Rangers release Josh Hamilton. Wow. I can't recall a year that I've seen so many former superstars forced out of baseball. Hope this wasn't because he relapsed.
We should be very grateful we did not signed Heyward for $20M+ a year. Yikes.
The combined failure of the Alex Wood/HO trade has led the Braves to spend 18 million a year on Kemp for the next 3 seasons. That with Markakis has the Braves paying 29 million a year for two OF spots to combine for 1 WAR at the present time. Hopefully that will improve over the next two years. So while you may be grateful that we aren't paying Heyward 20M+(ignoring the good chance of him actually rebounding after a horrible year) how do you feel about our current situation in LF and RF where their combined efforts is a massive overpay.
3/26 is the added cost of Kemp when factoring in HO's sunk cost. But that's still money paid. The Braves will pay Matt Kemp 18 million next season. So it's not really about this move per say as I feel it has a decent chance to make something good about a bad situation (HO) but more in line with the overall use of the Braves money.
The Cubs are paying Heyward over $28M next year (provided he doesn't opt out, which he obviously will not). He can then opt-out after that year if he's significantly better, but he'd be forfeiting another $28M in 2018, which he probably won't do because no one will pay him more than that. Then the Cubbies are on the hook for $20-22M until 2023.
So yeah, I'd take the short-term bad contracts over that.
Oh, right. It's still not a long time. Not nearly the debacle paying Heyward $20-28M per year until 2023 could be. It's apples to peach rings. We can take those contracts while rebuilding, they aren't long-term. Heyward's is until 2023. And for a team with our payroll, paying a player who's as shaky on offense as Heyward is over $20M until 2023 is a bad gamble.
Unless this is just a bad season and Heyward returns to the ~120 WRC+ hitter he was. Which I think is pretty likely.
And Heywards contract is 21.5 million in 2017. He doesn't have an opt out until after 2018. Doesn't make more than 22 million in any given year. Signing bonus is paid out starting in 2024. At least that's how I'm reading it.
You may consider that a bad gamble. But the Braves knew how bad (or good depending on your view point) Kemp and Markakis are. They have a track record for that type of production and willing paying for it anywhere. To me that might show worse judgement. Gambling on surgery and weight loss to fix their issues.
Ok, I misread the opt-out which is after 2018, but I'm still seeing $28M next year.
Since his rookie year, he's had just as many seasons under 120 as on it or over, including 96, 110, and 69 this year. His high since then was 121 and that was 2012. So, he's pretty much at best a 120 guy and at worst...this. I don't think it's crazy the Braves didn't take that gamble on a shaky, inconsistent offensive player. His offense is a pretty big question mark moving forward, and I think it's good they're not paying $23M until 2023 for it.