Shields' deal could be worth $44-million

The Rays formally announced a seven-year contract with pitcher James Shields that could be worth up to $44-million and could be the longest contract in club history.

"I just want to be part of it,'' Shields said.

Rays executive VP Andrew Friedman cited three reasons for making such a commitment - Shields' "talent, work ethic and character.''

Shields is guaranteed $11.25-million - four years of salary starting at $1-million this season for a total of $9.25-million, plus a $2-million buyout - and the Rays hold options for 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Based on figures obtained by the Times, here is the breakdown of what Shields could make:

2008 - $1-million
2009 - $1.5-million
2010 - $2.5-million
2011 - $4.25-million
2012 option - $7-million or 2-million buyout
2013 option - $9-million or $1.5-million buyout
2014 option - $12-million or $1-million buyout

There are also various incentive clauses based on innings pitched and starts, as well as where Shields finishes in the Cy Young voting that could add up to about $6.25-million more.

- Marc Topkin, Times staff writer

Comments

[Anne Fagan]

Good for us! It is great to see that we have such great talent as James Shields wanting to stay and become a part of the Rays' future. And thanks to the owners for giving us long time fans several things to cheer for in this off-season. Pena, Kazmir, Shields, Crawford, maybe Baldelli will stay healthy longer than 2 games. The season looks brighter than ever.

[Patrick]

Great for Jamie, Great for the Rays! And Jamie, looking forward to you showin' off at the All Star Game THIS year!

[Patrick]

Great for Jamie, Great for the Rays! And Jamie, looking forward to you showin' off at the All Star Game THIS year!

[Hater]

$44 Million is waaaay to much money for a baseball player no one has ever heard of! What is this world coming to? Teachers, police & firemen get paid pennies and active duty military families qualify for food stamps, but this kid who throws a baseball gets $52,000 PER MONTH/$1,733 PER DAY!?!

[Holly]

Yeah! Let's put all our eggs (money)into one basket. As I know it; baseball is a "team" sport!

[Kevin]

UM...his career record is 18 Wins, 16 Losses, and a 4.21 ERA. Maybe the Rays CAN afford to pay for the entire new stadium after all.

[justme]

I have to agree with you hater. Personally ALL sports should be private enterprise. Is very sad when someone gets paid that kind of money to play when our service personnel can be so underpaid.

[Dennis]

While the deal appears to be 44 million, it really is not unless he reaches every goal set forth in the contract and the Rays want him beyond 4 years from now. He is guaranteed 12 million for 4 years, 3 mill a year now is better than paying him 10 mill a year is he wins 20 games next year. The numbers confuse, but if nothing else, they can trade him any time in the next 7 years at a great price for the Rays, and if he lasts all 7 years, this will be well worth the money they pay him.

[Rodger]

I think thats a great contract. all contracts should be paid by goals reached. we see to many players in all sports stink it up and make the big bucks for lousy play.

[Jim]

Hey Patrick you suck canal water. Why are YOU so excited? Are you getting any of that money? The rest of us schmucks get to pay more at the gate so that a mediocre , unknown can get millions to occasionally throw a baseball.

[Paul]

This is great for the Rays and for the community. If we're going to gripe about athletes and sports figures getting paid big bucks, let's get upset when the Yankees pay $220 million a season for ballplayers. Let's not worship the ground them and Steinbrenner walk on. The RAYS are our home team - take some pride in your local teams ALL the time, not just when they win. And this isn't a "mediocre, unknown player" but you wouldn't know that because you just shoot off at the mouth without watching any games.

Congrats to James and the Rays! GO RAYS!

[a baseball fan]

This team can't win with the public at all. They don't spend money the public gripes. The do spend money the public gripes. Seems to me no one here is a baseball fan. If that's the case, get off the d*mn forum. We don't need you.

[Rex]

Not exactly the most well versed fan here. Excellent signing - Shields is proved himself, and is an archor #1 or#2 starter for years to come. He eats innings, throws strikes, and is an excellent club-house guy.

If you don't understand the basics economics of professional sports, and what it takes to be a Major League Team - move to Omaha, and take your ignorance with you.

We are witnessing an evolutionhere, and it is exciting. Remember the Bucs, the Lightning?

How far we've come.

[Tina]

Awesome! These guys are commited to winning!!!

.500? Playoffs? This is going to fun this year.

Go Rays!!!

[Jim]

Wow Paul, I did'nt know you were a loser also. I guess you also believe Clemens never used HGH or steroids?!?! .... Putz...

[Tony]

This contract is an absolute steal by major league standards. This "guy nobody's ever heard of" just happens to be one of the best young pitchers in baseball. Go look and see what major league starting pitchers are being paid if you don't agree. Mediocre free agent pitchers are getting $10 million per year these days.

[Sean Stevens]

Rex, why you picking on Omaha? I'm a Rays fan living there now and I think this is a great deal for the team. It's not huge money like most are thinking. Read the fine print folks. IF he stays for 7 years, it's $44M. However, he's only guaranteed $12M over 4 years. That's a steal by MLB standards for a #1/#2 starter who should have won 20 games last year!

[hockey joker]

All i used to hear was that the rays never spent money and are a failure as a team. Granted they have done little to earn the trust of the fans over the past decade, it's a little rediculous to start bad mouthing them for signing talented young players to very flexible, goal based deals.
Also, we all know its not fair that teachers etc. get payed less than pro athletes but thats the way its gonna be. Seriously, if your going to complain about that, you would be better off posting on Dennis Kucinich's blog.

[Ron]

This was a much better signing than the 24 million thrown at Carlos Pena after one good season. Shields has tons of upside and the gauranteed money is only 11 million. I hope Pena earns his also, but it was way too much to pay based on a single season.

