Tiger Geist

Looks like i’ll be hitting at least two of the three games in Oakland this weekend, so i’m pretty excited.  Yesterday’s game was a great win, even if Detroit hasn’t exactly gotten a solid value in the Washburn trade yet.  It was fun to watch, and I love a good celebration (love the Leyland hug of Clete).

Read a couple of good articles (via bless you boys) on some financial decisions on Magglio from both sides of the spectrum — One from Kurt at mackavenuetigers.com and the other from Blake at The Spot Starters.  Couple Magglio’s likely contract option kicker with lagging attendance (its not bad, but its below last year), a high payroll in 2009 and looking at a high payroll in 2010… looking at declining suite revenue and season ticket retention in 2010… how can Detroit afford to let Magglio’s contract vest?  For a while I really felt it wasn’t “how can they let it vest”, it was “if it does vest, where do they find the money to actually pay him?”  Then, they broke out the wallet signing the draft class — that probably showed the fans that Detroit is ready to spend.  At least it showed me that they’re not going into a sell-mode like Cleveland did.

So I’m wondering, where is this money coming from?  Even though attendance hasn’t been poor, I hear too many commercials on my radio feed of the games about discounted tickets this year — in other words, fans are at the games, but they’re also paying less then they did in 2008.  So again, where is this money coming from?

My current thought:  Detroit’s going to get a payday from insurance / underwriters.  Its hard to find exact stats on this, but i found this blog that quotes an old Lynn Henning article.  Between Nate Robertson, Jeremy Bonderman, and Dontrelle Willis – three pitchers with a combined $29.5million coming to their bank accounts in 2009 – they’ve all missed significant time.  I do know that not every team will insure every contract — Robb Nen’s contract wasn’t insured by the Giants when his arm hung limp from his body following his World Series melt down (which of course was due to his arm hanging limp / torn rotator cuff).  This possible insurance payday is probably only pennies on the dollar, but what if they got $5million coming back to them?  $10 million?  Was that enough to allow the financial impact of Ordonez ‘hitting’ his way out of the right field platoon?

I’m not an expert, and most teams won’t comment on insurance anyway (it took a San Francisco radio personality months to get Brian Sabean to admit the Giants didn’t insure Robb Nen).  And to be fair, not every player’s contract is insurable for an amount that makes sense — though young and relatively healthy (when they signed the contracts) Bonderman, Robertson and Willis seem like ideal candidates for insurance.  I can’t see how Detroit is making money in 2009 — its almost a “how much are they willing to lose” argument.  But maybe at this point they know something we don’t.  And who knows, they might have figured out (or are working on) an insurance settlement for Dontrelle’s 2010 contract year.  The anxiety disorder is such uncharted business for baseball its hard to speculate what might be ‘available’.