Teammates are already rallying around him, and saying it’s not about the money for him, and to that I say, yeah sure. I don’t blame him for wanting to make the best possible deal, but if it wasn’t about the money, a deal would have been done long ago.
If I’m the Rangers I don’t get caught up in the hoopla surrounding Hamilton’s recent heroics and make a reasonable offer.
What that is, is up for considerable debate, of course. I consulted with one management person this morning (not with the Rangers), and he suggested $100 million over five years. I consulted with one agent (not Hamilton’s agent) and he said about $25-to-30 million a year over seven-to-eight years provided there are many protections for Texas. He said, “Let him earn $250 million but he has to show up for work.’‘
I’d go in the middle. I’d say what’s reasonable is $144 million over six years with lots of protections for the team in case Hamilton slips up again. If he decides to go elsewhere for a longer deal and bigger bucks, well, that just reflects on him and his own decison-making ability.
Repoz
Posted: May 09, 2012 at 01:02 PM |
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1. Shooty is in the Trust TreeLOLZ!
No, sir, he isn't.
Hamilton? You can have my answer now, if you like. My final offer is this: nothing. Not even the fee for the gaming license, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.
I guess the Pujols deal still stings.
To the team: On what planet do teams get "protections" for their elite contracts? (Oh wait, you're not complaining about anything either.)
To Heyman: On what planet do the slips and injuries already survived (two "relapses" and many weeks on the DL) not justify the money? He's already failed in the ways Heyman is afraid of and yet he's still a "legendary talent", so what's the worry? (Oh wait, you're trying to create a story. Nevermind.)
Didn't quite get it until I peed myself 10 minutes later.
I guess what I find odd is that it's okay for the team to be all about the money, but it's bad for the player. There are very few hand-wringing articles about how mercenary a team is being when it doesn't offer more money.
So, he puts up a 131 OPS+ in his first ML season, but that happens at age 26, not necessarily due to talent, but due to suspension. So my normal tools of "When was me MLB ready" that I use to judge career length don't really work here.
I'd be comfortable paying him elite money for about 4 more seasons. Which means someone will sign him for at least 6.
Because people presume teams are going to spend to their budget regardless of individual player cost. So, if the Rangers pay Hamilton $20M instead of $25M, that's $5M more for the team to use on acquiring more talent.
Fans want their team to acquire more talent, so they root for the individuals to take less. They do complain if they team lowers overall payroll.
Peeing your pants makes you think of Scott Boras?
Yeah, you can't really factor in the late start when assessing his overall talent level for aging purposes. I'd assume a gentle aging curve as his physical gifts decline simply because he has so much talent to lose, but his injury history makes that a scary assumption.
I'd be very surprised if he got less than 6 unless some team went nuts on the AAV. Tough to predict how it'll shake out... stupendous, MVP-level talent, injury and substance abuse concerns, and a weak FA market all factors.
To put it another (or the same) way - fans cheer for their teams to win games, not for players to make money. A player taking less money gives their team a chance to win more games. A player maximizing his salary doesn't really help.
Baseball fans are selfish bastards. Sad, but true.
He also plays OF, albeit CF (but not a plus CF by any stretch)... Maybe I'm just too hung up on position scarcity - but I'd only be giving an A-Rodian/Pujolsian type deal to a SS I know can stick at SS, a gold glove CF, and maybe an extraordinarily Fisk-level durable catcher (and the catcher would have to be 2-3 years away from 30).
I recognize that there's a fair bit of fall-off between say... Hamilton and -- just to toss a name out there, Andre Ethier, but if I can fill my OF with two Ethiers for the cost of one Hamilton, I suspect I'll be better off.
As for being an "elite talent"? Including his atrocious, injury-plagued '09, Hamilton has averaged about 5.5 WAR/150 games played for his MLB career. That's elite.
Don't forget his ability to put butts in seats and eyeballs on TV sets. I don't know if Hamilton is the face of the franchise or whether that title falls to Michael Young, but star power has to be worth something to team owners.
Of course, we know that Holland is the mustache of the franchise.
Strange reason to sign someone.
It would be great if the excerpt of any Heyman article posted at BBTF was accompanied at the start by the agent info for every player referenced.
I hate being *that guy*, but there's a non-zero chance that Heyman knows something we don't. We know Hamilton's slipped up since coming back to MLB.
