Yu Darvish Plans to Donate Portion of $1M Cy Young Contract Bonus
Yu Darvish may not have won the Cy Young Award, but he will still receive a nice little $1 million salary bump for coming in second. He would have doubled that amount with a win and still would have received the same bonus for finishing as high as fifth, so I guess it’s a good thing ol’ J.P. Hoornstra wasn’t the only BBWAA member to fill out a ballot.
If you’re interested in reading Hoornstra’s “thoughtful explanation” for why he did not name Darvish among the top five pitchers in the National League, you can do so here. Just be warned that the mental gymnastics are up there with anything Simone Biles has performed and the logic feels like it’s been backed into. Hard. Like you can hear the beeps in your head and you feel like giving him hand signals to let him know when he’s in his spot.
In any case, Darvish will receive the bump to his annual salary in each of the next three seasons. That means both his actual payroll figure and the average annual value counting toward the competitive balance tax are going up. Though AAV values are calculated based on guaranteed money over the guaranteed years of a deal, bonuses and escalators are applied to the year(s) in which they are earned.
Darvish tweeted last night that he had forgotten all about the rider in his contract and only realized it when his agent let him know. He added that he plans to donate a portion of that raise, perhaps in a manner similar to what he’s done with the sizable proceeds from his YouTube channel.
“Speaking of which, it was a contract to get the volume by winning the Cy Young Award, but I forgot that there was a volume even in the 2nd to 5th place lol I was surprised when my agent told me yesterday 😂,” reads a translation of Darvish’s tweet.
“I will donate a part 😄”
そういえばサイヤング受賞で出来高をもらえる契約だったんですが、2〜5位でも出来高があるのを忘れていました笑
昨日代理人に言われてびっくりしました😂
一部寄付させていただきます😄— ダルビッシュ有(Yu Darvish) (@faridyu) November 12, 2020
Not that it was ever in question, but this shows again that Darvish is a good dude.
