Martin on board with MWR for next two seasons

Autoracing Betting Lines

11/04/2011 - Fort Worth, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Michael Waltrip Racing made it official on Friday that Mark Martin will drive the team's No.00 Toyota in a partial Sprint Cup Series schedule in 2012 and '13.

Martin and team co-owner Michael Waltrip made the announcement at Texas Motor Speedway, where the series is running the eighth race in the championship Chase this weekend.

The 52-year-old Martin will compete in 25 Sprint Cup races each of the next two seasons. He will make his debut with MWR in the February 26 Daytona 500. Martin is presently in his third and final year as driver of the No.5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. Kasey Kahne is taking over driving duties of the No.5 car, starting next year.

Martin will join Martin Truex Jr. and recently acquired Clint Bowyer in MWR's three-car stable next season. Bowyer is leaving Richard Childress Racing at season's end.

"It's the perfect schedule for me," Martin said. "It gives me an opportunity to catch my breath and to spend a little bit more time with the fans and with the sponsors. Hopefully, it will give me a bit more time than I'm able to do now with the [Hendrick] team. They've given me an opportunity here to hopefully have an effect on the direction of the program."

Martin also ran a part-time Sprint Cup schedule in 2007 and '08, driving for Ginn Racing/Dale Earnhardt Inc.

Waltrip will drive the No.00 car in both Talladega races, as well as the July events at Daytona and Kentucky, which is his home state.

MWR also announced that it has extended its sponsorship agreement with Aaron's for the next two seasons.

Waltrip said it did not take much convincing for Martin to join the team.

"This whole process from the time it was mentioned to sitting here today has been less than three weeks, "Waltrip said. "It didn't take a lot of time to convince Mark. We got a lot of great things going on at Michael Waltrip Racing. He loves the commitment that Aaron's had made to this sport. It was kind of an opportunity for him to step back a little bit and refresh his batteries by running a limited schedule.

MWR plans to run a combination of drivers and sponsor partners to fill the remaining races when Martin and Waltrip will not be behind the wheel of the No.00.

David Reutimann is the current driver of the No.00. On Thursday, MWR announced that Reutimann will not be return to the team for next season.

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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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