The Ultimate Pat Burrell Post: Part 2 - Contract

Please read with an open mind:

Continuing with our Burrell Posts, today we will attempt to analyze the contract of our left fielder...

The statement we so often hear:
Pat Burrell's contract is detrimental to our club

Let us now present to you some contract figures. The number in parentheses is the age of the hitter when the contract was given.
- 8 years, $136 million (30)
- 5 years, $50 million (32)
- 6 years, $100 million (30)
- 6 years, $50 million (26)

Based solely on those numbers, nothing else considered, the last contract listed would be the one most baseball teams would like to accept. It involves a younger player worth a considerable less amount based on the others mentioned. Now you may be saying “Giving a 6 year contract worth 50 million dollars to a 26 year old hitter with Abraham Nunez skills and giving a 6 year contract worth 100 million dollars to a 30 year old hitter with Manny Ramirez skills can’t be compared.” We agree. A player’s statistical capabilities should obviously be taken into account when discussing contracts. So let us talk about the players who took these offers.

Player one is Soriano’s offer he took from the Cubs. The second player is Gary Matthews Jr’s offer the Angels shed out. The third is Carlos Lee and his Astros’ contract. The last is our focus point, Pat Burrell. All four are corner outfielders with the exception of Matthews. For the sake of argument, we can all say that Soriano is the best of the four and Gary Matthews Jr is the worst. Burrell and Lee can be argued for second and third place with most people probably saying Lee is better. Based on contract amount and length, however, it is difficult to justify Lee getting $50 million more than Burrell. Lee was also four years older than Pat when the contract was signed. Matthews got an equal amount which is horrid considering Burrell was six years younger at the signing. Soriano’s is just plain ridiculous. So what does this say? Based on the years and dollar amounts that players are receiving today and will receive in the future, can we possibly consider Burrell’s contract a bargain?

Now, we understand that this only makes Burrell’s contract look more feasible in comparison to this insane free agent market. We know there are hitters out there with better numbers than Burrell that are making less. But we often hear from fans and radio broadcasters alike that Burrell’s contract is doing nothing but hurting our team. We hear that the Phillies are ‘handicapped’ by his enormous deal. Maybe this case could be made when his salary was bundled up with the contracts of Abreu, Wolf and Lieberthal. Those players and their money, however, are long gone now and we are now just left with Burrell’s $13 million. For a club with a payroll hovering around $95 million, it is a very feasible amount to handle. If we were the $14 million Marlins and Burrell was eating up over 90% of our money, then I would be complaining. The Phillies, however, are in the top ten in all of baseball in payroll. Handling Burrell’s sum, in our opinion, should in no way be a detriment to acquiring talent elsewhere. You can argue that Burrell isn’t worth the 13 million we are going to pay him in 2007 (we will disagree), however, making an argument that his salary needs to be dumped before we can move on as a club is just absolutely wrong. And before getting mad at Burrell for hogging up all our money, why not get mad at the source of the problem: the Phillies owners. They are the money hungry rats you should be complaining about. They could easily go over 100 million if they wanted to. Don't hold your breath though.

Just wait until 2013 when an abundance of players are making over $25 million a year. You will sit back and laugh saying "We were mad Burrell made 13 million?"

Once again, we are not claiming that Pat Burrell is the best Phillie ever or that he is the next Mickey Mantle. Just simply stating that he is the most unjustly hated Pro Athlete in Philadelphia today. Thank you.

Tomorrow: The 'Only Looks to Walk' Debate