What?

Sporting Goods

Keith Law over at ESPN (and being the Insider firewall so I won't bother linking) talks about the raise given to MVP Ryan Howard. Now I generally enjoy Law's insights and writing but this post doesn't make any sense. Law points out that the Phillies could have paid Howard whatever they wanted this year:

The one place where clubs truly have the upper hand is for players who haven't yet reached arbitration. We're talking mostly about rookies and sophomores who are still developing, so the disparity between their salaries and their performances isn't usually this large.

As such, Law concludes that the Phillies decision to pay Howard $900,000 was a waste of money because they could have paid him the league minimum of $380,000:

So did the Phillies give Howard the extra coin to buy themselves some goodwill when they get to arbitration? I hope not, because that's a myth. There is no evidence that players (or, more accurately, agents) give clubs any kind of discount on arbitration salaries or on long-term deals when the clubs overpay the players during their zero-to-three years.

I have no doubt that Law is correct and that there is no evidence that the Phillies will get a further discount from Howard for the additional $500 grand they threw him this season. So Law is correct. I also have no doubt that if the Phillies decided to nickel and dime Howard now, and paid him the league minimum, they would have garnered an exceptional amount of "badwill" from their best player. That doesn't seem like a very good idea to me. Of course, as a Mets fan, I would have loved to see it happen.