When the day is over, I’m not really a fan of opt-out clauses in sports contract. They’re like slimy, sleazy trap doors out of contracts that professionals can claim they’re really going to commit to a team for seven years, but dude-bail after two years or five years, or whenever they’ve negotiated to have an opt-out available to them. It’s like being in a fucked-up relationship where the dude is allowed to leave after the second year scot-free, but if they pass up on that escape window, then they’re locked in for the long haul.
More often than not, we’ve seen classic examples of guys who sign 7-10 year deals, with opt-out clauses after like three years; where the fans think they’ll have a guy for 7-10 years, they’re all stoked to see him play out of his mind in year three, put up career best numbers, lead their teams deep into playoffs… and then opt the fuck out of their contracts, and then put a gun to their teams’ heads and stick them up for another lucrative long-term contract, lest they become free agents and jump to whomever else would be willing to instead.
Off the top of my head, Alex Rodriguez and CC Sabathia are prime examples of guys who have successfully parlayed the opt-out clause to perfection and bilked the New York Yankees out of more money than their original Yankee contracts were originally worth. LeBron James is a perfect recent example of a guy who has not only opted out this year, but has done it twice now, opting out of the contract he had with the Miami Heat to escape back to Cleveland, and then now opting out of his deal with the Cavaliers to go to Los Angeles.
On the flip side, there’s the hilarious example of Dwyane Wade, who opted out of a guaranteed $16 million for one year with the Miami Heat, only to discover that nobody wanted him, and then came crawling back to the Heat, where he had to sign for two more years in order to get than $16 million back.
And that’s where we get a glimpse of the unintentional greatness of the opt-out clause, because every now and then it provides the opportunity for overpaid babies we know as professional athletes to get owned. And there are fewer things I take a sadistic pleasure out of seeing than professional athletes getting owned financially.
I saw on the ticker of NFL Ocho AKA ESPN, that David Price has stated that he has no intention of opting out of his current deal with the Boston Red Sox. Upon further research into this story, there’s a lot of macho rhetoric and rationale to why he doesn’t plan on opting out, but the writing between the lines clearly reads that, he doesn’t believe anyone in baseball is going to perceive him as someone worth more than $127 million dollars, the money he’s still contractually obligated to from Boston, over the next four years.
Boil it down even further, and David Price not opting out is basically David Price admitting that he’s in the decline phase of his playing career, and it’s way too risky to walk away from a guaranteed $127 million, and no sure bet that he’ll get that much on the open market.
Render that even further, and it’s basically David Price saying “I suck.”
Granted, the impetus to stay put is no stronger than it’s ever been now, considering the absolute beating that free agents took this past baseball season’s offseason, where guys like Mike Moustakas got obliterated on the financial front, getting low-balled the shit out of because baseball teams collectively put their foot down and refused to sign absurd long-term deals with just anyone like they typically have done in the past.
But at the same time, truly elite talent, like Clayton Kershaw won’t blink twice when he will very likely opt-out of his deal with the Dodgers, likely only to re-sign a new contract with the Dodgers for more years and more money. Because he’s Clayton Kershaw, basically the best pitcher in baseball for the better part of the last decade.
The thing is, it’s not just David Price who’s in the boat of self-reflection and pride swallowing this coming off-season. The aforementioned link to David Price also details a list of players with opt-out clauses this winter, and whether or not it’s a good idea for them to opt-out or not. And I think they hit the nail on the head with all of their assessments, with Kershaw the only sure-fire lock to opt-out and succeed at getting a bigger deal out of it.
However, as for guys like David Price, Jason Heyward and Mark Melancon… opting IN to their existing deals seems like no-brainers. But by doing such, they’re passively agreeing to their rapidly declining skills and the notion that they’re simply not good enough to command more money than they’re contractually obligated to currently, and by surrendering to the opt-in, they’re all collectively agreeing, “we suck.”
And that’s the unintentional great thing about opt-out clauses. Owned.
