Sanchez, Wilson Again: Pirates' Facts Stranger Than Fiction, And A Mea Culpa

In previous pieces, when castigating the Pirates management for the stepchildren-like treatment of Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson, I opined that it was more than the money. They should have been offered the chance to be part of a potential championship team, at least in 2012.

Mea culpa: I was wrong. The money was no good either. In fact, it's so bad, that I thought it was a misprint when I read about it.

Sanchez and Wilson were offered two-year contracts of $10 million and $8 million. I based my previous pieces on a mental reading that those were per-year amounts.

In fact, they were totals for two years, meaning $5 million per year for Freddy Sanchez, and $4 million per year for Jack Wilson. A look at the surrounding statistics will show why I thought these facts were "errors."

Wilson is making $7.4 million this year, and has a club option for $8.5 million in 2010. The club doesn't have to exercise it, of course, but it should, given that Wilson's current value is running at a $12 million pace (per FanGraphs) and is hardly likely to fall below the $8.5 million next year.

If the $8.5 million was an issue for Wilson, I'd even structure the payments as $9 million in 2010, $8 million in 2011, and $7 million in 2012, in offering Wilson a three-year contract, to reflect his age and probable decline.

In fact, Wilson had earlier actually offered to reduce his salary to something like $6 million a year. Trying to push him down to $4 million is really pushing it. Kind of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Sanchez is making $6.3 million this year and on track for an $8.4 million club option in 2010, assuming that he makes 600 plate appearances in 2009.  This is a real steal for the team; to pay someone that who is typically worth $12-14 million a year and is having a Jason Bay-like $20 million year in 2009.

May we have another year at that rate? Or two? (Just kidding). But apparently the team won't exercise that option either.

Offering Sanchez $5 million a year is just highway robbery. And replacing the one-year $8.4 million with a two-year contract for $10 million total is basically asking him to play 2011 for $1.6 million.

To repeat: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain." (Deuteronomy Chapter 25, verse 4).

The bone of contention arises from the fact that Major League Baseball players work under an "apprenticeship" system.

For the first three years in the majors, they are paid "minimum wage" (about $400,000 a year, escalating with inflation). For the next three years, their salaries are capped in the millions by a process called arbitration, if club and player can't agree to terms.

At the end of six years, players are allowed to "charge what the market will bear," either in direct negotiations with their teams, or by declaring free agency to sign with another team. At this time, low-budget clubs like the Pirates try to replace them with players at controlled wages. But the Pirates are taking it to a new low.

Assuming they are worth at least $12 million and $8 million in the open market, respectively, asking Sanchez and Wilson to play for $5 million and $4 million is offering them the salaries of first year arbitration (fourth year total) players. Not even later ones.

Older players in their 30s do typically decline, but not at that rate. If management wants another opinion on what the players are worth, it should offer them arbitration (which free agents, unlike arbitration-year players, don't have to accept).

Such a process typically favors management, without, however, being nearly as unfair to the players as the Pirates have been to Sanchez and Wilson. If they accept, fine for the Pirates.

And if they decline and sign with other teams, the Pirates will probably get some compensatory draft picks for rookies, which is what they wanted in the first place. In the event that Sanchez, or more likely Wilson, isn't good enough to qualify for such draft picks, they wouldn't fetch much in a trade. But they probably are.

If a team could use all "apprentices," it could operate with potentially star players while paying well below-market rates (think Jason Bay in 2006). Problem is, there aren't enough talented players coming up from the minors for all teams to fill up their rosters this way, although some try to, like the Tampa Bay Rays and the Oakland As.

It's basically the main way a low-budget team can compete. But even these teams have a few veterans to form their backbone, because these are more reliable than players still on their way up, and because they "buck up" those newer players. You really need a mix of both.

In the case of the Pirates, its backbone or foundation is now up the middle: Ryan Doumit, Andy McCutcheon, and Sanchez-Wilson. That makes it much easier for management to scramble to fill the holes in the corners, and on the pitching staff. Break the backbone, and you have to repair the whole body.

And if rookies can sometimes get you to the postseason, it's veterans that typically get you through the postseason, with its multiple pressures.

Sean Casey was no great shake as a Pirate, or as a Tiger, during the season he was traded to Detroit. But he was their mainstay afterward, and a major reason they almost won the World Series in 2006.

Sanchez and Wilson are the only veterans left. And they are great citizens to boot, Wilson especially. To illustrate the level of his citizenship, I have to go back to a truly terrible time, World War II.

Speaking of his greatest regret during that awful period, German Pastor Martin Niemoller confessed, "First they (the Nazis) came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up. Finally, they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up."

On the other hand, Jack Wilson's (baseball) epitaph might read, "First they sent Nate McLouth away, and Jack Wilson spoke up for him. Then they sent Nyjer Morgan away, and Jack Wilson spoke up for him. Then they sent Freddy Sanchez away, and Jack Wilson spoke up for him. Finally, they did Jack Wilson wrong, and there was someone to speak up for him." Like yours truly.