The last piece of unfinished business from the Hot Stove League got wrapped up late last night as Brandon Belt and the Giants avoided an arbitration hearing while agreeing to a 1 year contract of $2.9 M. a compromise which is about $200 K on the Belt side of splitting the difference between the Giants offer and Belt's asking price. Giants GM Brian Sabean indicated prior to the agreement that the Giants are interested in a long term contract with Belt, but said that they needed to get the 1 year deal done first as a starting point for discussions about a longer term deal.
Arriving at an agreement for a long term deal may be difficult for both sides as Belt is widely mentioned as a potential "breakout" player for 2014. The Giants are understandably not going to want to pay Belt based on a potential breakout season that has yet to occur on the field while Belt's camp may not want to settle for less than that and miss out on the huge payday that could come after such a season.
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Greetings Doc.
ReplyDeleteDo you know who Belt's agent is or much about the reputation of Excel Sports Management? Whoever they are, they successfully moved past the midpoint with their 'Fly to Florida' offensive. I actually have no idea what transpired, but it makes for good drama speculating about the maneuvers that led to the compromise.
I do wonder if Belt's representation could become a problem in the future though. Consider last night Act One. Act Two may involve complaints about Belt's playing time should Posey and Morse take a significant amount of PA's from Belt versus "tough" lefties. Belt's party obviously wants to maximize earnings and may feel the Giants are undermining that potential.
I would say if that is the case, Belt's agent is simply doing is fiduciary duty for his client. Much as I would love to see Brandon Belt locked up for the next 5-6 years, if I was his agent, I would strongly advise him against signing a contract extension. There is just too much risk of missing out on an enormous future payday.
DeleteAgreed. I think Belt stands to amass greater career earnings if he's able to play at least a couple of years in a home run friendly ballpark before signing a long term contract. 5-6 years in SF before becoming a free agent could short change him significantly.
DeleteUh….that is not exactly what I had in mind there. Belt's contract is controlled for 4 more years anyway. What I'm saying is, if he has a breakout season this year or in 2015, as is widely believed to be a likely possibility, his future earning potential will take a big jump up. From his agent's perspective, it's better to wait until he has that breakout year to sign the long term deal than to sell himself low before it happens.
DeleteGood stuff. Bobby Evans has the time to fly back for the birth of his third child and get this done. As always, he is the man. Giants have a great front office.
ReplyDeleteMacks Mets linked to a Fangraphs Top 5 front offices article. I clicked on it thinking it might be a staff writer... http://www.fangraphs.com/community/top-five-organizations/
Nope, its a guy with the handle "baseballstooge" making his own list. Needless to say, the head cheeses there most likely won't be offering him any attaboys for putting the Giants in. Using actual results on the field as an evaluation? But... but... what about the PROCESS?!?
Anyways, the Giants have handled their prospect Brandon Belt just fine, and continued to now with a one-year and more talk later. A certain Giants blog's denizens cry silently as they are denied yet another opportunity to rage on the Greybeards.
We have a lot of fish to fry: we need to settle on Panda; we need to figure out LF, we need to see who of our young pitchers are ready to go and then Belt. While I don't think this is a reality yet, I do wonder if the potential of Angel V. has tempered the rush to contract for Belt. Angel is still pretty young, and he only recently got back in the program. If he lights the world on fire, maybe you roll the dice on Belt for a couple of arbitration years to keep the spot warm. There is also the Posey to first move, which if Susac is the real deal, you have to wonder about.
ReplyDeleteI know this sounds fairly down on Belt (not really the case, as I have always been pro Belt), but this is a business and unless we're going to explode our budget, we need to play the cards.
ps, Shank--nice ripping on the writer who totally failed on his assessment of Gmen farm system and rookies. It was comical how lazy the guy was and your back and forth was pretty funny.
PiLamBear
wow....getting paid for potential...what a good gig
ReplyDeletecraw is still making league min....am i right? what a wacky system
bacci
At least so far, Belt is being underpaid for performance. We can worry about him being paid for potential when and if it happens.
Deletewhat does this wisecrack mean? all players eligible for arbitration or free agency get paid for potential, on-field potential inflected by crowd-drawing potential, since contracts are future-oriented. why remark on it here with Belt, when the future-orientation is, has been, and will continue to be ubiquitous? when Crawford is eligible for arbitration, he will get paid for potential too.
ReplyDeleteBacci has never liked Belt for some reason, and has a mancrush on Crawford. To each his own! Gotta love Bacci's passion, but he definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer.
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