92.3 FM Switching to Sports in Cleveland?
July 22, 2011While We’re Waiting… No Death Penalty for OSU, Graphic Design, and Around the Farm System
July 23, 2011Yes. I’m going to keep ignoring trade rumors. There’s only so much I can write about players who aren’t on our team, considering all the interesting aspects of those who are.
Take, for instance, one Fausto Carmona. In early 2008, the Indians and Fausto agreed to what could only have been considered an immensely team-friendly contract extension. Coming off a season that saw him finish third in the AL Cy Young voting (behind teammate C.C. Sabathia), Fausto agreed to terms on a deal that would pay him on the following schedule:
YEAR | SALARY ($ million) |
2008 |
0.50 |
2009 |
2.75 |
2010 |
4.90 |
2011 |
6.10 |
2012* |
7.00 |
2013* |
9.00 |
2014* |
12.00 |
The reason the deal was so team-friendly has to do with those asterisks; those indicate a “club option” year, meaning that the Indians could choose to pay Fausto that amount or let him go. Well, sorta. We’ll get there. First, some background.
Someone asked me on twitter the other night whether I thought the Indians would pick up Fausto’s option for 2012, considering his struggles over the last several years. My immediate gut instinct was that they would. After all, $7 million isn’t a ton of money for a starting pitcher who has never had injury concerns and has some history of success. If you had to handicap his next season, you’d probably given him a non-zero chance that he could be an above average starter who could give you 200 innings. All the tools seem to be there, and for a guy like that, you typically pay more than $7 million.
Just to drive home the point, last off-season, the Blue Jays gave John Buck—he of the career .301 OBP and .241 average—$6 million per year for thee years. Aubrey Huff signed with the Giants for $11 million per year for two years, despite having an in-house replacement in Brandon Belt ready to roll. Bobby Jenks signed with the Red Sox for $12 million over two years to be a right-handed set up man.
In other words, $7 million dollars on what amounts to a one-year deal for a durable starting pitcher with some—albeit slight—upside is a pretty easy option to exercise.
But there’s something else going on here that I didn’t notice until recently. Fausto Carmona will not have accrued six years of MLB service time by the time this season is over, which means he will not be eligible for free agency even if the Indians decline his $7 million option.
What does this mean? I’m no expert on the MLB roster rules, but I’m pretty sure that the Indians could decline the option and still go to arbitration with Fausto, retaining his services but opting out of the contract. This would be a fairly rare circumstance from what I gather, but it could save the Indians some bucks in 2012 that they could use elsewhere on sprucing up the roster.
Would the front office roll the dice on a move like this? I don’t know. I think they only do it if they’re fairly certain that they can get Fausto for considerably less than the $7 million in his option clause. I also would assume that declining his 2012 option would nullify his other options, even if he were to stay on the team. I can’t say whether this is the smart move or not; there just aren’t sufficient precedents for this sort of thing.
But you can bet the front office is considering it. For a team that has to operate so close to the margins, decisions like these can be the difference between having cash on-hand to acquire players at the deadline or not. Will be interesting to watch play out.
OK. Get back to your twitter feeds. I hear Josh Willingham is doing something. Somewhere.
9 Comments
I’d say there is almost no chance they try that. The marginal savings would not be worth the lost additional team option years.
Fausto is such a strange study case. His walk rate, K/BB, GB%, SwStrk% are all as good as they have been since 2007, or better, and first pitch strike% is up too.
The main culprit this year has been awful Bases Empty/Men on Base splits. I’m almost waiting to hear that he’s been tipping his pitches out of the stretch.
Despite the huge amount of frustration he’s brought us since ’07, he still has more upside than almost any other pitcher we could spend that money on.
Do you think declining the option and going to arbitration would be a bad precedent to set as an organization? These type of deals are key for the Indians retaining their talent, and it might scare agents away from signing their clients to them in the future.
I agree with Mike. If we do that agents/players in the future will kill us for it. You can bet they will do their best to make sure that they don’t end up in the same situation.
I doubt the savings we could get from arbitration would be worth that fallout.
I agree that $7M isn’t that much for a starting pitcher, but the Indians may very well decide that they don’t need more starting pitching for ’12 and beyond. I know I’ve consider it.
Between the lively arms we have and the holes we’ll need to address, the club has to be intrigued at the possibility of spending that $7M somewhere else, especially when starting Huff over Carmona is basically push.
Arbitration would be a 15 year poison pill…every player and agent would remember it for this generation.
Pick up the option for next year. The more you look at his numbers the more you realize he has had some awful luck and just mental lapses.
The worst thing would be for him to end up in the division and beat us 4 times a year.
I’m not sure why everyone is saying that going to arbitration is going to make a big difference in how agents treat us. If they aren’t doing everything they can to get the last dollar for their client, they aren’t doing their job. They won’t give up a few dollars for their client because we were nice enough to overpay Carmona. That said, pick up the 2012 option and we’ll see next year when its next year.
@Steve – it’s not that agents won’t try to get every last dollar for their client. it is that they will be far more reluctant to sign a team-friendly deal like the one Fausto signed because they will not trust the FO (they could pull a stunt like this on their client afterall).
As many have noted, $7mil for what Fausto is (a decent if inconsistent starter) is actually not a bad deal. Now, after next year, yes we could potentially exercise the team option and offer him arbitration (hoping he walks and we get draft picks. assuming such things still exist after the CBA negotiations this offseason)
mgbode – If the agent is signing a contract that he considers team-friendly, again, he is not doing his job. Fausto got team options because pitchers are volatile. You couldn’t find a halfway decent GM that would have guaranteed those years. That was the best deal Carmona could probably get and the agent knew that the options might not get picked up. If Carmona’s agent wasnt fully aware of all the possibilities, thats not on other agents to hold against the Indians.
Pick up the damn thang( Option ), then trade him before he is valueless.. He has been a non entity since 2007. Time to part ways… C` YA` FAUSTO. Cleveland needs winners….