Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Chasin' Jason: Schmidt's Price Tag Increases

If the Dodgers are serious in their pursuit of Jason Schmidt, they had better move quickly, as well as bring the briefcase of money that they were going to pay to JD Drew. SI.com is reporting that the Cubs are ready to unload $45M for three years of Jason Schmidt. ESPNEWS tonight said it was only $44M, but hey, who's counting?

Schmidt had a respectable 2006 WHIP of 1.26 (#20 in the NL) and 7.59 K/9 (again #20 in the NL), but walked 80 people (#11 in the NL) with a 11-9 record that looked even worse in person. He may have been nails back in 2003-2004, but he does not appear to be the same pitcher today. But in this market, apparently that's good enough for a ~50% raise ($10.5M salary in 2006).

If Schmidt ends up being the latest addition to the Cubs, he should at least check out the perks negotiated by potential teammate Alfonso Soriano, who recently signed the fifth-largest contract in baseball history but made sure that there were extra benefits besides the paltry eight-year, $136M salary. Like a suite for all road trips (perfect for cultivating team camaraderie!). And performance incentives out the wazoo. And six tickets for each home game, including spring training (wouldn't want to slum on StubHub.com for those!). Guess this Onion article wasn't all that far off base.

UPDATE: Now the Cubs say they didn't offer $45M to Schmidt after all. Maybe tomorrow, they'll retract the Soriano deal, too. Idiots.

1 comments:

Orel said...

"Paltry." Nice!