5 Year Contracts

[chrisetc21]

I think these are a problem, especially the way they're given to players over 30 years old to increase the bid yet keep the yearly salary low.  I'm thinking players over age 30 should be limited to 3 year deals.  Thoughts?

[Jss0062]

Nah, there are good contracts and bad contracts. Let the free market dictate. That is how real baseball works.

[chrisetc21]

Nah, there are good contracts and bad contracts. Let the free market dictate. That is how real baseball works.

When you give a 34 year old a 5 year deal there's a reason why you're doing that and it's not because you think he'll be playing at age 39.  I really think it's a potentially big problem. 

[Orange Country]

I can get behind this. However, we should limit it to where if the player is 35 or older, than he can only be signed to a 3 year deal. If he's 34, than it's a 4 year deal. If he's 33 or younger, than it can be 5 years.

[nicole]

Nah, there are good contracts and bad contracts. Let the free market dictate. That is how real baseball works.

I agree.  Tell Randy Choate and David Ortiz your done and you never should of had a 5yr contract at 34.  If an owner wants to keep a player on the books for 5yrs thats their problem.  Owners do crazy things to win all the time.  We all have budgets and try to fit players into those budgets to compete and win.  We are going to allow someone to pay $33M for Matt Cain or Anibal Sanchez $20M or resign Hunter Pence for over $17M yet not give out a 5yr deal for someone else???  Why not just allow eveyone to make only $5M tops and whoever is the first person to claim them gets them.  We all have different ideas on how to build a winner.  Let them do it. Let's not turn this into some type of kid game where we all win not matter if we go 0-162. You play to win... well hopefully anyway. 

[Maydab23]

I am against limiting the years on an older player. Let the market dictate.

[Lindner]

You play to win... well hopefully anyway.

lol...

[Lindner]

Not necessary, imo.  If we are that worried about the longterm health of the league, we would restrict more than just the contract length.  I would prefer to let the market dictate the contracts and let buyouts for new GMs make-up for the irresponsibility of the previous GMs.

[chrisetc21]

I'm not really interested in investing my time running a league where the market dictates everything because I think that's a really horrible idea that will end poorly.  So you all should find someone else to run the league who embraces that and then you'll have the league you want.  Let me know who that's going to be and I'll transfer powers to that person.

[ThePetis]

A max contract for older players makes sense.... Let's be honest, we're in a league where something like 80% of the teams have turned over in the past year.  So, some rules should probably be put in place so that franchises aren't hamstrung for years to come because of the very poor decisions made by an owner who was in place for three months before bailing out.  However, look at the recent bidding for Derek Jeter.  He received seven bids from five different owners and not a single one was for more than one year.  So, yes, I do think we need a rule in place, but it's not like this is completely out of control at the moment.

I am not in favor of limiting all contracts for players who are 30+ years.  Jacoby Ellsbury is 30 and he just signed a 7-year deal with the Yankees.  I'm sure there are numerous other examples, that's just the one that jumped out to me.  Also, Nicole's example of David Ortiz and Randy Choate isn't very accurate either because both players have been on short-term deals once they reached their mid-30's. 

I am very much in favor of Reid's suggestion that determine's the max contract length by the player's age.  I think that's the plan that makes the most sense, but is also one that we are all most likely to agree on.