Happy birthday to Diamondbacks right-hander Stefan Crichton, who turns seven years…er, make that 28 years old on this Leap Day. As you might expect, there haven’t been too many big leaguers born on February 29, though the date has produced a pair of very notable figures from baseball history. Pepper Martin (born in 1904) was a four-time All-Star who won two World Series titles as a member of the Cardinals’ legendary Gashouse Gang teams of the 1930’s. While the World Series MVP Award wasn’t instituted until 1955, it’s safe to consider Martin a retroactive winner for his performance in the 1931 Fall Classic, as he posted a 1.330 OPS over 26 plate appearances to lead St. Louis to victory.
Al Rosen (born in 1924) was also a four-time All-Star, as well as the American League’s MVP in 1953. Rosen hit .285/.384/.495 over ten outstanding seasons with the Indians in a career cut short by injuries, though he got to the Show in time to earn a ring with the 1948 Tribe, the last Cleveland team to win a World Series. After his playing career was over, Rosen served as the president/CEO of the Yankees (winning another Series in 1978), then president/general manager of the Astros (1980-85) and Giants (1985-92).
More from around baseball as we hit the last February 29 until 2024…
- Freddy Peralta’s representatives “weren’t too happy” with the right-hander’s decision to sign a five-year extension with the Brewers, Peralta told Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other reporters. Peralta is guaranteed $15.5MM over the next five seasons, plus as much as $14.5MM more if club options for 2025 and 2026 are both exercised. The contract gives the Brewers a lot of control over a pitcher who only has slightly more than one year of service time to his name, and Peralta said his agents at Rep 1 Baseball “didn’t really want to take it. At the end of the day, I know they wanted to wait a little longer.” Still, Peralta was focused on locking in a life-changing amount of money, calling the contract “something I’ve been working for my whole life….It was a chance to help my family, to help myself, and be in a position where I can play relaxed. My family can be a little more happy and relaxed. It definitely changes my mind going into every season, knowing that I have a little bit of security.”
- While Peralta could be leaving a lot of potential money on the table if he blossoms into a reliable pitcher, taking the extension could ultimately prove to be a wise choice considering that Peralta isn’t yet proven at the big league level. These types of early-career extensions involve “a risk tolerance for both sides,” Brewers GM David Stearns told Haudricourt and company, and “in this case, there was a clear desire from the player and a clear desire from the club” to get a deal done. Rather than specify a a specific starting or relieving job for Peralta, Stearns indicated “we think he could potentially have success in both roles, and as the game continues to evolve, as the use of pitching continues to evolve, there are probably going to be a whole bunch of pitchers who are asked to do both. And it wouldn’t shock me if Freddy is one of those guys.“
- The Mariners won’t use a set closer this season “unless somebody jumps up and grabs the position,” manager Scott Servais told reporters (including Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). Barring a breakout performance from one of the many save candidates, the M’s will instead rotate between the likes of Yoshihisa Hirano, Carl Edwards Jr., Matt Magill, Dan Altavilla, Sam Tuivailala, and perhaps others in ninth-inning situations.
- Special assistant Dave Wallace and the Braves have “mutually agreed to part ways” after three seasons, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets. This was Wallace’s second stint in Atlanta’s organization, after working as a minor league pitching coordinator from 2010-13. The 72-year-old Wallace is known for his many years as a pitching coach with five different teams, most recently working with Orioles pitchers from 2014-16.
Rep 1 Baseball confirmed trash
Agreed. This contract changes Freddy’s life. Good for him.
Yeah I think worst case FP can be a long reliever or 6th starter over the life of this contract if he never blooms into a full time starter. He is still young and has, at times, shown promise. Still think it’s a good signing by the crew.
Yea, his #’s aren’t amazing at all and the club gave him a crazy opportunity to lock down a bit of serious money. It’s short enough of a contract that he can still make money in the future, lucrative enough to give him immediate financial security. In fact, most of us could retire with that kind of money today
OMG, the agency that receives of the portion angry that it wont be maxed out? It’s nice that players are waking up and taking advantage of being instant multimillionaires instead of making league minimum and gambling that things will work out. Gordon Gecko does not have their best interests in mind.
