Gary Mathews Jr. makes a grabThere seems to be an unusual amount of "shock and awe" lately when it comes to the recent contracts signed by Juan Pierre and Gary Matthews, Jr. Very strange indeed. No, the signings aren't strange. Just the uproar.
This may be my first post on "The Rev", but I'm going to toot my own horn for a second. Why? Because I predicted this.
I predicted that Gary Matthews' agent would go into contract negotiations with two key pieces of information. One being a side-by-side comparison between Matthews and Ichiro's stats from last year, and the other being Ichiro's salary information. In my estimation, Matthews was in for a huge pay raise, considering that he outperformed Ichiro in just about every area offensively last year, and also played a more crucial defensive position. Of course, Matthews would never get the full 12.5 million that Ichiro stole last year, but he got close. Am I saying that Matthews
deserves the money that he will be paid? No. But the market has been set with Ichiro's ridiculous contract.
Juan Pierre isn't as good as Ichiro, but he has a similar skillset. Lots of singles and steals, but not much else in terms of real production. Right now, the market for a leadoff hitter who can hit 150+ singles, 20+ doubles, 9+ triples, and steal 45+ bases is 12.5 million. Pierre did all of that and more, but didn't have the OBP or slugging numbers that Ichiro did. He did play a more crucial defensive position for most of the year though.
At this rate, Michael Young and others must be salivating at the prospect of entering the free agent market in upcoming years. Jimmy Rollins and Grady Sizemore must be kicking themselves. Their contracts are more sensible, and should be the ones that set the market for "that kind of player", but now they could be seen as being underpaid.