A Different Kind of Inflation

 

It was a personal grievance that provoked me to research and write this, but the point I want to make goes far beyond anything personal. Here’s the story as excerpted from the AP copy quoted at Breitbart.

FTA: <<Soto’s deal, the largest and longest in baseball history, was pending a physical. The agreement reverberated across the winter meetings and stung the Yankees, who on Sunday morning had raised their offer to $760 million over 16 years from $712.5 million for 15 years.

“My first thought is that my oldest kid is going to be 28 when he’s done playing. That really puts it in perspective for me,” San Francisco president of baseball operations Buster Posey said…

Soto’s deal, which includes a $75 million signing bonus, would rise to $805 million if the Mets exercise their right to void Soto’s ability to opt out after the 2029 season.

“I was shocked when I saw the bonus. My goodness,” said Cincinnati manager Terry Francona, thinking about the implications for prices other teams will have to pay for players. “I think it makes it harder, but I certainly don’t begrudge teams for doing it if they can. They’re not breaking the rules. We’re going to have to make really good decisions, and we’re not going to be able to outspend on mistakes, so we have to limit those.”

Soto’s deal sparked even greater expectations in a free agent market that includes pitchers Corbin Burnes and Max Fried, first basemen Pete Alonso and Christian Walker, third baseman Alex Bregman and outfielder Anthony Santander.

“I think everybody’s intent is hopefully to land their planes as soon as possible, whether it’s trades or free agency,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said.>>

Imthinkmit’s fair to say that everyone outside NYC is shellshocked by the size and duration of this contract. Soto is a great and he’s only 26, but 15 years is a long time and $765 million is a lotta lotta dough.

The grievance I mentioned above was mostly about my own amazement at what has happened to the value of money in the last 35 years or so. When I looked at the kind of player Soto is, I was instantly reminded of a superstar who had similar performance strengths and numbers. Soto has a lifetime batting average of .285, he’s hit 200 Homeruns in 7 years (28/yr), and he averages more than 100 walks a year for an On-Base Percentage of .421. That’s obviously spectacular. 

The player he reminded me of with these stats was Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies, who hit .267 lifetime over 16 years in the Bigs, had 548 Homeruns lifetime (34/yr), and averaged more than 100 walks a year for an On-Base Percentage of .380. Very similar assets as a hitter, both feared game changers at bat. One key performance factor differs. Soto is an outfielder, good enough by all accounts. Schmidt was a 3rd baseman, one of the best ever, with 10 Gold Gloves at the position. All things considered, it’s hard to say that Soto is a better baseball player than Schmidt. Fair enough?

Oh. One more difference. The most Mike Schmidt ever earned in salary a year was $2 million in 1984. That was one year. Soto’s contract will pay him $51 million a year for 15 years if he can keep going until he’s 40. Some more numbers to peruse:

My first impulse, to be honest, was to blame it on New York. Inflation has a whole other meaning and dimension in the Big Apple. The Met contract was drawn up to pull Soto away from the Yankees, where they think everything Yankee is better than anyone anywhere else. I remember in Schmidt’s heyday, the national baseball announcers couldn’t stop singing the praises of the “best 3rd baseman in baseball,” a Yankee named Graig Nettles, who was good but no Mike Schmidt. 

I was wrong to take the Soto deal personally though. This is only marginally a New York thing. In reality it’s a professional sports thing, and professional sports are suffering from free agency, giant long-term contracts that reduce season by season incentive, and have gradually annihilated loyalties of players to cities and teams, as well as the loyalties of fans to teams which used to have a local or at least veteran flavor about them.

A big reason why I no longer keep up with the Phils or the Eagles. I don’t know who the players are this year and it’s impossible to project who the promising youngsters will become they probably won’t be around for long. 

It’s saddening, but there’s nothing I can do about it, probably nothing anyone can do about it until team bankruptcies begin to thin the herd in this vast overpaid world of professional “sport.”

I wish Soto well. Not sure he will enjoy the level of career satisfaction, fan popularity, and personal contentment Mike Schmidt has earned in his life. He’s still married to the same wife he had when he joined the Phillies 52 years ago. That’s a major league bonus that’s getting hard to come by in the 21st Century…