I wonder how many lines of work reward people appropriately for their immediate production. Obviously some do; commission businesses, piecework and its whitecollar equivalents. I daresay that most occupations where people work on salary, or even bill hours worked, reward senior people who have made their bones disproportionately to juniors who are still making theirs. Baseball is probably not all that egregious in that regard. Entertainment industries in particular work that way; Willie Nelson makes a heck of a lot more now to croak out "Whiskey River" a few times a week than he did when he was writing "Crazy" 50+ years ago.

He can then sign with 29 other teams when the time comes.

It would be a pain, though, to have to switch uniforms every five games or so.

D Backs "renewed" Wade Miley....but nno amount in the article

From Nick Piecoro at AZ Central

As for Miley, he was “renewed,” which is a player’s way – or his agent’s way, perhaps — of saying that he does not agree with what the club has decided to pay them. Players in their first three seasons have their salaries determined by the team. The team can pay the players whatever it wants so long as it’s above the major league minimum, which is $490,000 this year.

There’s really no difference between a player agreeing to terms or being renewed. It’s just semantics.

I don't see the need for the Rays, back in 2004 or now, to add a "signing bonus" or whatever you want to call it to the contract when it's entirely up to them what they pay the player.

Really? You reward employees for doing a good job. I know that baseball has weird unique economics, but still.

What I was referring to was the fact that the player is given a little more money if he actually signs the offer instead of refusing and being automatically renewed.

@101-well, baseball's "union" is quite extreme in terms of rewarding vets vs rooks. The top vets earn 50X what the ROY might pull down.

forevery Milton Bradley, Magglio Ordonez, Larry Walker, J.D. Drew that has a long, healthy career by virtue of playing RF

If there was a player who broke all the records for going on the DL, it was JD Drew. Drew missed more than 200 games as a member of the Sox, and was on the DL every season he was at St. Louis.

@106 Unless I'm not picking up on you being sarcastic -- always possible on the Internet -- all four of those players missed big numbers of games. The original comment was having some fun.

I wonder how many lines of work reward people appropriately for their immediate production. Obviously some do; commission businesses, piecework and its whitecollar equivalents. I daresay that most occupations where people work on salary, or even bill hours worked, reward senior people who have made their bones disproportionately to juniors who are still making theirs. Baseball is probably not all that egregious in that regard. Entertainment industries in particular work that way; Willie Nelson makes a heck of a lot more now to croak out "Whiskey River" a few times a week than he did when he was writing "Crazy" 50+ years ago.

I'm trying to figure out if you're a full professor or an adjunct. Either way, I can think of one such line of work, yes.

Entertainment industries in particular work that way; Willie Nelson makes a heck of a lot more now to croak out "Whiskey River" a few times a week than he did when he was writing "Crazy" 50+ years ago.

Television seems to reward for recent/immediate production.
The cast of "Friends" were paid around $20k-$40k/episodes for the first two seasons.
The salaries started to climb, and by the second-last and last season, they were making around $1million/episode (each).

Similar things happened on "Seinfeld" and with "The Simpsons" main voice actors.

Might be even simpler than that. The Angels might be working on a long term deal for Trout right now, and they don't want to make it easier for him to say no. An extra half million "bonus" now might make it incrementally harder to get him signed to a team friendly deal this summer.

Then they miscalculated, b/c Trout and his agent are obviously pissed off.

Maybe, maybe not. When they offer him $40M/6 years starting immediately, maybe he's a bit happier, and without a half million "bonus" to put in the bank, maybe a little less likely to want to gamble on his health over the next 4 years he has to wait for free agency.

Angels renew Mike Trout’s contract for $510,000; agent stunned

The Angels had no other play here. They could have tossed a few hundred grand his way, yes. But the entire reason they can pay Hamilton/Pujols gazillions is because they can pay Trout peanuts. They can't be criticized for much here. On the other hand, it should be noted that the system is set up to basically screw over the Trouts of the world, and, again, this should be kept in mind by the media if/when Trout gains the leverage to make something close to his market value.

