not surprising at all. he reached 3,000 hits, and he's not any good anymore. houston's patience is wearing thin.
He's been no better than mediocre since 2001, and absolutely awful for the past couple of years - just another player hanging on to reach career milestones that used to be significant, but are rapidly becoming meaningless.
yeah, 2001 was his last very good year (only 7 steals that year, though). you can clearly see the decline, and no other team would've had him on the roster, much less starting, for the last few seasons. [although sometimes you wonder, when you see a guy like old man julio get signed]
The perfect argument for why owners should get together and decide mlb contracts will be like the nfl and not guarenteed. Of course there will be a long strike but in the end the game would be better.
Um, no. First of all, his contract isn't close to an example of anything remotely similar to that. He's been playing on one year contracts for the last three years. It's not like Houston has been forced into paying him. He's been a free agent and resigned every year after 2004. Second, that's a stupid idea to begin with. All sports contracts should be guaranteed, especially if the player is injured during a game/practice/exhibition/something related to the sport. If GMs are dumb enough to overpay players and give them long term contracts they don't deserve, then they should have to pay them entirely. Otherwise teams would just offer free agents asinine contracts knowing they would only have to pay half then release them.
You just lost your own argument by describing all NFL contracts. Asinine terms in both years and money that are never ever honored. But good try anyway.
What? You don't even make sense. I know the NFL doesn't honor contracts. I think they should. That's why I said I think all sports contracts should be guaranteed. What are you even talking about?
Why should they honor contracts? People, especially in baseball, fall off the cliff as soon as they get the big payday and the only time they play hard is in a contract year. I know it's not everyone but it is more true then it isn't. When somebody is being paid 10 or 20 million dollars a year to play a sport they should have to work for it, when contracts are guaranteed they don't.
No need. GMs, if they want to field competitive teams will always do what other GMs do. The last time they tried to stop that they were accused of collusion and almost lost their antitrust exemption (do you know what that is?). As long as contracts are guaranteed baseball players will always be overpaid and have little motivation to play hard once they have landed that big contract. Where else are you guaranteed to get paid if you show up for work or not? Do your job or just go through the motions? Oh, politics I suppose.
Let me try again. If they were NOT guaranteed, and there was no salary cap like it is now, they would be paid WAY more than they are now. Every team would be able to offer $100 million over 5 years for a 32 year old player, knowing they could just release them with no penalty. With the contracts guaranteed, GMs have to be careful about how much and how long the contracts they offer are for, because they're paying them either way. Name me 10 players right now who just stopped playing hard after a contract. Some may have declined, but I 100% guarantee that none of them decided they WANTED to hit .220 with no power after going .330 40 HR, 125 RBI the year before. EDIT: You still haven't explained how Biggio's contract is an example of why they shouldn't be guaranteed. Or do you at least see how wrong you were about that?
