Feb. 18: Despite Davis’ comments, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle writes that the slugger isn’t likely to sign at quite such an affordable rate. A deal for Davis would likely need to reach three years and $45MM, she notes, pointing out that the potential addition of the designated hitter to the National League would only further boost Davis’ market value if it comes to fruition in the near future.
Ultimately, a contract for Davis is his own decision, of course, but it stands to reason that his representatives and the players’ union would strongly dissuade Davis from taking any sort of discount on an extension.
Feb. 17: Extension talks between Khris Davis and the A’s have been taking place for over a year, and the slugger reiterated to media members (including MLB.com’s Jane Lee) on Sunday that his desire is to remain in Oakland. To this end, Davis is also willing to take a salary cut to make an extension happen, telling Lee that he would be willing to accept $10MM per year if the A’s were to extend through at least the 2021 season.
This would represent a pretty significant salary reduction for Davis, who is set to earn $16.5MM in 2019 after he and the Athletics avoided arbitration by settling on a contract in Davis’ final year of arb-eligibility. Davis, however, recognized that his market could be limited in free agency next winter. He’ll be 33 years old on Opening Day of the 2020 season, and he doesn’t offer a well-rounded game — beyond his power bat, Davis is a sub-standard baserunner and defender, and best suited for a DH spot at this stage in his career. Though he has been a solidly above-average hitter overall (career 125 wRC+) thanks to his huge power, Davis also isn’t a big on-base threat or known to post a high batting average, as per his well-documented streak of four straight seasons with a .247 batting average.
“I don’t want to break the bank. I want to be happy playing baseball. I’m not trying to max out the dollars,” Davis said. “$16 million, this is the top for me. I don’t want more than that. I’ll probably have to take a cut, and that’s fine, as long as I’m here.”
It’s an unusually public stance for a player to take, and perhaps one that Davis’ agent and/or the MLBPA might have concerns about given how the union is facing a league-wide slowdown on free agent salaries. From Oakland’s perspective, the club may feel that it has enough leverage to perhaps avoid an extension whatsoever, taking the gamble that Davis might still be eager to re-sign at a discount after the season, even if he posts more big numbers. Extending Davis even at a modest two-year deal for around $20MM through 2021 still carries some risk for the A’s now, as a lower-payroll team like the Athletics can hardly afford even a $10MM payroll albatross should Davis’ production fall off.
Still, in a vacuum, Davis’ comments aren’t too far removed from any highly-paid veteran player acknowledging that their next contract will be of lesser value, or a player who prioritizes a certain team or playing for a contender over a wider scope of free agent choices. Davis’ home run totals have also allowed him to capture $32MM over his three arbitration years, so he is already more than secure financially. As Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle noted earlier this winter, contract length “is far more important to Davis than the annual value of the contract,” and Davis told reporters today that he hopes to keep wearing an A’s jersey for “at least three more years.”
“It’s not a good thing being a free agent right now,” Davis said. “I’m already 31. I don’t know if I’m too old. There’s a lot of things that run through my head.“
Yeah, this extension definitely won’t happen.
Um, ok.
Davis understands the market very well. Power hitters with low average and OBP struggle finding good contracts on the FA market. He is well liked in Oakland, and if he wants to keep playing there with secured years at a discount, the A’s will make this happen. Contrary to the belief that the A’s are cheap, they can easily afford a 3/30 contract with him. The only guy on the books is Piscotty, and he is making only around 7M per year for like 4 more seasons. This is so doable.
6.8/10. A new personal best!
Hello troll. How are you doing this fine day?
3.1/10
Don’t even want to have a friendly conversation? Ok troll.
Now, if you’d excuse me, I have to get back to doing real work driving tractors and feeding millions of mouths in the world with the food MY company grows, but you keep spewing feces everywhere on this site.
2.1/10
100% DAMAGE CONTROL from his agent.
With all respect, this “as a lower-payroll team like the Athletics can hardly afford even a $10MM payroll albatross should Davis’ production fall off” is an absolute fiction.
Management may CHOOSE to set budgets that make $10m expensive, but they can absolutely afford it.
Maybe it’s time for baseball writers to call ownership on that simple reality in each and every column?
This post x100. If you own a big league club n 10 million is an albatross… I suggest selling the team. The fans deserve better
100x false. They have to worry about buying a stadium before they can worry about paying aging players.
This is so true. Athletics have much more to worry about than retaining Khris Davis.
