The problem is how do you tell Rivera you were willing to pay $13M for Rafael Soriano but not offer him the chance to at least earn the same thing? My guess is he'll get $10M base with the chance to earn $5M in incentives and it's an overpay but he's Mariano Rivera.

in recent years have the yanks been unsentimental about stars who are finished? did they treat bernie williams right? just curious.

Bernie was offered a minor league contract with a shot at making the roster after 2006 but turned it down. I don't think he's actually even retired yet, but I suppose you could say that was unsentimental.

I wish someone would insult me so.

Pay the man! If there is any guy you give a blank check, its Rivera.

But he's only legendary and infallible for 60 innings a year.

On Earth.

I don't think it's going to be that hard to come up with a mix of guaranteed money and appearance incentives that more or less equal Rivera's current salary. Of course, that headline doesn't sell newspapers or garner Internet traffic, so it pitched the other way, based mostly on speculation.

Yankee-Fan friend and I were discussing this just yesterday and came to a conclusion:

$8 million base. $200,000 for every save starting at 30 (30, 31, 32, etc is another $200,000 each or $1 million for every 5). An extra $1 million for an ERA under 2.00. Another $1 million if ERA below 1.50. ERA below 1.00 is another $1 million.

So, at 45 saves and an ERA of say, 0.96 ERA he'd earn about $15 million. Sounds like it would be decent for both sides, no?

$200,000 for every save starting at 30 (30, 31, 32, etc is another $200,000 each or $1 million for every 5). An extra $1 million for an ERA under 2.00. Another $1 million if ERA below 1.50. ERA below 1.00 is another $1 million.

Is that even legal?

Seriously, I didn't think you could tie bonuses to specific performance-based metrics (instead of playing time-based ones, such as IP, GF or games played).

AFAIK, based on major league rule 3(b), you can't have incentives based on saves or ERA. It'd have to be games finished.

Edit: I just checked, the current CBA still includes the reference to rule 3(b), which apparently reads (in part): " "No Major League Uniform Player's Contract or Minor League Uniform Player Contract shall be approved if it contains a bonus for playing, pitching or batting skill or if it provides for the payment of a bonus contingent on the standing of the signing Club at the end of the championship season."

I think you are both right and that's what we get for having a half (full) baked conversation on it....games finished and IP are would they would have to be based on...I knew it seemed way too easy....

The issue of whether the Yankees treated Bernie Williams right relates to the free agency period after 1998, when they wanted him to leave so they could sign Albert Belle instead, and then brought Williams back with an offer that was below the Red Sox's offer.

It's detailed in this non-slideshow Bleacher Report piece.

I'm certain he will be insulted just like Jeter was last year, which led Derek to sign with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Yes, a silly article. Klapisch doesn't know what Rivera is looking for and he doesn't know what the Yankees are going to offer so he gins up a column based on assumed hurt feelings by Rivera if the Yanks' starting offer is too low ... none of which would have much of anything to do with emotion and is just standard MLB contract negotiation anyway. (Yes, if the Yanks only offered an NRI, Mo might well be sufficiently insulted to end negotiations.)

The base salary will be 9-12 with incentives to take it to 15. If there's a "point of pride" in here it's that Mo might feel he deserves to be the highest paid reliever which I believe is currently Papelbon at $12.5 per (which I don't think Soriano will beat).

Not having Mariano Rivera last season had approximately zero effect on the Yankees, didn't it? You'd think they might learn from that.

Not having Mariano Rivera last season had approximately zero effect on the Yankees, didn't it? You'd think they might learn from that.

Finally we know Scott Boras' BTF handle!

Finally we know Scott Boras' BTF handle!

Or Jon Heyman's...

Heyman and Boras aren't the same person?

Edit: I just checked, the current CBA still includes the reference to rule 3(b), which apparently reads (in part): " "No Major League Uniform Player's Contract or Minor League Uniform Player Contract shall be approved if it contains a bonus for playing, pitching or batting skill or if it provides for the payment of a bonus contingent on the standing of the signing Club at the end of the championship season."

I'm assuming this was something the players union negotiated. Can anyone explain why?

"No Major League Uniform Player's Contract or Minor League Uniform Player Contract shall be approved if it contains a bonus for playing, pitching or batting skill or if it provides for the payment of a bonus contingent on the standing of the signing Club at the end of the championship season."

What if you gave a bonus for the team having a lead of two or more games on the next-to-last-day of the championship season?

