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06-22-2005, 09:46 AM
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#1 (permalink) |
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Junkie
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Gagne getting TJ surgery
If he's lucky as hell he can start rehabbing and be back around the all star break. More likely, he's back in August/September and probably won't be that effective until 2007 (if ever again).
The Dodgers gave him a 2yr $19M contract with a $12M option for 2007 and a $1M option. I don't care how good he is when he comes back, they'd be fools to pay $12M to ANY closer. I figure he gets a max of around 30 innings next season so with the 13 he's pitched they will pay him a total of $20M for 33 innings ($465,000 per inning). Teams should never pay that much for a closer. There are so many other options available and the risk is too great. |
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06-22-2005, 12:15 PM
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#2 (permalink) |
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Psycho
Location: Greenwood, Arkansas
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I agree that paying a closer so much money is a questionable business practice. For every closer that has a long career like Mariano Rivera or Lee Smith, you have several that flame out after a few years.
That said, Gagne was at least as valuable as any other closer at the time the contract was signed, and that's the only fair way to judge if the contract was good--at the time it was signed, not after he gets hurt.
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AVOR A Voice Of Reason, not necessarily the ONLY one. |
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06-22-2005, 01:15 PM
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#4 (permalink) | |
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Junkie
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Quote:
Code:
Player Team SV SVO BS % ERA 2004 2005 Gagne LA 45 47 2 95.7% 2.19 $5,000,000 $8,000,000 Takatsu CWS 19 20 1 95.0% 2.31 $750,000 $2,525,000 Nathan Min 44 47 3 93.6% 1.62 $440,000 $2,100,000 Rivera NYY 53 57 4 93.0% 1.94 $10,890,000 $10,500,000 Benitez Fla 47 51 4 92.2% 1.29 $3,500,000 $4,771,206 Hoffman SD 41 45 4 91.1% 2.30 $2,500,000 $5,000,000 Baez TB 30 33 3 90.9% 3.57 $1,750,000 $3,750,000 Cordero Tex 49 54 5 90.7% 2.13 $2,000,000 $3,875,000 Smoltz Atl 44 49 5 89.8% 2.76 $11,666,667 $9,000,000 Mesa Pit 43 48 5 89.6% 3.25 $800,000 $2,000,000 Frasor Tor 17 19 2 89.5% 4.08 $300,000 $332,500 Kolb Mil 39 44 5 88.6% 2.98 $1,500,000 $3,400,000 Lidge Hou 29 33 4 87.9% 1.90 $360,000 $500,000 Urbina Det 21 24 3 87.5% 4.50 $4,000,000 $4,000,000 Isrin StL 47 54 7 87.0% 2.87 $7,750,000 $8,250,000 dylanmarsh: The 2001 and 2003 Yankees would disagree. Distasters like Matt Mantei, Robb Nen, and Troy Percival also show that you shouldn't devote 10% of the team's budget to a guy that throws only when the team is winning by a small margin. |
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06-22-2005, 02:39 PM
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#5 (permalink) | |
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Psycho
Location: Greenwood, Arkansas
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Quote:
In theory, if you can get someone to do just as good as the guy you have for half the money, it's a no-brainer. What the GM has to contend with is the practical effect of letting someone like Gagne go and signing an available, almost as good but half the cost, closer, then dealing with the fans and media when (a) Gagne has another knockout season and (b) the new guy turns into a John Rocker (performance wise) or a Robb Nen (healthwise). It's easier to keep the known quantity, keep the fans happy that buy those season tickets and then blame the bad luck of the injury when things don't go as planned. And the GM is going to take the path of least resistance most of the time.
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AVOR A Voice Of Reason, not necessarily the ONLY one. |
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06-22-2005, 07:09 PM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Llama
Location: Cali-for-nye-a
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It is important to realize that Gagne is the most popular Dodger player since maybe Fernando. The Dodgers always draw well, but he is a huge reason why they are now perennially 2nd in attendance to the Yankees. Thus I feel the contract is justified.
This is also his second Tommy John. His first was in '97 while in the minors. The way he recovered from that hopefully is an indication of how he'll react after this surgery.
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My name is goddfather40 and I approved this message. I got ho's and I got bitches, In C++ I branch with switches -MC Plus+ |
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06-22-2005, 08:08 PM
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#7 (permalink) |
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Psycho
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Gagne won the 2003 NL Cy Young Award, and he earned $550,000 that year. Incredibly underpaid. He went to arbitration for his salary for the 2004 year. He wanted 8 million for 2004, but was awarded 5 million. Gagne mentioned that during arbitration, the Dodgers brought up his statistics from back when he was a starter to strengthen their case. Bullshit if you ask me.
The Dodgers lost or traded Lo Duca, Beltre, Lima, Finley, and Green from last year; they would have been stupid to let Gagne go. |
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06-26-2005, 07:09 PM
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#8 (permalink) | |
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Insane
Location: Los Angeles
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Piazza and Nomo were pretty damn popular as well. They may have never reached the heights that Gagne has, but Nomomania was in full force especially his rookie year when he won ROtY. And Piazza was regarded as possibly the best hitting catcher of all time when he was still in his prime. With that said, for those of you who don't know, Gagne's surgery proved to be much better than expected and he will not be needing Tommy John surgery. However, he will still miss the rest of this season. But, it's not the end of his career, as many fans began to believe.
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To be great is to be misunderstood. -Emerson |
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06-27-2005, 11:39 AM
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#9 (permalink) | |
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Junkie
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I'm glad to see Gagne should be 100% next year, all year. It will be great to see if the DBacks can continue to be virtually the only team that gets him to blow saves. |
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06-27-2005, 02:23 PM
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#10 (permalink) | ||
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Psycho
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You didn't comment on the main idea of my post, the fact that Gagne was drastically underpaid up through his Cy Young year. It may be uncommon to spend (what some may consider) a little much for a great player to remain with a team after that player has produced wonderfully in the past, but I think it is very fair and decent. Quote:
I think you meant 1 million dollar buyout for 2007. Fools to pay 12 million? If Gagne closed out the clinching game in the World Series in 2006, I think they would happily pay Gagne 12 million to comeback. It is fair of me to speculate that he could help them win the World Series in 2006 as it is of you to calculate the price they pay per inning in the long run (after he goes down with an injury this year, obviously skewing that number in a negative way). Bottom line, he has proven to be the best closer in the Majors the last two years, and this coming from a Braves fan who would prefer to side with Smoltz if it was a stalemate. This is MLB, where salaries are outrageous. You won't be able to convince me that L.A. overpaid for a great player like Gagne after he earned less than a million and won the Cy Young Award for them a couple years back. |
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06-28-2005, 09:17 AM
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#11 (permalink) | ||
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Junkie
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His 2003 season was in line with what he should have been making at that time Going into that year, he had one good season and two crappy seasons. Relief pitchers are notoriously unreliable so you can't give a huge contract based on one year (see Beltre). Therefore, 550k was all he should have been given. Going into 2004, it was obvious that he was the real deal and therefore due more money. He didn't want to take what they offerred so he went to arbitration. Arbitration is known as a dirty deal. It's made worse because the arbitrators aren't usually baseball people also. Teams use everything they can to win their case and because a lot of not so nice things come up, they try to avoid it. Still $5M is a lot of money for a player that has been aribtration eligible two times. $12M is too much because if grossly exceeds the amounts made by other closers (except Rivera). I know Smoltz was way up there too but wasn't his contract signed when they expected him to be a starter and he only ended up as a closer because they didn't think he'd be able to put those innings in his arm? The max they should have given him was $8M/yr. |
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| gagne, surgery |
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