Cards try to best Mets once again

Baseball Betting Lines

04/22/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Joel Pineiro tries to stay perfect on the season when he toes the rubber for the St. Louis Cardinals tonight in the middle test of a three-game series versus the New York Mets at Busch Stadium.

Pineiro opened the season on April 10 versus Houston and earned the win with 6 2/3 innings of two-run ball. He then took the hill again on April 15 at Arizona, recording the win despite surrendering five runs and nine hits over five innings of work. He received more than enough run support in that one, as the Cardinals posted a 12-7 triumph.

The right-hander is unbeaten against the Mets, as evidenced by a 1-0 mark and 4.76 ERA in three career starts.

St. Louis opened a six-game homestand with Tuesday's 6-4 victory over the Mets, as Rick Ankiel posted three hits and drove in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning to lead the way. Yadier Molina also had three hits while Albert Pujols knocked in a pair of runs for St. Louis, which had lost two of three to the Cubs in a rain-shortened series over the weekend.

Jason Motte recorded the final two outs in the eighth to pick up the win and Ryan Franklin set down New York in order in the ninth for his third save of the season. Cardinals starter Todd Wellemeyer did not factor in the decision and allowed four runs on 10 hits in five innings.

The Cardinals will host the Central rival Cubs for three games after this series with the Mets.

New York has lost two in a row for the third time this season and experienced another rough outing with Oliver Perez on the hill. Perez was reached for four runs and six hits over 4 2/3 innings, but it was new set-up man J.J. Putz who suffered the loss for the Mets. Putz gave up two costly runs and three hits in the eighth.

Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran each ended with two hits and an RBI for the Mets, while Daniel Murphy also drove in a run.

Toeing the rubber for the Mets tonight will be John Maine, who is 0-1 with a 7.20 ERA in two trips to the mound this season. Maine is coming off a rough outing Thursday against San Diego, as he yielded six runs and seven hits over five innings of a 6-5 loss.

The right-hander, who did not record a decision in a 5-4 loss to Florida in his season debut on April 10, is 1-1 with a 5.63 earned run average in three career starts against St. Louis.

New York won four of seven meetings with St. Louis a year ago.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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