Near the end of May, MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk provided readers with an update on all the known 2019 vesting options. As he mentioned at that time, some options of this kind go unreported, so we’ll examine the list below with the caveat that it could potentially be incomplete.
A vesting option is a clause in a player’s contract that can change the structure of the deal by guaranteeing him an additional year under contract; these are usually triggered when a player meets certain plate appearance thresholds and/or is healthy at season’s end.
Here’s where those six players stand…
Will Vest
Seunghwan Oh: The South Korea native is just one relief appearance away from triggering the clause in his contract that’ll turn his $2.5MM club option (with a $250K buyout) into a guarantee. Oh, 36, originally signed his contract with the Blue Jays, where he began the season strong and was ultimately flipped to the Rockies prior to July’s non-waiver trade deadline. On the whole, he’s whiffed 10.19 batters per nine while walking just 2.34 per nine en route to a tidy 2.76 ERA. With the Rockies in the midst of a pennant chase, Oh is sure to get his 70th appearance on the season at some point in the coming days.
Will Not Vest
Hanley Ramirez: HanRam started the season hot, but after posting a .874 OPS in April, he mustered just a .500 OPS the month following en route to being designated for assignment on May 24th (just four days after out last vesting options update). What was once an intriguing situation to watch had the mystery taken out of it abruptly, and Ramirez hasn’t played in the bigs since.
Cole Hamels: The resurgent lefty has been a welcome sight for a Cubs rotation that didn’t get any semblance of what they hoped for from Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood. Since being acquired from the Rangers at the trade deadline, he’s tossed 63 1/3 innings of 2.42 ERA ball. That brings him to just 177 2/3 IP on the season, however, which will fall well short of the towering 252 figure he needs for his vesting option to trigger. Per the terms of a deal he originally signed with the Phillies, Hamels’ $20MM club option ($6MM buyout) would have morphed into a one-year, $24MM pact if he managed to throw 200 innings this season and 400 total from 2017-2018, all while ending the season without any shoulder or elbow injuries requiring a DL placement. Hamels took the mound for just 148 innings last season, so while he’s been pretty good in Chicago, hopes of achieving his vesting option threshold were little more than a pipe dream to begin with.
Brian McCann: McCann was already fighting an uphill battle in his attempts to reach his 1,000th plate appearance across the 2017-2018 season (a threshold which would have triggered his vesting option). At the outset of 2018, he needed a career-high 601 PA, and after undergoing knee surgery that knocked him out of the lineup for all of July and August, his chances of achieving that lofty goal were squelched entirely.
Ervin Santana: We had already written off any chance of Santana’s option vesting all the way back in May, when he hadn’t yet taken the field due to finger injury issues. While he did manage to get back to the mound for five starts, he’d have needed 200 innings in order to qualify for a $14MM guarantee in 2019. That was never going to happen for a pitcher who made his season debut on July 25th.
Logan Morrison: After a promising 2017 season that saw Morrison launch a career-high 38 bombs, the lefty-hitting first baseman was unable to find a team willing to buy into his newfound success. The Twins, however, gave him a one-year pact with a $8MM club option for 2019 ($1MM buyout) that would vest if he took 600 trips to the plate. Unfortunately, Morrison’s performance has taken a considerable downturn this season; that dive can largely be attributed to nagging hip issues that ultimately necessitated season-ending surgery. During that procedure, he had a torn labrum repaired and a bone spur removed. That, of course, took the possibility of triggering his vesting option off the table, as his plate appearance total sits at just 359 on the year.
I don’t believe HanRam will ever get another plate appearance in the big leagues again
His best accomplishment as a Red Sox was getting traded to the Marlins.
Not true. While the trade was solid for both sides (Sanchez also went south and Beckett and Lowell came north), he had a nice 2016 season.
Not denying that. Nice trade for both teams. He just wasn’t the sort of guy to hang out with eating pizza.
Perhaps. He did seem to mature towards the end.
I was being wise. I’m sure you know the story behind the pizza. I guess Lester was more a beer and chicken kind of guy.
Red Sox fans gonna get down on him for pizza yet most cheered Petey for tossing a 70 year old man to the ground
Not that anyone cares, but I think the Cubs need to somehow keep Hamels for next season. Maybe they come to a “gentleman’s agreement” by declining the $20m 1 yr option and make Texas pay the $6m buyout, then turnaround and re-sign him to a 2-yr deal w a club option in 2020 for $14 per.
I definitely think he’s back with the Cubs next year. They could rework that contract to add a year or two at a slightly lower AAV if they want but I imagine with their pockets they just pay the 20 million and see what happens.
Quality GM work, they Mets have an opening
That’s a pretty good idea.
I’d be very cool with that. However, there’s already Lester, Q, Hendricks, and Darvish with pretty much guaranteed rotation spots, and then Montgomery, Smyly, and Chatwood as quality options for the 5 spot.
Especially if they’re serious about Harper, I can’t see them dishing out another 20mm in the name of depth.
I wouldn’t allow having Monty, Smyly and/or especially Chatwood on the payroll/roster stop me from keeping Cole Hamels. Monty and Smyly could easily slide to the pen and Chatty, hell, I’d be willing to eat up to 80% of his remaining deal if I could trade him to a rebuilding small market team (Balt?) for very little in return. I’d consider it a win even if I was only able to save as little as 20% of that bad contract. Every dollar counts. Chatty was a roll of the dice, and that role came up snake eyes! I’m all for Lester, Hendricks, Hamels, Darvish and Q as my 2019 rotation.
My thought about coming to a gentleman’s agreement w Hamels where the Cubs decline his option, thus Texas is forced to pay the $6m b/o, where the Cubs then turn around and re-sign him to a 1+1 contact worth $28m in total would allow Hamels to still score $20m guaranteed next season, but the Cubs would only be on the hook for $14, thus saving the team $6m for possibly luxury tax purposes and/or maybe allowing them an extra wad of cash to use for FAs. Then before the 2020 season starts the Cubs would have the option of picking up Hamels option at $14m or buy him out for anywhere between $3-5m.
They aren’t out of the Machado hunt either. The Cubs have 3 100 million contracts on the team now and will probably add another ( Harper and/or Machado). They will be over the Luxury tax. What’s another 20 million for Hamels?
Logan Morrison is out for the year with hip surgery so it would take much more than a 50 inning game to get him up to his plate appearance threshold
If Suzuki wants to stay in Atlanta, I think the braves resign him, if he leaves, I wonder if the braves go after McCann.
Re-sign him for the next old timers game.
Totally off topic but just saw the story on Fox news about the two brothers attempting to train surf coming back from Yankees/Sox game. It was the 10-1 game.
They were Red Sox fans. They were probably trying to lick the third rail