December 09, 2004
Rising in Phoenix
Troy Glaus is now a Diamondback.
The 6-foot-5, 245-pound Glaus, 28, will be given a $4 million signing bonus and a salary of $8.25 million this season. He'll make $9.25 million in 2006, $10.75 million in 2007 and $12.75 million in 2008.
None of the money will be deferred.
I'm a big Troy Glaus fan. When healthy, he has a great eye for the strike zone and terrific power. His seasonal age in 2005 will be 28, still near the prime of his career. But that's a lot of money to pay someone who hasn't had a great season since 2001. Glaus found himself late in 2002 (8 HR in 82 AB in September), helping the Angels to the Wild Card and then the World Series title (WS MVP).
Still the Diamondbacks are putting a lot of stock in their medical reports.
As for Glaus, Diamondbacks physicians gave him an extensive physical in the Valley on Monday, and reportedly everything checked out fine with his shoulder.
It wasn't immediately known whether any of his salary is to be based on games-played or at-bat provisions, as were all previous offers made by the club to Sexson.
I'm happy for Troy nonetheless, and I'll be rooting for him to have a fine season. After all, Troy's worst years would still be above average for an NL third baseman.
Assuming he can play third. It could easily be the case that he'll be healthy enough to hit but not play third.
I'll be shocked if he is healthy enough to justify the contract.
glaus should at least be healthy enough to play FIRST - chad tracy and hillenbrand can play third, if necessary...
but i thought the dbax were in poverty, staring at bankruptcy, had no money, were poor. why those desperate dirt poor owners managed to scrape up $$$ from somewhere, huh?
I thought I had read somewhere last year that Glaus' bat speed had slowed down something awful, (combined with his injury) resulting in a dramatic drop in production. Still, that's a lot of cash to spend in this 3B-heavy market.
News that the D-Backs were considering filing for bankruptcy comes as a surprise to this longtime D-Backs fan.
My mission as I post on others' blogs is to ask that people actually look at the D-Backs salary schedule before wondering where the money comes from. No less than Peter Gammons is making that mistake. (In short, the D-Backs are losing $20+ M in contracts from 2004, or $35 M once you toss in Finley and Sexson.)
The D-Backs may have long-term financial issues ($175 M in deferred salaries, to begin with), but the D-Backs have been clear all year that they expected their 2005 payroll to be at about their 2004 level and with losing a bunch of deadweight from 2004 (Exhibit A: Matt Mantei, $7 M), they can afford to (depending on your perspective) compete in 2005/set themselves up for a miserable 2007-2008.
