Gil Meche gave back $12 million. What was the upshot?

[Barnaby Graves]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/sports/baseball/27meche.html?_r=0

?When I signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it,? Meche said this week by phone from Lafayette, La. ?Once I started to realize I wasn?t earning my money, I felt bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I didn?t feel like I deserved it. I didn?t want to have those feelings again.?

Gil Meche was the flavor-of-the-month free agent pitcher when he signed a 5-year, $55 million deal with the Kansas City Royals in the offseason after 2006. He pitched to some effectiveness for two years, crashed in 2009, and retired in 2011 due to chronic shoulder injuries. By retiring early, he gave the Royals back $12 million.

He's not been acknowledged in popular sports since his retirement and has received no recognition for the Royals' recent success. Not that I think he should, as if those dollars they saved in 2011 somehow contributed to their World Series victory in 2015. Or maybe they did, I don't know. All I'm saying is, the fact is that this guy gave back $12 million for a team, and received no credit for it, and basically did it solely for his conscience, is incredible and pretty rare. Teams pay out on bad contracts all of the time. No one would have blinked if Gil Meche just took this money. Maybe Royals fans would grumble ineffectively on the internet like the rest of us whenever we sign a free agent but no one would actually care.

I wonder how much sleep Gil Meche actually lost because he knew he was going to draw on the Royals when he didn't deserve it. Enough that he felt he had no choice but to give back the money. I guess that says something about him, and also says something about the players who don't share his sense of honor, or responsibility, or whatever you call it. But again, I am not judging anyone because I can't conceive of returning $12 million (TWELVE MILLION UNITED STATES) dollars. It's an incredible sum. It is probably more than most of us will see in our lives. Hell he could have taken the money and immediately given the entire thing away through charity. It wouldn't have impacted the number of Royals fans going to the games or the price they paid. So to me it's not about being a good person but about something else. Sense of duty I guess.

At any rate Gil Meche has functionally disappeared and life is probably no different than if he took the $12 million and functionally disappeared. I wonder if his life is better because of it, I wonder if he had taken the money, would he have felt guilty for the rest of his life? If so, then he has more foresight and wisdom than any number of people that would've taken it. What would you have done?

[PaulFolk]

I would've taken the money if I were him -- especially because the Royals' terrible handling of him might've been a big factor in why he had to retire.

They left him in for 121 pitches, the last 22 of them so labored and cruel that I expected malpractice lawyers to rush the scene. The explanations afterward had something to do with Meche wanting to stay in and that his stuff looked good, and I don’t know what else. It was just a mistake, though no one would admit it. The Royals, apparently trying to prove a point, let Meche throw 115 pitches the outing AFTER THAT. It was like jumping on top of him from the top rope two times in a row. Meche made one more start after that before going on the disabled list for a month.

http://joeposnanski.com/the-retirement-of-meche/

[PaulFolk]

I would've taken the money if I were him -- especially because the Royals' terrible handling of him might've been a big factor in why he had to retire.

They left him in for 121 pitches, the last 22 of them so labored and cruel that I expected malpractice lawyers to rush the scene. The explanations afterward had something to do with Meche wanting to stay in and that his stuff looked good, and I don?t know what else. It was just a mistake, though no one would admit it. The Royals, apparently trying to prove a point, let Meche throw 115 pitches the outing AFTER THAT. It was like jumping on top of him from the top rope two times in a row. Meche made one more start after that before going on the disabled list for a month.

http://joeposnanski.com/the-retirement-of-meche/

[cmcgarvey]

Dude walked away so as to not be an albatross to his team.

I'll take someone with high morals vs. someone willing to sit on their ass that collects money by being a lazy ****.

[BradyBunch]

Morals or not, a contract is a contract. You take the money. Teams are injured for DL players, ask Belle.