6/11 Gameday Thread: Thompson aims to build on last 2 starts

lol, you have nothing for during a linger ?

I've been looking forward to his starts of late. Hoping for a Portland call up down the line so I can see him live.

I get the tax implications etc. but are there no scenarios that see Rusney get back to the bigs? This seems cruel. I mean, I’ll sit in the minors for $10 million, so I’m not crying... but there is something wrong with a system that prevents a potentially exciting player from playing.

Wow, SSS AND DSL stats. You are really reaching for something to get excited about.

When the new CBA added a new provision that outrighting a player does not remove their contract from the CBT calculation, it basically ended any chance he had of coming up. The problem is that his contract IS kind of an albatross if all he is is a 4th outfielder, which is all his prior MLB performance has shown him to be. If you could outright his contract off the CBT calculation, then you'd have a lot less risk to see if he has, in fact, improved. The way it is now, even a team with CBT space would have to REALLY believe in him as an MLB starter-level contributor to acquire him.

FWIW, his CBT number is 10.35M, I think (I assume 2014 counts as a full year but I'm only 90% certain that's how it works).

What they really needed to do was grandfather contracts signed prior to the new CBA out of this new provision. Unfortunately for Rusney, they didn't.

I'll just point out that the San Francisco Giants are above .500 and 2.5 games out of first place while getting -0.6 WAR from the center field position. Castillo, who is something like a 1.5 WAR player is worth more than $11 million to them even before you factor in that a marginal win would be worth more to them than it would be to most teams.

The Red Sox probably trade him for a lottery ticket, so the Giants are stubborn, cheap, dumb, or some combination of the three.

As a FA with no track record, Rusney got $70 million. With his AAA track record, you'd think a team would take a shot with his current contract (1.5 years for $16 million... though there's an opt-out after 2019 apparently) if he was a FA? He's 3 years of AAA training away from his last real MLB experience. Can you renegotiate him to promise to opt-out?

I agree with this some, but it's important to note that the guy who gave him $70 million got fired for it.

As I understand, it would count against the tax, as it would if they were to outright release him.

How there isn't a grievance (whether it would work or not) is surprising. Its borderline cruel as much as you could consider giving someone $70 million cruel... his prime will be gone before he's a FA.

Yeah I'm going to the player's association if I'm Rusney and seeing how they can make a exception so he isn't forced to be playing AAA baseball anymore.

The problem is that the argument literally starts with "Because I'm not worth my salary..." That's just a hard argument to make, especially a guy who had only been "kind of good" in AAA if you look at his numbers - it's not like he's OPS-ing over 1.000 and setting the world on fire. If a major league team thought him worth the money, he would be in the majors. The union doesn't have much incentive to set a precedent of ending contracts early because the player was not worth the money, even if it's because the player also wants out.

He got significant run of playing time in 2015. In 80 games, he was basically replacement level (.1 WAR) per Fangraphs and worth .8 WAR on B-Ref, although that's tied up entirely in his defense, which makes me a shade skeptical.

Keep in mind, he's posting a .780-ish OPS in AAA right now. He's performing worse than he did last year with a higher BABIP. As far as I'm concerned, he hasn't proven he's better than an up-and-down guy anyway. Remember, he's been Rule 5 eligible and gone undrafted.