In baseball, teams often have to bite the bullet and pay a player who is expected to sit out the entire season.
It’s the nature of the system, and it’s a fair way to show these players that, as an organization, they have faith in them coming back strong and contributing in the future.
This is exactly what the Tampa Bay Rays are doing with star left-hander and former Cy Young award candidate Shane McClanahan.
“Sources: Shane McClanahan, Rays have agreed to a two-year, $7.2 million contract to avoid arbitration. The deal includes escalators in 2024 ($120,000 per start in 2024) that would be applied to his 2025 salary,” MLB insider Robert Murray tweeted.
Sources: Shane McClanahan, Rays have agreed to a two-year, $7.2 million contract to avoid arbitration. The deal includes escalators in 2024 ($120,000 per start in 2024) that would be applied to his 2025 salary.
— Robert Murray (@ByRobertMurray) January 11, 2024
He has a set figure he will earn in 2024, but if he somehow manages to make any starts in 2024, he will earn $120,000 per outing which will be added up to his 2025 salary.
The thing is that McClanahan went under the knife last August, and it was the dreaded Tommy John surgery.
This makes a 2024 return highly unlikely.
Still, being a two-year deal worth a nice amount of money, McClanahan could take his time and make a long-awaited return in 2025 when he is 100 percent healthy.
He would then have the motivation, in that 2025 campaign, to pitch extremely well to put himself in a better position to land a big multi-year deal in free agency ahead of the 2026 campaign.
If you have followed baseball at all in the last few years, you know what a healthy McClanahan can do.
He had a 3.29 ERA last year and boasts an incredible 3.02 ERA for his young career.
He is, without a doubt, an ace; and the Rays are happy to wait for him to get healthy.
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