On Nov. 19, 1976, Wayne Garland signed a Cleveland Indians’ contract, ending his status as one of the 25 players in Major League Baseball’s first class of free agents. Garland’s contract was stunning for the time. It would run for 10 years and pay him $2.15 million and his agent, Jerry Kapstein, $35,000.
The $2,185,000 value would be barely half of today’s average salary – $3,952,252 – and even in today’s dollars, accounting for inflation, it would be about $9.25 million. But the fact that a team was willing to guarantee a player’ salary for 10 years, at $215,000 a year, was mind-boggling even if Garland had been a 20-game winner for Baltimore the previous season.
While the Garland contract was a stunner, it also served as a cautionary warning to teams. The right-hander, who was 26 years old when he signed the contract, did not last through its duration. In fact, the Indians released him before the 1982 season after injuries limited him to 50 games in the previous four seasons, pitching only 13 innings after June 1 in 1981, and his career was over.
Garland and his unprecedented contract come to mind because clubs are at it again. After shying away from long-term contracts for free agents (longer than five years), teams have resumed the practice of lavishing long long-term contracts on free agents, going so far in their desire to sign the best players in the market that they ignore their ages.
There is no established age after which teams put a hold on multi-million dollar salaries, so contracts of greater length than five years can pay players in their mid or upper 30s eight-figure salaries.
The Arizona Diamondbacks signed 32-year-old Zack Greinke to a 6-year contract worth $206.5 million. He’ll be 37 in the last year of the contract.
The Boston Red Sox gave 30-year-old David Price $217 million for 7 years, having no problem that he’ll 36 in the last year. Johnny Cueto, who will turn 30 next month, accepted $130 million for 6 years from San Francisco and will be 35 in his contract’s final year.
Chris Davis, the American League home run champion two of the past three years, agreed to a whopping $161 million for 7 years to stay in Baltimore. He will celebrate his 30th birthday halfway through spring training and play the final year of the contract at age 36.
Is there a difference where age is concerned between pitchers and position players? Jeff Samardzija, who turned 31 last month, observed that milestone with a 5-year $90 million deal with San Francisco. Ian Kennedy whose 31st birthday was also last month, signed a 5-year contract for $70 million with Kansas City. Wei-Yin Chen, 30, moved from Baltimore to Miami for a 5-year $80 million contract.
It could be argued that the most sensible free-agent contract this winter is the one the New York Mets agreed to just before the weekend with Yoenis Cespedes, the Cuban outfielder, whose trade-deadline arrival last July sparked the Mets to the post-season and the World Series.
The contract runs for three years and will pay Cespedes $75 million. At three years, it is more manageable than many of the others, but at $25 million a year it has the third highest annual average (behind Greinke’s $34.4 million and Price’s $31 million).
Of the 12 biggest contracts free agents have signed this off-season, only 4 players will be under 30 at the start of the season. Length of contract combined with age can be a potentially disastrous proposition.
That is one of the reasons clubs in recent years resisted the temptation of signing older players to outlandish contracts. Not so this off-season. Add Jason Heyward (8 years, $184 million, Chicago Cubs) and Justin Upton (6 years, $132.75 million, Detroit) to Price, Greinke, Davis and Cueto and you have six free agents who have signed for more than five years.
In the five previous off-seasons these are the players who signed as free agents for more than five years:
- Post-2014—2: Max Scherzer (Washington, 7 years, $210 million), Jon Lester (Chicago Cubs, 6 years, $155 million)
- Post-2013—3: Robinson Cano (Seattle, 10 years, $240 million), Jacoby Ellsbury (New York Yankees, 7 years, $153 million), Shin-Soo Choo (Texas, 7 years, $130 million)
- Post-2012—1: Zack Greinke (Los Angeles Dodgers, 6 years, $147 million with opt out after 2015)
- Post-2011—3: Albert Pujols (Anaheim, 10 years, $240 million), Prince Fielder (Detroit, 9 years, $214 million), Jose Reyes (Marlins, 6 years, $106 million)
- Post-2010—3: Adrian Beltre (Texas, 5 years, $80 million), Carl Crawford (Boston, 7 years, $142 million), Jayson Werth (Washington, 7 years, $126 million )
The players who have the two longest of these contracts have not flourished with their new teams and their new contracts.
In 11 seasons with St. Louis, Pujols hit 32 or more home runs each season and drove in more than 100 runs every season but his last when he drove in 99. However, in four seasons with the Angels, Pujols has hit more than 30 homers only once and driven in 105 runs twice.
Cano has played two seasons for the Mariners and has fallen well short of what he did with the Yankees. His home run and r.b.i. production each season has been below his production in each of his last five seasons in New York.
The Angels will pay Pujols, who turned 36 a week ago, for six more years. Cano, 33, has eight years left on his Seattle contract.
I have a theory that teams are willing to overpay by a year or two on multi-year contracts and won’t mind doing it if the player performs productively in the first few years and helps them reach post-season status. However, I didn’t find a general manager among those I talked to who agreed. I guess I was giving them an excuse for signing contracts of questionable length, but they weren’t buying it.
I posed that question as well as one on age and length of contract to Dan Duquette, who signed Davis; Dave Dombrowski, who signed Price, and Dayton Moore, who signed Kennedy.
“Sure, you factor everything in,” Boston’s Dombrowski said when I asked him about the role a player’s age plays in determining the length of a contract. “It’s rare that at 36 a pitcher’s performance is as good as he was at age 30. Players make adjustments. Sure, you weigh that into it. You consider everything, including the aging process.