I'm assuming this was something the players union negotiated. Can anyone explain why?

In 1992, a year after winning the MVP, Cal Ripken had a bad year. His OPS+ was 93, after a 162 the previous year. Did Cal simply not try hard in 1992?

You don't pay a player for results; anyone who watches the game knows that sometimes good ABs lead to outs. You pay a player for his efforts towards results.

If I were the Players Union, I'd have argued for that exact clause. Make bonuses guaranteed; the NFL system of "cut them and don't pay them if they're overpaid" has no place in a sport with a strong union.

There was a small push in the early 90s by sportswriters for "pay for performance contracts" since salaries were escalating and teams were on the hook for crappy players (the "Worst Team Money Can Buy" came out about that time). I think the union pushed back against any kind of slippery slope that would lead to that.

The prohibition of performance bonuses goes back a long way, IIRC. Incentives for playing time are allowed, since that's purely in the club's control. But I think that the original logic behind the ban on performance-level initiatives had to do with possible collusion: if my next home run bumps me to another thousand dollars in incentive money, it's too easy for me to promise a pitcher $500 of that to groove one, even if it's in a meaningless game situation.

This sounds lunatic now that players make so much money, but it was a big deal not very long ago. It's still in the CBA because it's doing no harm to anybody, and protects the integrity of the game.

I did not know about the ban on individual bonuses for team standings. I reckon it has similar origins. Players have long gotten postseason bonuses for non-playoff finishes (I think that back in the 8-team days, all first-division clubs got some cut of World Series money, and so forth). I don't know if, say, the Angels and Rays got bonuses this year for high finishes, now that 10 clubs make the playoffs. But again, those bonuses are shared evenly and provide team incentives; individual bonuses are somewhat more squirrelly in practice, even if there's no overwhelming ethical argument against them that I can see right now (and I'm sure I'm not considering something).

The union couldn't agree to any kind of pay for performance that owners would support. Owners would like to have it for 6+year free agents but keep the salaries low for the pre-arb and arbitration players.

You could put everyone on a pay for performance plan, with the player's union bargaining simply for the percentage of revenue that goes to the players, and the money just distributed by whatever statistics are agreed to. Problem with that is you'd guarantee the best players go to the richest teams, much quicker than they do now. Like June 2008, Rays realize they can't afford to actually win the pennant race they've found themselves in. Quick, better trade Evan Longoria to the Yankees or whoever can afford the 30 million dollars his season will earn.

I'm assuming this was something the players union negotiated. Can anyone explain why?

Pretty sure it goes back to Don Sutton. He had a bonus for 20 wins and went 19-9 with a 2.08 ERA in a slightly shortened season. The Dodgers paid it, but there was a lot of discussion about bonuses, bad feelings etc.

Basically the sentiment was to make bonuses hard and fast and in a way that the team couldn't easily manipulate.

It was 1972 and the Dodgers played 155 games instead of 162, so Sutton would have had at least one, if not two chances to win the 20.

Not entirely surprised O'Malley paid it. He seems to be the kind of guy who understood rising tides lift all boats and that $20,000 or whatever the bonus was was not worth losing millions in profits. The man played the long game.

I've always thought that it would be good to have some randomizer in some of these playing time bonuses to avoid some of the bad feelings that can develop. E.G. a player would get a bonus by exceeding some number of innings between 180-210, but that number would be determined randomly after the season ended.

But I think that the original logic behind the ban on performance-level initiatives had to do with possible collusion: if my next home run bumps me to another thousand dollars in incentive money, it's too easy for me to promise a pitcher $500 of that to groove one, even if it's in a meaningless game situation.

I remember being the big concern that if you tie pay to performance, players wouldn't do things like try to move runners over, bunt, hit and run, etc. because it would hurt their stats.

No Major League Uniform Player's Contract or Minor League Uniform Player Contract shall be approved if it contains a bonus for playing, pitching or batting skill

...which still leaves room for incentives involving saves totals, which as we all know have nothing to do with pitching skill.

I remember being the big concern that if you tie pay to performance, players wouldn't do things like try to move runners over, bunt, hit and run, etc. because it would hurt their stats.

That probably works both ways. We still have the occasional controversy about whether a team will allow someone to play enough to trigger a bonus or vested option, and wasn't one of the causes of the Black Sox scandal Comiskey "resting" Eddie Cicotte down the stretch to avoid paying him a bonus for winning 30 games? I suspect that's what put a stop to performance type bonuses, and it's still a valid concern.