Earlier this week, Angels starting pitcher Jered Weaver signed a five-year, $85 million contract extension with Los Angeles of Anaheim. Today, Weaver admitted that he had to go against the wishes of his agent, Scott Boras, to sign the deal; Boras wanted him to test the free agent market next summer (Weaver would have been a free agent after the 2012 season). Always looking to milk his star players for all they're worth, Boras likely felt that, had he waited, Weaver could have commanded something closer to C.C. Sabathia's seven-year, $161 million contract with the Yankees, rather than the "meager" $17 million per season that he just agreed to.
After inking the deal with the Halos, Weaver said all the right things - from a fan's perspective, anyway. On Tuesday, he noted that "if $85 (million) is not enough to take care of my family and other generations of families then I'm pretty stupid," and rhetorically asked the question that sports fans wonder everytime a local hero signs elsewhere for more cash: "How much money do you really need in life?" Weaver also said "I've never played this game for the money. I played it for the love and the competitive part of it. It just so happens that baseball's going to be taking care of me for the rest of my life," which is exactly what you love to hear from a guy your team just invested a boatload of money into.
However, while Weaver will undoubtedly gain respect from baseball fans for his decision (and, in particular, his rationale for it), not everyone in the baseball community will be so supportive. It's not only Scott Boras who may be angry that Weaver didn't hold out for more money; upcoming free agents will also likely be ticked off. Going forward, teams can use Weaver's $17 million per year figure as a benchmark to justify lower salaries for stud starters going forward. Just as Boras intended to use Sabathia's deal to argue for a huge payday for Weaver, teams will use Weaver's contract in an effort to control contracts for other young top free agents-to-be (such as Tim Lincecum and Cole Hamels, for example).
Players like Lincecum and Hamels actually might view Weaver as a sellout, if anything. As a baseball player and a member of the Players Association, your unwritten duty is to go after as much money as you can command, thereby setting up future generations of Major Leaguers for increasingly large salaries. When someone like Weaver takes a more reasonable offer (I'm obviously using the term "reasonable" very loosely here), he might be the subject of backlash from his peers.
As mere mortals who don't live the dream of playing professional baseball for a living, it's easy to say that we would do the same thing as Weaver did if put in his position. After all, when "normal people" make job decisions, they factor in location and lifestyle as much as salary, and it's natural for us to assume that more baseball players would do the same. For a guy like Weaver who grew up in California, re-signing to play for five more seasons in Anaheim just seems to make sense. But it's important to remember that Major Leaguers don't negotiate their contracts in a silo and are instead pressured by teammates and opponents to milk their teams for as much as possible. So while Weaver's decision and rationale are refreshing, don't expect it to start a trend among star baseball players. It'll take more than one bold decision to push back against the pressure of the MLBPA.
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