Hamels Not Jazzed With $500K

The Phillies are setting themselves up for a rebuilding project one day. Low balling Howard in arbitration and giving their best pitcher $500k is just setting themselves up for their star players to leave as soon as the chance becomes available.

You've got to make your players feel appreciated and the Phillies aren't doing such. After the success last year, ticket sales will inevitably go up, and their core players should accordingly reap some of those benefits.

I can agree with the assertions that $500k is a wad of money for most people and that there's no reason to complain. However, these baseball players are making some people lots of money and they should be compensated accordingly. I don't think this has anything to do with greed or whining.

I think that it is probably the right strategy to underpay players in this position. The number of players giving teams "home town" discounts keeps shrinking each year. So, a teams good will isn't likely to matter. Also, if the Phillies make Hamels the best offer in his free agent year, all will be forgiven. If they don't make him the best offer, I doubt a few extra thousands here will make the difference.

I don't know how classy it is for Hamels to gripe about it in public. THAT SAID..

I'm sick and tired of the "Oh boo-hoo, I play a game and only make half a mil" logic some of you guys use. Guess what? Star athletes have different life circumstances than you! They've invested their lives developing skills that there is an extraordinarily large market for. There's nothing mystical or unfair about it, and resenting their high salaries is childish. If they are among the top performers in their field, they have every right to desire just compensation.

It's completely irrelevant whether we as "regular guys" would kill for $500k/yr. He's not us.

I think the best part to this is the fact that these guys really could have gotten LgMin instead… There is no reason any team needs to really offer more than 405K (I think that’s what it is this year) ~ so something like 500K is 20% raise over what he could have gotten. A 20% raise? In what world would that be considered low-balling a guy?

If players keep whining about each and every deal they get like this then I say the league should step in and set some kind of system up to benefit the clubs. Slot it at like 400K, 500K, 600K with a 100K bonus if you have over 300AB, 100IP for a starter or 40IP for a reliever. Would make it so much easier on everyone involved, would leave no room for player to whine about something they have no real right to complain about and it would save the game a ton of face because these reports are the types of things which turn people off of the sport.

Hey Selig, get off your rear and actually do something for the good of the game for a change man! Set it up where these spoiled brats have no room to complain!

the major league minimum this year(according to www.mlbcontracts.blogspot.com) is $390,000. That means that his 'low blow' is more than 125% of what they are required to give him.

"It makes no sense to underpay the great young players like that. It WILL come back to haunt them."

Really? Can you give us any proof of that? Say, a great player who gives a significant "hometown discount" (good luck finding one, by the way) and says "yeah, I had to stay. I mean, I could get $20M more somewhere else now, but my team gave me an extra $300K early in my career. I just can't overlook that in my current desire to get market value for my services."

C'mon now. Really.

I'm sure there's some non-zero value to boosting player and team morale by paying $200-500K extra to young stars. But it won't be realized in long-term contract negotiations down the road.

Okay, three things and then some hypothetical(s)...

1) The league minimum is a basement price for what a player can be paid, but that doesn't mean you give them that amount automatically. They are expecting people, who usher about millions of dollars every year, to have the discrepancy to realize a base price and a fair price!

2) Just because you can go as low as $390,000/yr. (stealing someone's "researched" price, not willing to look it up) doesn't mean that price should stand for every body! Are you telling me that you believe a bench player should make the same as a starter who is the ace or #2 of your rotation?! The fact is that he is significantly under-paid and it would go a long way towards building good faith with him for the Phillies to open their wallets up to a guy that you would want to build your team around!

3) You see $500K, but he sees $300K if he's lucky! You get taxed at 20-25% at most otherwise you make too damn much money to be lacking compassion for where Hamels is coming from, you get a tax return every year, and you work roughly 40 hours and in some RARE instances some of you work more than 40 hours. Cole Hamels gets taxed at 40-45% of his wages, he doesn't get a tax return at the end of the year, he has to deal with fans wanting autographs, photographs, and writers that want quotes to fill paragraphs.

The fact of the matter is that they have far more demands on their time than you do. Imagine running inside a grocery store to get milk or bread and it turning into a 40 minute question and answer with fans wanting to shake hands, chat, and take photographs with you. In addition to that, you should also consider that most of these athletes go to the baseball field only a couple hours after you leave for the office and their day doesn't end until close to midnight as it takes two hours to shower, dress, do interviews, do a cool down workout, soak the muscles in the whirlpool and whatever else must be done!

