From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: Well paid relievers
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 16:19:13 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.045747.15614@cs.cornell.edu> tedward@cs.cornell.edu (Edward [Ted] Fischer) writes:
>
>I suppose you all know that Eckersley signed a contract extension
>Sunday.  A $750,000 signing bonus, two years at $3,375,000, and an
>option year for the A's at $4 million (with a $300,000 buyout).

>While Eckersley is arguably the best ever, he signed for a bit *less*
>than John Franco did in March.  Are we seeing salaries slip a bit,
>maybe?  Or is this merely a case of an older player preferring
>security to the risks of free agency?  (Loyalty may have played a part
>here, too.)

Eckersley was very vocal about loyalty playing a part; he said after the
signing "Who knows, if I went somewhere else, they might make me pitch more
than one inning a game" :-) I think he realizes he may very well have a shot
at the HOF (not to mention some more division titles) and he owes a great deal
of the to the way he's been handled by th A's.

>After Eckersley and Franco comes Harvey.  After that?  The fourth and
>fifth most expensive closers are Mark Davis (signed in *1990* for $13
>million/4 years) and Bobby Thigpen.  What a waste of good money!

Thigpen looks better than Davis; Thigpen had one great year where his ERA was
below 2.00 and he had 57 saves. Other than that, he's been a consistent 
~30 saves, ~3.2 ERA. Not bad, but not (IMO) $3 mil a year. Davis had 2 good
years, period. Unfortunately for the Sox, they paid him for his one great year,
rather than his more normal, not bad years. Davis was a dog before and after
San Diego.

>The Red Sox, however, may have the most expensive bullpen.  Their
>salaries in 1991 (counting a pro-rated share of signing bonuses).
>
>Danny Darwin	$3.25 million
>Jeff Reardon	$2.58 million
>Matt Young	$2.27 million
>Greg Harris	$1.30 million
>
>I don't know the full terms of their contracts, but those numbers are
>pretty impressive! :-) How many blown saves have we had to suffer? :-(

What is remarkable is that each of these guys signed with the Sox well after
their 30th birthday; Darwin - 35, Harris - 33, Reardon - 34, Young - 32. 
Young seems the most inexplicable; perhaps he HAD talent, but he was on the
DL an incredible number of times, and never put up great numbers anywhere.

(What is well and truely sad is that most of these guys would look good in a
Tiger suit.)

>It is *this* kind of spending that is a waste of money.  Not spending
>$6 million on Bonilla or $7 million on Ryne Sandberg.  Spending $9
>million on a bullpen of mediocre 35 year old relievers is *stupid*.

>Simply put, I would rather have one Bonilla than a Brunansky, a Young,
>and a Fermin, and an Espinoza.

Perhaps the answer is to try to pay a base salary, with bonuses for such things
as not going on the DL, and other incentive clauses.

But I agree, paying a productive player too much is not going to ruin the
game's financial structure; paying dead weight millions of dollars may
very well do that (on top of being just plain stupid).

Mike

(BTW, I would quibble about Bruno being on that list; he ain't great, but he's
at least producing a little, something the others you mentioned cannot claim)


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