Lol, stadium funds and player funds don’t have anything to do with each other. The city they move to will foot the vast majority of that bill via taxes.
DTD – Exactly!
You mean the tax payers will foot the bill not the city. The las vegas property owners will be paying over a $1000 each in higher taxes for the raiders. Think about that $1000 of your hard earned money going to a rich team owner with 0 tickets or anything. Vegas property owners are fools for this.
Wrong. The proposed stadium is going to be privately funded. The A’s gave 3×33 to Billy Butler so they could easily offer that again.
HELLLOOOOOOO LAS VEGAS!!!
Ding ding ding we have a winner
You could probably pay twice what you pay for your phone, your TV, your car, etc.
Would you?
You need a better plan than hoping people will pay you more than they have to pay out of the goodness of their heart. They rarely will.
The MLBPA bought into trickle down economic theory and sold it to their membership and now they are paying the price.
If $10m per through 2021 does it, the A’s would be fools not to do it. The $6m average savings in 2019 could be used to try to again snare a wild card thus year. Or it lowers the average for the other two years to $7m per. Unlike most other .250 or less power hitters, he’s been consistent. Given the realistic aternatives, the risk seems minimal.
His 2019 salary is settled. He was referring to 2020-21.
I’m sure they could work something out to include 2019.
They could extend him through 2022 and pay him 8 per year for 20-22. That would basically be a 4/40 deal.
If his contract is
‘19-$16mil
‘20-$8mil
‘21-$8mil
‘22-$8mil
Not only do I think he’d probably accept that, but he would never become a financial burden to the team.
If he has a down year I’m sure you could easily trade a guy hitting 40+ hrs a year on an $8mil aav contract.
Thanks. $16m he’ll never see again and he could be released before 2020 if he has a bad year. I was looking at averaging all years to $10m per.
People seem to forget the A’s have offered big contracts to big free agents in the past but were turned down. Encarnacion for example. They are not the Yankees or Dodgers, but they will try if it looks good.
The A’s will offer a deal when they believe the player can still be flipped should they be out of it at the deadline.
That’s your opinion. No facts were presented.
Davis gets “it”; he understands happiness isn’t about the highest salary one can achieve. I applaud his candor for location over money…
Agreed. I love players that love the team and love the game.
Unfortunately the team can use this in their favor. Davis will have an extremely limited market to begin with. Only AL teams are going to have interest. Many of them prefer to use a rotating DH at this point as well. Unfortunately the A’s don’t really need to give him an extension. However, it’ll be tricky next offseason if they don’t as they’ll have to decide whether to offer a QO but I highly doubt they would.
I’m not sure Davis’ value on the open market would go for more than 10-12 per for 3 years max. Now, If NL teams adopt the DH between now and then things look better for his market.
Ohhhh ya…..can you see Davis in homer havens like Philly or Cinnci?…..He could be the “old-style” DH, the lumbering HR hitter kept around for his bat….and he seems to be in better shape than Big Sloppy was at that age….
By the sounds of it with the extremely small amount he’s willing to be extended right now there’s literally zero chance he’s gets a QO. He’d accept it in a heart beat even if he hits 50 bombs with his limited market, limited skill set, and age.
Agreed. Don’t think this market yields him more than 3/36 even without the QO. Nick Castellanos will be a FA as well. Davis has more pop but castellanos has age on his side and he has quite a bit of power himself.
He is taking a Tony Gwynn approach. I love it. Take less to stay.
Seeing as how the Athletics were finalists for Edwin Encarnacion a few offseasons ago, they’d seem crazy to not at least try and hold Khris Davis to their (young, affordable, very good) core that is ready to compete immediately and for the foreseeable future.
I won’t pretend they have an answer to their rotation depth this season, besides Luzardo if they call him up, but a three or four year extension for Davis at around $10MM annually shouldn’t do much besides make their offense better.
I hope they get it done. I’d like to be rooting for them while the Mariners do whatever they’re doing for the next few seasons.
The MLBPA must be in complete apoplexy over this one.
For all his warts, Davis is worth more than 10M a year. And we’re beginning to see exactly how eliminating Revenue Sharing will affect the A’s plans. Time for the ownership to get a new park (with the promise of RS being re-instated), or “sell” the team (aka take whatever is offered, and get lost). .
Pay attention Rays’ fans. Ask not for whom the bell tolls……
They did NOT eliminate revenue sharing. Not sure where you got your info.
They’re getting phased out of it by 2020 or 2021. Not sure where you’re getting your info 🙂 literally took me 2 seconds to Google it
Right….being phased out…affects any long term deal….you OK?
