Not only did Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez face trouble with the law last week, he tore a ligament in his thumb and will require season-ending surgery. The Mets are now looking into voiding K-Rod's contract, according to Jon Heyman of SI.com (on Twitter).
The injury does not appear to be baseball-related, something the Mets could point to if they decide to attempt to void the contract and sidestep the $18MM they owe Rodriguez. The MLBPA would presumably object if the Mets do attempt to void the deal. The Mets signed K-Rod to a three-year $37MM deal after he set the single-season saves record in 2008.
A Mets official told Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork that "you can make the assumption that the injury resulted from the incident last week." K-Rod has $3MM remaining on his contract this year, so the Mets could focus on that amount if they look to void part of the deal, since the closer will likely be ready for the 2011 season.
i think it would go through. its not like he got into trouble by something normal or anything. Dude was charged with assault. that has to be considered….
Please. Don’t get my hopes up like this.
It would be the first smart move the Mets have done all season .. too bad you can’t void contracts for underperformance (Ollie, Castillo, Frenchy, Omar, Jerry, and both Wilpons)
yup cuz R.A. Dickey was such a bad pickup
Are you suggesting the owners fire themselves?
And they let him pitch on Saturday. No way it gets voided.
They didn’t know he was hurt.
MLBPA, PLEASE let the Mets void the contract. Seriously, he hurt his pitching hand beating up his common law wife’s father IN the stadium in front of other players’ families/friends and faces up to a year in prison if indicted.
Dear Mets,
Thanks again for signing K-Rod long term for mucho monies! You single handily prevented every other team in the league from making this mistake. Baseball fans (other than Mets fans I guess) greatly appreciate your role in this league. K bye 😀
As a braves fan I hope they do not void the contract and handcuff the Mets moreso in the offseason.
I of course know little to nothing about the legalities behind this but the guy got hurt doing something illegal off the field. I would think that the contract could easily be voided. What a huge help for the Mets. They can get Papelbon or Jenks for way less money and get similar production
well Jenks is shot but I get your point.
Just to help you a little on the legalities, their is supposedly something in his contract that outlines that he is not allowed to get injured when not playing baseball, except under special certain circumstances. Experts are checking to see if this qualifies as a voidable offense.
wow nice, maybe they Wilpons can afford to sign their draft picks now!!!!
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
a nicer guy? i hope thats sarcasm (if your talking about Krod)….so far in the last year he has 1) tried to fight another douche bag (Bernazard)….2) got into a fight with Brian Bruney (who might have deserved it)…and 3) attacked the grandfather of his child
although 2 of the 3 have were proven to be provoked this clearly proves hes a bit of a hot head
K-Rod is among my least favorite players in the game. Hope that answers your question 🙂
You do realize if the contract is voided the Mets will not re-invest any of the savings into the team?It will go back into the Wilpon’s pockets as they attempt to sell you a “youth movement” based on wondrous prospects while still charging top dollar to get into the stadium.I feel bad for Mets fans. They have the worst GM in the league and quite possibly the dumbest owners. If they go all youth movement, you’ll quickly learn that Ike Davis and his .700 OPS at 1b, not to mention some of the other prospects will make this a last place team next year which will then repeat the typical Mets cycle and have them sign poorly chosen free agents out of desperation to win back fans. There’s no plan on this team. There will never be a plan.They play to the mob and the media in the hopes they can make a few scheckels by duping an loyal fanbase. If K-rod gets voided the Mets payroll drops. Don’t expect them to spend it on Crawford or Lee. They’ll instead sign Livan and Guillen.
Great post.
But Omar isnt a terrible GM. He basically is out there taking the heat for the Wilpons. They make all the decisions. Hes a puppet basically. Theyre the reason why Mets dont draft overslot, dont cut Luis and Ollie and much more. They are the worst owners in baseball.
Signing Oliver Perez to that deal and Castillo to his deal are two of the worst moves made by a GM. I won’t even get into allowing Ike Davis and Mejia to be rushed this season. Omar is not a good GM. He’s only employed because the dumb Wilpons already extended him to 2012.
They don’t have the WORST owners. The Wilpons are up there, but the Marlins have the worst owners.
Gotta pocket dat rev’nue sharin’.
I wouldn’t call the Marlins owners the worse, maybe the CHEAPEST.
What a difference a few years makes, in 2008 this guy was the talk of the league piling up save after save. Gets a little success, gets a fatter paycheque and a fatter ego and puts everything in to jeopardy with one completely idiotic move. .
Also, in the fatter category, you forgot he got just plain fatter.
I thought about going there.. but then i thought to myself.. do i really want him assaulting me next?
krod is a jerk, I can’t believe I read that Mariano Rivera requested his locker be far away from K-Rods at an all star game
Saying the Mets have too many latino’s is like saying the Knicks have too many black guys.
Omar used to play the latin card but once Delgado told him off that was the end of that, although Omar’s latin heritage still gives him an “in” regarding international signings.
unfortunately the Wilpons wont spend the money to bring in the best 15,16,17 year olds on the INT FA market, which Omar has the HUGE advantage in.
Delgado was always cool with Omar…it was Tony B. he had a problem with in 2004 off-season. He went to FL instead.
but i cosign everything else u just said…”unfortunately the Wilpons wont spend the money to bring in the best 15,16,17 year olds on the INT FA market, which Omar has the HUGE advantage in.”
Fernando Martinez was the only one he acquired when he did have the ability to sign them. His focus on these phantom Latino players has resulted him in ignoring the draft for the most part.
jennry mejia and wilmer flores say hi !
That wasn’t Omar, Delgado was talking about. I think it was Tony Bernazard.
