Phil Hughes Missed a $500,000 Bonus by a Third of an Inning

Phil Hughes, let the record show, set a Major League record this season. Yes, Phil Hughes. The guy Yankee fans couldn’t wait to shoo out of the Bronx for his propensity for allowing home runs.

The righty finished the year 16-10 after singing with the Twins in the offseason, not bad considering Minnesota is 20+ games under .500. More impressive, Hughes walked only 16 batters all season to give him the highest strikeout-to-walks ratio in baseball history at 11.63. No, it’s not a hallowed record — Brett Saberhagen previously held the mark if you were wondering — but it’s still a damn good season by Hughes.

However all anyone wants to talk about is Hughes finishing 1/3 of an inning short of 210 on the season — which would trigger a $500,000 bonus in his contact. A rainout earlier in September made it doubtful Hughes would hit the mark, but he was on pace to do it until an eighth-inning rain delay in the all-important Diamondbacks/Twins series on Wednesday. Instead he ends 2014 with 209 2/3 innings logged.

Minnesota extended Hughes the chance to pitch in the final series of the season, this weekend in Detroit but he declined. After Wednesday’s game he took the philosophical approach, saying, ““I was very aware of it, yeah, but some things just aren’t meant to be.” He took it to another level later on, noting he didn’t want to set a bad precedent — as if collecting half a million is a bad precedent for baseball players.

Hughes also said simply being given the $500K bonus despite not reaching 210 IP mark would set a bad precedent. Said it wasn't meant to be.
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) September 25, 2014

Hughes made his decision. He’ll pocket $8 million in base salary, plus another $500,000 for hitting the 180 and 195 innings marks. Not bad. I wouldn’t complain, but I’d still try to go out on the mound to make that extra half million. Either way, I’m not going to begrudge Hughes. And I’m not going to laud his charitable heart, either.

If anything, allow this to be a reminder what a weird world it is in North America pro sports when we, as fans and media, know what everyone is making in salary. That would be kind of strange, wouldn’t it, if you knew what your co-workers made simply by dialing up a website like Cot’s Contracts. Yes, most athletes make pretty nice salaries compared to the average worker, but even so I’m not sure I’d be too thrilled if this kind of information was so readily available. Just a thought.

For what it’s worth, Hughes’ $500,000 bonus feels like the most talked about performance clause in quite some time, even when these sort of additions to contracts are commonplace in baseball. Did you know Derek Jeter (the soon-to-be-retired captain of the New York Yankees) received a $1.5 million bonus for winning the 2012 Silver Slugger award? Hughes’ teammate Joe Mauer gets an extra $25,000 for finishing fourth, fifth or sixth in the MVP voting during the duration of his eight-year, $184 million deal that ends in 2014.

The Twins were willing to hand out $500,000 to Mike Pelfrey if he threw 200 innings in 2014 — he finished with just over 23.

Thus concludes the most attention the Minnesota Twins received this season, Target Field hosting the All Star Game aside.