Co-blogger Phil Miller posted earlier that because Clemens and the Houston Astros were so far apart in their arbitration offers, it was likely they would end up actually going to arbitration rather than settling on a contract.
Phil was right in general, but in this case the general tendencies didn’t pan out. Here are two reasons not mentioned by the Washington Post that Clemens and the Astros settled on a one-year contract for $18m/yr:
- Clemens’ expected additions to the total revenues of the Astros almost surely exceed $18m for next year. The Astros would have lost money by not signing him to a contract like this.
- Clemens will now be the most highly paid [in nominal U.S. dollars] pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball. Given what I read about him while he pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays, this status would be worth quite a bit to him.
