A rival general manager, upon hearing that the contract was for seven years, offered this reaction to Jayson Werth’s signing with the Nationals:

“Absolutely bat——crazy.”

"It kind of exemplifies Phase 2 of the Washington Nationals' process. Phase 1 was scouting and development, build the farm system type of program. We feel like we're well on our way of doing that, and now it's the time to go to the second phase, and really compete for division titles and championships."

In the Nationals' evaluation of Werth, Rizzo said, their front office felt he could improve on his numbers in Philadelphia (an average of 29 homers over the last three seasons), and came away believing some of the injury troubles that plagued Werth early in his career are behind him. Rizzo said he's not worried that Werth was a Citizens Bank Park creation; he pointed to the outfielder's league-leading 46 doubles in 2010, and said that total could go up with Nationals Park's larger gaps.

Right? Maybe . . . 0.3%?

For elite players like this to come to Washington, D.C., obviously we have to extend the contract.

and access to Mrs. Kotsay.

This means Paul Konerko will get infinity dollars per year for infinity years, with a player option, full no-trade, and access to Mrs. Kotsay.

“For elite players like this to come to Washington, D.C., obviously we have to extend the contract,” Rizzo said. “We understand where we're at in our process. Someday, in the very near future, we hope that we will not have to give extra money, extra years to acquire a player.”

You guys are tough to please. If they don't spend the money, some people are going to say they are pocketing the money. If they try to sign great players, they get outbid by the bigger market teams. If they don't overpay significantly, the good but not great players will go someplace where they think they can win.

It's a bad contract but it's not really close to Hampton, Zito, Soriano, Howard bad.

You guys are tough to please. If they don't spend the money, some people are going to say they are pocketing the money. If they try to sign great players, they get outbid by the bigger market teams. If they don't overpay significantly, the good but not great players will go someplace where they think they can win.

You guys are tough to please. If they don't spend the money, some people are going to say they are pocketing the money. If they try to sign great players, they get outbid by the bigger market teams. If they don't overpay significantly, the good but not great players will go someplace where they think they can win.

Rizzo wasn't giving away any secrets with his comments;

Maybe, but it doesn't start his relationship with the fans off on the best footing: "Here's our shiny new free agent hitter; by the way, he demanded extra $$$ to play in front of you chumps."

No, the measure of a bad contract is "Would my team (the Red Sox) have paid him that much, cross-referenced with the general consensus of the insane, fringe element of said team"

Let me reiterate ... Soriano was 8/136 and that was in 2007. It covers ages 31-38. He was coming off seasons of OPS+ 100, 109, 135 or 8.2 WAR. He had put up good defensive numbers in his one season in LF.

40. bfan Posted: December 06, 2010 at 08:05 AM (#3703777)
"BTW, Jayson Werth suddenly has an opinion on the capital Gains tax."

Why? This is ordinary income. Now he might have an opinion on the marginal tax rates on ordinary income.