Are people seriously arguing that if the Angels tossed another $400K at Trout now, it would amount to a hill of beans in a $200 million decision made by Trout half a decade from now if he reaches free agency?

Yes, I think they are.

I can't put myslef in Trout's position, since I was not an uber-great anything at age 20 (or 50), but it seems at least plausible that a $400K "investment" could translate to at least a 1-in-20 chance that Trout stays in Anaheim in 5 years for $1M per year less. Not sure I buy it, but it's plausible. I'd rate is less foolish than benching Strasburg in the playoffs :)

Are people seriously arguing that if the Angels tossed another $400K at Trout now, it would amount to a hill of beans in a $200 million decision made by Trout half a decade from now if he reaches free agency?

Yes. The likelihood of impacting his decision is low, but so is the cost. I suspect that the ROI is there, though it would help to know more about Trout, his agent, and Angels culture is assessing this.

Or it could amount to a tiebreaker if the Angels and another team were close in their bidding when Trout got to free agency. And while the $400,000 will seem like a trivial amount by then, the memory of the gratuitous power play might cause him to accept $5M or $10M less from that other team. It wouldn't be the first time that a player had accepted a lower offer for seemingly irrational reasons, and anyway, by that time a $5M-$10M difference is itself going to represent chump change in the grander scheme of things.

Not saying that this scenario is likely, but I do think the Angels were less than smart to play him cheap like this.

Not saying that this scenario is likely, but I do think the Angels were less than smart to play him cheap like this.

Please. Trout understands that this is a business, and that he will make his own business decision when the time comes. People are being really silly and naive here.

How he feels about the Angels org will factor into that decision, Ray - in econ 101 terms, people attempt to maximize PV utility, not PV revenue.

#21 Best I can tell what it does is throw away most of an advantage that's tough to quantify.

One of the things a team gets is exclusive negotiating rights before a player hits free agency. I haven't studied this in any great detail but I can think of a number of free agents to be who signed a long term detail with the team owning their rights before hitting free agency and the ones I'm thinking of (Prado for instance. McGwire with the Cards) look like pretty good deals for the club.

All that to say that I think they've made it more likely that Trout will opt to test free agency down the road.

Please. Trout understands that this is a business, and that he will make his own business decision when the time comes. People are being really silly and naive here.

And if he hates the Angels ownership/management, his "business decision" will be to take the Dodgers, or Yankees, or Red Sox money instead. It's not like he won't have other offers just as large as LAA's.

Why is this so hard to understand? Pissing people off never helps your negotiations with them.

And when you think of guys who played CF in the majors from 19 or 20 or 21 onward, it does seem to have some truth to it. Griffey's legs fell apart. Andruw's knees went bad (partially due to the extra weight he started carrying, but how much due to all those innings in CF too?). Carlos Beltran also starting having significant knee issues in his 30s. Sure, there are some counterexamples, but it definitely looks like teams are starting to view it as a risky position for superstar hitters.

The thing is that those guys played well into their 30's... young all star Cfers have the longest career in baseball(last time I looked into it, at least)

But he did sign a very team-friendly extension with them earlier, giving up many of his free agent years. The Cardinals made out like absolute bandits on Pujols - the Angels would love for Trout to do what Pujols did.

Agreed, factor in that the Cardinals negotiated poorly with Pujols on his next contract(not the amount, but the way they handled it, drove Pujols to seek an outside offer more than he would have if he wasn't upset with the organization)

This is pure nonsense. You have no idea who would win an arbitration hearing without comparing the salaries that were filed.

The player wins every time in arbitration, whether they actually win the case or not. The team has to offer up a competitive offer just to have a chance of winning the case, and a competitive offer is always going to be a significantly higher pay raise. Arbitration is the players best friend.

