I was looking at the comments to the previous post wherein Michael and Brian were commenting regarding the upcoming contracts of Quijada ($27.9m) and Macaluso ($26m) and it reminded me a bit of a player from long ago named Frank Nunn. (Player profile here, or the old version, with lots of detail here).
Nunn was one of the original stars of the league, a first baseman who slugged 165 home runs over four season while posting OPSs of 1.020, 1.028, 1.095, 0.961. At the end of the 2005 season, he became a free agent. Nunn turned 34 right after the season ended and while it was well known that while he probably had a few good years left, a long term investment was probably not the wisest move.
Of course, that didn't stop someone from trying.
The rest of the league owners were astonished when Austin awarded Nunn a six year contract at $20 million per year. That may not sound like a lot (considering that there are currently seven players in the league earning more), back then it was not. The highest contract offered to that point was a $21m deal to 38 year old starter Ernest Delamora by River Cities -- but that was only one year. Michael had given a three year deal to P Steven Jurgens the previous year for $20m/ 3 years too. But six years a such a high price? To pay $20,000,000 to a forty year old first baseman? Unheard of.
Sadly to say, the deal did not exactly work out.
Nunn performed well for the first two years of the deal, although by the end of the 2007 season, you could see the writing on the wall. In 2008, the bottom completely fell out. In the third year of his six year contract, Nunn batted .199 with 11 home runs and 43 RBI while playing a complete season. His OPS that year was a humiliating .394.
What's worse, the owner of the Austin team left the league after the first two seasons. The new team owner was now stuck with this white elephant for four seasons at a huge salary, seriously hampering any chance he had to turn the team around. As a result, in my role as commissioner, I carefully review Frank Nunn's contract and, lo and behold, discovered the "Frank Nunn Escape Clause" which allowed me (with the permission of the other league owners) to reduce his salary from $20m to $1.5m for the 2009 season and to void the last three years of the contract. As you can expect, I received quite a bit of heat from the players' union about this matter, but in the end, I just bought them all a beer and that settled the matter.
Nunn played the 2009 season as a bench player, hitting .117 in 120 at bats. Houston gave him one more shot, giving him 113 at bats in 2010, where he hit .133 with one last home run and eight RBI.
Zev
Being saddled with outrageous contracts seems to be a common theme in the 2 teams that I've taken over in OOTP leagues.
ReplyDeleteIn this league, it's Travis Sparrow. He's not all that bad, as long as you don't play him at catcher (a league-record 200 PB!), but he's certainly not worth what he's being paid. As long as his stats don't drop off in the next couple of years, he'll only be a slight overpay
In another league, it was Larry Casler. Casler signed a 5yr/$73MM deal the year before I took over the team. His first year (2010) was great with the previous owner, though his overall ratings suggested it was a fluke. The last 4 years (all of which were mine), he managed to make $17MM per year while averaging -0.2 WAR per year. Ugh.
I think the Frank Nunn Escape Clause should be automatically offered to any new owner joining the league and inheriting a team. The new owner has the right to have the worst contract on their team (subjective, decided by the owner) voided, rendering the player a free agent with no money owed.
ReplyDeleteThat Travis Sparrow thing was really amusing to watch. Prior owners "converted" him from 1B to C, apparently oblivious to the defensive downside. He put up some crazy bad numbers behind the dish that negated much, if not all, of his offensive value.
ReplyDelete