much if anything each player cost himself with his respective suspension. Keep in mind that Peralta (and Cruz, and others) lost over 30% of their 2013 pay when you try to estimate the effect it had on each player.

That won't stop anyone from arguing, based on his pre-decided position.

[Don Quixote]

Love Brad Ziegler

From Rotoworld--

"In lieu of Jhonny Peralta's four-year, $53 million contract with the Cardinals, there could soon be changes coming to baseball's Joint Drug Agreement between the players union and the owners.
Brad Ziegler, who is the Diamondbacks player representative, tweeted Sunday, "It pays to cheat", and "Thanks, owners, for encouraging PED use." Ziegler elborated, "We thought 50 games would be a deterrent. Obviously it’s not. So we are working on it again." It certainly sounds like many other players are echoing those same sentiments, and a likely scenario is that changes could be proposed to the agreement during the player's union annual board meeting in December. It obviously isn't good for the game if the penalties for PED use aren't enough of a deterrent, and incorporating the forfeiture of salary could be one increased penalty that is discussed."

It didn't seem to bother Ziegler et al until someone involved got some serious money. I don't recall hearing much from him before, so I guess it was OK as long as no one got a big contract after their suspension. Keep in mind that Peralta's suspension cost him over $1.85 million in pay, and may have cost him some on this contract (we will never know how much he'd have received had he not been suspended).

And way to blame the owners for players using, as if the players were forced to do it.

I think just about everyone involved here is being a pious hypocrite.

[revo]

David Aardsma also chips in with the following tweets:

"Apparently getting suspended for PED's means you get a raise. What's stopping anyone from doing it?" #weneedtomakeachange

"I had 2 major surgeries in 5 months and made it back clean, nothing pisses me off more than guys that cheat and get raises for doing so"

[Don Quixote]

David Aardsma also chips in with the following tweets:

"Apparently getting suspended for PED's means you get a raise. What's stopping anyone from doing it?" #weneedtomakeachange

"I had 2 major surgeries in 5 months and made it back clean, nothing pisses me off more than guys that cheat and get raises for doing so"

Unless he or Ziegler or the others can prove that Peralta wouldn't have gotten the big bucks had he not been suspended, they have no case. He cheated and was suspended. He got a raise (as everyone knew he would pre-suspension, since nominal shortstops with his offensive capabilities are very uncommon). B followed A. That does not mean that A caused B. Correlation is not causality.

[james33]

Unless he or Ziegler or the others can prove that Peralta wouldn't have gotten the big bucks had he not been suspended, they have no case. He cheated and was suspended. He got a raise (as everyone knew he would pre-suspension, since nominal shortstops with his offensive capabilities are very uncommon). B followed A. That does not mean that A caused B. Correlation is not causality.

Maybe Aardsma and Ziegler should conclude instead from the Jhonny Peralta signing that misspelled first names results in bigger contracts.

The Cardinals freed up some salary by losing Westbrook and the Freese trade. The Cardinals needed a shortstop, and free agency was a way to get a shortstop without having to give up a young arm that a trade would require.

Do these player reps really think the Cardinals' braintrust said "hey, let's send a message to everybody from Aardsma to Ziegler by rewarding PED use by giving a PED-offender a big salary?" If anything they might have considered "Hey, I wonder if we can offer Peralta a couple million dollars less because of the risk of him getting caught for PEDs again."

[Hornsby]

Maybe Aardsma and Ziegler should conclude instead from the Jhonny Peralta signing that misspelled first names results in bigger contracts.

The Cardinals freed up some salary by losing Westbrook and the Freese trade. The Cardinals needed a shortstop, and free agency was a way to get a shortstop without having to give up a young arm that a trade would require.

Do these player reps really think the Cardinals' braintrust said "hey, let's send a message to everybody from Aardsma to Ziegler by rewarding PED use by giving a PED-offender a big salary?" If anything they might have considered "Hey, I wonder if we can offer Peralta a couple million dollars less because of the risk of him getting caught for PEDs again."

That's really not the point...we all know that ANY franchise can afford to offer a deal like this, look across the state and see what KC has done. Money is flowing like water in baseball these days, and this contract may end up being a reasonable one.

The real point, as I see it, and I can infer that Zeigler and Aardsma see it this way as well, is that Peralta personally profited from doing something that he knew to be illegal. Whether he's done it for years and forged a career on it, or just started it last year is irrelevant. He was caught cheating, paid a small penalty, and now profits from his misdeeds, to the tune of 13 million a year.

[Controller Jacobs]

The attacks on Peralta are interesting, but pointless - he's just a target because he signed a pretty good contract after getting busted. The biggest cases remain where players didn't get busted until after signing mega-deals.

The thing tha would bust those would be if teams were given the option to void deals when a player got busted for ped use that occurred in the year before the contract was signed, relating to misrepresentation of the player's actual skills. But that may put too much into the hands of the owners, not exactly known for their ethical behavior.