A week ago Buster Onley used his twitter as a launching pad for all of us to question what Adam LaRoche is thinking this winter. Onley reported that the San Francisco Giants offered the first basemen a two-year deal worth $17 million.
I hesitated to make a note of the contract on here, since LaRoche was gone and I didn’t want to say the man was crazy for turning down that type of money when no other teams have shown any interest in him at all.
Well perhaps Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a little late to the information technology age of twitter and what not as he pretty much retweeted what Onley had wrote last week but suggested the offer was for $17.5 million.
After early season struggles LaRoche went on a tear when he was acquired by the Braves last season. In his time wearing a tomahawk he hit .325/.401/.557 with 12 home runs and a .957 OPS in 212 at-bats.
All indications are that LaRoche is seeking a three year deal which would be fine if this was two years ago. The market just isn’t there right now for a solid but not spectacular option at first base. The Giants the only team with known interest have signed Aubrey Huff to a deal worth $3 million so they are now out of the race for his services. It’s looking less and less likely that LaRoche will get his three year deal and now he’s going to see his annual salary take a bump too.
As much as it would have been nice to see LaRoche back with the Braves this year (based on his second half numbers) it’s obvious those salary figures simply didn’t fit in with our budget and the direction of the team.