“I think that’s part of the thought process. You’re willing to take the risk, but at the end you’re not looking for zero. Maybe the back end of the rotation.”
There will always be someone to criticize another team’s deal, and the World Series champion Royals had their critics for the 5-year Kennedy deal.
“Most baseball people will say four years is possibly the limit you want to go with a pitcher,” said Moore, who did a superb job putting the Royals together. “But when you look at the landscape, you’ll possibly do a little more than you want to do. You look at the individual. It’s a case by case decision.”
Yes, Moore acknowledged, the Royals liked Price and Greinke, “but we can’t afford $217 million.”
Commenting on the idea of being willing to overpay in number of years, Moore said, “You hate to think that way. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to sign players to long-term contracts without doing that.”
Baltimore’s Duquette produced one of the winter’s most surprising contracts. The Orioles’ owner, Peter Angelos, isn’t known for the kind of spending that snared Davis for $161 million. Explaining the uncharacteristic development, Duquette, known among his baseball colleagues as Duke, said, “Davis had great year in 2013 and another good year in 2015.”
As for the age of a player who gets an extra long contract that could take the player to an advanced age, Duquette said, “That’s a good question. It depends on type of player and how physically dependable they are. Everybody is different. It’s easier to invest in people you know and have lived with and worked together with.”
He added, “You can criticize the length of the deal, but it’s what is required by the market.”
Speaking generally, he said, “There’s more risk associated with pitching and more risk on starting pitchers. I think clubs weigh the risks. The idea is to have a good team every year, find the right balance and hope players perform at the level you expect. We’re just trying to find the sweet spot.”
The Orioles missed on one of their players who was a free agent. “We had 4-year deal for Chen,” the Duke said, “but the Marlins went the extra year.”
CREATION OF CONTRACT COVERAGE
The 10-year Wayne Garland contract was meaningful in 1976, and it remains meaningful four decades later. Garland’s contract was part of a new era in baseball. I’m not talking about free agency, though it was an integral part of the first class of free agents.
It and the rest of the contracts signed by the 25 free agents marked the start of the news coverage of baseball contracts and inspired the coverage of contracts and salaries in all sports.
The start of free agency in baseball prompted me to find out and report the contracts of all free agents. Until then contracts and their terms went unreported. Each spring training Ed Pope, a sports columnist for the Miami Herald, wrote a column listing what he said were the highest baseball salaries. But it was guesswork and always inaccurate.
I made it my primary goal to find out contract details and I was fortunately successful. After the first year of free agency Jerome Holtzman, a Chicago baseball writer, reported free-agent contracts in his annual review of the year in baseball in the “Official Baseball Guide.”
He was close on some, right on others but wrong on many. Garland’s total package, for example, was listed as $1 million when, in fact, it was $2,185,000. In the next year’s review, Holtzman ran “Murray Chass’ report” on free-agent contracts.
Being in the early stages of contract coverage, my work was not always recognized for its significance. I recall the reaction of another reporter who also covered the Yankees. During a game, I spent much of the time on the telephone running down contract details. My fellow reporter made fun of me for what I was doing.
I also recall the mixed feelings I had when Al Rosen, the general manager of the San Francisco Giants, announced at a news conference during the winter meetings the signing of a free agent. He uncharacteristically also announced details of the contract. It was uncharacteristic because clubs did not disclose details of their contracts.
Asked by a reporter why he was announcing the details, Rosen said, “Murray Chass is going to have them so I might as well give them out.”
I was flattered but also upset. Rosen was paying me a nice tribute, but he was also giving away something that had always been my exclusive territory.
Today salaries and contract details are as widely available as box scores. A specific reporter doesn’t have to work to get them because someone among them will get them and circulate them to the world. For a time, reporters benefited from the reporting of Ron Blum of the Associated Press, but now others have joined in the fun.
Web sites have even popped up listing all players, their contracts and their salary histories. There are no secrets any more.
REDS RAISE ROSE’S RANK
So Pete Rose is going into a hall of fame after all.
Barred from the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown because he is on baseball’s permanently ineligible list, Rose will be inducted into the Cincinnati Reds hall of fame, have his uniform number 14 retired and have a statue of himself unveiled in June ceremonies.
Under terms of Commissioner Rob Manfred’s December decision not to reinstate Rose, the all-time hits leader can appear at Reds’ functions at their park with Manfred’s approval. The Reds submitted a proposal for the events, and Manfred approved it.
“That’s outrageous,” Fay Vincent, the former commissioner, said. “It’s a slap at baseball.”
I agree with Vincent that Manfred’s decision is outrageous. He found unacceptable Rose’s behavior leading up to his appeal for reinstatement so why approve a ceremony celebrating Rose?
The Reds would defend their effort by saying Rose deserves the recognition, but they are part of baseball and baseball rejects Rose for violating its rule against betting on baseball. Rose bet while he wore the Reds’ uniform. He disgraced it and lied about it for 15 years, and the Reds want to honor him.
I’ll tell you why I think the Reds want to honor Rose. Bob Castellini, the team’s president and CEO, sees it as a big pay day. The event will attract a sellout crowd.
Why should Manfred give Castellini the OK? Maybe he’s already running for re-election to a second term as commissioner. Castellini opposed Manfred’s election, joining Jerry Reinsdorf’s opposition group, and maybe Manfred sees this as a way of winning Castellini’s vote the next time.