Stay in shape, Jose
JMB · May 1, 2007 at 4:53 pm · Filed Under Mariners
This may have been mentioned, deep in the comments somewhere as often happens (cough *msb* cough), but I ran across this today — Jose Lopez’ new contract includes some rather interesting performance clauses. This, from the AP:
Beyond the usual award bonuses, Lopez could earn another $125,000 annually by passing four, in-season tests: body-fat percentage, a 60-yard sprint, a 20-yard shuttle run and a vertical jump.
Each time he passes one of those tests, he would receive $25,000. If he passes all four in the same season, he gets another $25,000. That’s a $625,000 incentive to stay fit over five years for Lopez, who is thickly built and listed at 6 feet and 200 pounds.
“Thickly built”. Heh.
Funny how Ken Griffey Jr. was never decsribed that way in his Mariner days.
Ken Griffey Jr never showed up to spring training looking like Lopez did two years ago. It’s worth $125,000 to the M’s to keep Lopez in some kind of decent shape.
Jr was pretty notorious for not keeping in shape. Bill James predicted he would start having hamstring problems around age 30, and that’s exactly what happened. I generally have very little good to say about the M’s management, but this makes sense to me.
Even at 19, Griffey’s thighs were monstrously overdeveloped. I wonder if that was genetic or just the way he weight-trained and conditioned himself.
I’m so shamed. there is Jason, smack in the middle of intensive training at the Rutherford Grill, and he finds this useful and provocative nugget.
ummmmmm ….
Jeremy Reed is hanging in there?
Jim Street doesn’t know from Brian Schweiger?
Jamie Moyer can be stern?
It may be “worth $125,000 to the M’s to keep Lopez in some kind of decent shape,” but getting signed to a long term, multi-million dollar contract should be enough incentive for him to his conditioning seriously. Having to pay extra for him to keep in shape seems pretty ridiculous.
i left out “take” in there, but you get the point.
That News Tribune story is ridiculous:
Try 11 steals, 12 times CAUGHT stealing.
no, Junior was reported to not know where the weight room was. He never came to camp overweight, it was never said he was ever ‘out of shape’– from Rick Griffin: “He didn’t do a lot in the weight room, but he did a lot of little things that didn’t get much attention, like using cuff weights whenever I asked. He also worked out at home. He liked the idea of everyone thinking it was natural, like he could just wake up and go get ’em.”
As Griffin says, the image seems to have grown both from Jr’s own cracks about being ‘naturally natural’, and the media noticing he was often absent during team stretching (usually because he was meeting his Make a Wish obligations, according to teammates)
As for genetics, as Junior has pointed out himself, he inherited his mother’s solid thighs and backside.
How natrural was his unwillingness to run full-bore to first on groundball outs?
I would love to be present as a sportswriter when Lopez makes his “Jumping For Dollars” vertical leap.
I wonder if they’ll do the same thing for Felix, or if the dramatic difference he experienced between the start of this season and the start of last is so compelling he won’t need it. (Of course that could be true and they still may include such a clause anyway).
(And of course this is assuming his arm is nothing serious. Please be nothing serious).
One thing is certain. The M’s middle infield sure doesn’t eat at SubWay.
I would love a clause like this in my next employment agreement. Double bonus of staying in shape and making easy $$$. Now, if they only put a clause in Felix’s next contract saying that for every year he is healthy, the M’s give him $1,000,000,000,000,000 (and a Wii).
The USSM Lab Wii shortage continues, btw.
I’m surprised the title on this post wasn’t something like
“Do you know the weigh-in man, Jose?”
Sorry about your continued state of deWiiness, btw.
When I saw the thread title I thought it was going to be a humorous story about Vidro. Sucks to be wrong.
This is absolutely true. I don’t believe that any other player has a clause nearly as stringent as this. Carlos Lee has a weight clause, but that’s it. Probably a few guys I don’t know about, but not many.
DMZ, every Target had them in stock sunday morning.