SportingNews.com – Baseball : Selig approves Hampton trade to Braves
The Used Car Salesman had to approve of the deal because so much money changes hands. But there wasn’t much doubt he would, because he’s a puppet.
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Now that the financial details are in I like this a whole lot more. $2 mill/year for the 1st 3yrs is peanuts with the Braves payroll. It may be tough to unload that deal in 2006, but there’s a whole lot of time between now and then. A 200 inning 4.00 ERA innings muncher at $2 million a year sounds pretty good. And if he can get back that 98-00 form…
And it leaves the maddux & glavine negotiations both wide-open. IMHO, JS deserves our kudos for this one, even if it looked like a lousy deal when we thought it was frontloaded.
$5.5 million over three years for a 30-year-old left-handed pitcher with 100-plus career wins, who never gets hurt and can help himself with the bat? They paid Albie Lopez more than two-thirds of that for one season and got one win. Even if Hampton’s half the pitcher he was with the Astros and Mets, he’s still worth that investment.
If Hampton’s half the pitcher he was before Colorado, then that $45m or so the last three years of the deal will seem positively horrid. But this is clearly a trade to milk more out of the end of the Maddux/Glavine (whichever stays) era.
Speaking of, the NYT first reported and the always-on-the-scoop AJC has confirmed that the Braves have increased their offer to Glavine to two years at around $9.5m per, with a third year option around $10m based on innings pitched. Word is that the braves think Boras is asking way, way too much (esp in years) for Maddux. I’m thinking Glavine will be kept.