If it appears bizarre that the Sox would do that merely to avoid wasting $125,000 — which is the distinction between the $8 million possibility and the $7.875 million they’ll pay him if he hits his incentives — I agree! That’s bizarre! What’s going on right here!
The massive query, after all, is what this deal means vis a vis a possible commerce of Jarren Duan. The actual fact is, I don’t suppose it means a lot, besides that slightly little bit of value certainty might theoretically assist transfer commerce negotiations alongside.
However I nonetheless must marvel, what’s going on right here? A number of potential issues:
1) Duran is below workforce management by way of 2028, which additionally makes him arbitration eligible in 2027 and 2028. So with three years of management, reducing his base wage this yr additionally lowers how a lot it grows in future years. In different phrases, the Crimson Sox didn’t simply save $125,000, they most likely saved slightly over one million by doing this over the three years.
2) There have been efficiency enhancers within the outdated $8 million contract primarily based on MVP votes. Particularly, the choice would have gone to $9 million if he completed among the many prime 20 in MVP voting. It appears not possible Duran would have gotten that, however he did rank seventeenth in fWAR amongst place gamers so it’s not completely unattainable.
3) Duran’s camp possible agreed to this new contract as a result of with a $3.75 million base wage to work from in 2025, he nearly actually would have gotten dusted in an arb listening to as getting again to that $8 million quantity would have required greater than doubling his base wage, and that simply isn’t possible primarily based on the season he had in 2025. (Whereas there are some figures on the market projecting Duran might have gotten over $8 million million in an arb listening to, these sources have tended to overestimate issues previously).
4) If you wish to learn extra into issues, there was additionally reportedly a clause within the outdated contract that stipulated that, if Duran was traded, the 2026 possibility can be eradicated and the receiving workforce must negotiate a brand new contract with him, similar to the Crimson Sox simply did, or else undergo the arbitration course of. However — and granted, we haven’t learn the contract language — it’s extremely possible that the choice would solely be voided if he was traded earlier than it was picked up. As soon as the choice is picked up, it ceases to be an possibility and is simply his new contract. And because the Sox needed to both decide up or decline the choice inside 5 days of the World Collection, it doesn’t appear that it could have been all that related to commerce talks.
So what we’re most likely speaking about right here is the Sox simply reducing his base wage for future arbitration years.
