{"id":42599,"date":"2016-08-11T23:42:29","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T03:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42599"},"modified":"2020-07-22T23:42:40","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T03:42:40","slug":"player-b-is-a-greedy-asshole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42599","title":{"rendered":"Player B is a greedy asshole"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Baseball legalese is a funny thing.\u00a0 If a player under a contract declares retirement, they immediately forfeit the remainders of owed money on the contract.\u00a0 However if a player under a contract declares that they are not physically capable of playing baseball any further, but not actually using the terminology \u201cretirement,\u201d then technically, the team(s) responsible for the contract are still obligated to continue paying their financial obligations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Player A declares retirement, despite having one year and $12 million dollars left on his contract.\u00a0 His team is absolved of having to pay $12 million dollars, upon finalization of retirement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Player B holds a press conference to let the world know that he is physically incapable of playing baseball any further.\u00a0 His contract has 4+ years remaining on it, at an estimated annual salary of $24 million dollars, per year<\/em>.\u00a0 As he has not officially declared himself retired, the contract is legally obligated to continue to be paid out until it expires or retirement is declared.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Player A is Gil Meche<\/strong>, a mediocre pitcher who lucked into a lucrative contract with the Kansas City Royals in 2006.\u00a0 Benefitting primarily because of a weak market for pitchers, he signed a 5-year, $55 million deal that was met with boatloads of criticism and scrutiny.\u00a0 To nobody\u2019s surprise, he didn\u2019t pitch completely terribly, but not really worth the money he was being paid.\u00a0 Throughout the first four years of the contract, Meche pitched in 111 games, won 29, lost 39 and had an ERA of 4.27.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, prior to the start of the 2011 season, Gil Meche declared retirement<\/a> from baseball.\u00a0 Quick were people to point out that he still had one season left on his contract, set to make $12 million dollars.\u00a0 Meche didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 Citing shoulder pain and the belief that he was no longer earning his paycheck, there was no second-guessing, hemming or hawing over his decision.\u00a0 Meche retired, and the Royals were absolved of the $12 million dollars he was owed in 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n

Suddenly, everyone who had criticized the Royals for offering, and Meche for taking the deal had nothing bad to say.\u00a0 Bean counters were quick to lambast Meche from walking away from essentially free money, but even had to pause to acknowledge the integrity behind his move.\u00a0 Purists made Meche into something of a hero, for choosing his health, comfort and self-respect, and ultimately his family and future over another $12 million dollars on top of the $50 million+ he had already earned throughout his career.\u00a0 And the Royals themselves certainly weren\u2019t going to balk at being able to reallocate $12 million dollars to possibly more useful assets.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying Gil Meche\u2019s relinquished $12 million dollars in 2011 was the catalyst behind the Royals\u2019 2015 World Series championship, but it wouldn\u2019t be that hard to go back and see how much it did impact things like arbitration raises, placeholder free agents and other numerous little things that could have led to the team\u2019s revitalization.<\/span><\/p>\n

Player B is Prince Fielder<\/strong>, a fat* first baseman-slash-designated hitter that just declared his physical inability to continue to play baseball but isn\u2019t actually retiring so that the remainder of his contract must still be paid out<\/a>.\u00a0 Said remainder of contract is for 4-years, $96 million dollars, plus the prorated remainder of the 2016 season; a far, far<\/a> cry from the 1\/$12M that Gil Meche walked away from.<\/span><\/p>\n

*Not opinion, genuinely fact<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

But because in spite of the overly-dramatic press conference, the crocodile tears and trotting of his kids onto the stage as props, Prince Fielder didn\u2019t actually declare his retirement.\u00a0 He just stated that he was no longer capable of playing baseball.\u00a0 He stated that he was no longer capable of doing his job<\/em>.\u00a0 But because he is under contract, and he didn\u2019t technically retire, he will still be owed all $96 million dollars+ over the span of this season and the next four seasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Baseball contracts are silly like this.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not my money and I probably shouldn\u2019t really care.\u00a0 The Rangers (and Tigers), who are responsible for the salary, have the contract insured, so ultimately it\u2019s not going to hurt them that much (although most people couldn\u2019t care less about insurers, the insurance company is definitely<\/em> going to hurt however), so they aren\u2019t going to care either.\u00a0 But the principle behind it all, the lack of integrity, self-respect and the greed it symbolizes, just makes me feel disgusted with a guy like Prince Fielder.<\/span><\/p>\n

It may be insured, but the $24 million every year is still going to count against the Rangers\u2019 (and Tigers\u2019) payroll.\u00a0 The team may get large portions of it back in insurance, but that\u2019s still a lot of money that the Rangers won\u2019t<\/em> be able to use in order to get a guy like Yoenis Cespedes, or signing the team\u2019s current best player, Ian Desmond, to any sort of a long-term deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

