I should mention, when I say "young"....I mean young enough that it looks as though he'll finish out his current contract without declining. Should be good for another 3 serviceable years after that, you'd imagine.
Indeed. But we still will get more for him as a closer than a backend rotation guy....as of right now.....hopefully.....
This is extremely arguable. A lot of times you see closers get traded for good prospects because said closer is fairly lowly paid. Brett Myers though is getting paid $12mil. Closer standard that's #2 in the entire MLB behind Rivera and above Papelbon. Put it another way, if the Astros eat half of Myers salary to put him at $6mil, that's still elite closer salary. But it would be middle-of-rotation salary by starting pitcher standard.
I agree with your point at his current salary, but if we eat half of it. I'm not sure $6m is elite closer. Heck, Brandon Lyons is getting (over)paid $5.5m. Papelbon and Soriano are getting $11m. Brian Wilson is at $8.5m. I'd say that's the elite tier. There's a lot of other guys like: Carlos Marmol - $7.3m Heath Bell - $7m Joe Nathan - $7m Joakim Soria -- $6m Bobby Jenks - $6m Leo Nunez - $6m Ryan Madson -- $5.9m Frank Francisco - $5.5m Matt Thornton - $5.5m Brian Fuentes - $5m Brandon League - $5m Jeremy Affeldt - $5m and more I would say $5-6m seems to be about the going rate for accomplished relievers of any sort.
Brett Myers is actually $15M, once you include his 2013 buyout of $3M. By July 31st, Myers will be owed about $8M. If the Astros put money towards trades like the old regime did the last couple of years, his contract will not be an issue. Edit: Correction, his option can become guaranteed based on games finished, so 2013 salary may be vested at $10M, which then becomes cost prohibitive.
In light of juicystream's new info on his contract, I think we can safely say his contract is ridiculously high for a closer unless the Astros eat A LOT OF money. But I was going more on potential. If Myers had pitched well as a starter, somewhere closer to 2010 than 2011, then he might have been tradable even without eating much salary. Whereas his salary as a closer is ridiculously high regardless of performance.
The Astros must be willing to eat that salary, though, becuse they knew his contract status going into the season and still made the decision to move him to closer. They haven't outwardly said as much, but it seems obvious a part of that reasoning was the hope of getting his value up as a closer for a possible trade. I would hope then that Jim Crane was prepped that there is a good possibility that cashing in on that value means forking over money to pay a lot of his contract.
The contract becomes fully vested after 55 games finished. That makes it extremely unlikely a team will take him on as a closer, and depending on how many games he has finished by the time he is traded they might be leery of bringing him on at all out of fear of hitting that option. He'd likely have to agree to waive it which would require compensation to him. The Astros will have to eat serious money if they want to trade him and get anything worthwhile back. Edit: I see some of what I just posted was already posted. Sorry.
Sure sounds like all that wisdom and brilliance assigned to our new brain-trust in moving Myers to the closer role was unwarranted. Additionally, It makes him either untradeable or very expensive to trade.
If he only pitches in save situations, 55 is a lot of games, no? I would think the Astros should never pitch him out of save situations the rest of the way to keep him away from that mark. How many "games finished" is he at right now?
That said, going into the season, I don't think anyone really thought he'd be traded to another team as their new closer. I thought the assumption was that he'd be good as a closer here and be traded to a contending team to be a solid 8th inning type guy. Granted, closing has been hell this year and half the closers in the league are out already which could have increased his value - but looking at pre-season, I don't think that was the intended plan.
Myers is now at 12 games finished. Unless the Astros find themselves up by 1 or 2 heading into the 9th more often in the coming months, he should be around 30-35 games finished by July.
I want to say a similar clause existed for KRod when the Mets traded him to the Brewers, and it was an issue with KRod because he wasn't going to be the closer, and thus not going to reach that mark. I think a compromise was made. I'll try to see what I can find. Edit: Turns out the contract situation with Francisco Rodriguez last year was very similar, but the compromise only netted KRod an additional 500K (He had a limited no-trade, and could have vetoed the trade). KRod was essentially making $12M that year with a 2012 option that had a buyout of $3M. [rquoter]acquired by Milwaukee in trade from NY Mets 7/13/11, with Rodriguez agreeing to convert vesting option to mutual option in exchange for a $0.5M increase in his buyout. Mets pay Brewers about $5.9M in the deal ($3.5M of buyout plus half remaining $4.9M salary in 2011)[/rquoter]
Current pace would have him finishing ~52-53 games by the end of the year which is right on the border...
Huh? I don't think the Astros moved Myers to the pen with the purpose of trading him. They moved him to the pen because they felt he could close well and they had a glut of potential starters.
Then it would settle any speculation on the team possibly moving him at the trade deadline for prospects.
But any team that trades for him would want to use him as much as possible for their playoff run down the stretch. Otherwise trading for him would be pointless in the first place. So that number should reach 55 without a problem if traded.
