Dodgers News: Some Details of Maeda’s Contract Come Out
In an effort to bolster their rotation, the Dodgers signed Japanese right-hander Kenta Maeda. The Osaka native had a lot of the details of his contract floating out there, but not many were sure of the actual facts. Well, now some are coming out.
According to Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) of Yahoo! Sports, sources indicate that Maeda’s deal with the Dodgers has a base salary of $3 million for eight seasons. And then it gets funky.
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While it starts at that $3 million per year base, it can escalate based on incentives:
Sources: Kenta Maeda's deal w/ Dodgers has $3M/year salary for eight seasons. Annual bonuses up to $8.15M. Max value of the deal is $90.2M.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 13, 2016
As you can see here, Maeda is eligible to make $250,000 for every 10 innings pitched up to 200 total innings during a season. But that’s only after he reaches 90 innings pitched. There’s also a $1 million bonus for hitting a certain amount of games started in a season:
Once Maeda reaches 90 IP, he gets $250K for every 10 IP up to 200 ($3M total). He also gets $1M for 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th and 32nd starts.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 13, 2016
Essentially, as Passan notes, Maeda’s contract is an eight-year, $90.2 million deal if he reaches all of his bonus requirements. This is a very team-friendly deal for the Dodgers, and one that they can look back on with fondness if he performs anywhere close to what his ZiPS projections (by Dan Szymborski, @DSzymborski) look like.
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This is a really cool way to deal with injury-risk players in the future especially Japanese pitchers who already have ton of mileage on their arms.
Give them long-term security but just in case of a major injury, it protects the team from paying a player $10-15 million for a lost year. Instead, the player gets $3 million during rehab year and then gets another chance to make money the following year.
Maybe other teams will try to offer this type of contract to free agents in the future.