That said, for a player with absolute top-of-the-line talent who has had a stint on the DL in five straight seasons, is it absolutely ludicrous for a team to put some playing time clauses in there? Something like, a team has an opt-out for $X if he fails to play in 100 games or more in two or three seasons over the life of the contract? How does the union look at that type of thing, and what kind of assurances could the player receive that only games missed due to injury, and not a manager benching a 39 year-old Hamilton who's hitting .220 playing first base, will be held against him? Is there or could there be some kind of negotiated system of "medical arbitration" in such a case?
If he makes too much money is he obligated to do coke? Only drug abusers prefer increased salary and job security?
EDIT: To be clear I am not referring to the possibility of a relapse, simply that his drug addiction has likely already done a whole lot of damage to his body.
Maybe the Cubs will welcome him back "home". :-)
If it doesn't effect his onfield performance, why would a team care?
Would you give Babe Ruth crap for coming to the ballpark hungover and sleepless, drinking a six-pack and eating 8 hot dogs, and then proceding to OPS 1.200?
Of course not, but it doesn't reflect poorly on Hamilton if he signs a contract that gives him more money without any stipulations. The irony is that for all the pimping of Boras' clients and what we perceive initially to be outrageous demands, damned if Boras doesn't usually get close to the contract he has Heyman float in his articles. Now when another agent floats the demands for one of his players that also look a little outrageous, Heyman and his "secret agent" suddenly want to be "realistic". It's laughable.
Look - our measly $50k investment has yielded an 9 figure return! Wait - that math doesn't quite work out...
Yes I would. Less than if he was putting up an .800 OPS but I would still be concerned that it was having a negative effect and maybe he was capable of 1.300 or 1.400. Additionally I would be concerned that his longevity would be harmed (not so big a problem with the reserve clause, a big problem if I'm spending $25 million on someone). Lastly, just because something has not caused a problem yet doesn't mean it won't cause a problem in the future. In the case of Hamilton there is a non-zero chance of an in-season relapse that shouldn't be ignored.
I think Randy Jones in #26 made a very good point that there is a hell of a lot we don't know about what Hamilton did to himself in those years that might cause him to decline pretty quickly. I think in the end Hamilton is going to make some GM look very very smart or very very stupid.
Not to pick nits, I'd hesitate to use Mr Cabrera as a baseline in this sort of discussion. Hamilton has done nothing like Cabrera's 2009 playoff binge:
"It was later reported he had a blood alcohol level of .26, three times the legal limit, when tested at the police station. Dave Dombrowski, the general manager of the Tigers, picked him up from the police station around 7:30am—eleven and a half hours before that evening's game in which he went 0–4 with one strikeout and six runners left on base against the Chicago White Sox."
And Hamilton has gotten much more #### than Miggy.
And Hamilton has gotten much more #### than Miggy.
This is kind of getting off track here. Hamilton hasn't done anything equal to Miggy since he entered the big leagues, yes. But he did lose three entire seasons of play. That kind of tops a weekend bender.
Maybe it's all in his past, and there will be no relapses. But we can say something similar about Cabrera. But just because Hamilton has stayed clean since entering the big leagues doesn't erase all that ####### himself up he did before then.
Jose Can You Seabiscuit and Randy Jones basically covered my talking points. Hamilton's a recovering addict and we *know* that he's capable of throwing it all away. These things are tricky.
Were I a Texas Rangers fan, I could give a crap what Hamilton does in his personal life so long as he doesn't get suspended 50 games. If I'm cutting him a 25M$ check? Different story entirely.
The key here is that he did it to himself (unless there's other stuff he did during that time). Miggy endangered lives by driving drunk.
Were I a Texas Rangers fan, I could give a crap what Hamilton does in his personal life so long as he doesn't get suspended 50 games. If I'm cutting him a 25M$ check? Different story entirely.
Except if he relapses and can't play, or gets suspended, you don't have to pay him. You can sign Hamilton to a 10/250 deal, and if he goes on a massive crack bender the next day, and never recovers, you don't pay him a dime.
Him being chronically physically injured is a much bigger financial risk.
I remember hearing numerous stories, told by Hamilton or those near him, of Hamilton driving drunk/on drugs while he was out of baseball.
The Rangers have already established that they don't agree with me, of course, signing both Michael Young and Adrian Beltre to $16M a year through age 36. Those contracts are the benchmark, making the whole thing tricky from the negotiation and PR points of view in both directions. Offer Hamilton not enough more than Young/Beltre, and it's an obvious vote of no-confidence in him, which won't play well. But if he wants a huge lot more, you can point to Young and Beltre and say "well, so long, Josh, you're not half-again as good as those two."
He probably is better than half-again as good as Young.
