Anyone else notice this issue? First Markakis, then Paps. Personally, I have little sympathy. The rules are bargained between the Union and MLB and the players have done particularly well in establishing a favorable process once you get your service time on the books. Obviously, some guys are going be underpaid in this system. In my opinion, however, there are way more guys that are overpaid than underpaid in this system. I wish my earnings were determined on the same basis as these guys.

I have a hard time feeling sympathy for guys who make ten times as much as I do for something I do for fun. And then complain about it.

I heard about it.. I have no problem offering him a contract right now.. 4 / 22M + 5th year optional at 6M plus 500k a year as a bonus if he gets above 35 saves! get it done JWH!

Why? A major incentive of growing your farm system & using home-grown players is the cost controlled years they give you. Money can be spent elsewhere. If the norm becomes just paying players because you like them, it will only hurt small market teams. Players will feel slighted for having to make the league minimum or for having to go to arb.

I could care less if it hurts small market teams to be honest. I'm not a big fan of giving out money before arb so I wouldn't support giving Paps a new contract right now. Unless of course he's willing to give up 2 years of his FA at a reasonable rate. Theres no benefit to the team if they give him guarenteed money and a raise without getting some FA years.

I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for these guys, either. Players like Markakis, Fielder and Papelbon will see a decent amount of money as soon as they hit arbitration with their production. Callahan was comparing Papelbon's situation with Troy Tulowitzki this morning and I just don't see it. There's no reason to sign a closer to big money during his non-arb years when the risk for injury is there. I'm not saying that a shortstop won't get hurt but the risk seems to be less.

Paps should stick it up his ass. He makes $450k to play a game. That isn't even counting sponsorships and all the perks that players get. How many guys his age are making $450k a year? I want to puke every time I hear about an athlete bitching about money. The fact that they make what they make is already absurd to me, to cry about "only" making an already obscene amount is retarded. There are people like my dad that toil in a warehouse for years to make what we normal people consider 'decent' salary. Be thankful that you're not the everyday working man and shut the **** up.

/soapbox rant

this is the system the players agreed to, and continue to agree to whenever they agree to a new collective bargaining agreement.
if Pap doesn't like it, he should talk to Don Fehr.

I TOTALLY agree, and also I do NOT want to throw away an arb year to extend him through early Free Agency until I know his shoulder is going to be OK.

It's not like closers have long careers, anyway. Rivera is an exception, one of very very few.

Moreover, when was the last time you saw a player with a big contract and a shitty year do the opposite?

"You know, Mr. Henry, I was a gigantic suck factory last season and didn't deserve what I earned, so here's three million back."

It reminds me of when Frank Thomas made the stink about his contract back when he was with the White Sox. Dude, you signed it, shut the eff up and deal with it. He ended up sucking the bone shortly after, so thank god they didn't decide to pay him more.

Each time a player does this sh*t they just end up further distancing themselves from the common man, you know the one that buys tickets to their games, buys their jerseys, the products they endorse, and they come that much closer to losing that support from the regular person. We applaud a guy like Schilling for 'only' taking that $8mm deal or guys that take a hometown discount, but still get paid millions. It's ridiculous. I wonder if there will come a time where people get so fed up with this bullsh*t that they start openly boycotting or just plain ignoring professional sports.

As a fan I try to just forget the business aspect of it and enjoy it for what it is, but when you read sh*t like this from guys that are younger than me (I'm 27), I just get irritated. Maybe it bothers me now because I'll never have that type of cash flow and before I was just a kid that didn't understand responsibility. I don't know, when I start to think about guys like my father and my grandfather, the jobs they had to work to make ends meet...or my brother, whose job was avoiding IEDs and insurgents in Iraq, my blood boils when some asshole who makes nearly half a mil a year is crying about more money. I urge Prince Fielder or Papelbon to man up and switch jobs with my brother for a little while and see how much they like making a few thousand in military pay when their life is on the line 24-hours a day for 18 months. Yay, you throw a f*cking baseball 95mph, you're so important, please go whine about needing a bigger house or a newer Mercedes.

Between the steroid controversy in a number of sports (my god, if they ever investigated MMA or pro-wrestling...) and nonsense like this I just wonder how long before I am so disenchanted that I won't even pay attention to sports and just focus on playing them.

Fake edit - I'd also like to point out that I accept the fact that pro athletes are going to make millions. Nothing is going to change that. I am fine with that. My beef is with guys that make a ton of money and cry about wanting more. I think I made that clear, but wanted to reiterate.

I think Bob Feller did something like that once in his career. Asked for a pay decrease because of a bad year. That's the only type of guy that should be allowed to bitch like that.

