Cliff Lee's new five-year, $120 million contract with the Phillies also contains a sixth year option worth $27.5 million.
So he really didn't leave that much money on the table, assuming he can get this newly revealed option to vest. Lee will need to pitch either 200 innings in 2015 or 400 total innings over the course of the 2014 and 2015 seasons. The option for 2016 also includes a $12.5 million buyout.
"I'm the man with the ball. I'm the man who can throw it faster than F***. So that's why I'm better than anyone in the world." - Kenny Powers
mweir145 wrote:Haha, what are the Yankees going to do now? Trade all of their prospects for Greinke, I hope.
And how did the Phillies get both Lee and Halladay to take massive pay cuts over the last two years to sign with them?
Doesn't sound like he did.
Current report is 5 years / $115MM. Yankees offered 6 years / $132MM and the Rangers 6 years $120MM and each had some optional 7th year. The Phillies also have some sort of option 6th year. So he could earn more over the 6 years of the deal than he would have with either of the other offers; the only question is if he signs another deal after this one to equal the total value.
Yeah, I wrote that under the assumption that he was getting a 100M contract over 5 years. Cliff will be doing just fine for himself.
thedude wrote:First, it's not cheating. But you realize the Phillies accquired Halladay the same way as the Red Sox acquired Beckett and Gonzalez: by giving a small market team prospects for a player that small market could not afford to keep in free agency.
Minor corrections: Toronto isn't small market, they just regularly act like one. And they could have easily afforded Halladay (especially considering he's a guy that essentially took a 100M paycut to play last year), the issue was that he wanted to actually make the playoffs sometime in the foreseeable future.
Also, with the payroll thing...Boston may not have built their team primarily through free agency, but it helps when you have an owner that is actually willing to sign trade acquisitions to long-term, expensive extensions.
Skin Blues wrote:The Jays traded Halladay because he wanted to be on a contender, not because we couldn't afford him. Toronto gladly would have kept him if he wanted to stay. Halladay was pretty angry (as angry as a guy like him gets) that he wasn't dealt at the deadline in 2009, which is part of the reason JP Ricciardi was given the boot when he was.
If it was up to Ricciardi, he would have traded Halladay that summer, but Paul Beeston and ownership were reluctant to part with him.
Also, the plan to fire JP came well before that, I suspect. Why they essentially wasted a year with him as a lameduck GM, I'll never know.
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by dAnzac » Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:53 pm 
