Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Sanchez’s extension encouraging, flawed
Freddy Sanchez’s 2-year $11 million extension (with a potential third year) is one of the most important moments in the recent history of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Pirate management reportedly sought out Sanchez in an effort to keep the 2006 batting champion in Pittsburgh for at least two more seasons, with those efforts coming to fruition earlier this week. The move shows a concentrated effort by management to keep the current core together, but also shows just how much Pirate fans have been beaten down over the years.
As seen in this space last week, the Pirates pretty much need to keep their core together if they expect to sell any tickets at all. Pittsburgh will not stand another team of has-beens and never-will-bes like those seen under Dave Littlefield. Instead, the fans want something to be excited about. Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny represent something to be excited about. The lineup that is behind them, however weak it is, could win some baseball games and is filled with players who would at least be serviceable in other lineups around the league. If the Pirates dumped that for a bunch of guys who had their best seasons five years ago and had been steadily regressing, the fans would realize what was happening and simply not buy tickets, a move that would cause panic in the Nutting household.
Perhaps most telling about the state of baseball in Pittsburgh, however, is the fact that this is actually a story. It is not rare for teams to buy out their stars’ arbitration years and is a commonly accepted way for teams to save money (look at Colorado, who bought out all of second-year SS Troy Tulowitzki’s arbitration years earlier this week). The Pirates, however, have never made a point out of doing this before, so showing a focus to it becomes news. If management had been doing its job over the past few years (with the notable exceptions of Jason Bay and Jack Wilson), this story would receive a brief mention, but would in no way be deserving of a headline.
Another notable detail is that the PPG is reporting the story as a three-year contract. The contract is for two years, with unobtainable options (635 ABs or 600 ABs and an All-star appearance) kicking the third year in at $8 million. The Pirates could also just exercise that option, but they will not simply because it’s an $8 million option. To put the unattainability of those at-bat numbers into perspective, Sanchez had 632 at-bats in the 2006 season, when he won the batting title. Sixteen players in all of major league baseball reached the 635 at-bat plateau in the 2007 season.
And if you are thinking that the 600 at-bat and All-star appearance thing sounds easier, think not. 34 MLBers reached the 600 AB number in the 2007 season (to be fair, one of them was Sanchez who had 602). That third year just does not appear as if it will be happening, but, even so, buying out arbitration years is still a step forward for a team that desperately needed some help in morphing into a successful small market franchise.
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