It’s not just Matsuzaka who has been changing teams in the past week. Another major recent event is the contract extension Vernon Wells has all but signed with the Blue Jays for a reported $126 million. Toronto have been proactive by signing Wells a year before he hit free agency.
With the ever-booming free agent market, is this going to be a general trend from now on? Locking-up a player to a long-term contract is nothing new as shown by deals such as the one St Louis agreed with Albert Pujols in 2004, and the Astros agreed with Lance Berkman in 2005 (and more recently with Roy Oswalt). Still, it only works if you have the financial resources to not only agree to the deal, but also to have enough money to put a good team around the player. The Braves are unlikely to follow the Blue Jays’ lead and stop Andruw Jones testing the free agent market next year because they don’t appear to have the financial resources to do so. It’s becoming quite common in football for teams to continuously extend a player’s contract, such as Man Utd’s recent deal with Rooney. When you have already had to pay a large fee to buy the player, there is even greater incentive to keep hold of the asset, not least because you receive no compensation if they leave on a “Bosman†free transfer. In baseball now, the cost for teams to replace a player via free agency is escalating at a frightening pace and this will probably make the wealthier teams put even more effort into keeping their top players.
Toronto have proved recently that they are prepared to spend big money to try and compete against the Yankees and the Red Sox in the AL East. With their financial resources, the Blue Jays would have still been major players for Wells’ services had he hit the free agent market at the end of 2007. It made perfect sense to try and use their exclusive negotiating position to agree to a deal now rather than wait for other teams to bump up the price. Agreeing to any long-term lucrative deal with a player always carries plenty of risk, but the Blue Jays are in a better position than most to make a judgement on Wells’ future health and attitude.
As for Vernon, no doubt he could have gained more on the free agent market, but if he’s happy in Toronto then why not stay? $126 million is more than enough to set-up your family for life. There’s also the possibility that 2007 could have decreased his value. We can all reel off examples of players having great “walk years†leading to a bumper free agent contract out of synch with the player’s overall career performance (you’re thinking of Gary Matthews Jnr too, aren’t you?!). The other side of the coin though is that an injury hit walk year can have the opposite effect, generally leading to the player having to accept a one-year deal and trying to prove themselves again. $126 million is a lot of money to turn down and he’s made the right choice in accepting it in my book.
