How should players get paid?
by Frank Campagnola on May 31, 2010 5:39 PM EDT
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PrintI was having this discussion with a few friends the other day.
You see players get paid big money all the time, and never live up to their contracts. Gary Matthews Jr. and Carl Pavano are a few names that come right to my mind, as well as guys like Mike Hampton and Barry Zito, who is actually having a good season so far.
Anyway, what I am trying to get at is, should players get paid on a year-to-year basis, based off of performance, instead of signing players based on past performance and future projections?
Evaluate the player's performance based off of WAR or a combination of statistics like that, and come up with a ballpark figure. Ben Zobrist had an 8.3 WAR last season, second only to Albert Pujols, but he is no where near the highest paid players in baseball. Franklin Gutierrez was 12th with a 6.1 WAR. You get the picture.
You see players looking for bigger contracts once they have great seasons, but if they play poorly, players dont reduce their salaries. Pavano should not have received the $40 million over 4 years from the Yanks, but he did anyway, because he signed a contract.
This kind of discussion reminds me of the movie Mr. Deeds, when the Jets quarterback has a huge year and comes in looking for a new big contract, and Deeds responds with something like, if you play badly, can I take the money back? The player uses some vulgarity to say no, and eventually, honors the contract he signed.
Obviously, the Player's Union would never go along with something like this. This would also be difficult for teams, because then they would have no clue what their payroll will be. Its entirely unrealistic, but I was curious as to what the PA community would think.
You play well, you get paid. You don't play well, you don't make big money. This way, the players who have great seasons get their due, and players who don't play well don't lock up teams with their huge contracts.
Thoughts?
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Free market
let each player and each team negotiate and the situation will take care of itself.
I'm Lord Duggan and I approve this message.
well
dont players and their agents negotiate with teams about their contracts now?
I believe in the Church of Baseball
by Frank Campagnola on May 31, 2010 5:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Yes
I don’t particularly like what the Union brings to the table, but I tend to be an anti-Union type of guy. What I mean is this: There shouldn’t be a set rule, as in “you must get paid in advance” or “you must get paid based on performance” but that the individual can negotiate with the team in order to reach an accord that is fair. Some players may be able to negotiate getting paid up front, some might have to or prefer to get incentive based pay. Either way, it should be decided on an individual, not league wide basis.
I'm Lord Duggan and I approve this message.
Agreed.
Why would the Yankees agree to offer only one year contracts, when they can get better players by offering multi-year deals. It has to be on an individual basis as Lord Duggan says.
Charlie Finley once suggested that the owners let every player be a free agent every year (essentially your position). Marvin Miller said it was the one moment he was afraid for the union. However the owners couldn’t see the wisdom of Finley’s suggestion.
every player a free agent every year would be chaos
there would not be enough agents to cover every player every year.
also, what would the big market teams look like if every player was a free agent every year?
I believe in the Church of Baseball
by Frank Campagnola on May 31, 2010 6:54 PM EDT up reply actions
It would favor the owners.
Because no player would be a “must get”. Finley was a loon but not a stupid man.
One year deals would be great for the Yankees...
They could have a 400 million dollar payroll and field a team of the 9 best position players in baseball and the 5 best starters in baseball every year. It wouldn’t make for a very competitive game however.
by Let's Talk About Tex Baby on May 31, 2010 7:57 PM EDT up reply actions
good one.
and not be paid, get paid. as in the process.
I believe in the Church of Baseball
by Frank Campagnola on May 31, 2010 6:52 PM EDT up reply actions
Of course
it would be nice if a player was payed on how good he did. They’d probably all be juicing so much even their pancreas could hit HR.
"What's your plan?? Rob Fort Knox on elephant back? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard....."
after reading all the comments above
I’ve come to the belief that perhaps the best way to pay players would be a reasonable salary (say something under $1,000,000) with incentives based on performance.
I liked what the Yankees did last year with Pettite’s contract. $7m with incentives up to $11m or something like that, so he wound up making $11m which is what he wanted to begin with.
It would be ideal for even a multi-year contract to have incentives. Even A-Rod: hypothetically, give him a 6 year deal with $10m guaranteed per year and the other $10-15m per year based on incentives.
That way, the players get paid; the Union and agents get to maintain a pay scale and comparison rate; and owners and teams can protect themselves from wasting their capital if players underperform but pay out if they perform as expected. I would even say they could add in bonus situations, but those already exist, don’t they (making the AS Team, winning the Division, winning the ALCS, and winning the WS)? I’m pretty sure Cy Young winners and MVP winners get bonuses too.
Interestingly, I suspect that there are a lot more incentives built into contracts than fans are aware. I wouldn’t be surprised if the reported values of contracts are the total with incentives, but they just leave the “with incentives” out of the announcements.
It sounds like a win win situation
but incentive laden deals are very team friendly and can be easily manipulated. You don’t see stuff like this from the Yankees, but there was talk out in LA about the Angels holding back Fuentes so that he doesn’t reach 55 games, which would automatically vest an option in his contract for next year.
I could just see some smaller market teams attempting to do things like that so that some players dont reach their incentives so they don’t have to pay them as much
I believe in the Church of Baseball
by Frank Campagnola on Jun 1, 2010 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions
this is true
but if it became the norm, I suspect that the player and agent would agree to incentives based on reasonable goals.
I won’t get started about relief pitchers/closers, but in Fuentes case, as the closer, can he really expect to be used in that many games if there aren’t enough situations to warrant it? (I’m not saying that’s what’s happening, just a hypothetical scenario) He’s a closer, supposedly a situational role that would only likely be used in close games. If the Angels either get routed or they have a blowout against another team, why use their closer? It’s like when Girardi didn’t use Mo for two weeks. One of the reasons was lack of save situations, wasn’t it?
Starting pitchers get incentives based on inning pitched and games started. Position players get incentives based on games started (or games played) as well as some reasonable, above the league average, offensive goals. Relief pitchers would have a hard time getting incentives unless it was something like outs recorded or Ks or less than a number of hits given up. Bench players would have it the hardest, being the victims of small sample sizes compared to starters, their goals might be based on stolen bases as a pinch runner, or hits/RBI as a pinch hitter, or some sort of defensive stat like Runs Saved Above Average (or whatever it’s called) when they are defensive substitutions late in games.
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