[Brad Mofsky]

Excellant Signing,Jamie is the hope and the future of the Rays as well as a great supporting cast surrounding him.1 big name pitcher to come and we can compete with the big bad Yankees and Red Sox! GO RAYS All the way!

[Paul]

You better believe the "Rocket" used "illegal fuel"! Jim, why would I think he didn't after all that's gone on in the Mitchell Report and with McNamee? It's time for this city to get behind the HOME teams and stop worshiping the likes of Saint Dungy and Saint Steinbrenner. The BUCS, BOLTS and RAYS are our home teams - be happy the Rays are committing to this wonderful young talent that will be good for years to come. You're comment calling Shields a "mediocre , unknown" pitcher shows your lack of knowledge for the game and the Rays. It's time to do your homework before dinner, Jim...

[TD]

Most of the negative comments on this topic are meant to be stupid. It is probably just 1 or 2 people using different screen names posting nonsense to get attention.

[Kyle]

I'm really glad to see this deal. Shields is a quality young man and already a fine pitcher, a real battler with great stuff and remarkably free of the big ego that holds back many talented young players. It doesn't matter what the topic is there are always people who float around and post negative trash just to see if they can get a response. These are just sad lonely people who hate everything including themselves and deserve our pity...and our indifference. Go Rays!!!

[RAYS fan]

hey people, jerry crasnick of ESPN has predicted we'll come in under .500 again this year. he says we'll crack .500 in '08. when i read that, i just wanted to slap him. stop raining on our parade. this is looking to be a great year and i can't stand people who try to bring us down. i hope we WHOOP the yankees and red sox this year (GOSH i hate those teams). we won't win every game, but i hope we go out there and kick butt and take names every game. i'm excited for this season. remember how we won the first game of the '07 season and the guys were celebrating at home plate? there was an electric feeling after that first win. we're going to build on that. and going into that season, we were feeling good since we'd gotten people like aki and carlos pena? well, now the future looks even brighter. i want us to be competitive this year. we've got to face the AL East fearlessly. and we've got to make hacks like the jerry crasnicks and the peter gammonses and the buster olneys of the world give us a little CREDIT and a little RESPECT every now and again. the rays are no longer MLB's punching bag and we're out to prove our point. GO RAYS in 2008!!!!!!

[RAYS fan]

sorry, made a mistake. in my prior post i referred to a certain play that took place during the first game, but i was really referring to what happened in the game against toronto on april 6, 2007. you can see the video of the rays' game-winning play if you scroll down to the bottom of the page...

here's the link:
http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/multimedia/tp_archive.jsp?c_id=tb&ym=200704

click on "upton's game winning hit," near the bottom. i still remember that like it was yesterday.

[rayray]

Wicked cool....

Another Great Day in Tampa Bay, that should be one of the bay area's unofficial slogans. Even on an non typical overcast day, the sunbursting glint & Ray of hope is glowing and gleaming....

Come on, Rays fans, lets get behind the home team, support them, and rock the Trop like it's never been rock before. We'll start getting the national respect we deserve after this season b/c we're going to earn it and the biased pundits won't have a choice to the matter.

22 days until pitcher & catchers report.

[Clark]

Cripes, talk aboyt damnned if you do, damned if you don't. Can the Rays do ANYTHING without ticking off the so-called "fans"? If they spent 100% of their money to build Camden Yards with an invisible dome over it precisely in the middle between Tampa and St. Pete, convinced Alex Rodriguez to play here for $8 an hour and gave away solid gold bobbleheads at every game, somebody would still find something to complain about. Ridiculous.

[Anon]

Wow, Jim. You're an angry jerk, huh? Ticket prices didn't go up this year, so we "schmucks" are not paying more at the gate. And Jamie is regarded highly throughout the majors. Just because you don't know anything about him doesn't make him unknown. Read more.

[Einhard]

This is for those readers who want to think things through a bit.

Salary (payroll) does not have the direct effect on ticket prices that many people think. There are technical economic terms for the phenomenon, terms and explanations I do not know. But here is the substance of the point.

A team will set prices depending on what will bring in the greatest return. Let's say, hypothetically, there are 40,000 seats available, and to keep it simple we'll set one average price for all of them.

Let us say that if the team charges $20/seat, it can average 30,000 sales per game. If it raises the price to $30/seat, it can average only 15,000 sales/game. In other words, the team will collect $150,000 more at the cheaper price. It pays to charge less.

Now obviously, if a team builds a better team, it can expect to bring in more fans, and chances are that a better team will cost more. But the real reason for raising prices is that the demand for seats will go up at the higher price and make it worthwhile.

Suppose the Rays signed A-Rod for $1/2 billion but he flopped miserably, and the team still lost 100 games. His signing might allow the team to raise ticket prices initially because of his drawing power, but those prices could not be sustained even though his salary remained high.

I know there are more factors involved in all of this, but the point remains that ticket prices are subject to market forces, one of which is "production cost" (salaries) certainly, but not the only one.

[Andy C,]

To all those who don't like the contract consider this. If the Devil Rays had signed contracts with Conseco, Vaughn, Castilla, Guzman, Alvarez, and Hernandez as they did with Sheilds and many others on the roster, think of how much money the team would have saved! If you were ever to complain about money being wasted it was then. The James Sheilds deal was very smart and works out more for the Rays than it does for James Sheilds. The Stew Crew is playing it safe unlike the Yankess and Red Sox. We don't have the money to waste. I say this off season has been the most productive the Rays have ever had. Fans in this area are pathetic. Talk to the New York and Boston fans when they come down. Free parking, tail gaiting, give aways, and cheap ticket prices!!!! No wonder the payroll is so low. All the fans that care to blog don't care to show up to the games!