Yikes!!! Soriano Better Be Glad He’s Not An Angel

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Unable to find regular playing time for Gary Matthews Jr., the Los Angeles Angels traded the outfielder to the New York Mets on Friday and agreed to pay $21.5 million as part of the deal.Los Angeles received right-handed reliever Brian Stokes, a native Californian, in exchange for Matthews, who had slumped for three straight seasons since signing a $50 million, five-year contract.

Matthews is owed salaries of $11 million this year and $12 million in 2011, plus a $500,000 bonus for getting traded. The Mets will pay just $1 million per season, and the Angels will give New York money to cover the remainder of the salary plus the bonus.

The Associated Press via ESPN

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Doc Raker

Why do you think these players care if they get traded? What they care about is the dollar amount on the check, not who is signing the check.

Jr Matthews is probably relieved to be playing for a different team, a team in which the fans feel like they have some value since they are only paying 1/10th of his contract, therefore relieving Jr of living up to a steroid induced contract.
http://twitter.com/vftb Joe Aiello

Doc, you say that but you don’t think it says something hurtful at all to the player? Everyone has feelings and when you see the team you’re on trade you, it’s them saying they would be better with someone else. When they trade you and pay all your salary for you to go away, it’s like saying don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Terrelle Pryor 2

He came away a half-million dollars richer because he was traded. I don’t think he would feel shitty about it. It’s amazing how one catch can make you $50 million
http://twitter.com/moondogkp MoondogKP

Well, one catch and a year in hitting paradise working with Rudy.
Terrelle Pryor 2

Don’t forget a year of shooting the needle in the ass. It’s obvious these Rangers hitters are doping. I hope Jaramillo brings good results to our hitters, but if he doesn’t, it’s obvious that the Rangers put up good numbers because of the needle
http://swantron.com jswanson

I wonder if he has Boras as an agent…whoever it was in the Rangers office who signed off on that contract is out of his mind. I’m not a big contract follower, but a ‘getting traded’ bonus sounds pretty absurd.

~~note to Joe…I switched to Swift V5.01 on swantron.com, and it did a pretty solid job of picking up my settings. I had to mess around with some colour settings, but the widgets and custom logos were all intact. The comment section is greatly improved, and it seems to load quicker on my machine at work. You have to do a manual download, but it is pretty straight forward
Terrelle Pryor 2

I looked it up on google, I don’t think Bora$ is his agent
Josh

“Bold”

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Mastrick

Everybody hits in Texas, I wouldn’t blame it on steroids. It’s a bandbox.
Terrelle Pryor 2

Don’t kid yourself. They are doping. Josh Hamilton, when he got to rock bottom, he weighed 120 lbs. DeRosa sucked until 2006 when he was in his 30s. A-Rod admitted to juicing. Canseco said he shoot guys in the ass. And Juan Gonzalez doped enough that he was offered a $140M contract, which he rejected
http://twitter.com/dat_cubfan_dave dat_cubfan_daver

So, Terrelle, do you think DeRosa has stayed on steroids since his two seasons in Texas? Because he hit more home runs in each of the last two seasons than he ever did in Arlington.
Terrelle Pryor 2

There are lots of factors, Wrigley is a hitters paradise too, plus DeRosa played more games here than he did in 2006. I don’t think he doped while he was here, working with Jaramillo helped no doubt, but I think he was doping in Texas.
Doc Raker

The Angels signed Jr Matthews to that contract after having one solid year at the dish with the Rangers.

I am sure that is a lot of pressure underperforming on a contract, and in Jr’s case it is an embarassing since he was busted with the juice just days before he arrived at spring training with the Angels. So he has had a negative cloud with him since his arrival as an Angel, parlay that with his underperformance and I would think he wasn’t very comfortable in Anaheim.

A trade shed’s all that negativity and gives him new life with new expectations from a new fan base.

In this case I would bet Jr is happy to be traded. The phase of hurt feelings of not being wanted was already endured when they benched him during the season. The trade can be considered the beginning of his healing, or retirement depending on how he performs in NY, where the media is always so forgiving. ha.
Josh

“The Angels signed Jr Matthews to that contract after having one solid year at the dish with the Rangers.”

One could easily replace “Angels” with “Cubs” and “Jr Matthews” with “Marlon Byrd”…
dat_cubfan_daver

@Josh: Not really. The difference between their respective contracts is astronomical. And one could argue that Byrd’s numbers in ’07 and ’08 were actually BETTER than his ’09.

Yikes!!! Soriano Better Be Glad He’s Not An Angel

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