Quick Hits: Ellsbury, Orioles, Rockies, Vogt

Haha yeah. They’ll see if Cespedes is injured or just playing hooky by giving him a deal like this: We will give you $32.4M a season. BUT. You have to show up for Spring Training without any injuries or physical fitness issues related to your ranch or even training….Or you don’t collect that money. BUT. You can still participate and if you do and we clear you or prove your injuries weren’t sustained doing dumb stuff [implying life more concentrated without baseball than within] you can stay on the team until we reach Spring Training games. Then you receive another bonus. Opening Day Roster? Another Bonus. But basically he would literally have to play and show up and participate and suit up etc. just to collect the kind of paycheck he’s accustomed to and probably thinks he still deserves if he was to play.

I know it does not work like that and cannot work like that. I know that’s kind of how the NFL works. I’m not saying that that kind of contract is necessary. But, just like when some guys have contract clauses that offer the team a cheaper option if a known potential or historic injury pops up and they wind up on the DL/IL for too long, etc. the team gets a cheaper option if the player fails to perform due to, well, themselves.

I just think it’d be interesting to see what might happen instead, if say, players like Cespedes or Ellsbury or someone else with long injury histories on a massive long term dealswere to trigger a clause in that contract, which converted their remaining salaries to incentives that basically forced them to make more of an effort to return from the IL and be productive team members of the team, would they suddenly return?

I understand that: A) the MLBPA would never stand for such a contract. They have rules about incentive structures, yes? and B) Insurance covers the bulk of these deals and I know there are cases like Prince Fielder where injuries, mobility if not life threatening injuries at that, legitimately take careers like Fielder’s and kibosh those contracts’ value. I also understand some teams sign guys to like 6, 7, 8, years knowing the contracts might represent dead weight and be flipped by the last few seasons or if the team implodes that it’ll get flipped somehow within just a few seasons. I know that happens. I even know some guys try their hardest and cannot for the life of them get past some nagging injuries and the team releases them begrudgingly and it’s a mutually painful but understood parting.

That said, I don’t understand the iron clad payments to players that seemingly abandon their jobs, unless it’s an unwritten rule that as part of managing baseball clubs, you’re just gonna have some contracts that are very expensive and utterly useless and that’s why Draft Picks are so valuable and Draftee bonuses are becoming so hefty…? For mitigation?

When Dave Chappelle bailed on The Chappelle Show for I suppose legitimate mental health issues, he didn’t get to keep collecting and cashing the checks that would total that $50M deal he signed, which was only for two *seasons* and so in these terms lets think of individual episodes delivered or not as games played or on the active roster, etc. anyway! He had to deliver episodes to receive his paychecks. No episodes, no paychecks… Only seems fair, right?