Phillies Allow Brian Gordon To Sign with Yankees: A Mistake in the Making?

Creative contract clauses are becoming more and more of a normal occurrence in Major League Baseball, and the creativity is slowly seeping through the cracks in the Minor Leagues. While the classic “opt-out clause” isn’t going anywhere, agents are getting more creative to make sure that their clients have the best chance of making it to the parent club.

That was the case for the Philadelphia Phillies‘ Minor League pitcher, Brian Gordon, who essentially guaranteed himself a bit of job security (and a fistful of dollars) by having a solid out-clause written into his contract.

Normally, when a player who has had a taste of the Major Leagues, or is advancing in age, signs a Minor League contract, he agrees to a deal based on the condition that he has the option to opt-out of the agreement on a date that both sides agree upon. The only drawback, of course, is that said player is taking a chance by opting-out and testing free agency.

Gordon, 32, made sure that there were no chances when he opted-out of his deal. Along with the out-clause, he had a condition in his contract stating that he could not opt-out of his deal unless he was added to a Major League roster.

Not a bad deal for a converted outfielder struggling to find his way in the Minor Leagues.

His deal guaranteed that, at the very least, he would pitch an entire season under contract for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs—but, he controlled his own fate. If he could pitch well enough to grab the attention of a few scouts, he could very well be pitching in the Major Leagues by mid-June—and that is, indeed, the case.

Gordon began the season (his second in the Phillies organization) as a reliever, and was soon moved into the starting rotation, thanks to a lack of depth and success out of the bullpen. Little did the Phillies know that they were finding a Minor League gem. Overall, he appeared in 12 games for the IronPigs (with nine starts) and posted a record of 5-0, with an ERA of just 1.14 (2.55 FIP).

His success went much deeper than that though—he was throwing up impressive numbers in every statistical category. In 55.1 innings of work, he struck out 56 hitters and allowed just seven walks. For the stat buffs out there, that is a BB/9 of just 1.14.

Along with the seven walks, Gordon allowed just 37 hits, and only 44 runners reached a base against him. Of those runners, just 11 scored; only seven of those scored runs were earned.

Not bad for a guy who was originally drafted in the seventh round of the 1997 draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks as an outfielder, making the transition to the mound in 2007.

Apparently the New York Yankees thought the same thing, as they made contact with Gordon to express an interest in signing him. Of course, they knew that he would have to be added to the major league roster, and the only way the Phillies could avoid losing him was by adding him to their own roster.

As it turned out, the Phillies did not add Gordon to their roster and the Yankees gobbled him up, signing him to a one-year deal.

Now that he’s on his way to the Bronx, we have to ask ourselves: Was it a mistake letting him go?

At a glance, it may not seem like much of a big deal. With Kyle Kendrick and Vance Worley in the system, the Phillies didn’t have a real need for Gordon in the rotation. But further evaluation shows that he could have helped this team in the bullpen, namely replacing struggling relievers like Danys Baez, JC Romero or David Herndon.

Now all we can do is hope that the Phillies didn’t let one get away, but the track record for this team in similar situations isn’t all too great. The chances of Brian Gordon coming back to haunt the Phillies is fairly high, so break out your lucky charms and pray that this guy stays as far away from the Major League Phillies as possible (more sarcasm intended, of course).

For those who are interested, the Yankees are throwing Gordon right into the fire. He’ll start against one of the most potent offensive teams in all of baseball—the Texas Rangers—on Thursday. We should get a pretty good sense of whether or not he could have helped the Phillies after that.

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