Felix Hernandez Extended: 7 years $175 Million

[burnzy24]

Glad to see him stay with Seattle. Is now the highest paid pitcher ever. http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/07/felix-hernandez-mariners-on-verge-of-a-175-million-contract-extension/

[nate82]

Glad to see him stay with Seattle. Is now the highest paid pitcher ever. http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/07/felix-hernandez-mariners-on-verge-of-a-175-million-contract-extension/

 

Even with being the highest paid pitcher in the game right now Felix actually got less than what he would have gotten in FA. $200m+ is probably what Felix would have got in FA.

[Roderick]

Glad to see him stay with Seattle. Is now the highest paid pitcher ever. http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/07/felix-hernandez-mariners-on-verge-of-a-175-million-contract-extension/

 

Even with being the highest paid pitcher in the game right now Felix actually got less than what he would have gotten in FA. $200m+ is probably what Felix would have got in FA.

 

Yeah, he would have gotten more than $25M per year, but I don't know if he would have gotten $28M per year. He gave them some discount, but you also have to figure they threw out his old contract, so that is another $6M extra he wouldn't have had going into free agency. I would have done the same thing if I was him. Take the contract now and don't risk an injury and you don't have to move.

[Invader3K]

Hernandez has apparently said in the past that he wanted to stay in Seattle, so I guess this proves it.

 

Just another reason why the Brewers won't be signing Gallardo long term, though.

[Ennder]

Some team would have been completely ripped off in FA so probably good that he kept pitching where he is.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Hernandez has apparently said in the past that he wanted to stay in Seattle, so I guess this proves it.

 

Just another reason why the Brewers won't be signing Gallardo long term, though.

 

Yeah Gallardo is as good as gone when his contract is up. The way these contracts are trending, Gallardo himself may be getting $25 million when the time comes.

[brewcrewdue80]

It's amazing to think Felix is only 26! Good deal for him and the Mariners. Gallardo just became a much higher valuable trade bait. I guarantee you the Yankees had already put Felix on their team the year he went FA. This just ended that dream. Verlander will be dumb to take a contract extension over becoming a FA now. No doubt now he'll be in the 30mil/yr payday with Felix gone.

[Thurston Fluff]

Man that's a long time to pay a pitcher that much. I know CC got that many years and it proved to be worth it but that is a huge risk. I guess he is the main draw on a pretty bad team so some of that is recouped by name recognition but still. Long contracts to pitchers just seem like a bad idea to me.

[Warning Track Power]

I love Yo but I don't think I would sign him to anything north of Weaver's deal (5 years $85mm). If he is willing to re-sign for that I say keep him. If he wants 5 years, $100+, I say trade him after the season.

[logan82]

I don't really see how this contract is a hometown discount. They may have got a year or two less but they sure paid enough yearly. Tied for 4th largest dollars by year. Pays him till his mid 30's.

[PrinceFielderx1]

I don't really see how this contract is a hometown discount. They may have got a year or two less but they sure paid enough yearly. Tied for 4th largest dollars by year. Pays him till his mid 30's.

 

It makes him the highest paid pitcher, right? No way this is a discount. You pay these players the money and they will stay.

[Baldkin]

You gotta remember, 2/3rds of this deal are for Felix Hernandez, and 1/3rd is for Larry Bernandez.

 

What a deal. How can Seattle still afford the rest of their roster behind him?

[Ennder]

Not only is this the highest salary of any pitcher it was buying out 2 years he was already under contract which makes it even less of a home town deal. The actual extension is 5 years for a little over $135M or $27M+ per year.

[logan82]

$27m would be 3rd highest.

 

Per Cot's

 

Average annual value

The highest-paid players in baseball history, by average annual value:

1. Roger Clemens, $28,000,022 (2007)

2. Alex Rodriguez, $27,500,000 (2008-17)

3. Alex Rodriguez, $25,200,000 (2001-10)

4. Ryan Howard, $25,000,000 (2012-16)

. . Josh Hamilton, $25,000,000 (2013-17)

. . Felix Hernandez, $25,000,000 (2013-19)

7. Zack Greinke, $24,500,000 (2013-18)

8. CC Sabathia, $24,400,000 (2012-16)

9. Cole Hamels, $24,000,000 (2013-18)

. . . Cliff Lee, $24,000,000 (2011-15)

. . . Albert Pujols, $24,000,000 (2012-21)

12. Prince Fielder, $23,777,778 (2012-20)

[TURBO]

I would view it as a hometown discount if he would have gotten more money on the open market.

 

In this case, it appears he would have gotten another 25 million had he gone for 200 mil.

 

I can totally see how this would be considered a hometown discount

 

On a sidenote, isn't it great that 3 of the top 12 players on the list above bolted Milwaukee for the cash...

 

 

Yes, I know Greinke was traded, but could have come back and signed at a "discount"...

[monty57]

This is all the more reason why we need to strengthen our farm system so we can have good players come up who we can sign to Lucroy-type deals. That's really the only way I see us maintaining long-term success. We obviously can't compete on the open market for top-tier guys, and playing the "window" strategy has left us with a bottom-10 farm system and an aging core of expensive players who will mostly be gone in a year or two.

[PrinceFielderx1]

Turbo,

 

You can say that every player that signs a deal prior to FA could have gotten more and is a discount, but the fact is it's market rate for someone in his position. He's now the highest paid pitcher in the MLB.