Agent-player relations is definitely an interesting and untalked about topic. I remember when Albies signed his deal last year some journalists mentioned that since he is represented by a smaller agency, they agreed to this deal to avoid him potentially switching representation to a larger agency closer to free agency. Interesting to see this time around the player pushing it with the agent trying to dissuade the deal.
“I loved you in Wallstreet!”
happy birthday Pepper Martin. you will never know how fortunate you were to play baseball in a time when the game was played simply for the love of it ( and not for Greed ) & if you got injured you still had to play or you did not get paid & if you were really badly injured you had to go out and get a real job. and all the teams traveled by train ( a time when trains were actually worth traveling on, unlike today ) & St. Louis was just about the farthest west of any MLB city in the entire USA
There’s SomeThingWrong with this post. In Martin’s time, the players were basically the owners’ property. How fortunate for them…
Yes, apparently the players are the greedy ones. The owners make their billions simply for the love of the game …
Don’t forget that players regularly died in their 20s and 30s due to infections and illnesses since there were no antibiotics and few vaccines. What a time to be alive.
Not the case when Pepper Martin played. Most of the vaccines and antibiotics that are now administered were in existence by the ’30’s, so no, players didn’t “regularly die”.
Most vaccines? Polio, MMR, DTap we not in existence in the 1930s. So weird why make comments you have zero idea about? Especially when this thing called the internet is in existence. Penecillin wasn’t even used until the 40s. Please crack a book once in a while
Badda Bing!
OK Twinstein, do your research and discover the definition of MOST! Sadly, what you need a dose of has not yet been discovered – there’s no cure for an illogical brain.
Vaccines:
Small pox 1796
Plague Late 1800’s
Cholera 1897
Anthrax 1904
Tetanus 1923
Diphtheria 1926
Pertussis 1930’s
So DTap WAS around. But to say players were regularly dying in their 20’s and 30’s is blatantly false.
Thanks for that info. Add to that, Rabies in 1885, Typhoid-1896, Tuberculosis-1927 and Yellow Fever-1936. Antibiotics for Syphilis in 1910 and Sulpha drugs for a myriad of diseases in 1935..
Define “greed”
Pepper Martin wasn’t exactly poverty-stricken, as he made about $150,000/yr in current dollars during his peak years. That was long before expansion and TV deals that provide the $millions for current contracts.
Inflation!
LOL at people ignorant of baseball history. Players have always played for money, they just had little bargaining power.
The same year Pepper Martin had that great world series, his HOF teammate Chick Hafey, held out for a better contract. The year after, having just won a batting title, he again demanded a raise. The Cardinals traded him to Cincinnati instead.
If Im a pitcher im gonna take the money 9/10 times=
The difference between 15 and 25 mill compared to TJ and selling cars in a couple of years workin a 9-5 can not be over-stated – Good for you Freddy, just can this agency before you sign again your next free agency- Who the hell comes out and bad mouthes thier own client? My God
$15.5 million in the hand is worth Boras money in the bush.
$30 mil by age 31 if the option is exercised is hardly a pittance and if Peralta’s good enough that the team exercises that option, he’ll still be in a good position for a three year deal for another $50 million.
With the salaries that are being given out right now, in 7 years (if he’s even average) he might get 3/$100. It just likely won’t be from Milwaukee…
And this is exactly why you avoid an agent. They’re sleazy, selfish money leeches, nothing else. Represent yourself and keep your money.
Bad idea.
Russel Okung did that and got a horrible contract from the broncos lmao.
Players need agents. Players aren’t exactly experts in legalese, which is all a contract is. Plus foreign born players that don’t speak much if any English definitely need agents.
Players don’t take time to read every detail, fine print clause, etc of a contract. Which is why you pay an agent to (a) negotiate what you want in a contract and (b) review the contract language and tell you if it’s good or not
You could use a lawyer for that and pay him by the hour-then adios!
So you’re gonna hire a lawyer every time a contract issue comes up like Maeda or Bryant?
Guarantee most players rack up a bigger bill getting a lawyer every time they need one than just having an agent on the books.
Yes, EVERY time. Any lawyer, a legal assistant or a guy like Jim Bunning (who authored all of his contracts) can draw up an agreement and it costs a LOT less, even if you have to do it every few years.
