from Amazon
Monday, August 15, 2011
Matt Harrington
I thought this was interesting:
When the Rockies’ first offer came in at $2.2 million…
...
In August, two months after the draft and after numerous offers and counteroffers between Tanzer and the Rockies, Harrington was finally offered $4.9 million, but there were conditions: The offer was no longer a bonus but instead a salary to be spread out over eight years, plus Matt had to forgo three years of arbitration.
So, the choice for Harrington at the time was a 2.2MM$ signing bonus, or a, basically, 2.2MM$ signing bonus, and 2.7MM$ contract over his non-free agency years. Felix or Weaver or JJ or Verlander would earn about 25MM$ in their pre-FA years. Basically, it sets the odds of Harrington matching their level at only 10% (or if you include the signing bonus, at 20%).
It’s an interesting actuarial calculation they made. I’ll leave it to you guys to make that calculation.
The writer of the piece by the way was Amy K. Nelson, so big kudos to her. I never really heard of her before the Bautista/Jays thing, so props to her on a terrific article.
Orza and the agent’s advice is definitely right in the lens of the MLBPA; accepting something like that sets a very bad precedent for future draft picks.
Still surprising they couldn’t agree to a straight bonus higher than $2.2MM but less than $5MM for a signing bonus given Harrington’s pre-draft demands.