@101-well, baseball's "union" is quite extreme in terms of rewarding vets vs rooks. The top vets earn 50X what the ROY might pull down.

Baseball is different from other business. Baseball is extreme in that management doesn't generally make anywhere near what the top performers make. It's a different business model than a lot of other business's and it's not correct to compare them to other business. They have a fairly good system in place that (regardless of why it exists) is a pretty good balance of rewarding players, owners and teams/fans. The salary for first-third year players is good enough to live on, the system is set up so that teams can control their players for a significant period of time, and outside of the Marlins, teams reward the fans by giving them a semi-stable product to attach their loyalty to. I like the baseball revenue system etc. Only major qualms I have is that I wish the minor leagues did have a larger pay rate, and that revenue sharing forced the owners to attempt to deliver a quality product.

Ray is right that this is a hill of beans and not likely to matter at all years down the line. But I would have thrown him a few extra hundred K regardless.

And if he hates the Angels ownership/management, his "business decision" will be to take the Dodgers, or Yankees, or Red Sox money instead. It's not like he won't have other offers just as large as LAA's.

If those other teams offer more, he will probably be going there anyway. And if they somehow offer exactly the same, his evaluation of what it is like to play for LAA will contain many more important things than his 2013 contract.

If those other teams offer more, he will probably be going there anyway. And if they somehow offer exactly the same, his evaluation of what it is like to play for LAA will contain many more important things than his 2013 contract.

Plenty of guys have extended before FA with a "hometown discount".

Please. Trout understands that this is a business, and that he will make his own business decision when the time comes. People are being really silly and naive here.

Yep, pretending your mind-reading abilities allow you to know exactly what another person understands, and thinks is pretty silly.

The player wins every time in arbitration, whether they actually win the case or not. The team has to offer up a competitive offer just to have a chance of winning the case, and a competitive offer is always going to be a significantly higher pay raise. Arbitration is the players best friend.

The team has to make a competitive offer to the player if they want to settle before arbitration as well. The player isn't going to accept a lowball offer.

123 - I agree that this will be one factor of many, but we shouldn't assume that it will carry no weight.

But I would have thrown him a few extra hundred K regardless.

This. Its so cheap to make him a non-paltry more-agreeable offer. Even if he wanted $5M or more a year, I think you can suck it up and say "We could pay you $500k, but we're going to make it $1M or $1.5M, even though you're still not happy with that." and trust that hindsight will make that look like a good gesture. Even if it pans out to zero value, The Angels will spend $500k or $1M more poorly than they would have on Trout.

Maybe I don't know MLBers, but I think most people are receptive to "We value you. The economic structures in place mean that we can't be competitive and pay you as much as we value you, but we're going to make an appreciable gesture to show that we value you."

The player wins every time in arbitration, whether they actually win the case or not. The team has to offer up a competitive offer just to have a chance of winning the case, and a competitive offer is always going to be a significantly higher pay raise. Arbitration is the players best friend.

Competitive with what? Certainly not a open market salary. Free agency is the players best friend.

Yep, pretending your mind-reading abilities allow you to know exactly what another person understands, and thinks is pretty silly.

If he's offended by this, he's being irrational, so trying to appease someone by predicting the ways in which they will be irrational so that you can respond is a fool's game.

----

This. Its so cheap to make him a non-paltry more-agreeable offer. Even if he wanted $5M or more a year, I think you can suck it up and say "We could pay you $500k, but we're going to make it $1M or $1.5M, even though you're still not happy with that." and trust that hindsight will make that look like a good gesture. Even if it pans out to zero value, The Angels will spend $500k or $1M more poorly than they would have on Trout.

Why stop at $1M, then? Why not pay him $10M, or his actual market value of $30M? Maybe he feels that he deserves the $20-30M he will likely be worth to the team in 2013. What is the argument for stopping at $1M?