Nothing puts baseball money in perspective quite like Mister Doug Mirabelli making 600 G this year.

So to all ballplayers out there, bite me.

By the way Theo, a heavy duty pitchback net costs $75. And likely can make the throw to second faster than Doug too.

In defense of these guys, to some degree -

Making 300k a year after taxes for a couple years hardly leaves you on easy street for life if your baseball career ends at age 27 with no college degree. Established big league stars like Papelbon and Markakis probably won't find themselves facing a situation like that, but it is one that fringe players face fairly often.

On the other hand, why the heck are you complaining about the money? You're playing major league baseball for a living! I'd love to have problems like that.

Holy sh*t is this hilarious. Thanks for my new sig.

In a perfect world the union would lost a bit of power and contracts would be performance based. Have a down year and it is reflected in your paycheck. I wonder what that would do to players motivation and performance.

In that case, Papelbon is bitching to the wrong people - he should be chasing Matt Clement to get back some of the cash he made off with. That 40 mil is rightfully Papelbon's, so if he can get it back from him, best of luck.

Let's see. So you're 27, you've got no degree, and you've been making 300K for the last 3 years...

And I'm supposed to feel sorry? I'm 29, making 30K a year and paying for my Master's Degree.

No.

I respect the hard work they put into their game, and I respect that the money they make is well earned because people are willing to pay it. I also think young stars should be able to make more money, whether it's going to arb earlier or what. But this is the system. Suck it up, shut the hell up, and when you blow out your elbow at the age of 31 while making $14M remember how much you want your salary to be tied to performance.

I agree with what Sean McAdam said or wrote the other day. Somehow, the dirty hands of Donald Fehr and the Players Association are at work here. The MLBPA is unhappy with the minimum wage structure and wants to lay the groundwork for future negotiations by having the young turks of the game speak out instead of just accepting their medicine from the team.

Papelbon's speech sounds too logical and far-reaching to have come from inside his brain. He seems coached on this. The Mariano Rivera comparison was a bit contrived since Mo went through the same thing at a similar stage of his career before the Yankees began rewarding him. I guess Pap knows that the Red Sox don't "reward" aging players the way the Yankees do.

I think the pile of money Varitek sleeps on each night would say differently. The Yankees aren't the only team that bids against no one else to retain the services of aged and deteriorated talent.

somtimes, you have no choice, especially with catchers.

nobody was happier about posada's deal than varitek. the two of them have had parallel careers in new york and boston. their rivalry is every bit as intense as munson vs. fisk from the 1970s.

like those two, i'm not sure posada and varitek even like each other, which is rare in this day and age. i appreciate the both of them because they are "throwback" players in the true sense of the word.

posada's better, of course.

Although I wasn't in favor of the deal at the time Tek was coming off back to back 120+ OPS seasons so its not like he was already deteriorating. It was just that during the contract he probably would, and he has.

Woah, woah, woah...Miss Lippy. I can see a parallel between the two, but to say their rivalry is every bit as intense as Fisk vs. Munson is folly. I don't see Posada dropping every third strike to throw guys out at first because Tek has more assists than him. I also don't see Tek trying to outrun Posada to first base to show them up. And they haven't had classic brawls at the plate.

Of course Posada is better, Marytek is an overrated suckbag as far as I'm concerned. It used to be that at least Tek as better defensively (Posada was a sieve and couldn't stop a ball in the dirt to save his life for a while), but I can't even say that is accurate now, depsite the "Gold Glove" that Tek has.

What is wrong with you Red Sox fans who can't give Varitek his just due? Maybe you always treat the ones you love tougher than the ones you hate. Or perhaps you know it's time to dump Varitek so let's de-value the guy on the way out the door.

I don't recall the Munson/Fisk shenanighans that you remember. I always thought Thurman was a better player -- except for his candy arm -- until the day he crashed the plane. Thurman was starting to wear out by then and might have been playing first base by 1980, or so the whisperers were saying. Fisk had a HOF career, mainly because of his longevity. If he got himself dead the way Thurman did, at the same age, I think he's still sniffing the doors of Cooperstown, too.

What I like is that Posada and Varitek don't do commercials together, they don't chat each other up at the plate. You look at other aspects of the modern Sox-Yanks rivalry and there's more love going on than I need to see. Papi/A-Rod/Manny is a lover's triangle. Francona keeps professing his love for the late Joe Torre. Mariano tips his cap to the friggin' Sox fans on Opening Day, 2005. (Well, it was a classy gesture, even if walking Millar still goes up my butt.)

