MLB 2014

[Mr.Bill]

[Philly]

Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard was rookie of the year and MVP 8 years ago, a key contributor to the Phils world series victory 6 years ago, and still one of the most terrifying sluggers in the game for any pitcher 3 years ago when the Phillies gave him a 125 million dollar contract through the 2016 season.

But after a torn achilles and a long recovery, he's just a strikeout machine whose occasional displays of power hitting seem more like flukes than talent. And so he's sat on the bench while Darin Ruf, a first baseman out of the Philadelphia farm system, has played yesterday and today. Howard is still owed $70 million dollars on his contract, but his performance is so abysmal that there is very serious talk that the Phillies will pay him out and release him from the team at the end of the season. A truly stunning sum of money down the drain, but it's money we have to pay him no matter what. Some can't stand the thought of paying that much to release a guy. I say if his performance is this bad, freeing up his spot on the roster is a better use of the 70 mil than keeping him around.

Sad to see my team in such decline.

[Mr.Bill]

It's not just the Phillies.. As a long time BB fan I am often amazed by the stupidity in the sport..

Recently after ALL the piss poor 8-10 year contacts I really thought the GM's and owners would smarten up.. But nope, they are still signing these guys up for a decade.

How's that Pojols 10 year GUARANTEED contract looking? My God!! Angels will still owe him $150+ mil after this year, and Pojols isn't even a top 20 player anymore.. Maybe the worse contract in sports, ever..

[Philly]

Yeah, well while the price tag is absurdly high for Howard, it was only a 5 year deal. At the time he was an elite power hitter, and it's basically an inherent tradeoff that when you make a deal with an elite power hitter, you agree to a contract that will likely have diminishing returns near the end. It was a large salary but 5 years for a 31 year old first baseman seemed like a nice arrangement for the team.

Pujols on the other hand, who is the same age as Howard, was signed to a 10 year deal and it was a year later. That's just suicidal.

[Mr.Bill]

It's guaranteed money in baseball, so 5 years is, IMO, the longest I'd give any player.. Especially pitchers.. Pitchers are a HUGE crap shoot..

In the case of Howard the Phillies gave him too much money BUT I think much of what has happened was just plain bad luck. Signing a 31 YO to a 5 year contract makes sense, it wasn't a terrible idea.. But after his injury he hasn't been anywhere near the player he use to be. No team has a crystal ball.. $70 mil is a bunch of money to eat though..

But it could be worse.. Yanks saved $25 mil this year, still owe an old and broken down Arod $65 mil after this year..

And along with the b'zillion the Angels still owe Pujols they owe Hamilton about $100 mil... He's got a grand total of 5 HR's this year.. That's well over $250 mil they owe 2 players over the next so many years that are now shell of the players they use to be..

Guaranteed money is a huge problem in BB.. But it's not going away..

[Philly]

I'm torn. Guaranteed money is frustrating, but I also don't like how the NFL signs guys to a big time deal when they're highly in demand and then pull the rug out from under them and take it all away if they struggle. I think if you sign a player to a contract for a certain amount of money over a certain amount of time, it doesn't seem right that the contract has a clause that lets the team get out of it whenever they want but the player is stuck with it unless the team agrees to let him walk. In baseball the problem is that teams willingly have engaged in obscene bidding wars to acquire star players and their market value has inflated to ridiculous levels. I think all these big contract busts happening around the league will be the equivalent of an economic bubble bursting and we'll see it toned down, though not enough probably.

[Mr.Bill]

Guaranteed money is the double whammy though..

Obviously in the MLB with the huge money contracts that prices the small market teams out of bidding for star players, but the guaranteed contacts also scares them away.. Even if a small market team could have afforded $250 mil for Pulols up front, there's no way they could have ever pulled the trigger simply because if Pulols fell apart(like he has) a small market team can't eat that 10 year contract like the Yanks, or Angels, or Dodgers, etc.. The Angels can probably still sign some free agents, but a small market team couldn't afford free agents until Pulols was off the books..

I hear you about the NFL contracts.. But in most NFL big money contracts there is usually some up front guaranteed money. So the player does get some protection.. But with MLB contracts the team gets no protection if the player breaks down ala Howard. But again, many times I have no sympathy for the MLB teams.. They sign these guys to long term, big money, ridiculous contracts... It's their own damn fault.

Mets signed Santana to a 6 year deal.. 6 years for a 30 YO pitcher? Come on.. I know he had some great moments, especially the no-hitter.. But you can't be giving a pitcher $130+ mil over 6 years.. He was hurt more than he pitched.. 3-4 year contract for any pitcher at the most, and that's still a gamble.

[Philly]

[John Galt]

did you see that infield home run?

he spiked the ball lol

[Mr.Bill]

So the Mets go 5-5 on this 10 game road trip... And this is how good their pitching is right now:

In those 10 games, their offense scored 22 runs.. That's averaging 2 runs a game?!? Yet they won 5 games..

That is some really good pitching.