How much has the market for baseball talent changed in a matter of months? There’s no clearer indication than Andy Pettitte’s new contract. He re-signed with the Yankees for $5.5 million guaranteed plus a boatload of incentives.
Perhaps those bonuses and incentives are easily reached, perhaps not, but the bottom line is that Pettitte just took a nearly 50% haircut. The Yankees originally offered him $10 mil after the World Series, an offer they rescinded when they went on their CC/AJ/Big Tex bling-a-thon.
It’s the latest in a series of doozies whapped upside the players’ heads this winter. Jason Varitek could have accepted the Red Sox offer of arbitration and guaranteed himself at least $10 M on a one-year deal. Now he’ll be lucky to get that over the next two years.
There’s word about that Adam Dunn might have to settle for $5 mil a year. Hey, he should be lucky to have a job.
Which brings us back to our hometown heroes. The Giants jumped on four free agents early in the process, signing Affeldt, Howry, and Renteria in November and Unitary Johnson right after Xmas. They could have waited. And waited. And waited. And their prices might have come down. But there’s always the risk of losing a player while waiting to squeeze out that last $500 K.
So my question to you: Did the Giants overpay? More important, did they overpay wisely, giving up a premium to make sure they had the right people on board as early as possible?
Another way to think of this: If all four of these guys were still available right now, how much would the Giants have saved? And would that savings really matter?
