Extensions on Prospects with Standard Contracts

[Colby]

One other point is that if such a player was let go to FA because of the huge asking price for such a prospect, and the releasing team won the bid, then they can choose to give the money over $500k as a bonus, or spread it out as a contract again.  Once again, nothing new in the rules here, just situations that have not come up yet.

[rcankosy]

Colby,

I assume that by base pay you mean salary w/o pro-rated bonuses.  How could the base pay on a prospect be anything other than $0.5 million?  I ask because I have Tommy Joseph with a contract of $1.5m (2012).  What is his base pay?

Roy

[rcankosy]

One other thing before we leave this seemingly endless debate.

Can we pro-rate bonuses for draft picks and retain the future right to re-sign them on a prospect contract?

[Colby]

Colby,

I assume that by base pay you mean salary w/o pro-rated bonuses.  How could the base pay on a prospect be anything other than $0.5 million?  I ask because I have Tommy Joseph with a contract of $1.5m (2012).  What is his base pay?

Roy

His base pay is $1.5m... if his prospect clock does not start by the end of the 2012 season, then the only options you will have is extend him at $1m/year or release.

[Canada8999]

The more I think about this, the more I agree with Roy's KISS statements, although I don't think they were actually what he had in mind.

In the pros, a player is only signed to a major league contract in cases where the team is giving them a big chunk of money and probably expects them to be in the show rather quickly.  Once that contract expires, they don't get to automatically re-sign them at the minimum, but rather they go through the same arbitration process as everyone else. 

I think if you have a prospect that is on an MLB contract and it has expired, you treat it like any other contract that expires BUT you allow the owner to use the special prospect extension rule, already in place - but no one can be re-signed to a prospect contract unless they are a FA under the playing time limit.

[lp815]

The more I think about this, the more I agree with Roy's KISS statements, although I don't think they were actually what he had in mind.

In the pros, a player is only signed to a major league contract in cases where the team is giving them a big chunk of money and probably expects them to be in the show rather quickly.  Once that contract expires, they don't get to automatically re-sign them at the minimum, but rather they go through the same arbitration process as everyone else. 

I think if you have a prospect that is on an MLB contract and it has expired, you treat it like any other contract that expires BUT you allow the owner to use the special prospect extension rule, already in place - but no one can be re-signed to a prospect contract unless they are a FA under the playing time limit.

I concur.

[Colby]

The more I think about this, the more I agree with Roy's KISS statements, although I don't think they were actually what he had in mind.

In the pros, a player is only signed to a major league contract in cases where the team is giving them a big chunk of money and probably expects them to be in the show rather quickly.  Once that contract expires, they don't get to automatically re-sign them at the minimum, but rather they go through the same arbitration process as everyone else. 

I think if you have a prospect that is on an MLB contract and it has expired, you treat it like any other contract that expires BUT you allow the owner to use the special prospect extension rule, already in place - but no one can be re-signed to a prospect contract unless they are a FA under the playing time limit.

I agree... and the thing is, we all have contracts on our rosters like this.

:TEX:
C Joseph, Tommy, $1.5m (2012)
CI Wheeler, Ryan, $2m (2011)
CI Liddi, Alex, $1.5m (2011)

:MIL:
SP Matusz, Brian, $1m (2011)

:PIT:
SP Turner, Jacob, $2m (2012)
CI Waring, Brandon, $0.5m (2011)

:WAS:
SP Britton, Zach, $2m (2012)

:CIN:
P Ni, Fu-Te, $0.5m (2011)
P Perdomo, Luis, $0.5m (2011)
C Thole, Josh, $1.5m (2012)
MI Salcedo, Edward, $0.5m (2011)

There are certainly others, but most of our prospects have received bonuses as the liability will clear sooner.  Roy can sign Joseph to a $1m 1-year extension in 2013, and Liddi and Wheeler to a 1-year $1m deal in 2012.  I could sign Turner to $1m for a year in 2013 and Waring to $500k for 2 years in 2012.

I think you get the point... the risk of spreading the bonuses out is the increase of future salary. 

[rcankosy]

Colby,

Can I continue to sign them to 1 year deals until 3 years after they have exceeded 50 games played?

Roy

[Colby]

Colby,

Can I continue to sign them to 1 year deals until 3 years after they have exceeded 50 games played?

Roy

Roy, you can extend any player to a new 1-year deal as long as you follow standard market value procedures.  The thing with prospects that aren't on prospect contracts, their value will most likely be low, and then you could sign them on the cheap.

[Colby]

The problem with all of this is that I gave Roy my word on this via PM several months ago.  I told him, based on my understanding, that the player can resolve to a prospect contract if eligible after the current contract.

This leaves me to two decisions.
1) Continue with that ruling
2) Go with our discussion here, and grandfather all such previous players whose prospect clock has not started