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At long last, the Crow Watch is over.
Maybe it was the lack of a deadline or maybe it was because the team was in the tank all summer or maybe it was because the top prospects from last year are scuffling… But I just didn’t feel as engaged in this part of The Process this time around.
(And yes, I do realize there was a deadline - Next June. That wasn’t an issue. It could have been. It’s always fun to employ hypotheticals, so here’s one - If Crow didn’t sign in time to play in a fall or winter league, do you think the Royals would have walked away? If they had, they would have owned two of the top 12 picks in the 2010 draft. Things to ponder…)
So the nuts and bolts of the contract:
-- Crow get’s a signing bonus of $1.5 million. Notable because slot for the 12th pick of the first round was $1.7. I suppose the difference was made up in the guarantee we’ll discuss later and the fact he received a major league contract.
-- For the guarantee, he’ll earn at least $3 million over the three years of the contract he signed.
-- The best case scenario for him is $4.5 million.
This means it’s a split contract, meaning he’ll receive X number of dollars if he’s in the minors and X number if he’s in the majors. Sam Mellinger at the Star confirms this:
...if he pitches in the minors all of next season and then in the majors all of 2011 and 2012, he’ll get $4.25 million.
That’s just one example. I haven’t found the actual numbers. However, from Mellinger’s story we can easily discern that the difference between him pitching in the minors vs the majors in 2010 will cost him roughly $250,000. It’s safe to assume that number (the difference) will increase for 2011 and 2012.
-- The fact he signed a major league contract doesn’t effect his service time. A player has to be on the major league roster to accumulate service time. So if he comes up at the start of 2011, he won’t be eligible for arbitration until following the 2014 season and won’t be a free agent until after 2017.
The three year deal is an interesting wrinkle because of the arbitration. I’m going to assume the Royals feel Crow will be up at some point in 2011. If he’s not, and his service clock starts in 2012, the Royals will still have one year where they can basically control his salary. Meaning, they can renew his contract unilaterally. Under the collective bargaining agreement, normally a player can’t have his salary cut by more than 20%. For players on split contracts, that’s amended to 40%.
Stuff like that doesn’t happen anymore, but that was the norm under the reserve clause prior to the advent of free agency. Joe Posnanski points out in his excellent new book “The Machine” that the Reds renewed Pete Rose for 20% less in 1975 because in 1974 he failed to hit .300 for the first time in 10 seasons. That’s just the way it was back then.
Nowadays, I’m not sure any team would have the stones to cut the salary of a player who failed to live up to expectations. And I doubt the Royals would do something like that to Crow. Although, you can never be too sure about this team.
Of course, everyone wants to know who won in the negotiations. To tell the truth, I haven’t the faintest idea. I hear Crow is an outstanding talent. A player who, if he had signed last year, would already be in the big leagues. The Royals will potentially pay him more than he turned down from Washington last year, but there’s a chance they’ll pay him about what the Nationals offered. That’s a long shot, however.
I think this was one of those deals where everyone wins. Crow's a local - he grew up in Topeka and played college ball at Missouri, so that's kind of cool. The Royals got a talented pitcher and Crow made some money. All parties should be smiling today.
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Comments
I'm not really buying it. Crow *should* be pretty close to the majors and he had basically no leverage. It looks like the Royals are giving him a gift and probably trying to keep Bud off of their ass at the same time by making the upfront bonus smaller. Had they really wanted to, I have a feeling the Royals could have rode him out hard to a cheap bonus, and if he refused, he'd probably screw himself out of even more money.
He basically lost another season of development, if that is what you can call what the Royals do with their young talent. Hopefully he can be useful in 2011 at some point. You just hope the Royals don't rush him because all their other options crap out.