OnlyBucs

To the Braves. Basically for a little over half the season.



The Pirates could afford this.



Should they have pursued? Lost opportunity?

Really? Seriously? He held out half the year and this is what he gets? Color me unimpressed. Yes, the Pirates absolutely could have afforded that. Maybe Keuchel didn’t want to play here. Can’t say I blame him. Regardless, for all the talk about “waiting to sign for what he’s worth,” he sure didn’t get his nine figure deal or whatever it was he was hoping for.



But, this is what you get when you’re content with mediocrity. All things being equal, you have to overpay.

This was a stunner to me. He could have had this deal back at the beginning. He set his value and said he wasn't taking less, and for it to come to this is just amazing.

I think this shows that Keuchel didn't get the deal he wanted and finally settled for a 1 year deal and will try it again next year. 13 million for about 60% of a season isn't bad. I read that it was more than the Yankees offered. And Keuchel is accustomed to playing on good teams and pitching in the post season. The Braves offer a chance for that. Realistically, the Pirates don't and there was no way Nutting would have paid that money anyway.

Who knows how this went down, but if it was a one year deal, I can't believe the Pirates didn't offer a prorated $13 million or even more for him. I'm guessing he didn't want to play in Pittsburgh. I'd also assume that hanging with Gerrit Cole for a year didn't paint a pretty picture of Pittsburgh in his mind.



At the end of the day, I read somewhere that Keuchel was looking for a long term deal with big money. The draft pick attachment to signing him deterred teams from doing that. He'd take a smaller deal now and get the bigger one next year. Le'veon Bell approves.

Any ball player that has the option of picking where they want to play is not coming here unless the money is out of sight. They want to play with a chance to win a championship and that is not going to happen here. Can we really blame them?

mlbtr reports that (rumors say) he was originally asking for five years, $100 MM.

7A7271465075525D330 wrote: Really? Seriously? He held out half the year and this is what he gets? Color me unimpressed. Yes, the Pirates absolutely could have afforded that. Maybe Keuchel didn’t want to play here. Can’t say I blame him. Regardless, for all the talk about “waiting to sign for what he’s worth,” he sure didn’t get his nine figure deal or whatever it was he was hoping for.



But, this is what you get when you’re content with mediocrity. All things being equal, you have to overpay.


Need to remember that the $13M is a pro-rated number for the balance of the year. So he is getting $13M from this point in the season. His salary hit to the Braves payroll is actually $21.2M

I really think the Pirates should have offered him about $5m more than that just to make a splash. This is not me saying that he deserves that but over pay or even over pay to the tune of $36 million for two years. He is a decent pitcher and they are so cheap elsewhere it would have been worth it.

4D45465147474B240 wrote: I really think the Pirates should have offered him about $5m more than that just to make a splash.  This is not me saying that he deserves that but over pay or even over pay to the tune of $36 million for two years.  He is a decent pitcher and they are so cheap elsewhere it would have been worth it. 


I have to believe that whatever they paid him would have come back (or close to coming back) in increased ticket sales. I could easily see the Bucs getting another 100k in attendance because of his signing and also because the team would have a good chance of winning more.