He is out of baseball, suspended for the entire 2014 season and that, along with his deteriorated physical status as he approaches 40, has for all intents and purposes ended Alex Rodriguez’s career. In addition, he wasted untold millions on lawyers in a futile effort to prove his innocence, a lot of which he apparently still hasn’t paid.
You would’ve thought there was nothing more for A-Rod to lose — until Thursday that is, when it was learned he no longer holds the distinction of being the highest-paid player, with the dumbest contract, in the history of baseball. That distinction now goes to Miguel Cabrera who was the latest beneficiary of Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch’s misguided largesse — an eight-year, $ 248 million extension, $ 292 million all told through 2024, by which time Cabrera, who is already 260 pounds and increasingly immobile, will be 41.
“Every time we think this is the end of these crazy contracts, it isn’t,” said one exasperated baseball executive. “You have to wonder: What possessed them to do this, when they had two more years of control (over Cabrera) at a reasonable ($ 22M per year).”
Theories have abounded on that. Some baseball people surmised the Tigers panicked after Max Scherzer turned down their eight-year, $ 144 million offer a few days earlier, while others suggested it was a spite move at Scherzer and his agent, Scott Boras — sort of what the Yankees did with Robinson Cano by signing Jacoby Ellsbury to a ridiculous seven-year, $ 153 million deal when they really didn’t need him.
In defending the contract, Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski, who only a couple of months ago was about the happiest man in baseball when he was able to unload Prince Fielder and his onerous nine-year, $ 214 million contract on the Texas Rangers, explained that he didn’t want to wait until right before Cabrera was eligible for free agency to start negotiating with him because there would have been too much pressure on the defending two-time MVP to go into the market. “I’m not so smart to know what any hitter’s going to be at 39 or 40,” Dombrowski said. “I know a lot of people will point to individuals that fall off, and I understand that. But I think you also have to look at the other point, that if you go a couple of more years (without signing him) I don’t think anybody — if Miguel puts up the kind of numbers we think he will in the next couple of years — is going to think he’s not going to sign another eight-year deal out there . . . and maybe longer.”
But what Dombrowski failed to acknowledge is that contracts of seven or more years to players in their 30s — ANY player in his 30s — are doomed to fail. Beginning with the Yankees’ 10-year, $ 275 million boondoggle with A-Rod — in which they negotiated against themselves with a player who had just done them the biggest favor they could ever want by opting out of his previous $ 252 million contract — the baseball landscape is littered with these kinds of terrible contracts that have wreaked havoc (for the owners anyway) on the marketplace:
Read ’em and weep: Both Mike Hampton’s eight-year, $ 123.8M deal with the Rockies and Vernon Wells’ seven-year, $ 126M contract with the Blue Jays were disasters, while Kevin Brown’s seven-year, $ 105M with the Dodgers was OK the first four years, but a 31-26, 3.80 ERA albatross the last three. Of the current such contracts, Alfonso Soriano’s eight-year, $ 136 million deal and Carl Crawford’s seven-year, $ 142 million contract have already proven to be incredibly misguided deals. Barry Zito’s seven-year, $ 126 million package? A near total disaster. Carlos Lee gave the Astros six decent years on his six-year, $ 100M contract but it was still a bad contract in that he was a one-dimensional, selfish player who had zero fan appeal. Only last year, his third in a seven-year, $ 126 million contract, did the Nationals’ Jayson Werth have a season commensurate to his team-high $ 18 million salary; Mark Teixeira had an MVP-caliber season in 2009, the first year of his eight-year, $ 180 million contract with the Yankees, and has declined steadily ever since. There’s no telling what the Brewers are going to get out of Ryan Braun when his five-year, $ 105 million deal starts in 2016, but his marketability is already weak after his drug suspension. Matt Kemp’s hamstring and ankle issues already have the Dodgers regretting the eight-year, $ 160 million extension they gave him in 2012. Albert Pujols’ first two seasons with the Angels in his 10-year, $ 240 million contract were ominously disappointing. Matt Holliday’s first four seasons of his seven-year, $ 120 million deal with the Cardinals have been solid but something less than what you’d expect from the highest-paid player ($ 17.1 million) on the team. “I have no problem with the ($ 29.2 million) annual average value of the Cabrera deal,” said another baseball exec. “He’s the best hitter in the game. It’s the number of years that’s a killer. Now everyone who’s considered an elite player is going to expect 8-10 years when it’s a proven fact those deals never work out.”
No doubt, the two most distressed people in baseball over the Cabrera contract were (1) Bud Selig, whose one major failing as commissioner has been to enlighten his many dumb owners about the foolishness of these kinds of contracts, and how they affect the rest of the industry, and (2) Angels owner Arte Moreno, who should have locked up Mike Trout to a long-term deal last year and never should have put off talks with his star center fielder this spring. That delay probably cost him a couple hundred million dollars. On the other hand, there are any number of delighted people in baseball over Cabrera’s unexpectedly monster windfall, most notably the agents for Pablo Sandoval, James Shields, Scherzer, Hanley Ramirez, Justin Masterson, Jon Lester et al — the elite 2015 free agents — who have come to learn once again there is always going to be that One Dumb Owner who keeps the baseball salary structure rising to previously unimagined limits.
IT’S A MADD MADD WORLD
Is Ruben Amaro bracing himself for a fall? Folks around the Phillies are saying the Phillie GM has been telling intimates he wouldn’t be surprised if he gets fired after the season. Maybe that’s just a reaction to all the heavy media criticism Amaro has had to endure this past year after the Phillies had their first losing season since 2000. In any case it figures to be a very rocky 2014 for the Phillies and a potentially volatile mix between Ryne Sandberg, an old-school, play-the-game-fundamentally-right manager, and the fading Phillies’ veteran core.
Iconic White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko will not be in the opening day lineup for the first time in more than 15 years, but he’s already giving valuable advice to his successor, Jose Abreu, the $ 68 million Cuban free agent who is expected to provide 30-home run power from the middle of the order. “The cold weather sucks,” Konerko told Abreu. “You’ve got to really scrape and grind early on and you can’t try to get big.” In other words, don’t try to hit home runs until the weather warms up.
Congrats to the Phillies and Indians for being the two most generous teams in the Baseball Assistance Team’s annual spring drive. Players from the 30 clubs pledged a record $ 2,523,650 to BAT.
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