Following up on last night’s Josh Johnson news, Marlins beat writer Joe Firsario reports that the deal contains a $500,000 bonus for a Cy Young award and a $50,000 bump in the extremely likely event that he makes the All-Star game. I mean, yeah, Hanley Ramirez will be your designated Marlins representative in the All-Star Game for the foreseeable future, but they choose like 112 pitchers anymore, so Johnson can probably spend that 50K now if he wants to. There’s a $1 million bonus for him being the World Series MVP too. I would mock that, but I wasn’t expecting 1997 or 2003, so I’m out of the hate-on-the-Marlins-chances business.
Maybe more significantly, Johnson himself confirmed in a radio interview last night that the deal does not contain a no-trade clause. Given the young man’s skills and promise, and given that this is still a pretty manageable contract for an ace, you can’t rule out the Marlins shopping him at some point, gun-to-their-head or not.