If the A’s owners won’t do 4/40 on Davis then they need to sell the team.
I think Davis’ comments are probably welcome by the Union…if he openly says he’ll take $10 million a year, then Oakland doesn’t sign him, it makes for a good case for collusion
Since when is $10M a low paid employee? We’ve come accustomed to these absurd salaries that anything under $1M is chump change.
Thank you. Sanity does prevail here…..somewhat.
What Davis is willing to play for is between him and the team. He’s made over 17 million so far and is financially set for life. If he’s happier taking less on an extension to remain in Oakland than it isn’t for the union or the peanut gallery to disparage that. His life, his choice.
Whatever happened to the freedom of will to run one’s life as you see fit? The class envy of the collective is running amok. All this BS about the greed of ownership to make a profit running a business, when the minimum wage is 500K is ludicrous. Oh the humanity of this oppression and slavery.
Slave wages sure pay better than it used to.
When people say the word “greed”, they really mean “anyone that makes more than I do”. Which is in and of itself greedier than any business owner has ever been.
So tired of hearing fans fall into the the trap thinking that the owners are greedy each organization has tons of expenses from multiple minor league teams to international commitments labor force at every stop along the way these players/agents are ridiculous in what they ask for when 10 million is viewed as easy pickings something is wrong
I wonder, would a Davis extension he’s looking for just be for ’20 & ’21 since his ’19 salary is already set at $16.5 MM? Or, is he willing to rip up that contract and sign a 3/30 in its place? That could be a/the major sticking point.
The MLBPA likely cringed at hearing/reading his willingness to take less money. Verlander probably isn’t happy either. Now and then we get a player willing to do something similar to this and it cause a mini controversy.
Also, it’s very likely that Davis has been smart with his earnings thus far and has seen to it that he’s financially set for life, instead of blowing it on mindless trinkets.
He comments were meant as a free agent, and he mentioned playing for 3 more seasons, so I’m assuming 2020-21.
How does this relate to Verlander in particular? Would I expect Verlander’s next contract to be at a lower price than his current? Yeah! Will the team signing him be expecting his performance to decline? Yeah! Its true of any pitcher in their late thirties.
Billy Butler signed for 3/33. Start with something like that.
Once again, ownerships refusal to spend in FA pays off
Charles Finley, advocating for the owners at the very beginning, wanted every player to be a FA every year. With no scarcity, there would be nothing to drive up the prices artificially. With more teams rotating at DH, and few players making it their position of choice, there is no scarcity.
Who brainwashed this guy? Needs to talk to his brother from another mother Chris Davis. Dude should be getting paid. A’s dont make the wildcard without his bat in the lineup.
The A’s try to portray themselves as a small-market team while operating in the number eight media market along with the San Francisco Giants across the bay. A’s owner John Fisher is a billionaire and he will stand to make a fortune in capital gains when he eventually sells the team.
The A’s won 97 games in 2018 yet were near the bottom in attendance. The stadium and its location were two reasons but constantly trading away favorite players who fans closely follow is another reason. Kind of hard to develop a team following when your favorites keep leaving.
> the number eight media market
… with only one big newspaper and a limited sportsradio market, both of which have a decades-long history of favoring the Giants over the A’s, regardless of win-loss record.
They’re not just dealing with a bad stadium. They had a _revenue sharing deal_ with their radio “flagship”, so the more A’s talk, the more money would have been made.
HOWEVER, the station showed no interest at all in promoting the team outside of pre- & post-game shows, regardless of how well the A’s were doing and the giants WEREN’T. The hosts from 6am to 6pm regularly slagged on the A’s at every opportunity, while drooling over anything giants-related.
The prime example, and I’m not exaggerating, was “_That doesn’t really count as a no-hitter_ for Manaea, let’s talk about Brandon Belt’s ‘historic’ 21-pitch pop-out like giggling imbeciles for the next 6 hours!”
C’mon, Khris Davis old at 31??? Age is so overrated!!!
when you look at Kendrys Morales contract or EEs, 10M a year for Davis is not a stretch by any means. if OAK doesnt want to pay him he’ll find a home in the AL at that price. the upside for him is in striking a deal now he stays in OAK.
If he’s willing to accept that.
3/$39M deal
2019 – $2.5M signing bonus and $16.5M salary
2020 – $10M
2021 – $10M – age 33 season
Full NTC to all 29 other clubs.
