Johan thoughts
Jim caple wrote an article about Minnesota sports teams losing their best players. He has a pretty good point. However, I really don’t thinking losing Johan was so much a money thing as it was a number of years thing. Word on the street is we offered him 5/100MM, but were unwilling to give him the 6 year extension he wanted. It also seems the Yankees backed out too because they were gunshy about a lenghty contract for a pitcher. I think it makes perfect sense. For the most part pitchers have the biggest risk of injury of anyone on the field. I know Johan is a special player, but I just don’t think 7 years is a wise investment. Its one thing to give Morneau an 80MM contract, he plays on average 150 games a year. But giving a player who plays once every five days a 7 year 150 million contract is pretty risky. It didn’t work for Kevin Brown, Barry Zito, Mike Hampton, it worked well for Randy Johnson for a few years, but isn’t that the point? Of all pitchers with around 100MM+ contracts how many were still worth 20+ million in the 6th and 7th years of their contract? The Mets may view it as a wise investment, to have a good pitcher at 20+MM a year for 5 years, and dead weight at 20+MM for 2 years. They view that extra 40MM as a sunk cost, or something. When I sign a player to a contract I would expect the player to be effective for all the years of the contract and would consider it a failure if he was totally useless for the last two years of it. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have Johan for 5 more years, but have more than 20% of our payroll in the last two years of his contract dedicated to him when he barely puts a jersey on in those two years? Dicey at best.
I blame Brian Sabean for this. What was he thinking when he gave Zito that much money. He was coming off a bad year, and he still couldn’t cut it in the NL. I feel a little bad for the Indians because CC should be able to get about the same contract as Johan, he is about a year younger, and just as durable. His weight could become a problem. The difference is, the Indians have a good chance to win next year, it should be a battle to the wire with the Tigers.
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A long contract where the end is a sunk cost is only a failure if you’re on a tight budget. The Angels probably view the final 2 years of Hunter’s contract as a “he won’t be worth this, but we can trade him and cash to somebody who needs a veteran leader at that point.” The “and cash” part is important; teams with unlimited budgets can get rid of these players when they don’t need them any more, but have no problem continuing to pay their salaries.
And it’s not (all) Sabean’s fault. He’s just an incompetent boob who made ANOTHER mistake with his team. It’s fun to ridicule guys like that, but it’s less fun to place huge amounts of blame on their shoulders. (Just some smaller, more reasonable amounts of blame.)
The real perpetrators here are Boras and Fehr. When did it become the RESPONSIBILITY of players to push the boundary of salary levels? Why does Nathan sound like he’d be betraying the other players if he doesn’t demand $16M/year? I thought the players’ responsibility was to the game and to the fans. Not to their neighbor’s paycheck.
I have no problem with players making money. I have no problem with the players making a LOT of money. (I just wish our team had enough to pay them.)
I do have a problem with the players acting and playing like the money is more important than the game itself. At that point, I can’t be a fan of that player any more.
How did Major League Baseball get so bad with salaries that putting in a salary cap is no longer an option. I know little about how caps were put in in other leagues and why it never happened in baseball. It is obvious that events like the Zito and Kevin Brown contracts would happen and force small market teams to either lose a valuable player, or pay a large portion of their budget towards a single player, handicapping them for a long period of time. Is it the whole baseball is America and America is capitalistic argument, or what?
I don’t know about that … but I’d like to harp on your two examples for a moment.
Several years ago, Kevin Brown got a staggering contract, setting the record for pitchers. It was immediately a bust. This caused the high end of pitcher salaries to remain stagnant for a while (possibly also coinciding with a lack of top pitchers in their prime during this period).
Then Barry Zito comes along, and Boras says “Zito is better than Kevin Brown, so he should get a bigger contract!” This works … except that Zito is immediately a bust and it’s all wasted money.
Then Johan Santana comes along, and there’s no backlash this time. Nobody (with money) is saying “You know, there’s never been a good mega-contract for a pitcher … maybe I won’t do this.” Instead, Santana gets a new record.
Next year, Sabathia will probably break that record.
But the salaries won’t go back down when people realize that not every pitcher will turn into Santana if you pay them a lot. (History says they’re more likely to turn into Kyle Lohse.)
The only thing that makes this look like a good contract for the Mets is the likelihood that by the end of the contract, Carlos Silva will be making $20M/year, making a middle-aged Santana at $21M quite a deal.
Mike Hampton was also a bust. He was in between Brown and Zito. I’m really not sure he was ever good. Kevin Brown rang up some good years in Florida, Texas and San Diego. Zito had some good years in Oakland. And Randy Johnson also had a number of good years. I’m sure JOhan will be fine and pitch well throughout his contract, but we won’t be able to tell for a few years. The question is at what point would this contract be considered a bust? If Johan wins two Cy Youngs in the first three years, but never winning a world series, then craps out, sitting out his final two years, is it a bust? Will zito’s contract still be considered a bust he he string together a few good years in the middle of it, before crapping out for the final year? Does a pitcher have to pitch well for all the years of his contract or is there a point, say halfway through, that the contract can be considered a success? Its hard to tell because 1 starting pitcher can’t totally win you a world series. he could go 22-6 with with a 1.9 and a million k’s, by no means does that mean a title. So i guess the bottom line is: what is the definition of successful with one of these long term, big money pitching contracts? I think someone will always find a way to call it a bust.
I don’t think many people would regard Greg Maddux’s big contract as a bust. (That being the 5 year, $57M deal he signed in 1997 that made him the highest paid player in baseball. That’s right.)
His production remained consistent over the life of the contract.
I think that’s how you’d decide if you got a bust or not. If you’re getting what you paid for, or if it’s a waste of money. In 2007, Zito was a waste of $18M, because someone making $2M could have done an equal job.
In 1997, Maddux’s $10M wasn’t a waste, because he did what he did every year.
That doesn’t really cover the case where the pitcher has some good years and some bad years over the contract. I don’t know about that.