THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Friday, August 15, 2008

92 million dollars?  No, 7.45… take it or leave it.  I’ll take it!

Marian Hossa is one of the best players in the NHL, a free agent, had a great post-season, went to the finals, and he seemed to have been offered some Ovechkin-like contract, some $92MM long-term deal.  Instead he opted for a one-year $7.45MM deal:

“I asked what they were looking for,” Holland told Landsberg.  “It was north of 7.5 (million).  I told them I was uncomfortable (having Hossa make more than Lidstrom). “In the end, Marian Hossa told me to not bother calling Nik, one year at 7.45 - it was a done deal.”

Even his agent was surprised.  “I have never been involved in a deal and seen a player get so excited to take $85 million less than he was offered elsewhere,” Winter told The Canadian Press. “It’s almost incomprehensible, even to an agent. But Marian is a special player.”

To put this in baseball perspective, you need to double all NHL salaries to get it into MLB terms.  He effectively turned down a $185MM multi-year deal, for a 1 year $15MM deal to play for the best team in the league.