Manny Makes Money

The chips have finally started to fall. The two biggest free agents on the market this offseason were Manny Machado and Bryce Harper. Bryce is still without a contract. Manny, on the other hand, just got paid. And paid big. He reportedly signed a ten year deal worth $300 million on Tuesday with the San Diego Padres. It's a huge deal for a great ball player, but maybe, just maybe, he missed the boat with his signing.

Over his first seven years, Manny has put up pretty solid numbers. He finished last year with a .297 average, belted 37 home runs and drove in 107 runs. split between Baltimore and Los Angeles. He's now a .282 lifetime hitter who's driven in over 500 runs to this point in his career. Manny also has a .335 lifetime on base percentage. He signed a huge offer to join a Padres lineup that has Eric Hosmer and Ian Kinsler at the center of it. It's a large contract, so Manny's more than getting paid. He really missed the boat on a chance to win though.

Look at the Padres lineup. If all they have to power it now is Machado, Kinsler and Hosmer, it going to be tough to try and score runs. The other option for Manny was the Chicago White Sox, who have a better chance to win a championship than the Padres do, at least on paper.Chicago has a more balanced lineup than the Padres do and Manny would have been a bigger help in the Windy City than out on the West Coast. He got paid and it doesn't look good for him to make the playoffs.

Now I'm not saying that the Sox would have done better, because they finished last year with a 62-100 record and missed the playoffs for the tenth straight year. According to a report in a recent Yahoo article, Phillies general manager Matt Klentak explained his team's reaction to the Padres' offer to Machado.

"There's a certain value that we believe a player brings and we were willing to be aggressive," Klentak said. "If the reports are true, then this contract will exceed our valuation and sometimes you have to be willing to walk away."

I think that same logic is what's being used in why Bryce still doesn't have a contract. He's a great baseball player, there's no denying that. But the asking price for his services is just way too high. The Phillies are still in play to grab Harper on the market. So as far as Haper goes, only time is going to tell whether or not he gets paid.

One more thing to be said about all of this with Bryce and Manny can't be ignored. The next huge name to hit the market is going to be Mike Trout, considered by many to be the best all around player in all of baseball. Trout isn't due to hit the market until 2021, and by that time who knows how much money he's going to be asking for.