let me first say that he has made some very good trades recently. however, the organization seems very reluctant to dish out the money in order to make a big splash which you need to do in order to remain competitive. the only risky move they've made in the last few years was signing darvish. they've been linked to several high-profile free agents over the years who seemed close to signing.

can you imagine how good the team would be with greinke and fielder? why not pay mike adams 6 million?

the owners aren't tom hicks. they actually have money. as long as they're not giving 10-year contracts to over-the-hill players, i don't understand why they seem so afraid of spending.

We are not the Yankees. The owners have money, and they did not get it by stupidly handing out $200M to whoever can hit a baseball really far.

People seem to forget, baseball is a budget with real money and real P&L statements. You can't just spend money that you won't make back. Don't forget, too, that this team absorbed a lot of Hicks' debt in the franchise, which has to be paid off.

Does Beltre not count as a "splash" free agent signing?

i forgot to mention beltre. they basically got him at a bargain because the angels goofed

You don't try to money whip your way to a World Series. That rarely works. You build a team for the long haul and make big splash signings at the right time. Beltre and Darvish were the right kind of big splash signings. JD made a big run at ZG, but got beat out by that awful Dodgers contract. No way in heck would I have wanted the rangers to give pujols, fielder, greinke, or Hamilton their respective contracts.

Couldn't have said it better Romro212000!

All of the recent "big splash" signings have been on terrible contracts. Maybe that's what it takes to make a big splash, but those type of contracts usually don't pay off in the end. The type of contracts to do work are the ones like the Beltre one where you wait and let a market develop and then pick off the good players that you can afford to on reasonable contracts.

make a big splash which you need to do in order to remain competitive

Please show me where it says this in the rule book. Most knowledgeable baseball people will tell you the successful teams don't overpay on a $/WAR basis and find tremendous value in underpriced pre-arb players.

The only person keeping JD from dropping dollars is JD.

I'd rather not think about where the Angels would be right now if they'd signed Beltre instead of traded for Wells.

We'll just wait and sign Brian Wilson and Valverde on the cheap and have 5 all star closers in our pen come July. (not happening, but funny thought)

In all seriousness, I wouldn't staunchly object to Wilson, but I would to Valverde. I want no part of him. Ugh, he really looks like he's lost it. Wilson's a character, and he gets on some peoples' nerves, but I don't mind him. He's good, but of course he comes with the TJ recovery, and we already have 2 pitchers with that on their plates. Not to mention it's his 2nd one, so you have to wonder how well he'll be able to recover. That said, we could do a lot worse than Wilson to bolster a bullpen that I see as pretty shaky to start the year.

Well, Valverde would only be responsible for the 5th, since the 6-9th would belong to Wilson, Feliz, Soria and Nathan. Heck, we could go to a 4 man rotation at that point...

In all seriousness, I'm not a big fan of Valverde's either. However, we've already crossed that line of signing people who get on my nerves, so I'd get over that part of it. Its all about how cheap guys are IMO. Everyone has a price point.

i don't see a problem with "money whipping" players if they complement a contending team. those types of free agents don't go on trees and the market is defined by whoever will pay the most. of course i wouldn't offer pujols a 10-year deal at his age.

some teams get lucky with bargains and finding talent in unforeseen places

don't grow on trees"

Fortunately JD has what a lot of GM's don't have....common sense and the willingness to stick to a budget without going nutso.

Easy to advocate paying top dollar when you're not writing the checks. Why money whip a player at all? Most of those never pan out. Jason Werth, Jason Bay, Carl Crawford, John Lackey. Andruw Jones was a nightmare sign for the Dodgers. The Angels money whipped Albert and got the worst year of his career. We got CJ Wilson's best years and never paid him more than $7 million.

No one knows what Greinke will do this year, but will he earn his money? He's a good player and I'm sure every front office likes him, but not at that price. His 2009 was exceptional, but has he really been as good since? You're not exactly buying Roger Clemens in his heyday there.

No flags fly for winning the hot stove league.

Hell yes screw the hot stove.

The problem with the bull shit stove is that when you make a slash the water is fing boiling and you get third degree burns from it and then they get infected from all of the muckedy muck bacteria that has been festering in said stove, and that thrives at boiling temperatures like the stuff that grows around the lava vents at the bottom of the ocean. And once you get infected you lose your limbs to gain green and then you can't money whip anyone anymore anyways because you have no fingers, no arm for that matter, with which to write your pathetic "big splash" contracts. And once you have no arms with which to write your big pathetic money whipping checks your owners realize that you were never good for anything except money whipping anyways, And since they cut off your arms to save themselves from the spreading infection they figure they need to off load your ass because you have no value except as a money whipper which you can't do anymore. Then they get on the phone and beg JD to let them talk to his assistants about a GM gig because they realize that JD and his team are some of the few ACTUALLY creative GM's out there who work for a large market team.

The OP is pathetic. Go root for the Dodgers or something. They are good money whippers!

some teams get lucky with bargains and finding talent in unforeseen places

Is luck really the word you're looking for?

Joe, gotta hand it to you. In 5 years of trying I probably could not have found a way to insert "muckedy muck" into a post :) ....I am impressed!

I'm still trying to figure out if Joe really meant "gain green" or if he was trying to say "gangrene".

Not being a grammar nazi, it's just that there's an interesting twist depending on how you interpret that.

Heh. Here's a story about a guy who lost a limb to try to gain green. Spoiler alert: it didn't work, and he died.

The other thing about the Beltre signing (unlike those of Fielder, Pujols, or even Hamilton) is that it wasn't all about the added offense. Beltre is a huge boost to our defense and, thus, pitching staff, too.

the werth contract is the kind of risk you sometimes have to take. obviously, a team is paying for past performance and i don't think the nationals expected him to play as poorly as he has.

do people have a problem with the darvish signing? they're paying a lot of money for a prospect.

paying based on past performance*

wings,

The Rangers went to two WS's.

Did they do it by money whipping free agents?

Negatory

Therefore, your approach makes no sense. JD is going to keep doing what JD is doing because JD has something called RESULTS.

Did the Giants win two WS's by money whipping free agents and saddling the club with long term shitniss contracts?

Negatory.

Therefore, it makes no sense to try to win WS's while money whipping over paid players.

the giants had nearly double the rangers' payroll in 2010