It's a good thing Pedroia has come along so I can hate him and Papelbon. I'd like to hate Drew and Lugo but they haven't given me any cause yet. I don't like Beckett. Schilling doesn't matter anymore.

If the players hated each other the way we fans hate the players on the other side, they'd be brawling every game.

Time to dump him? Last year he put up the exact same OPS+ as his career average. That's fine with me, and he's still better than many other starting catchers out there. I'm happy with him right now.

And while Fisk was a Sox, I think he was better than Munson. Not much though.

He was "better looking" than Munson. I give you that. Thurman was a .300 hitter who hit to all fields. Didn't strike out much. Hard to compare him to anyone today. If you saw him play, you know what I'm talking about.

Batting average is a terrible indicator of being a better player. His OBP and power weren't anything to write home about, but still pretty good for a catcher. Fisk wasn't much for OBP either, but had good slugging numbers.

They had a heck of a rivalry, and i've read of the same little episodes Fisk and Munson had. Jorge and Varitek have no where hear anything like that -- especially when a main point for citing their rivalry is that they don't do commercials together.

well, the commercial thing was a little internet humor on my part. never works.

munson didn't walk much. he had decent power until his shoulders started killing him from too many collisions at home and on the bases. thurman was always crashing into somebody, trying to break up a DP or hanging on to the ball at home plate after getting drilled. he was one of those guys whose uniform was dirty by the fourth inning.

thurman was the face of the yankees, along with bobby murcer, in the early 1970s when the team was just getting back to respectability. but he tailed off badly as a power hitter after 1977. dying the way he did sort of romanticized the guy. you're right, his numbers don't add up.

You need to make it more obvious for us simpletons.

I'm actually somewhat surprised Munson wasn't inducted into the hall. The face of the Yankees dies while still playing and the writers don't go all romantic and vote him in? I'll give them props for that.

clemente died the same way but had played 18 years and was right there with aaron and mays as the best OFs in baseball for the past 15 years. munson had 11 years and the numbers didn't add up, as you observed earlier. even yankee fans understood at the time. you don't get into the HOF for crashing your own plane.

Morbid, yet true. I just usually wouldn't put it past the writers or the VC. They're the same people that elected Rick Ferrell and shunned Dick Allen.

I interviewed Dick Allen on his horse farm in Perkasie, Pa. after he retired. He's one of my favorite all-time players. Saw him hit a foul liner in the old Connie Mack Stadium that broke the wooden back of a seat in half. Nobody hit the ball harder than the young Dick Allen, not even Manny Ramirez. But he's probably not a Hall of Famer. Didn't stay good long enough. Didn't take care of himself in the off-season, or after games.

Oh my god, this is such a non story. Dimaggio, Koufax, Drysdale, Babe Ruth... all held out for more money and skipped many a spring training. Its a persistent theme in baseball history. Hell, the players formed new leagues to get more money. This is nothing new, special, nor unexpected.


Means nothing.

I'm not going to reply to the rest of your post (you can read all about the Fisk and Munson stuff in 'Beyond the Sixth Game' by Peter Gammons...or watch the Carlton Fisk Sportscentury), but you obviously haven't been here long enough if you think that I'm just now having this revelation about Marytek. He's a terrible situational hitter, his approach at the plate constantly baffles me, he can't throw out runners to save his life, has more holes in his swing than Shawn Kemp has illegit children, and he is the most overrated ballplayer this team has had in ages. I did not want to see him get that huge contract a few years ago, especially after everyone game him the free pass mid-season that year when he went out and talked about 'being respected' in terms of a bigger payday (something Pedro was crucified for when he did it in ST and then the offseason). In my personal estimation I do not find him to be worth his $10mm pricetag. I've felt this way for years, so quit with the high horse attitude like you have a clue here.

I think your attitude is wrong. Varitek is one of the best catchers in the game and is worth $10M per season, even at this juncture. You disagree. Big deal. We each have our own opinions of the guy. And I don't even own a high horse!

You don't even mention some of Varitek's acknowledged strengths, the subtle things that go into making a good defensive catcher. Very few catchers throw out more than 25 percent of potential base-stealers so I disregard that stat for the vast majority. Jason is known as an excellent receiver of the pitched ball, he frames pitches on the corners very well, blocks the plate with the best in the game (a rather nifty run-saving device that goes unnoticed in the stat books), his pitchers listen to him (with the notable exception of beckett in 2006) and he works hard with all of the pitchers (except Wakefield), during games and during their off-days.

So he's an average offensive catcher and a great defensive catcher. He's in the field for half the game, only bats every two innings. his defensive skills overshadow the offensive shortcomings, IMHO.