FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.-- --The Orioles didn't do anything untoward here, certainly nothing other teams haven't done. They took advantage of a system that in most ways benefits the players and not management.
Even so, the Orioles are playing a dangerous game by unilaterally renewing outfielder Nick Markakis' contract. It's well within their purview because he is a "zero-to-three" player, meaning he has fewer than three years of major league service and won't be eligible for arbitration until this winter.
Markakis will make $455,000 this year, up from $400,000, an impressive chunk of change for a 24-year-old kid. It is $65,000 more than the league minimum and believed to be the largest salary in team history given to a "zero-to-three" player under the club's conventional salary structure. Regardless of what Markakis makes for 2008, he is practically assured millions once arbitration begins, so no one should be crying poverty.
"It is pretty clear in our collective bargaining agreement that the club has leverage in the first two years and 140 days of their career," Orioles president Andy MacPhail said. "And after that, the hammer swings over to the player's side."
Now step away from reality and into the multimillion-dollar world of professional baseball players. Markakis is not only the Orioles' primary hope for the future. He is also their best player of the present - and should be treated as such.
Because of a glaring lack of a supporting cast, he is probably more important to this rebuilding club than any other player younger than 25 is to any other team.
Yet Markakis makes less money than the majority of his teammates. His good buddy and contemporary, pitcher Adam Loewen, will get $816,000 in 2008. Markakis, who batted .300 with 23 homers and 112 RBIs in 2007, would have liked a little more than that.
However, Loewen and Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie ($775,000 in 2008) each signed a major league deal with a signing bonus spread out over several years when they were drafted. That affects their annual salaries, which consequently are not subject to the structure determined by the club.
"We have a salary structure, and we have a couple players that fall outside of it based on their amateur signing bonuses," MacPhail said. "I think that's one of the issues Nick had, but you have to be consistent."
