Tim Benz: Forget 'Golden At-Bats.' Let's talk 'Golden Contracts'

I feel as if I should be having some sort of emotional reaction to the New York Mets giving Juan Soto more than three-quarters of a billion dollars over 15 years.

I’m not.

The baseball fan inside me ought to be screaming about what this means for the state of the game. The long-dormant Pirates fan in me should be having a conniption over how the marketplace is now positioned in a way that the franchise will never be able to compete for free agents.

I’d be faking it, though. It’d be faux outrage. I’d be ginning up a response just for the sake of pounding out a hot-take column.

So you get this column instead. You get dismissive resignation.

Frankly, that’s what you’ve gotten from the Pirates and the sport itself over the past few decades. Why should I hold myself to a higher standard?

Sure, the numbers themselves are eye-popping. One team. One player. Fifteen years and $765 million guaranteed. Yup. That’s mind-blowing. I’m amazed by the opulence.

That said, in terms of what it means for the Pirates, the state of baseball’s economy, or the future of the game, aren’t we way beyond gasping and pearl-clutching? Aren’t those responses kinda empty at this point?

For the Pirates and other teams of their ilk, didn’t the plate tectonics of baseball shift a long time ago? Like when Alex Rodriguez signed in Texas for a 10-year deal worth $252 million before the 2001 season. Or when Barry Bonds got $43.75 million to leave Pittsburgh for San Francisco in 1993.

Didn’t we just do the hand-wringing routine last year when Shohei Ohtani got $700 million from the Dodgers, or when Gerrit Cole got $324 million from the Yankees as a pitcher in 2019? Wasn’t the bubble allegedly bursting when Bryce Harper received a 13-year, $330 million offer from Philadelphia?

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At any point after any of those contracts were signed, did any of us ever think: “OK. This is it. This is as high as it can go.”

I didn’t, and I’m sure it won’t stop with Soto. Paul Skenes may not get that much for that long because he’s a pitcher. But I’m sure whatever he does get in a few years (from, presumably, a team other than the Pirates) will make Cole’s contract look like a tip for a waitress at Applebee’s.

Actually, looking back on it, maybe I did think that way a little bit with the A-Rod deal. But when the collective bargaining agreement got hammered out in 2002 without a salary cap or floor and just another feckless “competitive balance” tax, I stopped getting myself in a snit over such matters.

The owners have accepted the system. Even the small market ones like Bob Nutting. They are making the money they want to make. That goal is superseding any quest toward being competitive. That was the case back then. It’s the same two decades later.

Were the Pirates ever going to be in on the bidding for Soto? Were they ever going to be in on any of those other guys I mentioned? Are they even really in on Anthony Rizzo at this point? Does it matter?

So long as teams such as Pittsburgh’s can come up with a financial balance sheet that puts them in the black between revenue sharing, charging big league ticket and concession prices for a minor league product, local broadcast packages, and merchandise sales, baseball life will march on as we know it.

I hear the frequent calls from fans or media members who say to Nutting and other small market owners, “Push in your chips or get out of the game!”

I suppose. Yeah. You can spit that take. But right now the game itself allows them to be in it and not push in all of their chips. That’s the point. That’s the problem.

That message should really be pointed at the fans. They are the ones who should stop throwing down their chips on a rigged table.

The problem is we’re addicted to our own loyalty for our teams and our love for the sport. We’re still intoxicated by memories of when times were good and hope for better times ahead. Our annual stay in rehab only lasts between October and Opening Day.

Now, as far as owners getting out of the game? Indeed, if there is a potential breaking point for the MLB model, that’s it. For Major League Baseball to truly survive under the current format, it’s got to be a national game. It can’t just be 12 big market teams playing each other 162 times a year.

Or can it? Someday we might find out.

For now, however, Oakland is pulling out, but they’ll eventually wind up in Las Vegas. If Nutting wants to sell out of this market, maybe Nashville would pick up the phone.

Or Portland, or Charlotte or Indianapolis. Maybe.

Or maybe not. And that’s the potential breaking point. But now we’re talking decades down the line and we’re talking long after the next Soto surpasses the $1 billion mark.

Instead of coming up with a better economic system to guard against such a long-term calamity, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is talking about far more important matters … like the “Golden At-Bat.”

Here’s an idea. How about the “Golden Contract?”

Instead of haphazardly replacing a batter once a game in the lineup, how about once a decade MLB pays to keep a star player in a market that otherwise couldn’t afford him? How about Skenes gets his highest offer, then MLB matches and tacks on a percentage and pays him to stay in Pittsburgh if he agrees to remain in the city? How does that sound?

Stupid? Far fetched? Yes. Yes, it is. No more so than the Golden At-Bat. But stupid nonetheless.

Sadly, at this point, it’s also stupid to keep screaming into the void about MLB player contracts. Just keep me posted on who this year’s Rowdy Tellez is going to be at PNC Park.