February 03, 2007
MVP Worth More than Batting Title
The Pirates settled with Freddy Sanchez today, signing the third baseman to a one-year, $2.75 million contract.
Sanchez, 29, is coming off a breakthrough season in which he hit .344 to beat out Florida's Miguel Cabrera for the batting title. He also led the league with 53 doubles and finished with 200 hits to rank third in the NL behind the Cubs' Juan Pierre and Philadelphia's Chase Utley.
Sanchez had asked for $3.1 million in salary arbitration, while the Pirates had countered with an offer of $2.15 million.
When someone doesn't become a regular until he's 28, he's probably not going to last that long in the majors. He'll have to put up a similar year in 2007 to get the big money. Just to get the Pirates on a winning track, I hope he does.
Normally "When someone doesn't become a regular until he's 28, he's probably not going to last that long in the majors" is a sensible way of looking at the situation, but we're talking about the Pirates here, who act like they're playing in Bizarroworld. A team with better talent evaluation would probably have given Sanchez a job sooner.
In the Pirates defense, Sanchez was injured shortly after being acquired from Boston (in 2003) and didn't play much at all in 2004. In 2005, he filled a utility role- reasonable for a guy coming off of an injury and with limited MLB experience.
Admittedly, they were foolish to sign Joe Randa last year and make him the starter automatically, but I don't think the Pirates can be blamed too much for Sanchez's late start, especially when Boston is as much to blame for Sanchez's late start.