Void? Wouldn’t that get in the way of the extension they plan to give him?
I also can’t wait to see Jerry try to manage these last 6 weeks without K-Rod. I mean the guy is clueless when it comes to the 7th and 8th inning now imagine the mixing and matching with the 9th inning now too.
this will be very interesting…
The sad part is that if they actually try to void the contract, it will have nothing at all to do with his actions or his injury as a result of those actions. They’ll simply be a convenient excuse to try to dump a contract that should have never been signed.
thats how all voids work….you really think if this was pujols or jimenez who hit his father-in-law we would be having this conversation?
Wouldn’t that be, you know, my point? Does phrasing exactly what I was saying confrontationaly add something to the discussion that I missed?
And no, that’s not how all voids work. Khalil Greene’s contract got voided for a perfectly legitimate reason that had nothing to do with the dollars on it.
If you aren’t a Mets fan, why would you care? It’s not like the other 29 teams are beating down the door to get K-Rod.
No chance of voiding the whole thing, but I bet they can get the rest of the money for this season back.
What really screws the Mets is even if they void this year, they can’t even pay another team to take him. With 46 games already finished this season, and it being likely he’ll be full strength next yr, he’s highly likely to reach the 100 games finished clause in his contract…which makes his ludicrous 2012 option guaranteed. $17.5m for one season of a so-so closer, insane…
what makes u think K-Rod is going to finish 64 games next year ?
according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts
2012 option becomes guaranteed with:
55 games finished in 2011, AND
100 games finished in 2010-11, AND
doctors declare Rodriguez healthy after 2011
46 + 64 = 110…he only needs another 54
So if he hits the minimum 55 for 2011, he will also have hit the 100 total for 2010-11.
so then i suppose another question becomes…if u get rid of him…who do u
replace him with?
then again, if they dont fix the issues they have with their situational
hitting, a closer becomes a moot point.
Funny how during K-Rod’s free agent off season there was talk of him getting 5 years/$75MM initially and I know I saw one report of 6/$90MM. When he signed for 3/$37MM it seemed almost like a discount initially and within, what, a season? it turned into one of the more regrettable albatrosses in baseball. Interesting how quickly tides turn.
It’s the Mets… they can’t do anything right… even if they were found to be able to void the contract, I am sure some fine print or technicality would prevent them from successfully doing it. Snakebitten (translated – poor ownership, poor management, poor scouting, and a dash of bad luck thrown in for good measure) franchise.
This Latin bias that continues to be spewed by a small number of bigoted, moronic Mets fans is starting to get really annoying. Make no mistake these cretins do not represent the vast majority of Mets fan. I go to the games and see young and older Whites proadly wearing Beltran, Barajas, Reyes, Santana and even K-Rod jerseys(tough that’s going to change) .The only time it comes up is when the Mets aren’t winning. There weren’t ‘too many latins’ in ’06 through ’09 for the racist idiots when they were winning. This wasn’t heard earlier in the year when they were 10 games over .500a close to first place, only when the wheels feel off did the bigots start chirping.The reason the Mets have all these ‘lousy latin’ players on the roster is because they’ve replaced a group of even worst white players. For all the bigots out there: Here are some of the white players that have been replaced from last year: Cory Sullivan, Brian Schneider, Jeremy Reed, Tim Redding, Brian Stokes ,Tobi Stoner, Billy Wagner, JJ DaPutz, Darren O’ Day, Casey Fossum, Daniel Murphy. Are the Mets worst off by not having any of these white guys on the team? By the way, where is the outcry for the return of John Maine? Its a shame that underacheivers like Castillo, Perez and Beltran have given fodder to the morons to go ahead with this crap.As soon as the Mets start winning everyone will forget the ethnicity of the team and the bigots will feel Ok with rooting for team again.
I’m not saying this as someone who hates latinos, I embrace the presence of Santana, Reyes, Barajas, Blanco, and Tejada for their performance, and hate Beltran for attitude, and Castillo, and Perez for their performance. But, Daniel Murphy isn’t gone because of performance, he’s been injured pretty much all year, and I sorely miss Wagner, especially now, and I’ve been wondering the past couple months where Maine even is. Aside from those few objections, I wholeheartedly agree with the rest.
so basically…met fans love met players regardless of ethnicity when things are going good…but as soon as there are issues…their true colors come out…
just the bigots.
Who god damn cares what race Mets players are? What’s important is that they work toghether to win games which is something they aren’t doing. Mets fans get upset when they are losing this bad and notice all the wrong things, and what makes me think even more that they are the worst fans in baseball is calling someone like Carlos Beltran an underachiever. Seriously? Beltran an underachiever? He is one of the elite players of the game, injuries slow many players down, you cannot judge Beltran by him coming off the disabled list and not batting .400 and leading your struggling team to the playoffs. Not in a division w/ the Braves and Phillies and their pitching. K-Rod’s contract should be voided, no I don’t care if the mets lose payroll, he should be facing a prison sentence for domestic violence. The Mets also have one of the worst farm systems, with the likes of Mejia and Ike Davis rushed. Davis might have been one of the best things to happen to the Mets, as he boosted the clubhouse attitude when the Mets surged into 2nd place, but needs to work out some holes with his swing in the minors, and Mejia is plain not ready. What a disaster the Mets have became since that explosive offense of 2006 that nearly made the WS.
A: I hope this gets done.
B: Shouldn’t the Mets be focused on signing draft picks, not being cheap owners?
Omar Minaya spend on the draft? These players aren’t the proven players that Alex Cora/GMJ/Castillo/Perez are.