I don't think Texas would balk at a 5 year, $110M contract, which would take him through his age 36 season and pay him considerably more than Beltre/Young.
Hopefully he's learned his lesson, in that case. Maybe it's my memory but I don't remember much press about any obvious endangering of others while using.
Well, I don't pay him a dime but I also don't have the superstar I want in the middle of my lineup. I'd rather spend the money on a player (or players) that I expect to have actually playing everyday.
At least they'll be able to forward their complaints to their governor, who has frequent direct communications with the deity...
Eh, I see what's happening here. A guy like Hamilton has rebuilt his priorities in very practical ways. If he did not talk about it at every opportunity, he might still be doing coke.
Adrian Beltre is getting paid what he deserves. Michael Young is way overpaid and that was a terrible contract. That's basically irrelevant and I think the Rangers realize he wasn't worth that contract. So these are different situations. You can argue about how fans interpret it. But at the end of the day, the fans want victories. You make the right decisions and put a competitive team out there and the fans will support you. I think Hamilton is worth like 5/100.
So maybe God will tell him to sign with the Athletics.
Or Houston.
If I were a player, I would not sign any deals that were not negotiated after multiple offers.
I'm not entirely sure there was. (I'm not saying there wasn't either.)
As far as we know, until the Angels swopped in, the best offer for Pujols was about 10/$200, lower AAV than Gonzalez or Tex or CC. As far as we know, until the Tigers made their silly offer -- well, we didn't hear about any big money offers for Fielder prior to that I don't think. Wilson signed pretty cheap. Matt Kemp did nicely but his highest yearly salary is still below the average of those other three guys. Cain's and Votto's extensions might be the only ones that seemed really high. Meanwhile a lot of OK FAs didn't do particularly well at all (and the old guys got zip).
So I don't know if those two big contracts are signs of a new trend or were just signs of panic from two teams.
But I will agree that, given almost all of the top young talent is under long-term contract, the scales have probably tipped towards a player risking an injury/collapse this season to be the top player on the market for next season. If the Rangers rock up with anything like 6/$150, Hamilton would be silly not to take it; but 5/$100 and I'd be tempted to test the market.
And for the record, I would also like to be paid like an elite player. In fact I'd be pretty happy to be paid like one for a single (in-season!) fortnight.
Exactly. Teams go out and sign their own players for less money than they are worth and 1. don't use that extra money to get other players(there are exceptions of course, and the teams that are exceptions are the teams constantly up in the standings) 2. don't save the money for when the player becomes a free agent. 3. or when they do sign a big contract, instead of pointing to the added wins, which equals added revenue for the team, they play a shell game where they claim to have reached their spending limit(which is coincendently nearly always equal to what they had the previous season plus some inflation)
BTF handle for the taking.
It seems like a lot of people who've gone through serious addictions and gotten clean come out the other side.... extremely religious. Everything becomes about faith and Jesus and God... I wouldn't know but probably you need something like that psychologically to fill the void of how central your addiction was to your life, gravitating towards it the same way that maybe you used to towards drugs or alcohol. You probably have to have that kind of extreme faith in something if you stand a chance of actually beating the addiction, and religion is a sort of safe, default thing to turn to that is actively encouraged by a lot of rehab and treatment.
Let me put it this way: I personally am one of those ####### atheists who rolls their eyes at the idea of religion. And I think Josh Hamilton should absolutely keep doing what he's doing. It doesn't matter whether he's right. He's found something that works for him, and I wish him luck.
Tattoo addiction is actually a relatively common thing. Dopamine and some stuff like that. So far I've confined mine to non-visible surfaces when I'm wearing a shirt, but I can see how people can get addicted.
edited to sound less creepy.
Remember, Josh Hamilton has such an addictive personality that after the drugs and alcohol, he got addicted to getting tattoos.
I don't disagree with your larger point, but didn't he get the tattoos while he was on the drugs and alcohol, and not afterwards?
I guess I am talking largely about perceptions, which are most of any negotiation. I'm not sure any fan sees much to choose between Young and Beltre as players. Even if there's skepticism about Young's value in the front office, Wash keeps running Young out in the 4th or 5th spot in the lineup. The media love them both. (And in any case, though Beltre is worth his $16M now, will he still be worth it at ages 35-36? which is relevant to how much they'd commit to pay Hamilton at those ages.)
Perhaps most importantly, I doubt if Josh Hamilton sees any salient difference between the value of Beltre and the value of Young. He's still better than both, and he's unlikely to readjust his self-estimate downwards by telling himself that Young is overpaid.
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