A typical baseball player spends 80-90 hours a week preparing to put on a show for you, but you are all too selfish to recognize that they do far more than just show up 5-6 days a week to play for three hours! Also consider the dietary restrictions that they must go through to maintain a body that can go through the rigors of a 162 game season and perform at a marketable enough level that you want to pay the team in order to see the player perform! Have you ever gone to a restaurant and looked at all the items you can't order because it'll influence how much your boss pays you?!

You work half as much as these guys on a good week, you are left alone in your "free/personal" time, you don't make decisions based on public perception, you don't have to sit next to co-workers that are talking about their new cars that are worth more than what you make a year after taxes, and above all else your paycheck and your career aren't at risk with every task asked of you by your bosses and with every movement that your is required to do your job! You aren't going to paper cut your way to unemployment, hitting your finger with a hammer isn't going to leave you without income, and no amount of organizing is going to create weakened wrists that leave you incapable of doing your assignments!

Realize that he'll go to the mound and throw 2000+ pitches during games and with every one he makes he moves a microscopic amount of distance closer to getting a raise, but that it only takes one awkward throw during warm-ups, one bad movement mechanically in the bullpen, or one burst of adrenaline too much during a game for his career to be over and for him to be just like you, but without a job, without a career, and with no college education. Yet you look upon these athletes and judge them based on the minutes they spend on the field when the television is on, instead of measuring them based on the hours they spend every week off camera to be the best at what they do.

The crime is not that Cole Hamels is complaining about being underpaid, but rather you are too greedy and jealous to realize how they earn every cent of their paycheck and how they have to keep giving well after the paychecks are cut to them. Don't talk crap about a kid who wants to get paid what he's worth when he was a top level starter this last year, be mad at the guys like Santana who wants 22 million to play once a week or the 31 million a year Alex "Mr. Automatic" Rodriguez, cause God knows there's nothing clutch about him and he clearly has no emotions.

You want a solution... Guarantee 1 million as a minimum contract for any major leaguer and then in exchange have a ceiling on how much a player can make like the NBA and wrap it into the minor league negotiations so that you'll have the support from the majority of the players! By the way, McDonald's pays burger flippers 40,000 a year and a district manager makes 125,000 before bonuses... Is it really that hard to believe he is pissed about making 500K when there are only 750-800 other players in the world who can claim to be capable of sharing the same field as Hamels athletically?! Hell, there are more district managers for McDonald's than there are major league players and they work 40 hours a week with no harassment from the public when they clock out! Gain perspective or lose voice.

Here's a question for you to consider, rhetorically, if you will... Everyone has seen the mentally challenged or wheelchair bound person who hands out pretzels in the mall, right?! Well, what if you were hired at the same time as the "special needs" employee and you both made the same wage for the first 6 months, yet you're the one doing all the work [like Cole Hamels and the other starters (i.e. making the pretzels, ringing up the customers, cleaning the store, etc.)] while the "special needs" person [i.e. bench players (sorry Bloomquist)] sits in their wheelchair and hands out pretzel chunks and says hello to strangers!

Just because both of you are making at least minimum wage, does it make you happy knowing that you are not being rewarded according to your ability and what you do for the company as an individual?! Should our desire to be fair come at the expense of a person who is deserving of more?! Is it not easier to play the theoretical game with someone else’s money, time, and effort?!

I doubt very seriously if you would be okay with making 1/10 of a percent of what your company grosses every year as one of only 25 employees that are responsible for the reputation and results that the company achieves. Don’t consider the franchise when you look at the scale, look at the price in accordance to your location only and then consider how little he makes as opposed to what the company brings in as a whole! If you work at a mall store you may make 2 million a year and that would make your salary 2,000 a year. Oh and then give 40-45% of that away to the government. So what’s it feel like to make 900-1100 dollars a year while the company makes 2 million?! Does that seem fair?!

Remember when the Phillies renewed Ryan Howard for $900,000 instead of a lesser amount, as they could have? A fat lot of good will that created, as seen in the recent arbitration negotiations and comments about his future contract demands. What's to say something similar wouldn't happen with Hamels, or any of the others complaining? People say they want to generate goodwill, but when you have the Howard example, I think that just shows that even if you add this extra money earlier, it will not necesarily impact future negotiations.

That's one player, so because one person decides to use a handgun to commit murder we should take the right to bare arms out of the constitution, right?!

i can't stand hearing this... Cole is my age and while he is getting paid a half million to play baseball I'm struggling with a minimum wage job just trying to finish out school here in philly... these philly fans aren't gonna really like hearing this, its a blue collar type town.