Guarantee 99% of players today aren’t educated as jim bumming was. Highly doubt you or I are as educated as he was.
But sure any old player should negotiate their contract.
Okung did it. Got 1 year from the broncos and released after. So he hurt his potential earnings being back on the market a year later.
Sherman bet on himself negotiated his own contract and it was heavily reliant on incentives of pro bowls and all pros and 90% snaps played. Lost a lot of guaranteed money (5 mill of 39 mill total is 13%).
Players typically don’t do as well negotiating their own salaries.
Any good lawyer is gonna charge you between $250 to $750 an hour to negotiate a contract.
Which, unless the player decides quickly, it’s gonna rack up a lot of hours. Imagine the bill Donaldson would of had to pay all the time his agent spent negotiating that 5th year from the twins lmao. I’d love to see how many hours his agent spent negotiating and haggling over Donaldson wanting a 5th year.
He negotiated it himself he’d probably get 3 maybe 4. Lawyer negotiated it probably takes 4 immediately from highest suitor instead of losing money trying to squeeze 5-10 mill out over negotiations.
Bunning has a BA in economics, mine is Constitutional Law w/MA in Foreign Relations. Neither provided any knowledge of contract law, but I negotiated employment contracts long before I graduated because it was an advantage to be paid as a contract worker than hourly at-will. It’s not that difficult to draw up a proposal; the most important thing is to master the language of the contract and present your case and the reasoning to support it. You’ll get a counter offer and you respond with an acceptance or another proposal. Sooner or later, there will be an agreement. The “fine print” that people seem to demonize is way overblown. Of course, most Latin players who don’t have full mastery of English (or for that matter, Spanish for many) will need someone to represent their interests, but if you can master English and have a working knowledge of Elementary Math, you are fully qualified to negotiate your own contract.
Every time I read about a 70+ year old still working I think about a 30 year old who is unemployed.
Right now it is a choice to be unemployed. So the 30yo needs to get off of his assets and take a job….even if that means saying” You want fries with that?”
It’s probably more like a choice whether or not to work for a non-living wage. If the minimum wage in 1968 had kept up with gains in productivity (as it used to for everyone pre-1980) it would now be $20/hr. Perfectly livable wage, as it was in 1968. Since the Reagan years, ALL the productivity gains, 100%, have gone to the 1%. And guess what, you’re not in it. And that’s why minimum wage and anything close to it are not livable anymore. Policy. Trickle down economics.
Oh Bernie Bro — what kind of experience/education are you referring to w/ your livable wage? A gender studies degree??
Too many millennials (you must be one) forget or poo poo the trades.
Get into construction and off your arse.
A choice?! Sure. For some no doubt. But for a lot of people they’re simply aren’t any jobs around.
If you lost your job tomorrow, I’m guessing you gladly go to a fast food place and work for $7.25 per hour. Of course you’re probably over qualified, and they wouldn’t hire you because they’d know quit in a few weeks if you found something better. That’s why they hire teenagers. And most of them only get 20 or so hours a week because they’re so many of them that want jobs.
Don’t assume that everyone who’s unemployed is a deadbeat!
One of the issues today, for seniors, is that kids will do the same job for less money. If the 30 year old had the same skills as the 70 year old, the 30 year old would probably have the job.
Point?
Luis Severino of the Yankees signed a 4-year/$40 million contract two years ago, missed almost of last year with arm trouble, and will miss this year with Tommy John surgery. Think he is glad about his earlier contract decision; pitchers especially need to lock up reasonably good money when it is available.
Right now it is a choice to be unemployed. So the 30yo needs to get off of his assets and take a job….even if that means saying” You want fries with that?”
Yup. My first real job paid slightly more than minimum wage. The second job 20% more, and the 3rd job was was another 20% better. This happens to a lot of people, until they are so overpaid that another 30 year old kicks them out of their job.
And you probably lived at home…
Yeah, who cares whether or not the job pays a living wage.
What the hell is a “living wage”? If you don’t get paid at a certain rate, you become a fatality?
You’re not far off.
Atta boy Freddy. Refreshing to see his approach and putting his families desires before his reps.
Worth noting. PERALTA has added a pitch to his repertroire. Quite certain it helps the risk factor for the Brewers. I expect freddy to be a starter at some point.