[DJ's left nut]

There's nothing that would necessarily prevent young players from getting paid now if they were again willing to operate within a sane market.

Let's use Correa as an example. I'll presume relatively decent health and a bullish but not outlandish projection on him from now until when a 'reasonable' FA contract would take him - let's say his age 34 season. That's 4 years of team control plus an 8 year FA deal.

Let's say the Astros offered him 12/$250 right now. Would he take it? I honestly don't think he would, because again the idea of the $8 million WAR is what is drawing players to the market. But if you give Correa reasonable health and a general aging curve, you're looking at roughly 63 wins over his next 12 years through age 34. If you look at his controlled years, he could get, what, $50 million over the next 4 years? His 3 arb years and his controlled year. Seems within reason.

So you're offering him an 8/$200 million extension in guaranteed money - right at $25 million/year. And that's for ages 27-34 where again, present understanding of aging curves says he'll be worth 50/60% of his peak value by the end of it. You're looking at 43-50 wins over those 8 years. And again, that's presuming health and a 'peak' of 7-8 WAR. That's pretty damn bullish.

I bet he wouldn't take it because it's 'only' $4-4.5 million/projected win in his FA years. Carlos Correa could get PAID if he wanted to and he could do it right now. But the allure of a completely out of whack FA market is strong enough that I doubt he'd sign on. Moreover, the risk may be so far out of whack for the Astros that they might not even be willing to offer it. He's had some lower body and wrist injuries that could make him a fraction of his peak player if anything wonky happened again.

Players aren't reasonable about how they age. And they aren't actually wanting to 'get what they're worth when they're worth it' because if they were, they could get those deals signed. They're willing to take less than what they're worth when they're worth it because of the bill of goods they've been sold by the MLBPA that says they'll get far MORE than they're worth when they hit FA.

Bad news guys - there are some teams out there that just aren't willing to play that game anymore. And when a player gets a silly oversized deal we hear 'I'm worth what the market says I'm worth'. Then when the market says you aren't worth nearly what you convinced yourself of it suddenly becomes collusion.

Hosmer's gonna get 7/$140 and that contract will be stupid. Let's be bullish and say that Hosmer is a 4 WAR player right now. Give him a basic curve and you're talking 31 wins over the next 7 years. Under the inflated $8 million/win model, he's 'worth' 7/$168 and hell he might get that. But we all know that it's a bad system that created that model. In a 'true' marketplace he'd be considered around 7/$95 millionish.

So free agents are bitching because they aren't getting overpaid by enough. And again - Hosmer's children's children would never have to work a day in their lives if he signed at 7/$95 million. I am just completely unmoved.