According to Ray's "business only" logic, the Angels are going to be screwed anyway, now that the state tax on millionaires is 10.55%.** That would amount to about $21 million on a $200 M contract, and if Trout is making a decision based strictly on "business", the Angels are already going to have to make a substantial overbid to beat out pretty much every out-of-state team other than the Yankees and the Mets.

**Yay, California

EDIT:

Angels required overbid vs. selected other teams in order for Trout's after-tax cut to be equal:

Cubs or White Sox: $14M
Red Sox: $10.5M
Yankees: $6M
Rays or Marlins: $21M (no sarcasm intended)
Braves: $9M
Tigers: $12M
Phillies: $14M

Ken Griffey Jr. wouldn't entertain an offer from the Yankees franchise because Billy Martin yelled at him (and his dad) in the early 1980s. And 13-year-old Griffey hadn't put up a 170 OPS+.

$250,000 bought the Angels four of Vernon Wells' plate appearances last season... or normally, eight PAs, if Wells hadn't been injured.

I again ask what the argument for stopping at $1M is.

Maybe I don't know MLBers, but I think most people are receptive to "We value you. The economic structures in place mean that we can't be competitive and pay you as much as we value you, but we're going to make an appreciable gesture to show that we value you."

Why do we expect these sorts of gestures from teams, but not from players?

Ken Griffey Jr. wouldn't entertain an offer from the Yankees franchise because Billy Martin yelled at him (and his dad) in the early 1980s. And 13-year-old Griffey hadn't put up a 170 OPS+.

And IIRC Cliff Lee's wife put the kibosh on the Yanks because a few fans harassed her during the 2009 World Series.

[129] The cost/benefit curve. Money isn't unlimited, but I think the Angels could have found a better spot on that curve.

Ken Griffey Jr. wouldn't entertain an offer from the Yankees franchise because Billy Martin yelled at him (and his dad) in the early 1980s. And 13-year-old Griffey hadn't put up a 170 OPS+.

And IIRC Cliff Lee's wife put the kibosh on the Yanks because a few fans harassed her during the 2009 World Series.

As I said, it's a fool's game to try to predict irrational behavior and control for it.

Why do we expect these sorts of gestures from teams, but not from players?

Mike Trout shows he values the Angels by being an MVP candidate in his rookie season. Honestly, I think the employee's contribution to that is work ethic and performance. If you don't care about your employer, you're going to perform at a lower level.

I again ask what the argument for stopping at $1M is.

There is absolutely no expectation that the Angels or any team would go that high. The idea is to strike a balance between (a) the fact that Trout is worth $30 M, (b) the fact that the Angels are not obligated to pay him more than 500k, and (c) the probability that Trout only expects to earn something like 600k, and might be delighted by 800k.

Why not pay him $10M, or his actual market value of $30M? Maybe he feels that he deserves the $20-30M he will likely be worth to the team in 2013. What is the argument for stopping at $1M?

Smilley answered that point already, even if you chose to ignore it. There's no precedent for paying anywhere near full market value to a second year player, but there's plenty of precedent for not paying a superstar second year player $500,000.

If he's offended by this, he's being irrational

Not at all (and I say this as someone who would be unlikely to have been offended here were I a super-stud player, yet retained much of my current personality) - it could be argued that the Angels are signaling to him what they think of him.

As to the amount, I think the Angels would have been wise to have renewed him (presuming they couldn't work mutually beneficial terms) that were in the neighborhood, a but above, of what other star rookies (and Trout, by all accounts, was the star of these stars) might get as sophomores, in keeping with MLB culture. Say, 750K instead of 490K. (use post 82 as a guide, Ray - I went with treating him like a better Ryan Braun)

Ken Griffey Jr. wouldn't entertain an offer from the Yankees franchise because Billy Martin yelled at him (and his dad) in the early 1980s. And 13-year-old Griffey hadn't put up a 170 OPS+.

And IIRC Cliff Lee's wife put the kibosh on the Yanks because a few fans harassed her during the 2009 World Series.

