FanPost

Bob McCown with a contract proposal for Halladay


Bob McCowen of Prime Time Sports fame on the Fan590 mentioned something interesting. Although I still take anything he says about Baseball with a grain of salt.

He floated the idea of offering Halladay an extension at Market Value but provide him with the dreaded opt out clause. Of course he stipulates that this would also come with a plan presented to Halladay to show him what they are willing to do to win. So it would be basically be a conversation along the lines of

"Sign this X year deal for X amount of dollars which is a good approx of what you would get elsewhere. We are then committed to doing X for the team, if come 2011 you do not like what you can see you can opt out of the contract"

Now I like this idea at first glance because it keeps Halladay a Jay and I can be pretty shortsighted about that. But there are a couple flaws.
1- It presupposes that the Jays have the budget to sign Halladay and then commit X amount of dollars to improving the team overtop of that.
2- Losing Halladay to an Opt Out would be even worse publicity wise then losing him to Free Agency.

Now it may be that the team would not have to spend to Market Value to convince Halladay to do this, or even that they would have to spend that much extra in free agency.

Provided Snider can turn it around and their young pitchers can keep it up it is reasonable to expect that the team could be a good one next year (Save for this nasty injuries). Now that does not mean I think they will run away with the division, what it means is I think they could be competitive.

My question to everyone here is, What would think of a deal like this for Halladay, Let's say for instance it is for 6 years approx 20Mil a season with an opt out after 2 years (so after 2011). This would keep Halladay here but give him the option to leave to win if he feels he must.

Editor's Note: This is a FanPost written by a reader and member of Bluebird Banter. It was not commissioned by the editors and is not necessarily reflective of the opinions of Bluebird Banter or SB Nation.