Jose Ramirez contract could be a perfect fit for the Cleveland Guardians

Jose Ramirez got a fat new deal from the Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday.

Jose Ramirez got a big new deal from the Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday and frankly, I’m not surprised. Seriously, I started working on a column yesterday where I predicted that Jose Ramirez and the Guardians would get a new deal done. I was right, but that article now needs to be edited, because I’m slow. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who doesn’t obsess over the narrative of the Guardians; that they don’t spend money.

But they do. They just don’t have the funds to be frivolous with their spending.

The Cleveland Guardians are a fiscally conservative sports franchise. Considering they’re in one of the worst markets in the United States for baseball, that makes sense. That’s not just common sense, it’s also the sad truth. Cleveland had seven years from 1994 to 2001 of good solid baseball support, but that’s it. It’s not recency bias, I mean historically, Cleveland has never been a very popular franchise in the city. Not compared to the Browns or Cavaliers.

Sure, the Guards have sucked for decades before the 90s, that didn’t help, but the team has been very good since 2013, yet the fans still aren’t coming out. Clearly, a winning product isn’t enough for the fans. No business owner is going to fund a company out of his own pocket; that’s fiscally irresponsible. The club has always and will always use the money it has to cultivate its roster.

Every baseball team in the Majors does the exact same thing. The big difference is the Guardians have less money to spend because they have one of the smaller fanbases. People want to claim that the Guardians and Dolans are worth X-amount of money but being “worth” and “having” are not the same thing.

The Guardians are usually in the bottom five in value for the Majors and that’s solely based on the fanbase. Yet, the Guardians produce a winning product and fans are still mad. Heck, fans are still made today; and Ramirez is going to be sticking around for the next six years and all some fans can do is whine that it’s not enough.

Believe it, it’ll never be enough.

The Jose Ramirez contract could be perfect for all parties

I like how the Guardians manage their roster. Corey Kluber, Mike Clevinger, Franciso Lindor, and others all got traded right when they declined. Kluber and Clevinger’s trades are the backbone of the current playoff era of Guardians baseball and the Lindor deal may become much of the same. Baseball isn’t the NBA, getting one “great” hitter or pitcher doesn’t make you a playoff team. Giving up four or five good starters to get them isn’t smart, either. As you now have to replace them and have less money to do it with.

So I’m all in favor of getting rid of high-priced stars right at the point of their decline.

Keeping Jose Ramirez isn’t bad, however. Unlike Lindor, Ramirez has only gotten better every year he’s been playing. Look at Lindor’s stats last year and tell me he’s worth $30 million off those numbers. Ramirez has finished in the Top 3 of MVP voting three of the last five years and in the top 6 four of the last five.

Improvement.

Plus, Ramirez, unlike Clevinger and Kluber, hasn’t been hurt.

We’re not sure how the years break down but he’s under contract until he’s 35 and has a full no-trade clause. He’ll likely make $24.8 million starting in 2024. Hopefully, however, it works out where he’s making $40 million in 2024 and 2025 then declines each year. That would make the roster much more manageable.

The big issue with baseball players making money is they make money way too late into their careers and it cripples the teams’ ability to spend. Look at the LA Angles, they were hampered by bad contracts for years and they’re a major market team. Bad spending killed them and Mike Trout’s chances of immortality.

The Guardians should throw $80 million over the first two years of his contract and then drop it back down to $18 mil the third year, then $13 in the fourth year, and then $2 mil or so in the last year. That way as he ages, the team isn’t as handcuffed to his salary as it has been in years past.

If that’s how they did this, then the team should be fine going forward. Even if it’s just $24 million-plus, that’ll still be more manageable than what we’ve seen around the league.