Bad sports, good sports: Jayson Werth’s deal shows what’s wrong with baseball

Posted on December 6th, 2010 by Alan Spoll

I love baseball, but baseball has problems. As a Phillies fan, it has been easier, in recent years, to overlook the fact that the league has no salary cap, as the Phillies have one of the league’s highest payrolls. Still, I am able to look past that and see how difficult it must be to be a fan of one of the have-nots, going into each season knowing that only a tremendous amount of luck will get your favorite team to the playoffs. I have long thought that if those low-payroll teams were forced to spend a league-specified minimum amount on their players, it would be a step in the right direction. What I was forgetting, of course, was that those bottom-feeder teams might not spend their money in the wisest way if they were to actually spend it. The Washington Nationals demonstrated this very possibility on Sunday, signing outfielder Jayson Werth to a seven-year, $126 million contract.

I am not suggesting that Werth is not a good player. He definitely is. He has all the physical tools to be a superstar, and he had a couple of really good seasons for the Phillies over the last 2 years. He is what is called a “five tool player,” as he can hit for average and power, steal bases, field his position very well, and throw out baserunners regularly. I am not surprised that some team was willing to pay him a lot of money. The biggest head-scratchers, from my perspective, are the length of the contract and the team who offered it. Early next season, Werth will turn 32. Not old, certainly, but not young, as far as baseball players go. A seven-year deal, at that big a number, seems crazy for a 32-year-old player who has only been a full-time player for two and a half seasons and has never knocked in 100 runs in a season. Werth also couldn’t buy a hit for what seemed like months in the middle of last season. He started off hot and ended hot, but during the long summer, he was as close to an automatic out as you could find. The fact that it was Washington that signed him is stunning. This is a team that was bought for 120 million dollars only eight years ago, less than the total value of this contract.

Word out of the ongoing Winter Meetings in Florida is that baseball executives around the league are shocked and outraged by the Werth deal, expecting that it will drive up the price of other free agent players unnecessarily. A player like Carl Crawford, who is more talented and accomplished than Werth, has been doing it for longer, and is still in his twenties, will now cost even more for some team to sign. So what were the Nationals thinking? They had just lost slugger Adam Dunn to free agency, which freed up money. They are a young team with some talent, although they are clearly several years away from contending for anything. They have a new ballpark, and want to sell tickets. It makes sense that they would want to make a splash. Making a splash, though, is not the same thing as wildly overpaying for a player with a short history of success.

Clearly, the idea of a minimum payroll won’t work without a corresponding maximum payroll. If teams all had to spend the same amount, within a small range, they would be less likely to spend foolishly. There will always be bad contracts, and there will always be bad teams, though. I guess I should just be happy that my team seems to be doing it all pretty well these days.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin dragged out a variation on one of my least favorite comments from people involved in professional sports this week. While whining about how he and his players feel that the Steelers are being unfairly targeted by the NFL’s new policy against dangerous hits, Tomlin, talking about linebacker James Harrison’s multiple fines, decided to mention the fact that Harrison has kids he needs to raise and send to college. I am pretty sure the $3.5 million plus that Harrison is making just this year will pay for whatever colleges the kids want to go to, regardless of the fines being levied by the league. There is nothing like proving to the world that you are completely out of touch with the average person. Well done, coach.

3) Speaking of whining football players, New York Giants safety Antrel Rolle spent last week making a fool of himself. First, he complained about the fact that the team’s fans were booing during the Giants’ difficult win over Jacksonville last week. He apparently feels fans should never show anything but support. Then, on Thursday, he followed up his earlier comments with this quote: “We’re risking ourselves out there on the field each and every day also. When soldiers come back from Iraq, you don’t boo them. I look at it the same way.” Yes, he actually said that. As you might expect, he apologized later that day.

4) After spending his first three rounds showing that he might be back to his old form, Tiger Woods did something at the Chevron World Challenge that he had never previously done in his career: he blew a lead of more than three strokes in the final round of a tournament. Woods lost to Graeme McDowell, whose 3-under 69 was enough to take the victory.

5) Two men were stabbed during a brawl in the parking lot of the Rose Bowl before the game between USC and UCLA on Saturday. Do you think drinking might have been involved?

6) Long-time Chicago Cubs great Ron Santo died on Thursday of bladder cancer. He was 70, and had been broadcasting Cubs games on radio for the last twenty years.

Good sports:

1) An unlikely country is on top of the tennis world right now. Serbia won its first-ever Davis Cup on Sunday, defeating France for the title.

2) Xavier Jones, a high school basketball player in La Verne, California, is alive today because of an iPhone app. Jones collapsed during a practice last week, and Eric Cooper, the coach, was able to use CPR to save him. He had just learned how to do CPR the day before from an app he had downloaded to his iPhone.

Bad Sports, Good Sports appears every Monday.

Author Bio
Latest Posts

Alan Spoll

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02