07/08 Phillies Offseason Thread

[Rome]

The Phillies own Howard's rights for the next four years.  Period.

He can either go to arbitration for the next four years or he can sign a longterm deal.  Either way he's a Phillie through 2011.  If he pisses and moans his way out of town, then so be it.  He wouldn't be the first athlete to cry poverty while making millions.

I doubt that happens because he's a big piece of the puzzle and I think the Phillies will come to terms with him.  It takes two parties to make a contract, though, and if he's insistent on breaking the bank, then maybe he will leave.  The reality is the Phillies aren't the Yankees, Mets or Red Sox in terms of payroll and if they can't budget him in then he'll be gone.

[ice grillin you]

the phillies dont deserve ryan howard

[BigEd76]

According to Stark, Howard wants A-Rod money 

[Rome]

Sayonara.

[ice grillin you]

stark didnt say he wants a-rod money he said his camp wants money closer to that of a-rods new deal than puljos' deal from three years ago...more along the lines of 20+ million a year instead of 14

[BigEd76]

a 3-yr player won't get $20M/yr.  Not from the Phillies, not from the Yankees.

[Rome]

20+ million dollars for a guy with only two-plus years major league service time?

Ridiculous.

[SD_Eagle5]

I love Howard and all but $20 million a year is too much for a guy who strikes out as much as he does. Considering the Phils don't have to pay him shtein for 4 years they should be creative and front load a deal so his later years aren't too much. Basically find a happy medium for both parties.

[ice grillin you]

im not saying it will happen im just saying its untrue that hes looking for a-rod money


he wont make 20 million this year or next romey...they will buy out his arbitration years for an amount far below that then work up to 20+ million by the end of the deal

[Rome]

We really don't know what he's looking for but I can't believe the Phillies wouldn't offer far and above what any reasonable player in his position would ask for.

They already paid him that way last season, right?

[BigEd76]

Stark says 7/$150M to start, which is over $21M/yr.  A-Rod is the only player making over $20M/yr (unless Manny Ramirez is in that same area).  A-Rod money.

[SD_Eagle5]

Ship him to the Twins for Santana

[ice grillin you]

the avg per year is irrelevant

its how it works it way up...hes not going to be making close to 20 mil until his arbitration years are over and i doubt any year would have him at a-rod money...for most of that deal he will be making closer to puljos (and lots of other players along the way) than to a-rod

in other words in five years lots of guys will be making "a-rod money"

[Rome]

Here's Stark's blog entry in its entirety:

Phils, Howard don't see eye-to-eye

posted: Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Ryan Howard is used to being a veritable history-making machine. But this winter, he's trying to make a whole different kind of history.

Salary-arbitration history.

Unless somebody backpedals in the next couple of weeks, Howard will wind up in a hearing room, for a potentially messy paycheck battle with the Phillies. Here's why we should care:

• Because the Phillies are the only franchise in history that has never lost an arbitration hearing, for one thing. They're 7-0 lifetime, buzzing through an eclectic crew consisting of Jerry Koosman, Alan Knicely, Kevin Gross, Dickie Thon, Dale Sveum, Willie Banks and Travis Lee.

• Because, for another thing, Howard is asking for $10 million. And the record for most dollars awarded to a player who won an arbitration hearing is $8.2 million, by Andruw Jones in 2001. (Alfonso Soriano got $10 million two years ago, but he actually lost -- in a bid for $12 million.)

• And because that $10 million is a figure 43 percent higher than the $7 million the Phillies filed at -- a figure that matches the $7 million the Cardinals gave Albert Pujols the first year he was eligible for arbitration. Which tells us the Howard camp views its esteemed client as the ultimate push-the-arbitration-envelope player.

You'll be hearing Pujols' name a lot over the next few weeks, or possibly the next four years, any time Howard's contract becomes a topic. You'll be hearing it because the Phillies aren't exactly known for being financial trail-blazers, so they're using Pujols' contract history as their blueprint for how to handle -- or is that mishandle -- Howard.

The Phillies renewed Howard at $900,000 last year -- precisely the same amount Pujols got from the Cardinals the year before he was eligible for arbitration. Next up, the Phillies will no doubt offer Howard a long-term deal that mirrors the seven-year, $100-million contract Pujols signed with the Cardinals in his first year of arbitration eligibility.

That might sound reasonable from afar. But there is no chance -- zero -- that the reaction to that offer from Howard, his family and his agent, Casey Close, is going to sound anything like: Where do we sign?

Howard views Pujols as a great name to be compared to -- on the baseball field. But not between the contract lines. It's four years later now, so Howard's reps will argue that his deal should reflect the explosion in revenue in the sport.

They'll also mention that Howard is off to a historic start to his career. So why wouldn't he be looking for a historic contract? The rumblings are that his family, which has already pushed him to change agents twice in his young career, isn't content to compare him to Pujols.

A-Rod is more what this particular family has in mind.

Well, A-Rod -- as you might have noticed -- makes 27 million bucks a year. So even if we assume that the Phillies could buy off some arbitration years at figures below that, it's a good bet that the lowest figure the Howard camp is likely to ask for long-term is $150 million, for seven years -- and very possibly higher.

For a player who has about 2½ years of service time.

There's a better chance the Phillies will start Robin Roberts on Opening Day than there is of them giving Howard 150 million negotiable American dollars -- if not more.

So forget all that happy talk the Phillies are tossing out there about their willingness to talk and negotiate and shower their first baseman with affection. This is one of the most conservative ownership groups in sports. So while talk isn't always cheap, it's cheaper than handing out the richest contract in history for a guy with two-plus years' service time.

Howard's teammates theorized openly last year that Howard's anxiety over his contract had a lot to do with his slow start. Well, he'd better get used to that anxiety, because we'd bet these Ryan Howard contract donnybrooks are about to become as regular a part of our winters as, say, Ground Hog's Day.

Through 2011, anyway. After which we'll see if the prospect of Howard's imminent free agency finally terrifies the Phillies into getting something done.

[SunMo]

"it's a good bet that the lowest figure the Howard camp is likely to ask for ..."


sounds solid