The Express and Kyle Godinho agreed to a 1-tournament $5 contract extension late last night. Kyle was going into the final tournament of his $6/2-tournament rookie deal with the team, prior to signing the extension.
We’re sure you’re asking, “why did they sign him to just a 1-tournament extension? His contract won’t be expiring any later than it would have if they didn’t.”
Well, here’s the thing boy’s and girls, in order to fully understand the situation, we need to take a step back…
Yesterday Express owner Garrett Blain re-signed Taite Kleine to a $6/1-tourney deal. His reasoning behind signing Taite to only 1-tourney insured that Kyle, Brad Williamson, and Taite’s contracts would all expire together after JAL XIII. In Garrett’s opinion, it will be easier for him to work out a deal for all three of them at the same time rather than having to work around another player's contract. It’s smart.
Okay, step back forward… With $2 in cap space, Garrett wanted to fully reward his star player for the JAL XII championship, but still keep his plan in-tact. Of course just simply reconstructing Kyle’s contract was not an option because he was on a rookie contract, which means his per-tournament salary cannot exceed $3. So, to achieve both, Garrett being the great owner that he has become, essentially found a loophole in the rules and offered Kyle a contract extension. When a player has played at least 1 tournament on their contract, it is perfectly legal for that team to offer them a contract extension. When an extension is signed the old contract is automatically terminated and the new one takes over.
In short, Garrrett was able to get rid of Kyle’s rookie contract early so that he could that he could legally get Kyle an extra $2 for JAL XIII.
With Kyle’s new contract, Missouri’s payroll has hit the salary cap at exactly $14.
“He deserves as much money as I can give him right now. No other owner would search through all those rules to find a way to reward their star,” said Garrett.
Was it a ploy to make Kyle feel appreciated so that re-signing him after JAL XIII along with Taite and Brad will be easier? We’ll leave that for you to decide...