A’s should be all over that, if he’s really willing to sign that cheap.
such an underrated player, if the NL allowed a DH, he’d have way more suitors if he were to be traded or leave Oakland.
I give Davis a lot of credit. The rules are what they are, he understands his value, he’s smart and he’s humble. I hope they work it out.
I don’t think the market will be all that much better for him just because NL teams would have the DH. A lot of teams would have more use as it is, but the strategy could shift as well. You could get a lot more teams putting more emphasis on players who can field a position as well that want it so they can use the DH spot to give people rest from the field but leave them in the lineup. There’ll always be teams that want that power DH who hits the long ball, but I see a lot of teams being more interested in super utilities/reserve outfielders with the more DH. Plus players who are all bat are easy to come by. I think he’d end up in 1-2 year pacts consistently if he commands 12+ a year.
If the NL adopts the DH that’ll be another 15 teams who need a DH. Some will prefer to rotate guys or have a decent in house candidate but that will at minimum give him say 5 additional teams who would be looking at his services. Another 5 teams is another 5 teams. That’ll drive his price his up. It’s not going to go through the roof but I doubt he’d have any problems finding that 3/40 if the NL has a DH.
There will be more teams with a DH spot, yes, but that doesn’t mean they’ll all be looking for that power only DH type. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if having a DH would have seen the Brewers give Moustakas a longer term contract and perhaps seen them sign Marwin Gonzalez as well. In their case, say they’d have done that. They’d have Moustakas who can play 3rd, could have still tested him at 2nd. And if that worked out, had him at 3rd/2nd, Shaw at 3rd/2nd, Gonzalez at basically every position, Arcia at SS, an outfield of Braun/Cain/Yelich with Thames available for corner outfield/1B. That would give them so much flexibility, they’d be able to keep whoever they wanted in the lineup as much as they wanted without having a true bat only person in the lineup and without blocking their top 2b prospect from the bigs. Plus, much like the shift in pitcher utilization and the beginning of the “opener” phase, I truly think more and more teams will change how they use/view the DH spot. So like I said, technically, more teams could be in on him, but I don’t think it’d guarantee him 15 more teams in any way because I don’t think there will be 15 more teams looking for that bat only DH. Look at Nelson Cruz’s market. He’s a long established force with the bat. Yet he was connected to so few teams. Yes, part of it was because so many teams already had their primaries at DH penciled in, but also because so few wanted to guarantee him all their DH at bats. Plus Bat first/only players aren’t hard to find. There’s several people can take low gambles on. There’s also teams that could possibly want to use it as a chance to do something like the Red Sox and carry a third person who can play catcher. It’d mean 15 more teams would have a new roster flexibility, but due to spending constraints and the new ways teams are coming up with things, I’d say he’d have maybe 5 more teams viably in the mix. Because NL owners haven’t wanted a DH for a reason. And I could be wrong, but I do think many of them would rather let their managers adapt new approaches to lineup construction than just throw money at a guy who is only good at the long ball.
But yes, with the NL having the DH spot, and honestly without, he could even still find it easy to get 3/40. However, with the shifting of times, he could even get offers of 2/40. My main, long winded point really, is that because of how common bat only people are, changing of rosters, the straying away of longer term contracts and more willingness to pay people more per year on shorter term ones, is that people like Davis may find it either difficult to get 3 guaranteed years and will probably see themself more in the 2 year offers. Which, I acknowledge, could even be in the 2/40 range. I just don’t think he’ll have 15 more teams actually in on him if he hits free agency after 2019 and MLB announces the NL DH for 2020.
I hope we never see a DH in the NL less inner league league games would be a also nice to see
…so would mandatory punctuation.
Bryce Harper is signing with the Oakland A’s. They’re the unknown team and Billy Bean stated last year that they’re done with the rebuilding and looking to win after so many years of budgeting very conservatively . Oakland is working on a 13 year deal of $400,000,000 including options. Harper will be the anchor for the A’s going forward looking to fill seats in the new stadium as well.
Sammy Davis had a net worth of about $5 million and he has more name recognition than Khris.
That being true, being that outside of A’s fans and Brewers fans, only baseball fans that truly pay attention to the league as a whole really know him, the only thing that matters is how baseball execs/owners/managers know of him. They’re going to say “This guy can bring 30-40 HR’s to the lineup.” Whether or not their fans know who he is won’t factor unless he tries to command the money of someone with name recognition. However, unless he and his agent are crazy, I think they’re both aware that he’s not going to get 30 mil/yr.