November 16, 2014 [LINK / comment]

Some big renewed contracts

Trading season is about to get underway, which means that teams are frantically trying to keep their best free agents and players with only one more year on their contracts.

The St. Louis Cardinals signed Adam Wainwright to a five-year contract extension worth approximately $97.5 million. That's the most ever for a Cardinals pitcher. Wainwright has played in St. Louis since his rookie year of 2005, and has grown attached to the city. See MLB.com.

Victor Martinez signed a renewed contract with the Detroit Tigers, worth $68 million over four years. The terms include strong protection against unwanted trades. As a designated hitter, he hit .335 with 32 home runs and 103 RBIs this year. See ESPN.

Following up on an optional contract extension for Denard Span earlier this month, the Washington Nationals have signed outfielder Kevin Frandsen to a one-year renewed contract worth $1 million plus incentives. He was one of the real standouts on the Nationals' bench this year, and the lack of quality backup players hurt the team more than once, so this is good news. See MLB.com.

Rather surprisingly, the Miami Marlins seem serious about keeping Giancarlo Stanton on the team, apparently offering him in the neighborhood of $300 million. If so, that's quite a switch from the franchise owners' frequent "fire sale" approach to cutting payroll costs. I think that would be going too far toward the opposite extreme.

New stadium for K.C.?

NO-O-O-O-O!!!! How does a team celebrate a Cinderella season that includes a razor-close World Series finale in front of the adoring home crowd? By raising the possibility of building a new stadium, apparently. Promoters are using that dumb idea as part of their plan to redevelop ($$$) downtown Kansas City, but don't worry, the Royals fans are not interested. Read what Yael Abouhalkahthe wrote about this at kansascity.com.

Tropicana Field update

Safeco Field

As part of my ongoing work on estimating fair and foul territories (see November 8), I made some revisions to the Tropicana Field diagrams. The most significant change is that the grandstand behind home plate bends more sharply than I had previously thought. In this case, fair territory was unchanged, but foul territory was reduced significantly, from about 27,500 to 25,300 square feet. Note that the precise details of the "Rays 360" lower-deck walkway (which supposedly circles the entire field) remain unclear to me, so further revisions may be necessary.

Wrigley Field renovations

More photos of the ongoing bleacher renovations at Wrigley Field can be seen at baseball-fever.com. Hat tip to Bruce Orser. It's really weird to see the brick outfield wall (with the ivy!) but nothing but bare dirt behind it.

Bruce has been sending more more useful information on Griffith Stadium and Tiger Stadium, a.k.a. "Navin Field" in its early years. Diagrams of both those stadiums are in the process of being greatly improved, with more detail and accuracy.