[Ennder]

I dunno. I look at that list and just see a lot of wasted money on bad contracts more than anything that makes me think the Brewers 'can't compete'. I'll be shocked if any of those open contracts return value in any way. Cliff Lee would be the one that might. ARod's first one probably did.

 

Good trades and smart drafting along with aggressive extensions to young talent seem to be the way to build teams now. FA is usually just a disaster.

[MJLiverock]

Some big market teams though have piles of money and what is a crippling contract to the Brewers is a minor annoyance to them. At some level these teams have their young talent, their scouting in every foreign land set up, and still have a boatload of money to spend. Teams like the Brewers aren't going to trade or sell their cost controlled talent to them and money in the bank doesn't win championships or make fans happy so they may as well spend it, because next year another pile of cash will roll in and a few contracts will drop off.

 

Regarding Hernandez's deal, Seattle's TV contract expires in 2015 and is expected to increase dramatically, probably a double from whatever it is at now and locking up their biggest star who also happens to play the most premium paid position on the diamond may not be so bad.

[xisxisxis]

I know we are Brewer fans, but Hernandez and Gallardo shouldn't be in the same sentence unless Felix is first and Yo is last and "is a much better pitcher than" is in between. Hernandez is a true top of the rotation elite pitcher and Gallardo is a very nice #2 starter. Any team that is foolish enough to think they are in the same category deserves to be hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole.

[monty57]

I dunno. I look at that list and just see a lot of wasted money on bad contracts more than anything that makes me think the Brewers 'can't compete'. I'll be shocked if any of those open contracts return value in any way. Cliff Lee would be the one that might. ARod's first one probably did.

 

Good trades and smart drafting along with aggressive extensions to young talent seem to be the way to build teams now. FA is usually just a disaster.

 

 

I agree with you on the final two lines, but right now the only guys worth even exploring an extension to are Segura and Peralta, and they aren't really guys to build a team around, and neither has proven much at the MLB level.

 

My "can't compete on the open market for top-tier guys" line meant that the Brewers are losing a lot of talent over the next few seasons, and they aren't going to sign a Prince Fielder/Josh Hamilton type player to make up for the hitting losses, nor will they sign a Zack Greinke/Felix Hernandez-type to make up for the probable loss of Gallardo. Any FA's they sign will be role-player types, which is fine when you've got a good team, but not fine when they're expected to be "the guy."

 

Over the next couple of seasons, the Brewers don't have the prospects to fill in the holes for the guys they're losing, nor to make trades like they did for Greinke and Marcum. They refuse to trade anyone good until they've only got a couple of months left on their contract, so I don't see how we're going to have a very good team in a couple of years unless a lot of our prospects play a lot better than the scouts seem to think they will.

 

A lot can change over two or three years, but the Brewers aren't making it easy to predict a bright future. I kind of feel the opposite of how I felt when Weeks, Fielder, Hardy, etc were in the minors. At that time, I knew the MLB team was bad, but a promising future was close at hand. Now I see a team trying desparately to squeak into the playoffs one more time as the guys who made the team good gradually leave for greener pastures, while the Brewers get nothing in return. It's kind of like watching a ship slowly sink, with a captain more interested in swabbing the deck then repairing the holes.

 

Maybe I'm just too down on the system due to unfavorable pre-season prospect reviews (generally saying a lot of "fringe MLB"-type talent with no stars). Hopefully some good outings by our "young" guys (Fiers, Henderson, Rogers, etc aren't spring chickens) at both the MLB and minor league levels will calm my jitters.

[danzig6767]

I dunno. I look at that list and just see a lot of wasted money on bad contracts more than anything that makes me think the Brewers 'can't compete'. I'll be shocked if any of those open contracts return value in any way. Cliff Lee would be the one that might. ARod's first one probably did.

 

Good trades and smart drafting along with aggressive extensions to young talent seem to be the way to build teams now. FA is usually just a disaster.

 

Yea, it's amazing how many 6-10 year contracts at huge money which have been given out over the last few years.

 

The odds sure seem more likely that most of these contracts will end up as dead money on the back end of these deals. When decline and/or injuries strike as these players get in their 30's, you'll have multiple teams paying guys 20-25 million a year to be pretty average players or injury messes like A-Rod currently is.

[MJLiverock]

With 7% salary inflation (which is also close to the annualized TV contract money expected after the current jump is done) that $25 million contract in 10 years is like a $12.7 million contract today and will likely represent less than 10% of payroll for teams like the Angels, Dodger, Yankees, Cubs payroll in 10 years, just a a $12.7 MM deal today isn't a big deal to those teams. A $150MM payroll today could very well be approaching $300MM in 10 years at the expected inflation rates for top tier revenue teams.

[monty57]

I think even bigger than the money is the expectation that a pitcher will remain healthy for seven years. One TJ surgery and a season or two are quickly erased. At $25MM/season, that's a tough pill to swallow, even at "real" (inflation-adjusted) rates. One rotator cuff injury, and you may have just eaten $175MM.

 

That said, MJLiverock is correct that in inflationary environments, long-term fixed payments are the way to go. I'd just rather the Brewers fix their payments into Lucroy-type deals and let others sign the biggest-money deals. Of course, if you're going to do that, it's probably wise to occasionally be willing to trade good players away before their contracts run out.

[logan82]

I think even bigger than the money is the expectation that a pitcher will remain healthy for seven years. One TJ surgery and a season or two are quickly erased. At $25MM/season, that's a tough pill to swallow, even at "real" (inflation-adjusted) rates. One rotator cuff injury, and you may have just eaten $175MM.

Insurance.