These younger guys are getting more and more spoiled. You give them $1 million in their second year, pretty soon you're paying them like free agents in their 3rd year "just to keep them happy." Guys that publically gripe about things like that are more likely to be malcontents regardless of whether the organization does and says all the right things anyway.

DentalPlan,

It's referred to commonly as inflation. You set a scale. Or you have maximizers in place where you get bumped based off of appearances/innings or plate appearances. All-Star selections, Gold Gloves, Silver Slugger, Cy Youngs, etc. should all force minimum salary escalators. If Cole Hamels is performing like he did in 2007 this is worth $1MM especially when you look at a guy like Carlos Silva getting $12MM x 4 years! Life isn't perfect, but I guarantee you will get far more players that would be happy with the base salry jumping to 800K-1MM and sacrificing an inidividual salary cap to make it happen than have such lopsided salaries where guys like Pay-Rod make twice as much as the next highest paid guy on the highest salary team in baseball, minus HGH stat inflator Giambi and Captain Jeter! Maybe he shouldn't be able to get more money, but this article was about him bitching and if you can have paparazzi invade celebrity privacy to get a picture for their sleeze paper, than Cole Hamels has the right to bitch about his money... If you don't like it, then don't read it, but he's justified in using the press to make his point!

I can see both sides of the argument and really, I don't think either side is wrong. Even if he's making 300K, that's more than enough to live off of. As someone else eluded to, everyone goes through this. I do think Hamels is worth the couple hundred thousand extra, but when he whines publically, it just makes him look ungrateful even if he has a valid gripe. Most people would kill to make 300K a year just for one year, but Hamels will be a multi millionaire in due time.

The thing that pisses me off about all this stuff is that players complain more about how much money they are making than they complain about steroids in baseball or what can be done to improve the game. Whatever happened to playing because you love the game? When did it become more about the paycheck? The game seems to be becoming more and more about the money and complaining about not making enough is just so tired of an act to hear over and over again. People are just sick of hearing stuff like this. Money is more important to most players than playing the actual game is, or at least that's what it seems like sometimes. It's hard to feel bad for someone that plays a game for a living. If they get hurt and can't play anymore and don't have anything to fall back on, who's fault is that? That's a risk you take when you go into professional sports and you'd have to be a fool not to have something to fall back on just in case.

I think clubs need to stop being so stingy and cheap with money when players deserve a raise, but I also think the players need to shut the F up about not making enough. It's like nails down a chalkboard for me. The money will come. Look around, you play a fking game for a living and you have millions upon millions of dollars waiting for you. If you get injured and have no career to fall back on, tough sht. That's not anyone's problem but yours. Get injured and go down to making 100K or less a year and let's see how much you complain to the boss about how you want a couple hundred thousand more because you think you deserve it. Go see if you can find another job where you can walk right in and make a couple hundred thousand dollars just for showing up. I don't think players are thankful enough for what they have and how lucky they are to even be able to play baseball on that level.

Of course, greed and America go hand in hand these days. It's all about the money, so maybe baseball players is the wrong place to direct the anger towards. They sure do make themselves easy targets though.

Also, it's not ONE player, how many young guys are upset about how much money they're making this year? Now take all those guys and get the percentage. Now flip that into the population of your city/state/country. If one out of every 800 decided to start murdering people, yeah, I think they would outlaw the right to bare arms. In NYC alone that'd make nearly 10,000 murders a year! Dear god think of THAT madness.

"As for me, I've run a multi-million dollar company as a district manager and I've returned to school to finish my law degree, as I'm tired of using my skills to make other people money and I work harder than any two of you. I work 60+ hours a week and take 20-30 cr. hours a quarter, yet still I have a house and an '04 Lexus that's almost paid off, so we all make choices, don't we?!"

Well congrats to you, sadly not all of us can do that; there are various mitigating circumstances, but, seeing as how you're the big bossman I wouldn't expect you to understand the problems of anybody beneath your station.

Guru, if you think it's dumb to suggest that employers ought not to just throw money they don't have to at players then I'll ask you this:

How "fair" is it when one of these professional athletes that are so deserving of exorbitant salaries gets signed to a 4 year/ $44 mil extension then blows out his arm within one month of signing?

So long as baseball players are guaranteed money even if they never play again, the owners shouldn't throw extra money at them.

Oh, and someone brought up Jake Peavy re: hometown discounts. Peavy didn't take the "discount" because SD had taken care of him. Prior to this extension he took a discount just because he realizes that this is all monopoly money that he neither needs nor deserves. It has nothing to do with "being taken care of early in his career"

Hamels is a whiny ***** and him and Prince need to shut up and play ball.

