On Thursday, Chipper Jones announced that he would be retiring from the Atlanta Braves after the 2012 season. From declaring him a first ballot hall of famer, to video of his retirement, to the Chipper Jones Song, to some really disturbing photos, there have been so many articles written about Chipper Jones I don’t know if R.A. Dickey could climb to the top of this particular mountain.
David Schoenfield of ESPN’s SweetSpot blog wrote a great piece about Chipper being the ultimate franchise player and I couldn’t help but wonder as I read it….is he the last, or are we in a period where teams are being more aggressive about trying to lock up their "franchise" players?
It’s, of course, a speculative topic, but one that certainly has merit given that players of Jones’ caliber are rare and ultimately every team’s goal to bring home on draft day.
In the last few years we have seen a huge increase in teams locking up their most popular players. Here are a few notable names that very well may end up spending their entire careers with the organization that drafted them (Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton, Jimmy Rollins, Michael Young are coming to the end of their careers, so we’ll keep them off):
|
Player |
Team |
Drafted |
Debut |
Signed through |
|
Ryan Braun |
Milwaukee |
2005 |
2007 |
2020 |
|
Troy Tulowitzki |
Colorado |
2005 |
2006 |
2020 |
|
Matt Moore |
Tampa Bay |
2007 |
2011 |
2019 |
|
Ryan Zimmerman |
Washington |
2005 |
2005 |
2019 |
|
Matt Kemp |
Los Angeles (NL) |
2003 |
2006 |
2019 |
|
Joe Mauer |
Minnesota |
2001 |
2004 |
2018 |
|
Andrew McCutchen |
Pittsburgh |
2005 |
2009 |
2017 |
|
Yadier Molina |
St. Louis |
2000 |
2004 |
2017 |
|
Evan Longoria |
Tampa Bay |
2006 |
2008 |
2016 |
|
Jered Weaver |
Los Angeles (AL) |
2004 |
2006 |
2016 |
|
Ryan Howard |
Philadelphia |
2001 |
2004 |
2016 |
|
Justin Verlander |
Detroit |
2004 |
2005 |
2014 |
Chipper Jones is going into the Hall of Fame as a Brave and while he is one of the best overall first round picks to play his entire career with one team; he certainly won’t be the last thanks to names like Stephen Strasburg, Justin Upton, and Joe Mauer who could all follow in his footsteps as singular players for their original teams.
So no, Chipper certainly won’t be the last true franchise player. In fact, he’s the type of name teams should try to exploit in order to convince their own stars to sign extensions. Players such as Joey Votto of Cincinnati, Brian McCann of Atlanta, Dustin Pedroia of Boston, Robinson Cano of New York (AL), Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum of San Francisco, Clayton Kershaw of Los Angeles (AL), Cole Hamels of Philadelphia are some high profile names who are all going to enter the Free Agent market in the next few years.
Obviously, it’s simply not realistic for some teams to do that, but it's food for thought, and food is always good no matter what form it's in as long as it’s filling.