Yoan Moncada

The media is giving a distinct "we're throwing crap against the wall" feeling with their Moncada rumors.

“@spwill: Moncada said to MLB.com goal is to make it to majors ASAP. LAD/NYY roster has easier path to MLB at 2B/SS/3B than #RedSox.”

I think we should clarify that the first part of this tweet is something Moncada actually said and the second part is an extrapolation by the tweeter.

He's 19. He knows none of these teams are going to start him any higher than AA at best (and that is probably unlikely). It's about money, just like it always is. Period.

It is a pretty valid point though. If his goal is to get to arbitration as fast as possible, do you pick Bogaerts, Betts, Pedroia, Chavis, Devers, Marrero (Include Sandoval and Han Ram) as your long term competition, or Gregorius, Mateo, Refsnyder, and Jagielo (Include Headley and.... A-Rod). Assuming the offers and the other factor are close it would seem Yankees have a huge advantage here.

Napoli and Papi will likely be gone in 2 years. There will be room for him.

Agreed. See: Mookie Betts.

If you're that good the team will find a spot for you (or trade you to a team that will for an All Star/Blue Chip in return - see Russell/Samardzija).

The fact that he gets all this money up front is fascinating to me. He will essentially be the richest man since Michael Jordan to ride the buses, won't he?

This is fascinating to me, too, also from the budget/business standpoint of the teams. Look at a team like the Red Sox: they have around $185-190 million dollars budgeted for their major league payroll every year. It's a lot of money and gives them a lot of flexibility within that, but from a business accounting perspective, it's a solid, predictable expense line. So deciding to drop a bunch of cash on Panda or Hanley is just a matter of allocating existing resources. They have a few million budgeted for international FA signings, lots of money for physical infrastructure (stadium), marketing, blah, blah, etc, etc. All the normal costs of running the Red Sox.

But this is an entirely new class of expense, a player acquisition cost unlike any other (although similar to acquiring a Japanese player). They just have to find tens of millions of dollars to drop here. As an accounting measure, they'll have to project this investment into future years' major league payroll costs, thinking that his value as a minimum-salaried and arbitration-eligible player will soak up the excess cost now, but it's still money they have to find in excess of their normal budget since, presumably, they aren't going to lower their payroll later to cover for this expense. Like I said, it's similar to a posting fee in Japan, with the disadvantage of the lesser certainty of performance but the large advantage of greater certainty and savings in payroll costs.

Sorry, I'm doing some budgeting/accounting now for my business, so I'm thinking this way. It's just an interesting thought experiment to me on how the Sox will value Moncada and how much they'd be willing to spend. And also how few teams have the flexibility to do something like this ...

So it's basically a glorified posting fee, accounting wise.

Write off, business expenses; entertainment. One time charge for depreciation.

I don't think that is an issue at all, like others have said.

If a team is willing to spend $80 million on you as a 19 year old, they are going to do everything in their power to accommodate you and give you every chance to succeed.

This isn't like your typical prospect signing, where a team is committing like ~$5M at most. This is $80M on you.

Umm sounds like those execs don't know what the Red Sox are thinking and are just speculating assuming stuff.