The big news story over the weekend was Jered Weaver signing a five-year, $85 million dollar contract extension to keep the right-handed ace in Anaheim for quite some time. The extension came as a surprise, seeing as Weaver is a client of sports agent Scott Boras.
Let's take a look at the reaction from around the blogosphere:
This is a great day for the ANGELS;
They gave Felix Hernandez money to their CC Sabathia. They broke the stereotype of an organization that maximizes player value through arbitration years and lets other front offices go all-in on future performance. And most importantly, they got a number one starter, clubhouse leader, take no-prisoners demander of respect who is poised to set some all-time franchise records through the course of this contract.
Jered Weaver has been one of the very best starting pitchers in baseball this season. The new contract he will sign with the Angels this week, averaged out, will not make him one of the seven highest-paid pitchers in baseball.
Not only is that notable, but Weaver did something that Scott Boras' clients hardly ever do. He is dancing with the one that brung him - i.e., signing with his current team - and he is signing with the Angels, who have drawn swords with Boras since Mark Teixeira left the club to sign with the Yankees after the 2008 season.
- David Schoenfield, SweetSpot
While I'm usually skeptical of the long-term value of big contracts given to pitchers, this one looks fairly low-risk for the Angels. Weaver has been on the disabled list just once in his career, at the start of the 2007 season after suffering biceps tendinitis in spring training. He missed one start in 2008 after cutting his fingers on a dugout bench.
In recent years, the Angels have steered away from the stable of Boras clients, and if Weaver had turned down the five-year offer, they might have assumed he was going to walk away.
But Weaver has stunned executives around baseball by agreeing to the Angels' offer, which will pay him $17 million a year. Weaver might have gotten a lot more money by playing this out, by waiting to become a free agent, but what he probably would have lost was the opportunity to continue playing for the team that inhabits a stadium about 30 minutes from where he grew up.