It’s been a big week for extensions, as Joey Votto and Matt Cain signed historic contracts on Monday. Here are some extension updates from around the league, starting with a couple additional notes on Votto’s deal.
- John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer has the annual breakdown of Votto's deal (Twitter links). He'll earn $12MM in 2014, $14MM in 2015, $20MM in 2016, $22MM in 2017, and $25MM during each of the final six years. The club option for 2024 is worth $20MM with a $7MM buyout.
- Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com has a breakdown of Jonathon Niese's new extension with the Mets (on Twitter). The southpaw gets a $250K signing bonus with annual salaries of $769.5K, $3MM, $5MM, $7MM, and $9MM. The two club options ($10MM and $11MM) can each be bought out for $500K.
- Reds president and CEO Bob Castellini was the one driving the Votto deal, ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick tweets. Other ownership groups have some concern over the ten-year deal, Crasnick adds.
- The Rangers are discussing a long-term deal with Ian Kinsler, and while the sides are in agreement on the contract length — six years — they haven’t yet found common ground in terms of contract value, according to Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Kinsler doesn’t want to negotiate after the season begins on Friday.
- Casey Close, the agent for Zack Greinke, and Brewers GM Doug Melvin will speak tomorrow to “fill each other in on where discussions stand,” the GM told Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. Greinke had been representing himself, but his new agent will handle talks from here on.
Mike Axisa contributed to this post.
nothing good comes out of ownership getting involved in a player’s contract
Interesting that the first two years of Votto’s new deal will pay him less than he will be making next season. He will make $17M in 2013, $12M in 2014 & $14M in 2015. Then when is contract jumps up to $20M in 2016 is the same season their current TV deal expires
Greinke has an agent now?
Dude.. That’s like yesterday’s news. 😉
So 29 seconds ago.
I wouldn’t even touch an extension with Kinsler. Unless it has like reverse benchmarks that trigger money paid back to the team for games missed…
????
Last year he missed 60 games, but the last 4 years he’s played 121, 144, 103, and 155 respectively. hardly a case to be made for being injured too much..
not mention he’s averaging about 5 WAR a season. seems kinda silly to nitpick
Kinsler has been a very good player, but in his six seasons in the majors he’s averaged just 128 games. That’s 20% of the Rangers’ games since he made his debut. He was healthy last year, but he’s missed at least 32 games in four of six seasons, which isn’t a great trend.
Didn’t Rosenthal say earlier that the issue with extension talks with Kinsler was contract length, not value?
Give Votto the most money while he is in decline. All these contracts wind up giving a player negative value in the long run.
They usually seem to factor in “present” payroll flexibility and long term inflation. The problem lies in that if you do too many of these you find yourself hamstrung with too many overpaid unproductive players down the road.
I understand. Jeez, if inflation, come 7 years from now, gives these guys 25 million per, what it’s going to be in 30 years?
In my opinion, these Votto-type contracts always hurt the organization. It’s hard to be a winner when you have a healthy chunk of your payroll wrapped into one player. Cincy is a mid-market team, it’s going to hurt them more than it would to LAD or CHC.