Kevin Millwood's Option Vests

There’s been a lot of talk about the fact that the Rangers’ Kevin Millwood has a $12 million 2010 option that was due to vest if he went about five innings in tonight’s ballgame.  He did, and the option has indeed vested.

The Rangers are in grave financial straights right now, with MLB reportedly controlling the purse strings in order to protect the $15 million it loaned to the team.  There was talk that the Rangers might try to block Millwood from getting the innings he needed to vest the option, since his ERA after the All-Star break has been nearly two runs higher than before.  They didn’t, however, and Millwood pitched a great game tonight, albeit against the no-punch A’s.

I kind of wonder if Ranger management didn’t want the option to vest all along.  Reports have it that the Rangers won’t have any leash to go after free agents this off-season, so Millwood’s option vesting may be the closest thing they have to a major signing going into 2010.

$12 million is quite a bit of money in today’s market.  However, Millwood has pitched pretty well for the Rangers the first four years of the deal, at least once you take into account that The Ballpark at Arlington is a very difficult place to pitch.  Also, it doesn’t hurt to have a veteran arm in what will otherwise be a young starting rotation.

I also notice that Nelson Cruz now has 32 homeruns on the season.  He’s currently hitting .261 with an .864 OPS.

I wonder if Cruz will have a career progression similar to that of Jack Cust.  Cruz is 28 this year, the same age as Cust in 2007, when the latter had his break-through season.  Since posting a .912 OPS in ‘07, Cust’s OPS dropped to .851 last year and .761 so far this year.

Cust’s numbers this year aren’t terrible when you take his home park into consideration (although he has consistently hit much better at home in the Oakland Coliseum than he has on the road the last three years.)  However, they are not good for a player who is his team’s only true power bat.

In fact, Cust is making $2.8 million this year, his first year as an arbitration-eligible player, and, of course, he is eligible for arbitration again this off-season.  Despite a clear drop-off in performance, he’s still likely to get some kind of a pay raise through the arbitration process.  Thus, rumors abound that the A’s may non-tender Cust, who will be 31 next year, if he seeks a 2010 contract much in excess of $3 million this off-season.

Being non-tendered would give Cust the opportunity to test the free agent waters while he’s still young enough to have some value.  However, in this market after his performance has dropped in each of the last two seasons, it’s hard to see any team giving him a guaranteed contract for more than one year.