Quote:
Originally Posted by O.city
I've resigned myself to the fact that they aren't likely to dip a foot into the big name free agency pool. Maybe a toe, but they've just got too many guys that are gonna get broken off in house.
The only way I can see it is if they are able to get something done with Houston and Berry money wise to save some, but hell, i'm not really even sure if that's possible.
You've also got Schwartz who could ask for a raise.
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Hard to ask for a raise when you're still 2 years away from FA. If they wanted to give him a 2 year extension to keep him around for 4 years and in so doing give him a signing bonus that creates a year 1 cash bump, it could be done in a largely cap neutral fashion and take care of him for a little while longer. He'd have more money in pocket and we'd have long-term stability there. So you give him a 2 year, $22 million extension w/ a $8 million signing bonus maybe? So that would yield a 4 year, $43 million deal (when his current 2 remaining years at $13 million are added in). You could give him a base salary of $2 million in year 1 then 6, 7 and 8 years 3-4.
So in year 1 he'd get $10 million in salary and signing bonus with a cap hit of $6.8 million (2 million in pro-rated bonus, 2 million in base and 2.8 in accelerated bonus off his previous deal). Years 2-4 would be at 8, 9 and 10 respectively in cap. His cash payments in year 2 would be a slight bump from 6.5 to 7 and his cap figure would be effectively unchanged that year. His next two years would see slightly below market salaries but if we were to guarantee the salary for years 2 and 3, that would provide him incentive to take it.
It's doable and if you were interested, now would be the time given that there's still some risk of age/injury related decline. That said, he just had the best year of his career and he may be more inclined to simply bet on himself.
It's just damn hard for a player to hold out these days with the penalties associated with it. Especially when they don't play a high profile position and have 2 more years left on the deal.