I understand that it would be somewhat silly for a guy to voluntarily forfeit nearly $100 million dollars, especially in a dog-eat-dog world where people should try to accumulate as money much as they might need to live comfortably and securing for the future.\u00a0 But at the same time, it\u2019s not that Fielder is anything of a pauper, as he\u2019s already earned over $120 million throughout his career already.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that I guess I\u2019m one of those idiots that actually puts weight into intangible shit like self-respect, integrity, and a work ethic that wants to feel like I\u2019m earning<\/em> my money, regardless of if the amounts are too little or too much, in the perceptions of others.\u00a0 The jury is still out, but in the grand spectrum of work, Fielder is probably not going to be doing jack shit to earn his nearly $100M over the next four years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe he\u2019ll make a few appearances.\u00a0 Show up in Surprise, Arizona for some Spring Training mentoring or just to be there.\u00a0 But short of becoming the most overpaid bench coach in history, I can\u2019t imagine there\u2019s anything Prince Fielder is going to do over the next four years that\u2019s going to come close to possibly earning the amount of money he\u2019s not relinquishing by not retiring despite his inability to play baseball any further.<\/span><\/p>\n

What chaps my ass is the cheap act he\u2019s doing trying to appear all remorseful and sad that his playing days are over.\u00a0 How cavalier he\u2019s being in emphasizing the emotional, when he\u2019s probably astutely aware that he\u2019s bending someone over and taking near 100 million liberties in the cushiest severance package a baseball player could receive.<\/span><\/p>\n

4\/$96M is effectively worse than Ryan Howard\u2019s oft-lambasted 5\/$125M contract, because at least Howard occasionally played in those five years.<\/span><\/p>\n

4\/$96M is probably going to be worse than the deferred money that the Washington Nationals will owe Rafael Soriano, Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg after 2018, because unlike Fielder, two of those guys will probably still be playing; whether it\u2019s for the Nationals or not has yet to be determined, but they\u2019ll most likely still be actively earning their money in some capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n

And because you can\u2019t have a discussion about bad baseball contracts without mentioning Bobby Bonilla<\/strong>, 4\/$96M might actually be worse<\/em> than the 18\/$21M remaining on the Bonilla deal.\u00a0 The Mets losing $1.2M a year is in the grand spectrum, chump change for a baseball franchise.\u00a0 Sure, bean counters love to point out that a guy ten years removed from his playing days is still making more money than Noah Syndergaard, but $1.2M a year is a drop in the bucket for a baseball team.<\/span><\/p>\n

$24M however, that\u2019s superstar money.\u00a0 Albert Pujols in his prime didn\u2019t even make $24M a year, until he was on his decline.\u00a0 $24M is what you pay your team\u2019s most valuable players, for actually playing baseball, whether it\u2019s good or not.\u00a0 And paying $24M for absolutely nothing<\/em>, for four years<\/em>, is devastating to a franchise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seriously, I\u2019m never not going to laugh about the Bonilla deal, but the Fielder non-retirement is way<\/em> worse than Bonilla ever could dream to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

Baseball contracts are long beyond the point of where they could be called out of control.\u00a0 The fact that they\u2019re guaranteed, unlike in the NFL, cultivates a culture where players need only to work as hard as they can to get multi-year deals, to where they can coast throughout the life of them, and only turn up the heat when free agency looms.\u00a0 And even if they underperform, or get hurt, it\u2019s okay, because they\u2019re still guaranteed to get paid.\u00a0 Or, if you\u2019re Prince Fielder and become physically incapable of playing, it\u2019s still okay, because he\u2019s contractually guaranteed to get paid!<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t realize I\u2019d have so much to say about the topic, but what it all boils down to is the fact that I\u2019m disgusted with a guy like Prince Fielder, who has already made a fuckton of money throughout his career, and doesn\u2019t have the self-respect or integrity to give a little something back to the game that has made his life, and retire.\u00a0 Instead, he settles with greed and loafing, and is content to not earn his keep and not earn the money that he\u2019s obligated to, because it\u2019s on a contract.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in 2006, I was a detractor of Prince Fielder, because my close friend being a huge Nationals fan was pulling hard for Ryan Zimmerman to win Rookie of the Year.\u00a0 But there was no denying the talent and the amusement of watching a fat blob like Fielder who could still hit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However now, ten years later, I legitimately dislike Prince Fielder, because I just think he\u2019s a spineless, greedy, still-fat, piece of shit that has no integrity or appreciation of the game that made him who he is.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baseball legalese is a funny thing.\u00a0 If a player under a contract declares retirement, they immediately forfeit the remainders of owed money on the contract.\u00a0 However if a player under a contract declares that they are not physically capable of playing baseball any further, but not actually using the terminology \u201cretirement,\u201d then technically, the team(s) … Continue reading Player B is a greedy asshole<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,79,45,120,91,49],"class_list":["post-42599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-baseball","tag-cashmoney","tag-fail","tag-fat-people","tag-pf","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42601,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42599\/revisions\/42601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}