As was more or less expected, the Pirates have agreed to an exention with Ryan Doumit that covers his three arbitration years (2009-2011) and gives the team the option for the two years after that (2012-2013). It looks like the option is a two-year option, meaning the Pirates have to take both years at once, instead of having two one-year options appended on to it. No one’s sure of the financial terms yet; Jerry Crasnick is reporting the deal could be worth $20 million over four years and $30 million over five, but DK says he’s been told that’s “not really accurate.” Whether that’s because the monetary terms are wrong or because the Pirates can’t only exercise one year of the option, he doesn’t say.
This deal makes all kind of sense for the injury prone Doumit, especially if the option years are anywhere near as big as Crasnick reported. There’s a chance that he’ll keep hitting and the Pirates will exercise that option, but there’s also a chance that he gets hurt a lot and now he’s got a three-year deal for several million a year that the Pirates can’t take away from him. There’s some risk/reward here for both sides, but locking up at least Doumit’s arb years and having a chance to keep him beyond that is something the Pirates needed to do.
A few other things:
Daniel Cabrera signed with the Nats, preventing us from an off-season of debating his usefulness.
There’s lots of good stuff in yesterday’s Hot Stove article, including information about both LaRoches and just about every prospect you’d be interested in.
Holy crap, it’s frigging cold up here.
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