"For the posters here bashing the athletes with VALID gripes, you don't have a leg to stand on. Even free agent utility infielders make more than these young stars who haven't reached arbitration yet. Is that fair? NO."

Actually, yes. It is a union. Stick around and they will get their pay day also. And I think that Cole Hamels will make more money in a couple years then Alex Cora or Cezar Izturis or Endy Chavez or whatever.

"In the recent cases of Hamels & Fielder, all that their front offices had to do was throw $200-300K more their way to keep them happy and that would go a long way later on when trying to sign them long-term."

Actually it wouldnt. If Fielder got paid even 10 mil this year, do you think it would stop him from leaving when he can to make the biggest payday? I have no doubts that he wouldnt hesitate to leave after his arb years, no matter what Milwaukee gave him.

"For those people acting like $500K is a lot of money, it isn't when an injury stops the cash flow for good."

Well, maybe Cole's history of injuries has something to do with why he isnt getting a big deal yet. How fair is it for the Phillies to invest time and money in this kid and then see him get hurt in a bar fight? You are the one with no leg to stand on.

Cole Hamel needs to wait his turn to make big money, the first couple years of a players contract is suposto be cheap. just wait until your turn hamles

i think the phils made a bad move though, upsetting their best pitcher over a couple hundred thousand is not very wise.

All right, BaseballGuru, here comes the science. Or at least the economics. :)

Let's go to Cot's Baseball Contracts to look at Peavy's contracts over the years:

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/san-diego-padres.html

4 years/$14.5M (2005-08), plus 2009 club option ($8M or $0.5M buyout - escalators for IP/Cy Young, which have almost certainly been triggered, take this option to $11M for 2009)

3 years/$52M (2010-2012), plus 2013 club option ($22M or $4M buyout)

2002 - league minimum - promoted to majors mid-season
2003 - $305K

I believe - though I'm not able to confirm - that Peavy just missed out on "super-two staus" and thus didn't qualify for arbitration after 2003. So with Peavy having no leverage, what did the Padres give their rising young star?

2004 - $350K

Peavy struggled with injuries in 2004, including an inflamed elbow ligament which forced a stint on the DL. He recovered and pitched very well the rest of the way, going 15-6 with a 2.27 ERA in 166 1/3 innings pitched. He then headed into arbitration for the first time.

Before arbitration, Peavy and the Padres agreed to a four-year-plus-club-option extension, buying out the rest of his arbitration years, locking him in for the first year of free agency, and giving the club an option for the second year of free agency. Terms:

2005 - $750K
2006 - $2.5M
2007 - $4.75M
2008 - $6M (FULL NO-TRADE CLAUSE)
2009 - $8M club option (FULL NO-TRADE CLAUSE) ($11M with Cy Young/IP incentives) or $0.5M buyout

Pretty much your garden-variety arbitration step-up, but Peavy got the security of the $6M guarantee with a full no-trade in 2008. Coming off an elbow scare, Peavy was probably quite pleased to get the security of a guaranteed contract. Ask his agent, Chuck Axelrod, who said at the time:

"It was a matter of saying, '[b]How can we protect each other?[/b]' " said Peavy's agent, Barry Axelrod. "It's a good deal for both sides.

(link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/padres/20050228-9999-1s28padres.html )

One would expect that the 2009 option came with the understanding that the team would guarantee it as part of a long-term deal, which is exactly what they did this past winter:

After 2nd extension:
----------------
2009 - $11M (FULL NO-TRADE CLAUSE) (club agreed to exercise option with signing of 2010-13 extension)
2010 - $15M (FULL NO-TRADE CLAUSE)
2011 - $16M (PARTIAL NO-TRADE - can designate 14 teams he can't be traded to)
2012 - $17M (PARTIAL NO-TRADE - can designate 8 teams he can't be traded to)
2013 - $22M (club option, or $4M buyout) (10-and-5 rights replace contractual no-trade clause)

Also, the second extension included exercising the 2009 club option on the earlier extension. Thus the risk of an '08 arm injury gets transferred from Peavy to the club - that's worth a fair amount to Peavy.

From the looks of things, Peavy flat-out does not want to play in a major media center like New York or L.A., where he'd probably have to go to get "market value." He's comfortable in San Diego, but there's no reason to believe he's comfortable because the team "respected" him by throwing lots of cash at him before arbitration. His pre-arbitration raises were small, and to the extent they may have been more than the Pads were obligated to pay, they weren't large by any means.