Monday, December 01, 2008

A Thought On Baseball Contracts...

The Mets, while widely rumored to be lusting after Orlando Hudson to fill their yawning chasm at second base, are also widely discounted from pursuing him, due to the fact that the have an expensive, if subpar, second baseman already under contract for the next few years. In tough economic times like these, when teams are laying off front office workers making literally tens of thousands of dollars a year, a team doesn't really want to be on the hook for two guys at the same position. Cast a wider net, and you see lots of teams passing on guys that they might want because they have solutions in place for a year or two, leaving them needy down the road at a time when the free agent and trade markets might provide less promising alternatives.

All of which has me thinking, why don't we see teams getting more creative with this sort of situation? Got a second baseman under contract for another year? Why not cut a deal with a second team to sign the guy you want to a heavily backloaded contract, and then have them flip him to you when the time is right?

Sure, it's collusion, but it's too sensible for someone not to have thought about it....

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