The Philly Phanatics

Dear Phillies’ Front Office,

I would like to apply for the position of team accountant. I know I am qualified for this position because I can flush money down a toilet just as well as anyone else in the world.

Today, the Padres signed Mark Prior to a one-year contract for a whopping $1 million salary plus incentives that could take the contract to as much as $4.5 million according to ESPN’s Buster Olney. Could someone please tell me why the Phillies were not interested in Prior? Granted, the word “injury-plagued” might be an understatement for the 27 year-old righty, but he is 42-29 with a 3.51 ERA for his career which is nothing to sneeze at. In addition, he averages 10.37 strikeouts per nine innings and has held opposing hitters to a .235 average against him in his five-year career (surgery ended his '07 season before it could begin).

Perhaps I am naïve and do not know how to run a baseball team. But, could someone tell me how anyone could think paying Prior performance bonuses is any worse than paying Adam Eaton $7.635 million next season? Eaton makes the same amount of money whether he stays healthy or is hurt, whether he posts another 10-10, 6.39 ERA season or reverts back to his old form and matches his career-best season when he was 10-5 back in ‘05.

There are certainly no guarantees that Prior will be anything like the phenom he was when he started his MLB career or will even be healthy enough to pitch effectively. But I think I would rather the high-risk, high-reward trade-off with Prior than go with the known overpaid bust that is Adam Eaton. The best thing about an incentive-laden contract like the one Prior got from the Padres is that if he posts one win, you wind up paying him the $1 million base contract and cannot get stuck paying a starter $10 million per win like the Phillies did last season (see Freddy Garcia).

Personally, I would rather pay Prior incentives than watch Eaton get bombed worse than a freshman doing Jägerbombs all night. But what the hell do I know.