Pedroia was the Rookie of the Year in 2007. This year he hit .326 with 17 homers and 80 RBIs. He stole 20 bases. He led the American League in hits, runs, and doubles. He won a Gold Glove and the AL MVP. Basically he had a real nice season and his young career has shown great promise.
And he signed a six-year contract worth $40.5 million. Yeah, that's a lot of money. But not in baseball. And not for an MVP. As we know, Ryan Howard won a Rookie of the Year followed by an MVP, and he was awarded $10 million for one season in arbitration. Pedroia will make $1.5 million next season and his average yearly salary will be much less than $10 million per.
In an era where greed and selfishness dominate the sports landscape, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the deal Pedroia signed. CC Sabathia was offered $140 million by the Yankees, and the players union has said that if CC were to accept a deal for substantially less than that then they would "get involved" and try to convince him to take the more lucrative deal (CC has said that he would consider signing for less than the $140 million because he wants to be on the west coast and would prefer to pitch in the National League).
I just find it refreshing that a player had priorities other than money when considering his deal. "I understood that if I went year-to-year I probably would have made more money. But I'm in a place that I love," Pedroia said. "My first thought was, 'I play for the best team. We're going to have a chance to win every year.' ... It fits." To me it seems he realized that $40.5 million is still a lot of money, he gets to play baseball for that money, and he gets to do so for a team with a chance to win, and he appreciated all of those things. And I gotta respect that.
Ed Note: Dustin Pedroia is a straight up douche.
disclaimer: I completely agree with the editors note and struggled to even make this post, however it is so rare to see a player think about more than cash money I felt compelled to make a point of it.
ReplyDeletei agree. it's nice to see, per se. I just hate Pedroia so very much.
ReplyDelete