As I said, it's a fool's game to try to predict irrational behavior and control for it.

But when you might be able to ward it off for chump change, you're not being smart by brushing the possibility aside. This has nothing to do with any moral obligation to pay, but simply a cautionary decision to pay a tiny bit more now in order not to have "irrational" memories like Griffey's or Lee's come back to bite you.

Why do we expect these sorts of gestures from teams, but not from players?

Mike Trout shows he values the Angels by being an MVP candidate in his rookie season. Honestly, I think the employee's contribution to that is work ethic and performance. If you don't care about your employer, you're going to perform at a lower level.

But we are specifically talking about teams going beyond contractual obligations as an "appreciable gesture." Why can't players be expected to do the same? Gil Meche's early retirement is the only one that springs to mind.

Why can't players be expected to do the same? Gil Meche's early retirement is the only one that springs to mind.

But you have no idea. Players signing autographs, doing extra media sessions, helping out with rookies in camp, doing charity appearances ... there are dozens of ways that players can go beyond contractual obligations.

Bringing up Meche is nonsense - employees do not give good organizations Christmas bonuses by refusing a paycheck - they never are and never should be expected to "go beyond" by refusing money.

If it comes to it, the Angels can always replace Mike Trout with two 85 OPS+ outfielders.

142 - One, what PF said in 143. Two, the team is doing it to improve their future negotiating position, not to be nice (in my example).

#113 I think it's made it less likely that he'll sign any early deal. How much less, dunno.

This looks to me like a classic penny wise, pound foolish move.

But we are specifically talking about teams going beyond contractual obligations as an "appreciable gesture."

What are a player's contractual obligations? To show up and try a little bit? Not obviously dog it? Not be a complete lard-ass if they're a position player? I think you're setting the bar higher for the player than I am for the owners here.

As I said, it's a fool's game to try to predict irrational behavior and control for it.

It's not irrational to want to distance oneself from people who have irritated you in the past. Cliff Lee can get a ton of money going anywhere he wants. His lifestyle won't be altered one bit by refusing the Yankees, and he won't have to associate with the fans who once made his wife miserable. There's nothing irrational about that kind of behavior.

EDIT to add: To me, it's not about winning points with Trout, it's about not losing points. Sure, an extra 100K or 200K won't do much up against his first FA contract, but it's worth it not to accumulate any strikes against him in his mind. That's worth the money.

Ray's silly posts have pretty much convinced me here that the Angels were not just foolish but possibly irrational as well in not throwing at least a few hundred thousand more towards Trout.

If he is pissed off, if he is insulted, then it's going to be harder for the Angels to extend Trout and get a "hometown discount," then it was few days ago.

Maybe that was never in the cards, maybe Trout was always splitting the second he was FA eligible, but maybe not.

Ray's claim that Trout is not going to be upset or that he would be irrational if he were upset or offended by the Angels behavior considering how other elite rookies are treated is itself a wholly irrational claim- irrational in the sense that Ray seemingly has no idea how real-people rationalize things

But when you might be able to ward it off for chump change, you're not being smart by brushing the possibility aside. This has nothing to do with any moral obligation to pay, but simply a cautionary decision to pay a tiny bit more now in order not to have "irrational" memories like Griffey's or Lee's come back to bite you.

True enough. Of course, we're all suffering from a lack of information about Mike Trout and what makes him tick. The decision on whether to pay more or not could hinge on any number of factors that we don't know anything about. Is Trout a ruthless mercenary? Is he a guy who puts a huge premium on loyalty? Is he sentimental? Does he take offense easily and hold grudges? Is he easygoing and accomodating or tightly wound and prickly? Where does he fall on the embracing/fearing change spectrum?

My gut tells me a few extra $100k is a small price to pay to avoid giving your young superstar a grudge to nurse, but presumably the Angels know Mike Trout a lot better than I do.